// Operation Tijuana by Alex Espinosa

Tijuana, the megacity at the Mexican Pacific Coast is situated on the United States – Mexico border. The largest city of the Mexican state Baja California, belongs to the busiest land border crossing of the world. Its two border crossing stations account each day 300.000 border crossings only from California. But Tijuana is also known for its drug and human trafficking rings, which smuggle drugs and people into the United States. For decades the frontier city has been the field of a drug war between criminal cartels, which fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States, tolerated by corrupt police and supported politicians. In 2007, 23 police officers were killed and 350 civilians, mostly of them were related to the organized crime, were murdered by the cartels. The Mexican government started therefore in January 2007 the Operation Tijuana. More than 3000 soldiers of the army and police of other parts of Mexico were sent to fight against the organized crime.
The Operation Tijuana was applauded by local administration and many sectors of the community, especially prosperous business leaders, which have been threatened from a recent wave of abductions, perpetrated by members of different cartels for financing their operations.
After disarming and replacing some local police commanders, the army and federal agents patrolled the streets and established temporary, random checkpoints, where they seek for weapons and drugs, a task which was limited before the operation to the local police. In the first year of the operation local police departments reported increases of 400 percent of crime, but in the last time more and more important members of the cartels were arrested by police and army and give hope for the fight against the organized crime in Tijuana.
The sudden militarization of the streets of Tijuana has changed the daily life of the inhabitants of the city. Many human rights organizations have criticized that the operation shortens the human and the constitutional rights of the people. Alex Espinosa presents with his reportage the impact of the Operation Tijuana for the people of Tijuana.