Juarez has become a new battleground in a turf war between Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa drug cartel and Juarez’s Vicente Carillo Fuentes cartel, but there’s little danger to El Paso or to innocent visitors in Juárez, UTEP Associate Professor Tony Payan said during a panel discussion today.

“Most of you, if you’re not involved in drug trafficking … have nothing to be concerned about,” Payan said, adding it is important for border residents not to be panicked by the violence.

More than 20 died by bullets and blades in the escalating violence this weekend that drove the number of murders in Juarez to 360 – more than twice the annual rate for that city.

At the hastily organized panel discussion attended by about 100 people, El Paso’s Mexican Counsel for Political Affairs Giselle Fernadez Ludlow, Special Agent William P. Burns from the security office of the U.S. Consulate General in Juarez, Associate UTEP Professor Irasema Coronado, El Paso County Sheriff Jimmy Apodaca and Payan discussed the dangers posed to border residents and two nations by the cartel wars and drug trade.

Payan credited Mexican President Felipe Calderón for recognizing the threat the drug trade and cartels pose to the fabric of Mexico and for devoting $7 billion to combat them.

“Calderón is doing it because he understands it is the future of Mexico that is at stake,” Payan said.

Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. Senate has whittled President Bush’s proposal to appropriate $1.4 million for the cooperative Merida Initiative down to $370 million in tightly controlled aid that wouldn’t actually reach Mexico but would go to buy weaponry for Mexico and Latin America from U.S. arms dealers.

Coronado noted that only 3 percent of the Merida Initiative money would go toward addressing public education and programs to address the root of the problem north of the border: drug use.

Among the other issues raised by the panel were the increased militarization of the border, the temptation of the Mexican government toward greater authoritarianism as the army’s role and presence in cities increases because local police have thrown in with the cartels.

The change in the role of the police, Payan said, has occurred over the past three presidential administrations, which didn’t pay enough attention to increasing police corruption.

They went from looking the other way and skimming profits from the drug trade to becoming “the hired hand of the cartel,” he said.

“In Juárez, we have 19 cops that have fallen victim because they were part of the Carillo Fuentes Cartel and were targeted by Chapo Guzman,” Payan said.

The big problem is that Mexico has never had a well-paid, professional police force and now, the people who are truly caught in the middle of the drug wars are the honest police, who are getting shot at by both sides.

“It is a really rough time in Mexico to be a cop,” Payan said.