Military tries to stem drug flow in Michoacan state

(14 Dec 2006)
1. Police checking bus passengers and driver at road block
2. Close-up of officer searching bus passenger
3. Officers searching passengers facing bus
4. Mid shot of officers searching passengers
5. Various of people being searched
6. Wide shot of military check point
7. A man sitting on ground concealing his face
8. Medium of soldier by roadside with weapon
9. Wide shot of armed soldiers walking into Aguililla
10. Soldiers driving into Aguililla on hummer, pull out to wide shot
11. Medium shot of soldiers marching with weapons
12. Reverse shot of soldiers
13. Soldiers on ground with helicopter flying above
14. Helicopter flying overhead
15. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) ++NAME NOT GIVEN++, Federal Police Officer:
"Right now we are just checking the cars to see if they are carrying any drugs or weapons or anything."
16. Military loading street signs onto vehicle
17. Various of military vehicles
18. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Mateo Ramos, Anguililla resident:
"They say the government is coming from outside, so we are a little more calm now and we are all with them."
19. Military vehicle driving up road
STORYLINE:
Mexican authorities set up security check points and road blocks around cities in the western state of Michoacan on Wednesday, following promises by the newly installed President Felipe Calderon to crack down on organised crime.
More than 6,500 soldiers and federal police, supported by helicopters and planes arrived this week in a effort to battle the feuding drug gangs that have terrorised the western state.
At one highway checkpoint, staffed by more than a dozen federal police, officers frisked passengers and searched vehicles for drugs, weapons and those suspected of involvement in the drugs trade.
"Right now we are just checking the cars to see if they are carrying any drugs or weapons or anything," one officer, who refused to give his name, told AP Television.
Troops were ordered to set fire to marijuana and opium fields and round-up traffickers while around Lazaro Cardenas port, a hub for drugs arriving from Central America and Colombia on their way to the United States, navy ships were on patrol.
Some residents said they feared their arrival but others, like Aguililla resident Mateo Ramos, welcomed the troops.
"They say that the government is coming from outside, so we are a little more calm now and we are all with them," Ramos said.
Previous Mexican presidents have attempted crackdowns against the drugs trade.
Corrupt police have been fired, courts revamped and thousands of troops sent in to battle traffickers
However their actions have done little to dent the quantity of narcotics crossing the US-Mexico border.
Calderon is hoping to make a difference however.
He took office on December the first, promising to fight the execution-style killings, corrupt police and openly defiant gangs that plagued former President Vicente Fox's six years in office.
Calderon has budgeted more funds for law enforcement and appointed a hard-line interior secretary, in charge of domestic security, Francisco Ramirez Acuna.
Warring cartels have killed at least 2,000 people this year and forced Fox to send troops into the bloody border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, and the beach resort of Acapulco.
But those efforts failed to deter traffickers, who have left human heads outside government offices accompanied by written warnings.
One recent message in Michoacan read: "See. Hear. Shut Up. If you want to stay alive."

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