| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Caribbean-Latin America | |
| Guatemala to put army on Mexican border in drug war | |
| 2008-06-08 | |
| GUATEMALA CITY - Guatemala plans to send hundreds of troops, elite presidential guards and anti-drug police to its border with Mexico to stem growing drug violence, the government said on Saturday. "The unit should be ready within about 90 days. We are talking about 500 troops" and members of the presidential guard, Interior Ministry spokesman Ricardo Gatica said. Gatica declined to say how many counternarcotics police would be sent to the border, where drug smuggling into southern Mexico, bound for the United States, goes unchallenged. In southern Mexico, suspected drug gunmen dumped a man's head outside a newspaper in Tabasco state on Saturday with a message threatening police and rivals, the state attorney general's office said. "This is what will happen to those who interfere. The army won't protect you," the message read, according to a spokesman who declined to be named. The Guatemalan deployment is part of a $1.4 billion U.S. anti-drug aid plan for Mexico and Central America proposed by President George W. Bush. The so-called Merida Initiative needs U.S. congressional approval, but Gatica said Guatemala was likely to go ahead even if Congress failed to act. Lawmakers in Washington have held up the plan with calls to attach conditions on how and where the aid -- which includes helicopters and encrypted communication devices -- is used. They also want to include human rights oversight in the package.
| |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 So THAT'S what happened to Shrillary, got her supply cut off. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-06-08 14:38 |
| #1 Rising price of blow really puts a damper on the Democratic Party's parties. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-06-08 08:25 |