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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Mexican Mayhem Continues Unabated |
| 2008-12-08 |
| At least 26 people were killed in Mexico over the weekend in separate incidents, including 10 who died in a shootout between soldiers and gunmen in Guerrero state and five murdered at a bar in Ciudad Juarez. Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, is considered the country's most violent city, with more than 1,400 murders reported this year. Gunmen burst into Alamo's bar in Juarez early Sunday and opened fire, killing five people and wounding four others. This was the second attack of this type in less than two weeks. On Nov. 28, gunmen murdered eight men at a seafood restaurant in the border city, which is in Chihuahua state. A couple and a man were shot to death in separate incidents while driving in Ciudad Juarez. Three bodies were also found in Juarez, including one dumped in a soccer field and two others in the city's southeast section. The victims, who were between 25 and 30, were wrapped in blankets and their hands and feet had been tied, a trademark of the gunmen who work for Mexico's drug cartels. In Tecate, a city in the northwestern state of Baja California, two people were gunned down and a third wounded in a shooting on Saturday night. Army troops, meanwhile, battled gunmen in a series of clashes in Palos Blancos, a town in the southern state of Guerrero. A soldier and nine gunmen were killed in the running gunbattles, which lasted about half a day and also involved police. Soldiers, along with federal, state and municipal police officers, responded when a shootout started between rival gangs, the Public Safety Secretariat said. When they arrived at the scene, the security forces were greeted by gunfire and engaged the gunmen in the series of shootouts, which also left two police officers wounded. The gunbattles started at around 3:00 a.m. Sunday and did not end until about 2:00 p.m. After the shooting ended, police conducted a search and found a body in an abandoned vehicle, and seized 10 other automobiles, 14 rifles, five pistols and two hand grenades. The crime scene in Palos Altos has been cordoned off by some 400 soldiers and police officers. In Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, two heads and a threatening message were found in a bucket near the Technical Institute. Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence, with powerful cartels battling each other and the security forces, as rival gangs vie for control of lucrative smuggling and distribution routes into the United States. Armed groups linked to Mexico's drug cartels murdered around 2,700 people in 2007 and 1,500 in 2006, with the death toll this year already at more than 5,000, according to press tallies. The majority of the killings have occurred in the states of Chihuahua, Baja California and Sinaloa. Experts say that Mexico's most powerful drug trafficking organizations are the Tijuana cartel, the Gulf cartel and the Sinaloa cartel. Two other large drug trafficking organizations, the Juarez and Milenio cartels, also operate in the country. Tackling the problem of drug-related violence, according to experts, is a major challenge both because of Mexico's notoriously corrupt security forces and because honest police officers are fearful of taking on the heavily armed drug mobs. Since taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 30,000 soldiers and federal police to nearly a dozen of Mexico's 31 states in a bid to stem the wave of violence unleashed by drug traffickers. The anti-drug operation, however, has failed to put a dent in the violence due, according to experts, to drug cartels' ability to buy off the police and even high-ranking prosecutors. The Attorney General's Office recently began investigating its own staff, particularly the SIEDO organized crime unit's members and the Federal Investigations Agency, Mexico's equivalent of the FBI. As part of the probe, begun after a protected informant revealed links between drug cartel kingpins and police, a dozen high-ranking officials, including erstwhile drug czar Noe Ramirez, have been arrested. The initial investigation concluded that Ramirez received $500,000 a month for sharing intelligence with drug lords. So far this year, Mexico has easily beaten 5,000 drug war related homicides. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #18 There's seems to be no end to the K street thieves and their Congressional buddies who are ripping off our soventry.... Mexican Mayhem Continues Unabated thanks in part To the rotten Congressmen and women who think they can endlessly rip off America! They are Traitors and Paracites and they countinue to excersize their in order to destroy the USA. A POX on all of them~!! |
| Posted by: RD 2008-12-08 22:56 |
| #17 This article reminds me of the first verse of the Bob Dylan song: When you're lost in the rain in Juarez And it's Easter-time too And your gravity fails And negativity don't pull you through Don't put on any airs When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue They got some hungry women there And they really make a mess outa you |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2008-12-08 22:07 |
| #16 Verlaine's on the money - we get a a lot of ads now, telling us of the "bargains" and "friendly hosts" in Baja. Quite a shame actually. It is a beautiful country in Baja, once you get past the border, with great seaports, good food, nice people, and absolutely no f'n way that I would go there right now |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-12-08 22:01 |
| #15 Pappy - well, up in Kurdistan, being a tourist has been non-insane (definitely on the aggressive adventuresome edge, but non-insane) for a few years, believe it or not. Some day .... north-central Iraq and the Shi'a holy cities will be very nice tourist spots, actually (along with Ur and Babylon, notwithstanding the Ba'ath-era "restorations" there). Judging by radio ads and offers from a San Diego perspective, tourism in northern Baja is dying. It's really sad, actually - obviously the folks working at resorts and restaurants in TJ and Rosarito Beach are not part of the drug wars, but regular folks working hard in a sector that has boomed in the last 15 years or so. I recall when Nuevo Laredo was going down the drain (not sure if that was the low-point, but it got pretty dramatic) in '05 or '06, and the reports and State travel warnings read a lot like Diyala or parts of Anbar. We laughed about it, and then spit in anger when we next read a story about a border barrier STILL being haggled over or compared to the Berlin Wall. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2008-12-08 21:25 |
| #14 "It's not Iraq," said Esquivel, the mercado vendor. Dunno if I want to to Iraq as a tourist. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-12-08 18:46 |
| #13 "'It's not Iraq,' said Esquivel, the mercado vendor." You're right. Iraq's much safer. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-12-08 18:45 |
| #12 From the Juarez section of the El Paso Times: Juárez city officials, who earlier this year launched billboards in El Paso and other U.S. cities in an effort to lure visitors, insist that tourists are not targeted in the slayings. "It's not Iraq," said Esquivel, the mercado vendor. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-12-08 17:24 |
| #11 Meanwhile, from community organizers: "Building a border fence, tougher immigration laws and resources that could allow local law enforcement agencies to target immigrants are all symptoms of a bias against Hispanics that must change, Rosa Rosales" president of LULAC said in El Paso this weekend. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-12-08 17:19 |
| #10 Nobody on this board has enough money to get ME south of the border, much less with my family. I'd like to break relations with Mex and seal the damned border. Nothing coming, nothing going except their invading nationals getting their asses literally kicked back into Mex. Screw Mex. I wish the Rio Grande was 500 miles wide. The more of them that kill each other in drug fights, the better. It's that many fewer of them to come up here and cause trouble. |
| Posted by: Jolutch Mussolini7800 2008-12-08 16:55 |
| #9 In 1971 I was stationed at Beumont and we went to Juarez frequently. It was surreal how similar it was to stepping outside of 3rd. field in Saigon. Drugs girls and even the language. I believe the army put Juarez off limits several years ago. |
| Posted by: bman 2008-12-08 16:25 |
| #8 Here's an interesting stat: A U.S State Department report on “non-natural deaths” of U.S. citizens abroad says that 128 Americans were victims of homicides or “executions” in Mexico between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2007, and that a majority of these murders took place in Mexican cities located on the southern border of the United States. All told, during the period in question, 667 Americans were killed in Mexico by “non-natural” causes, including by drowning, auto accidents, and suicides, according to the report. It is unclear how accurate these numbers are, however, because the State Department says the report “is based solely on cases reported by American citizens to our posts abroad.” |
| Posted by: ed 2008-12-08 15:25 |
| #7 Border tourism has been dropping for 10 years. It's next to nothing now because of the crime. Even the State Dept has issued warnings. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-12-08 15:16 |
| #6 Lead story in today's Arizona Daily Star concerns tourist scarcity in Nogales, Sonora (60 miles south). |
| Posted by: borgboy 2008-12-08 15:09 |
| #5 Probably time to invade Mexico. WHO WANTS THEM? |
| Posted by: Rednek Jim 2008-12-08 15:09 |
| #4 Mexico enjoys tourism from the USA and Canada. Does anyone know if tourism has started to drop off? |
| Posted by: MarkZ 2008-12-08 15:01 |
| #3 Iraq, Thailand and Chicago are looking downright peaceful compared to Mexico these days. Where is our fence again? |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-12-08 14:48 |
| #2 QUAGMIRE! |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-12-08 14:44 |
| #1 Probably time to invade Mexico. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2008-12-08 14:10 |