The first WikiLeaks document release on Mexico published Thursday in the Spanish daily, El Pais, reveals a national government anguished over losing control of some its national territory to narco cartels.
 
Four diplomatic cables confirm that at nearly every meeting at every level with U.S. representatives over the last two years, Mexican authorities have desperately pleaded for increased American assistance to help regain control of its national territory.
 
While the Mexican government has been at virtual war with drug gangs for the last few years, costing thousands of lives, it has never publicly admitted losing control of embattled zones of territory.  By some estimates, as many as 20,000 people have died in a bloody battle for control of the border drug trade since President Felipe Calderon sent the Mexican Army into border states to combat the cartels.  Reports have abounded that in several towns and regions, especially in the state of Chihuahua, just south of Texas, any pretense of rule of law has been replaced by street justice brutually meted out by heavily armed drug cartels.

Among the thousands killed have been scores of soldiers and local police while many civilian authorities have simply fled their posts.
 
In the diplomatic cables now made public by the WikiLeaks release, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expresses mounting concern over PresidentCalderon’s capacity to deal with the crisis.

Read the entire El Pais story in Spanish here or in English at The Guardian.