All Entries Tagged With: "mexico"

Mexico Prepares for Massive National Protest on May 8

Next Sunday May 8, 2011, Mexican citizens will march to demand the end to the “War on Drugs” and the removal of all government officials responsible for more than 35,000 deaths and the increase of insecurity and corruption.

Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who became the leading voice of the discontent towards the government’s method of tackling the drug trafficking problem after his son Juan Francisco was killed, is inviting all those who want ‘peace and justice’ to join the protests next Sunday.

Here is Javier Sicilia’s message in English:

Full Story Here: Mexico Prepares for Massive National Protest on May 8 · Global Voices.

‘Unprecedented’ level of violence in Mexico: FBI

Using unusually blunt language, FBI Director Robert Mueller told US legislators on Capitol Hill Wednesday that there is an “unprecedented” level of violence in Mexico linked to the country’s drug wars.

“I would not call it a full-scale war,” Mueller told members of the House of Representatives as he discussed his agency’s 2012 budget.

“I would say there are full-scale warring factions that utilize homicide as a mechanism of retaliation, staking out one’s turf, retribution, that have contributed substantially to the number of deaths in Mexico,” Mueller said.

There have been some 35,000 homicides in the past four years, Mueller said.

Full Story Here: ‘Unprecedented’ level of violence in Mexico: FBI | The Raw Story.

Monterrey, Mexico’s Wealthiest City, Succumbs To Drug War

A 21-year-old university student lies dead from a gunshot to the head. Nearby, paramedics wrap the head of another woman in a blood-soaked shirt while her husband holds their cowering children.

They were shopping in a popular downtown promenade when gunmen chasing a security guard opened fire into the crowd. This wasn’t supposed to happen in Monterrey, Mexico’s modern northern city with gleaming glass towers that rise against the Sierra Madre, where students flock to world-class universities, including the country’s equivalent of MIT.

But drug violence has painted Monterrey with the look and feel of the gritty border 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the north as two former allies, the Gulf and Zetas gangs, fight for control of Mexico’s third-largest – and wealthiest – city.

Full Story: Monterrey, Mexico’s Wealthiest City, Succumbs To Drug War.

Mexican paper begs drug cartels: Tell us what we can publish

In a sign of just how extreme the Mexican drug war has gotten, a newspaper in crime-ridden Ciudad Juarez has published an editorial asking the drug cartels to tell them what they should and shouldn’t publish.

The newspaper’s seeming capitulation to organized criminals — whose bloody battle among themselves and with Mexican authorities has cost the lives of 28,000 people in the past four years — has caused an outcry among politicians and press observers, who fear the country’s fragile freedom of press is the latest victim of the drug war.

And it has prompted Mexican President Felipe Calderon to announce changes to Mexican law that would make attacks on journalists a federal crime.

Full Story: Mexican paper begs drug cartels: Tell us what we can publish | Raw Story.

The U.S. Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities

The author takes a trip to Mexico to see the ‘green revolution’ firsthand — and what she finds is shocking.

The Obama administration’s Feed the Future initiative promises a second Green Revolution that will feed a planet of nine billion people by doubling crop yields by 2050. But considering that we produce enough food to feed the planet today and a billion people still go hungry, are yields really the problem? And if they are, are providing Green Revolution technologies like hybrid and genetically engineered seeds, chemical fertilizer and pesticides to subsistence farmers the best way to achieve them? I visited subsistence farmers in Mexico to find out.

The homes of campesinos, peasant farmers, in the rural areas surrounding Cuquio, Mexico (about an hour from Guadalajara) no longer have dirt floors. The Mexican government initiated a program to replace them with cement floors in 2008 and now most homes sport a plaque celebrating their new piso firmes. Electricity came about 20 years ago. For many, running water and bathroom facilities are modern conveniences they do not yet have. The government has recently distributed composting toilets to many, but not all, families.

Full Story: The U.S. Ploy to Promote Genetically Engineered Seeds and Pesticides to Poor Mexican Farmers Is Impoverishing Their Communities | Food | AlterNet.

War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle

Mexico’s president Felipe Caldéron is the latest Latin leader to call for a debate on drugs legalisation. And in the US, liberals and right-wing libertarians are pressing for an end to prohibition. Forty years after President Nixon launched the ‘war on drugs’ there is a growing momentum to abandon the fight

The birthday fiesta was in full swing at 1.30am when five SUVs pulled up outside the house. Figures spilled from the vehicles and ran towards the lights. They burst into the house and levelled AK-47s. “Kill them all!” A shouted instruction, only three words, and the slaughter began.

Gunfire and screams drowned the music. Some victims were cut down immediately, others were caught as they tried to escape. By the time the killers left there were 17 corpses, 18 wounded and 200 shell casings. Among the dead was the birthday guest of honour, a man local media named only as Mota, Mexican slang for marijuana.

The atrocity last month in Torreón, an industrial city in the northern state of Coahuila, came amid headlines shocking even by the standards of Mexico‘s drug war. A sophisticated car bomb of a type never before seen in the country; a popular gubernatorial candidate gunned down in the highest-level political murder; and then last week the release of official figures putting the number of drug war-related murders at 28,000.

Full Story: War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle | World news | The Observer.

Mexico looks to legalisation as drug war murders hit 28,000 | World news | The Guardian

President joins calls for debate after figures reveal extent of violence since launch of military offensive against cartels in 2006

Mexico‘s president, Felipe Calderón, has joined calls for a debate on the legalisation of drugs as new figures show thousands of Mexicans every year being slaughtered in cartel wars.

“It is a fundamental debate,” the president said, belying his traditional reluctance to accept any questioning of the military-focused offensive against the country’s drug cartels that he launched in late 2006. “You have to analyse carefully the pros and cons and key arguments on both sides.” The president said he personally opposes the idea of legalisation.

Calderón’s new openness comes amid tremendous pressure to justify a strategy that has been accompanied by the spiralling of horrific violence around the country as the cartels fight each other and the government crack down. Official figures released this week put the number of drug war related murders at 28,000.

Full Story: Mexico looks to legalisation as drug war murders hit 28,000 | World news | The Guardian.

Mexicans vote elections besieged by drug violence

More than a dozen Mexican states held elections Sunday after campaigning besieged by assassinations and scandals that displayed drug cartels’ power. The party that ruled Mexico for 71 years hoped to capitalize on frustrations over the bloodshed and gain momentum in its bid to regain the presidency in two years.

The elections for governors, mayors and other posts are the biggest political challenge yet for the government of President Felipe Calderon, who has deployed troops and federal police trying to wrest back territory from drug traffickers.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, which held on to power for seven decades through a system of largess and corruption that many considered a quasi-dictatorship, has recovered popularity amid frustration with Mexico’s surging drug gang violence.

Full Story: Mexicans vote elections besieged by drug violence – Yahoo! News.

Mexican murder suspect: US consulate infiltrated

The drug-cartel enforcer told an unsettling story: A woman who worked in the Mexican border’s biggest U.S. consulate had helped a rival gang obtain American visas. And for that, the enforcer said, he ordered her killed.

Nonsense, says a U.S. official, who said Friday the motive for the slaying remains unknown.

The employee, Lesley Enriquez, and two other people connected to the U.S. consulate in the city of Ciudad Juarez were killed March 13 in attacks that raised concerns that Americans were being caught up in drug-related border violence.

Jesus Ernesto Chavez, whose arrest was announced Friday, confessed to ordering the killings, said Ramon Pequeno, the head of anti-narcotics for the Federal Police. Pequeno said Chavez leads a band of hit men for a street gang tied to the Juarez cartel.

Full Story: Mexican murder suspect: US consulate infiltrated – Yahoo! News.

Bomb damages U.S. consulate in Mexico

No injuries, officials say; attack, possibly linked to drug war, is under investigation

An attacker threw an explosive device over the wall around the U.S. consulate in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, breaking windows and startling employees inside but causing no injuries, the U.S. embassy said Saturday.

The attack, which took place about 11:30 p.m. Friday, is under investigation, embassy spokesman Claude Young said.

Mr. Young said the consulate and the consular agency in the border town of Piedras Negras would be closed Monday pending a review of security measures.

Full Story: Bomb damages U.S. consulate in Mexico – The Globe and Mail.

18 gunmen die in attack on two army bases in Mexico – latimes.com

Seven assaults in two northern states take place almost simultaneously, apparently marking a major escalation in Mexico’s drug war.

Dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks targeting two army garrisons in northern Mexico, touching off firefights that killed 18 attackers.

The attempts to blockade soldiers inside their bases — part of seven near-simultaneous attacks across two northern states — appeared to mark a serious escalation in Mexico’s drug war, in which cartel gunmen attacked in unit-size forces armed with bulletproof vehicles, dozens of hand grenades and assault rifles.

While drug gunmen frequently shoot at soldiers on patrol, they seldom target army bases, and even more rarely attack in the force displayed during the confrontations Tuesday in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon — areas that have seen a surge of bloodshed in recent months.

Full Story: 18 gunmen die in attack on two army bases in Mexico – latimes.com.

Mexico Earthquake: 5.7 Magnitude Quake Strikes Oaxaca, Mexico

A strong earthquake struck Mexico at 6:47 local time this evening, registering with a 5.7 magnitude, according to the USGS.

The Mexico earthquake struck in the Oaxaca region in southern Mexico, 285 miles southeast of Mexico City. It had a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 before being revised to 5.7.

Reuters reports that the epicenter of the earthquake was Miahuatlan, Oaxaca, Mexico.

…

This is a developing story.

Full Story Mexico Earthquake: 5.7 Magnitude Quake Strikes Oaxaca, Mexico.

’6.5 level quake’ shakes Mexico-Guatemala border

An earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale shook the border of Guatemala and Mexico, seismologists in Nicaragua said Wednesday, saying that there was no immediate word of damage or injuries.

Full Story ’6.5 level quake’ shakes Mexico-Guatemala border – Yahoo! News.

OPS:  Is it just me or has there been an unusual number of earthquakes lately?

Solutions to Mexico’s Drug Crisis

To weaken the cartels, some argue the U.S. should legalize marijuana, let cocaine pass through the Caribbean and take the profit motive out of the drug trade

In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion.

A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government’s war on drugs summed up recently what he’s learned from his long career: “This war is not winnable.”

Full Story Solutions to Mexico’s Drug Crisis – WSJ.com.

OPS:  For 30 years most have known this is the only way out.

Widespread oil theft by drug traffickers deals major blow to Mexico’s government

Bold theft of $1 billion in oil, resold in U.S., has dealt a major blow to the treasury

Drug traffickers employing high-tech drills, miles of rubber hose and a fleet of stolen tanker trucks have siphoned more than $1 billion worth of oil from Mexico’s pipelines over the past two years, in a vast and audacious conspiracy that is bleeding the national treasury, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and the state-run oil company.

Using sophisticated smuggling networks, the traffickers have transported a portion of the pilfered petroleum across the border to sell to U.S. companies, some of which knew that it was stolen, according to court documents and interviews with American officials involved in an expanding investigation of oil services firms in Texas.

The widespread theft of Mexico’s most vital national resource by criminal organizations represents a costly new front in President Felipe Calderón’s war against the drug cartels, and it shows how the traffickers are rapidly evolving from traditional narcotics smuggling to activities as diverse as oil theft, transport and sales.

Oil theft has been a persistent problem for the state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, but the robbery increased sharply after Calderón launched his war against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006. The drug war has claimed more than 16,000 lives and has led the cartels, which rely on drug trafficking for most of their revenue, to branch out into other illegal activities.

Full Story Widespread oil theft by drug traffickers deals major blow to Mexico’s government.

Mexican lawmaker: Oil-stealing cartel now ‘a parallel government’

Profits driven by the prohibition of drugs and other criminal enterprises have enabled the Zeta cartel to become “a parallel government,” according to a Mexican lawmaker quoted in a Sunday report by The Washington Post.

The Zetas, founded by former Mexican military commandos, are a prime player in the theft of over $1 billion of Mexico's crude oil, according to the report.

“Oil theft has been a persistent problem for the state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, but the robbery increased sharply after Calderón launched his war against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006,” the Post noted.

Oil stolen by Mexican cartels is often smuggled into the U.S. and sold for obscene profits. Pemex said that it lost over $715 million to theft in 2008 and expects to lose over $300 million in 2009.

Eduardo Mendoza Arellano, a Mexican lawmaker charged with energy policies, reportedly claimed the cartel has become so powerful thy could be considered “a parallel government.”

Full Story Mexican lawmaker: Oil-stealing cartel now ‘a parallel government’ | Raw Story.

Would-be Mexican president accuses ‘mafia’ of usurping government

Thousands of Mexicans rallied to show support for “shadow president” Manuel Lopez Obrador — who believes his country’s top job was stolen from him in 2006 — at the mid-point of his would-be presidential term.

A 56-year-old leftist former Mexico City mayor, Lopez Obrador’s hopes of leading this country of about 106 million were dashed (but not for long) when official results showed he lost the 2006 race by just some 230,000 votes.

He charges that a careful recount of the vote was carefully avoided by those who had the authority to duly pursue one.

Poised to emerge as a potential alternative to the conservative PAN party of President Felipe Calderon in 2012, Lopez Obrador has pushed on, day after day, insisting that he is, in fact, Mexico’s legitimate president.

He works out of an elegant office in an old mansion in Mexico City, in front of a portrait in which he is pictured wearing the presidential sash.

Full Story Would-be Mexican president accuses ‘mafia’ of usurping government | Raw Story.

Mexico’s Drug War Bloodbath: Guns from the U.S. Are Destabilizing the Country

Mexico’s Drug War Bloodbath: Guns from the U.S. Are Destabilizing the Country

Mexican drug cartels have easy access to thousands of American gun dealers just on the other side of the border.

A minute is all the time that it takes for an employee in one of almost 7,000 gun shops dotting the U.S./Mexico border to accept a wad of cash from an eager customer, fill out a triplicate sales slip, and slide a nice, new Taurus .45 caliber pistol across the counter. Or two, or three, or twenty, as the case may be. Add those handguns to the countless tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pistols, sniper and assault rifles, semi-automatic machine guns, shield-piercing bullets, grenades, plastic explosives, as well as anti-tank weapons outfitted with self-propelling rockets passing illegally through the hands of drug cartel foot soldiers and assassins. Throw in the array of weapons favored by DEA and CIA agents, Mexican federal police and military units, and other ‘drug warriors,’ of one sort or another. These are all people who are ready, willing, and able to use violence to get what they want. If it looks like you’ve got a battle on your hands, you do — the Mexican drug war has hit boiling point.

via Mexico’s Drug War Bloodbath: Guns from the U.S. Are Destabilizing the Country | DrugReporter | AlterNet.

Mexico’s Drug War Bloodbath: Guns from the U.S. Are Destabilizing the Country | DrugReporter | AlterNet

Mexico’s Drug War Bloodbath: Guns from the U.S. Are Destabilizing the Country

Mexican drug cartels have easy access to thousands of American gun dealers just on the other side of the border.

A minute is all the time that it takes for an employee in one of almost 7,000 gun shops dotting the U.S./Mexico border to accept a wad of cash from an eager customer, fill out a triplicate sales slip, and slide a nice, new Taurus .45 caliber pistol across the counter. Or two, or three, or twenty, as the case may be. Add those handguns to the countless tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pistols, sniper and assault rifles, semi-automatic machine guns, shield-piercing bullets, grenades, plastic explosives, as well as anti-tank weapons outfitted with self-propelling rockets — plus countless thousands of drug warriors, of one sort or another, who are ready, willing, and able to use them. If it looks like you’ve got a battle on your hands, you do — the Mexican drug war has hit boiling point.

Mexican authorities have been quite vocal in the past year about the role that the U.S. is playing in the escalation of gun violence in Mexico. Last year, no less than 20,000 weapons were seized in drug-related actions, raids, arrests, and shoot-outs; nearly all of them were sold in the U.S. (The Mexican government has finally been given electronic access, by the U.S. Department of Justice, to be able to trace the origins of registered weapons, but only if they are used in the commission of crimes.)

via Mexico’s Drug War Bloodbath: Guns from the U.S. Are Destabilizing the Country | DrugReporter | AlterNet.

McClatchy Washington Bureau

McClatchy Washington Bureau.

Press TV – US military to help Mexican drug war

US military to help Mexican drug war

Mexican military vehicles in the border city of Ciudad Juarez

The United States has said its military is ready to cooperate with Mexican army to fight against the country’s war against drug cartels.

“I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“Some of the old biases against cooperation with our – between our militaries and so on, I think, are being set aside,” he added.

Drug-related violence has killed over 1,000 people in the first two months of 2009. In 2008, the toll doubled from the previous year to 6,290.

The US official also praised Mexican President Felipe Calderon for taking on the cartels and sending the Mexican army into the fight.

via Press TV – US military to help Mexican drug war.

The war we gave Mexico

The war we gave Mexico

The drugs, guns and culture that fuel the violence all are linked to the U.S.

Tim Rutten

Early in the last century, near the end of his 34 bloody years in power, the aging Mexican strongman Porfirio Diaz mused that his country’s great misfortune was to be located “so far from God and so near the United States.”

The shrewd old thief’s observation came to mind this week when U.S. officials announced they’d joined with Mexican authorities in arresting more than 730 people allegedly linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel. That gang is the most powerful of the numerous criminal organizations smuggling drugs into the United States. Their intramural quarrels and resistance to a government crackdown have plunged Mexico into a round of violence unseen since the Cristero Wars in the 1920s. Over the last year, about 6,000 Mexicans have been killed.

Many fear that Mexico could be sliding into civil instability because of the cartels’ increasing willingness to use violence and bribery to protect their business

via The war we gave Mexico – Los Angeles Times.

Mexico to send more troops to besieged city | Reuters

Mexico to send more troops to besieged city

Is Mexico melting down?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico is sending thousands more troops and federal police to the country’s most violent city, where law and order is on the brink of collapse in a war between gangs supplying drugs to the United States.

The army said on Thursday the deployment of up to 5,000 personnel could take the number of soldiers and federal police to over 7,000 in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas.

This month alone, drug hitmen killed 250 people in Juarez, where a meeting of cabinet members on Wednesday was rattled by three bomb scares, forcing soldiers to briefly shut the city’s international airport.