Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon is launching a global public relations campaign to try and improve the country’s lawless image and neutralise coverage of a drug war that is frightening tourists and investors away.

More than 23,000 people have died in drugs-related violence since President Calderon took up office three and a half years ago, when he launched a crackdown on the multi-billion US dollar drug trade.

 Listen to an interview with Marta Duran de Huerta Patiño

Gruesome images
Every day, images of gruesome decapitations, charred and tortured bodies hung from bridges, and shoot-outs between drugs barons are splashed across the newspapers and dominate the evening television news. It is a public relations disaster for a country heavily reliant on US investment and money from 20 million tourists a year to boost income.

Now the president says he is turning to private advertising firms to launch an international image improvement campaign to show the world a less violent side of Mexico.

“We are promoting a comprehensive advertising project by my government, and are hiring the best agencies in the world to promote Mexico’s image.”
 
Desolate
The effects of Mexico’s drug war can be readily seen in the city of Ciudad Juarez, a major manufacturing centre near the border with Texas.

More than 5,500 drug-related killings in less than three years has given it the reputation of being one of the most violent places in the world. As a result, US investors in telecoms and electrical goods factories have frozen investment or cancelled plans to build new plants. Restaurants are empty and desolate car parks are strewn with rubbish.

In 2008 Ciudad Juarez and El Paso handled 50 billion US dollars in border trade. But last year 75,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. The president of a leading local business group, Carlos Chavira, said:

“We are seeing a recovery, but we are not increasing new investment flows as we hoped. Employment is not growing at the rate it should because of the insecurity in the city.”

Gun battles
Earlier this week, ten federal policemen were killed in an ambush in central Michoacan state. Drug traffickers barricaded the road with buses to prevent their rescue. That same day 28 prisoners died in a gun battle inside a prison. And in the previous week 19 drug addicts were pulled out of a clinic in northern Mexico and lined up and shot.

Easy riches
Sociologist and journalist, Marta Duran de Huerta Patiño, says the violence will not go away until corruption among police and judges is rooted out. She also says that until young people, in particular, are convinced that drugs-related crime is not an easy way to riches, little will change.

“People are unemployed, they have no school, they have no future, they have no family, they have no dreams. This criminal organisation is an opportunity to obtain easy money, fast money, and prestige. If you are a man with a gun you are respected.”

Clearly, President Calderon has a lot of work to do if he is to turn things around. It will take more than a clever advertising campaign to make Mexico’s drug problems go away.