Mexican President Felipe Calderon is waging a public relations campaign to improve his country’s image in the eyes of tourists and foreign investors as an increasingly violent drug war threatens to strangle its economy.
The public relations campaign comes amid an alarming uptick in violence. Last week, 160 people died in drug-related killings, prompting Calderon to give a televised state-of-the-union-like address in which he reaffirmed his commitment to rooting out the country’s cartels.
Measured in human lives, the cost of Mexico’s drug war is extraordinary. By some estimates, more than 22,700 people have died in the war since Calderon launched his offensive against the cartels in 2006. And the war is proving costly to Mexico’s economy as well, as cities like tourist-friendly Cancun have become the scenes of grisly, cartel-related crimes. Just this week, 14 people were killed in a shootout in the small tourist town of Taxco.
But Calderon said he wants the world to know that his government is working hard to make the country safe for foreign investment and tourists. Still, kidnappings and beheadings have become a regular fixture in the country’s newspapers, and the violence is not easily ignored.
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