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| Mexico's new president mostly mum on drug violence |
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 MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two months after President Enrique Pena Nieto took office promising to reduce violent crime, the killings linked to Mexico's drug cartels continue unabated.
Only the government's talk about them has dropped.
Eighteen members of a band and its retinue were kidnapped and apparently slain over the weekend in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon by gunmen who asked them to name their cartel affiliation before they were shot and dumped in a well. Fourteen prisoners and nine guards died in an attempted prison escape in Durango state. Nine men were slain Christmas eve in Sinaloa. In the state of Mexico, which borders the capital, more than a dozen bodies were found last week, some dismembered.
The difference under this administration is that there have been no major press conferences announcing more troops or federal police for drug-plagued hotspots. Gone are the regular parades of newly arrested drug suspects before the media with their weapons, cash or contraband.
Pena Nieto has been mum, instead touting education, fiscal and energy reforms. On Monday, he told a summit of Latin American and Caribbean leaders in Chile that he wants Mexico to focus on being a player in solving world and regional problems.
Some political observers praise him for trying to change the conversation and presenting an alternative face of Mexico. Critics suggest the country's new leaders believe that the best way to solve a security crisis is to create distractions.
“What Pena Nieto is doing is ... sweeping violence under the rug in hopes that no one notices,” said security expert Jorge Chabat. “It can be effective in the short term, until the violence becomes so obvious that you can't change the subject.”
The Pena Nieto government declined to respond publicly to the critics. But in an interview last month with The Associated Press, he said he would not put any goals or deadlines on his campaign against organized crime and would focus on prevention.
“That way we avoid generating fertile ground where violence and insecurity can keep growing,” Pena Nieto said.
Secretary of Interior Jose Osorio Chong had a closed-door meeting with the governors of Mexico's central states about security on Monday. In a press conference afterward, he promised to increase patrols along a highway system already bristling with military and police roadblocks and checkpoints.
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