Felipe Calderon administration resisted publishing the new figure

BY ROQUE PLANAS / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Forensic experts work at the site where at least 18 bodies were found near a ... abcnews.go.com

Drug war violence in Mexico took a life an average of every half hour last year in Mexico, the government estimates.

The administration of Felipe Calderon had resisted pressure to publish the death figures for months, but the Attorney General’s Office finally posted the statistics on its website Wednesday.

The toll linked to the anti-cartel campaign launched by Calderon in 2006 continued to climb; there were 12,903 killings between January and September of 2011.

Total deaths stand at over 47,515, according to the government tally.

Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, had the highest number of violent deaths at 1,206, followed by the beach resort town of Acapulco, with 795.

The Attorney General’s Office posted the figures after months of prodding from human rights groups, the press and a disgruntled state agency.

The Calderon administration decided to classify the statistics sometime last year, citing reasons of national security, according toMexican news portal Animal Politico.

The Attorney General’s office released the numbers after the national statistics agency threatened legal action last week.

The Attorney General’s Office pointed out that while the death toll mounted, it did so at a slower rate than in previous years.

From September 2010 to September 2011, the number of drug war-related deaths rose 11% compared to increases of 70% and 63% in previous years.

The Calderon administration also highlights its success taking down cartel kingpins. Mexican authorities have captured 22 of the 37 most important cartel leaders, Mexican security spokesman Alejandro Poire said Thursday, according to Notimex.

Most drug war killings took place in just eight of Mexico’s 31 states, five of which share a border with the United States, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

Violence is concentrated along the border where drug cartels fight each other and Mexican security forces to push their way into the United States to reach American users.

Chris Sabatini, policy director for the Americas Society, told the Daily News he doesn’t expect the violence to spill into the U.S. Southwest.

“That’s sort of the bottleneck,” Sabatini said. “Once it’s across the border, the drugs are being distributed.”

And while the United States heads into a presidential election in which immigration will play a key role, Sabatini did not view Mexico’s drug war as a major political issue for most Americans.

“As long as it stays south of the border, I think most people won’t care,” Sabatini said. “The vast majority of U.S. citizens are not going to reconsider U.S. domestic drug policies or gun policies, tragically, on the basis of Mexican deaths.”