Calderon’s top attorney pick decried

MEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon plans to replace one of Mexico’s top officials in the war on drugs with a controversial former prosecutor who critics say did little during his years in office to solve the killings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez during the 1990s.

Calderon nominated Arturo Chavez to serve as the nation’s attorney general, but opponents denounced the move, recalling that when Chavez served as prosecutor in the border state of Chihuahua he was accused of bungling cases and failing to make significant arrests in the string of gruesome killings of women that continue to garner international attention.

“I consider him one of the most incompetent choices,” said Jaime Hervella, a human rights advocate in Ciudad Juarez.

Esther Chavez Cano, founder of a rape crisis center in Juarez and a leading voice for the hundreds of women who were killed or went missing, told El Norte newspaper, “This is bad news; it doesn’t take us anywhere, it’s not the solution to the problem.” She said the appointment smacked of political cronyism, and she questioned why Calderon would pick someone who had failed in Juarez before to now confront the surging drug violence there.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez this year, as cartel members and local drug gangs fight for control of street corners and lucrative smuggling routes into the United States. With Juarez’s homicide rate reaching 130 killings per 100,000 residents, Mexico’s Citizen Council for Public Security and Justice recently named it the most violent city in the world. A week ago, 18 recovering drug addicts were lined up against a wall and executed at a treatment center.

Chavez’s nomination must be confirmed by the Mexican Senate, where Calderon’s National Action Party lost control in this summer’s midterm elections. In his announcement, Calderon praised Chavez’s “wide experience in law and specifically in combating organized crime.”

With Calderon’s fight against the drug cartels raging across Mexico, the resignation of Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora on Monday signals a shake-up in the crime-fighting leadership of the Cabinet.

Medina Mora was viewed as a close ally in Washington and, with his custom-made suits and fluent English, served as Mexico’s public face in the evolving partnership between the Obama and Calderon governments. U.S. diplomats heaped praise on Medina Mora, saying he helped foster greater cooperation between Washington and Mexico City.