4um: Civil war and vigilantism gripping Mexico

Title: Civil war and vigilantism gripping Mexico
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/88259
Published: Jan 19, 2009
Author: Michael Webster
Post Date: 2009-01-19 21:04:38 by Horse
Keywords: None
Views: 381
Comments: 32

A full scale civil war is underway in Mexico. The Mexican President Felipe Calderon and the powerful drug cartels that operate unmolested throughout Mexico are locked in a battle over control of the country. With tens of thousands of the Mexican army fully deployed and often fighting Zetas´ (ex-Mexican army Special Forces trained in the U.S.) who is now working for the cartels. The Mexican government has not been able to curtail the on going gruesome and erupting new violence and confrontations between the two warring parties throughout Mexico. This relentless fighting with casualties on both sides is in truth and scope a civil war. Mexico try´s to hide that fact and the United States is apparently in total denial.

To date some 7,000 Mexicans have died in this war – all attributable to the government versus the rich and powerful Mexican Drug Cartels war.

During 2008 Mexico´s violent deaths broke historic records raising the death toll to 5,630 execution murders, beating out last years all time record.

In 2008, more people lost their lives in Mexico do to violence then were lost in the war torn countries of Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Were it not for the fact that the cartels are also frequently at war with one another, they might have won the war by now and would be in complete control of Mexico.

Execution-style murders, beheadings, dismemberings and kidnappings are common now in every state in Mexico on a daily basis. Gun battles are frequent events in Mexico City and in Mexican towns all along the border. On Jan. 5, the body of Jose Ivan Vasquez Lopez, 43, was found in a trash drum with his head cut off. On Jan. 7, the body of Ricardo Arturo Alvarado Contreras, 45, was found dead in a vacant lot with his hands chopped off. Mexican border town officials have crossed into the U.S. seeking asylum, fearing for their lives.

Now a third factor is reported to be getting into Mexico´s civil war as the Mexican border towns are void of tourist. Mexican citizens are getting feed up with not having any business and that is making it very difficult to survive and make ends meet said Jose Lopez a shop keeper in what had normally been a busy typical Mexican border town and we the people are done with the fear and the bloody killings on our streets.

A group calling itself the Juárez Citizens Command is threatening to strike back against lawlessness that has gripped the city for a long time they say that they are striking back by killing one criminal a day until order and piece is restored. A potential rise in vigilante justice in Juárez is expected by some experts to spread throughout Mexico and would raise the steaks and escalate an already dangerous and bloody civil war.

The city's police and the Mexican army together have not been able to stop the plague of killings, beheadings, or the extortion targeted business owners, teachers, medical professionals, or the carjackings, kidnappings, robberies and other crime. Last year, more than 1,600 people were slain in Juárez alone.

"Better the death of a bad person, than that bad person continue contaminating our region," the group, named Comando Ciudadano por Juárez, or CCJ in Spanish, stated in a news release spread on the Internet.

"There is a call for the public to remain calm," said Andres Andreu, a Juárez representative in the Chihuahua state congress.

"In anger, this could start an uncontrollable wave of unjust deaths," Andreu said in a statement condemning vigilantism and urging authorities to do more to stop the violence. "Movements of this nature are directed more by a sense of vengeance than of justice."

The El Paso times reported that Howard Campbell, an anthropology Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso stated: "What (vigilantism) says is people do not think the government can fix the violence, you have to remember, there is the whole history -- the killing of the women and the drug killings. The common person feels there is no one to protect them."

The environment exists for the creation for a group such as the CCJ, Campbell said. If the CCJ is real, Howard said, it could be reminiscent of Los Pepes, assassins who in the early 1990s targeted relatives and associates of drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia.

It was rumored that Los Pepes might have had links to rival drug traffickers or government special forces, including those in the United States.

Lynchings, mob beatings and other forms of vigilante justice are not unheard of in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, often because of lack of trust in government and law enforcement authorities.

Not long ago an enraged mob swarmed three federal police officers in the Mexico City suburb of San Juan Ixtayopan, and beat them nearly lifeless then doused them with gasoline and then burned two of them alive while thousands watched live on national television.

Dramatic as it was, the cop killings were not an isolated incident. Vigilantism has taken root in Latin America over the past decade, lending credence to the notion that the region is in the throes of a civil war. From Venezuela and Guatemala to Bolivia and Peru, angry crowds are increasingly taking the law into their own hands, meting out physical punishment for crimes real and imagined. Vigilantes often "lynch" common criminals who, in their view, have escaped justice. More recently they've started attacking public officials suspected of malfeasance. A mob in the Peruvian town of Ilave beat their mayor after accusing him of embezzlement, then dragged him into a public square and left him to die.

"Lynching has grown totally out of control," says Mark Ungar, an expert on Latin American police reform at the Woodrow Wilson International School for Scholars in Washington. "It's spreading in the sense that vigilantes are going after criminals, officials, even governments--and once it starts it's hard to stop."

Mexican civil war is also spilling over into the U.S. Reports of incursions into the U.S. by heavily armed men in Mexican army uniforms (and often driving U.S.-made Humvees) now occurs on a regular basis. Sometimes the "soldiers" are cartel men, probably ex-Mexican army; sometimes they are real Mexican army. In many cases, their purpose is to escort and protect a drug run into the U.S. and back off any lightly armed local sheriff or Border Patrol agent in the way.

The evidence is clear Mexico is in a civil war and this civil war is happening in America´s back yard in a neighboring country of a population of well over 100 million people. A 2000 mile open border and with corrupt officials operating on both sides of the Rio Grande River. There are estimates that the Mexican cartels produce, smuggle and sell some $300 billion worth of drugs into the U.S. annually. These drugs are poisoning our children and violently killing citizens on both sides of the U.S. Mexican border.

Michael Webster´s Syndicated Investigative Reports are read worldwide, in 100 or more U.S. outlets and in at least 136 countries and territories. He has published articles for Maxims News, which is associated with MediaChannel.org and Globalvision News Network, global news and media information services with more than 350 news affiliates in 135 countries. Many of Mr. Webster´s articles are printed in six working languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. With ten more languages planed in the near future.

Mr. Webster is America's leading authority on Venture Capital/Equity Funding. A trustee on some of the nations largest trade Union funds. A noted Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Business Consultant, Newspaper Publisher. Radio News caster. Labor Law generalist, Teamster Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative. Mr. Webster publishes the on-line newspaper the Laguna Journal and does investigative reports for print, electronic and on-line News Agencies. Click on or Google Michael Webster´s other writings.

I have argued with our dear brother, Richard 911 for years now that his adopted homeland was a tinder box of a slum. He, knowing all, dismissed me as an old racist. Well lo and behold, his new nation is on the brink of collapse and Richard now posts in frantic bursts.

Having spent some time in Mexico, it was easy to see, we were loved as long as the money was there. No money, vamoose to save your skin.

Holy crap. Mexican civil wars have a colorful history of being exceptionally violent and brutal. The last one was in 1910. They're due for one, no question.

Man oh man.. could it be that the next country the U.S. invades is Mexico? Would be a Trilateralist commission wet dream. Once we had annexed Mexico, we could just quietly incorporate Canada and there you go, the North American Union, complete with the Amero. Wheee....

It is really difficult dealing with people who have little or no comprehension when they read. This post is so full of B.S. and stupidity that it is laughable.

Take the above paragraph as a 'for instance.' If none of you is smart enough to understand how stupid this paragraph is, then so be it.

As I have stated before; I have relatives in the state police in Sonora. And except for a couple of places right on the border, everything is just fine. In fact, much better than in the states where everyone seems to be losing their homes. Of course, as long as you pavlog dogs react to whatever the media feeds you, then the government will be able to do pretty much what they please, when they please.

And it is posts just as this that pretty well explains why I do not bother with posting in the 4um much anymore. Or, reading the non-sense that is posted here.

Daniel 2:44 “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite;.

It was a human cesspool then, graft, corruption, prostitution, you name it. The police were the most corrupt of all.

Some good places, some good people, certainly, but never a place I cared to live. North of the border always felt good.

why don't you email the author, Michael Webster, and take issue with him about what you deem BS and stupidity in his report. i'd be interested to see if he responds and then your sharing it with us.

Mexican collapse? Drug wars worry some Americans

Indiscriminate kidnappings. Nearly daily beheadings. Gangs that mock and kill government agents.

This isn't Iraq or Pakistan. It's Mexico, which the U.S. government and a growing number of experts say is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks.

The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to Barack Obama's new government. In its latest report anticipating possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels," the command said in the report published Nov. 25.

"How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state."

Retiring CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters on Friday that that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for Obama _ perhaps a greater problem than Iraq.

The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the worsening violence threatens Mexico's very democracy.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told The New York Times he ordered additional border security plans to be drawn up this summer as kidnappings and killings spilled into the U.S.

The alarm is spreading to the private sector as well. Mexico, Latin America's second biggest economy and the United States' third biggest oil supplier, is one of the top 10 global risks for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.

Mexico is brushing aside the U.S. concerns, with Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez-Mont saying Wednesday: "It seems inappropriate to me that you would call Mexico a security risk. There are problems in Mexico that are being dealt with, that we can continue to deal with, and that's what we are doing."

Still, Obama faces a dramatic turnaround compared with the last time a new U.S. president moved into the White House. When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the nation of 110 million had just chosen Vicente Fox as president in its fairest election ever, had ended 71 years of one-party rule and was looking forward to a stable, democratic future.

Fox signaled readiness to take on the drug cartels, but plunged them into a power vacuum by arresting their leaders, and gangs have been battling each other for territory ever since.

Felipe Calderon, who succeeded Fox in 2006, immediately sent troops across the country to try to regain control. But soldiers and police are outgunned and outnumbered, and cartels have responded with unprecedented violence.

Mob murders doubled from 2007, taking more than 5,300 lives last year. The border cities of Juarez and Tijuana wake up each morning to find streets littered with mutilated, often headless bodies. Some victims are dumped outside schools. Most are just wrapped in a cheap blanket and tossed into an empty lot.

Many bodies go unclaimed because relatives are too afraid to come forward. Most killings go unsolved.

Warring cartels still control vast sections of Mexico, despite Calderon's two-year crackdown, and have spawned an all-pervasive culture of violence. No one is immune.

Businesses have closed because they can't afford to pay monthly extortion fees to local thugs. The rich have fled to the U.S. to avoid one of the world's highest kidnapping rates. Many won't leave their homes at night.

The government has launched an intensive housecleaning effort after high- level security officials were accused of being on the take from the Sinaloa cartel. And several soldiers fighting the gangs were kidnapped, beheaded and dumped in southern Mexico last month with the warning: "For every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10."

But the U.S. government is extremely supportive of the Mexican president, recently handing over $400 million in anti-drug aid. Obama met briefly with Calderon in Washington last week and promised to fight the illegal flow south of U.S. weapons that arm the Mexican cartels.

While fewer Americans are willing to drive across the border for margaritas and handicrafts, visitors are still flocking to other parts of Mexico. And the economy seems harder hit by the global crisis than by the growing violence.

The grim assessments from north of the border got wide play in the Mexican media but came as no surprise to people here. Many said the solution lies in getting the U.S. to give more help and let in more migrant workers who might otherwise turn to the drug trade to make a living.

Otherwise the drug wars will spill ever more heavily into America, said Manuel Infante, an architect. "There is a wave of barbarity that is heading toward the U.S.," he said. "We are an uncomfortable neighbor."

They have oil and the SPP Bush signed allows out military to pursue "terrorists" anywhere, anytime. We will annex Mexico, and here I was all worried they were trying to take us over !

Mexican defense minister to discuss possible joint North American military force

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Dateline: MEXICO CITY Mexico's defense minister was flying to Washington on Thursday to discuss military cooperation that might link U.S., Mexican and Canadian forces against terrorism in a way that NAFTA has linked North America' s economies.

The plan apparently is based on a U.S. Army War College report in 1999 that suggested a North American peacekeeping force that would be headquartered in the United States but include command posts that would rotate between Mexico and Canada.

"One of the programs the general will discuss in the United States is a continental command that would use the North American Free Trade Agreement as a basis," a Defense Department spokesman said. Department policy required him to speak on condition of anonymity.

The newspaper El Sol de Mexico reported on Tuesday that such talks were part of Vega's agenda and quoted U.S. officials as saying discussion of the idea was "a positive step."

Mexico has not committed to such a plan, which would imply a historic shift in the country's military policy. It would also face enormous domestic political opposition.

While Mexican pilots participated on the Allied side in World War II, the country since then has shied away from most multilateral military programs, refusing to let its soldiers serve in U.N. peacekeeping missions, for example.

Many Mexican politicians also remain profoundly wary of increasing ties to their powerful northern neighbor, particularly military ties.

"Trilateral initiatives have always been welcome in Mexico but our country cannot become a land of Rambo or Arnold Schwarzenegger," said Congressman Jaime Alcantara, a member of the lower house's Defense Commission.

Alcantara, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has a plurality in Congress, said that "Mexico does not intervene in the affairs of other countries and that is an important reason it has not suffered the terrorist attacks the United States and Canada want to guard against."

President Vicente Fox and his conservative National Action Party have worked to move Mexico toward greater cooperation with the United States on border security, free trade and migration concerns.

"The fight against terrorism is an international one and I think Mexico understands how important cooperation is," said National Action legislator Benjamin Mucino. "Any plan that will allow Mexico to work together with its neighbors is a step in the right direction."

But when Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda condemned the attacks of Sept. 11, Mexican lawmakers spent hours grilling him about the possibility Washington might force Mexico to send troops to Afghanistan.

"Mexico's people are not interested in building a command that will force Mexican soldiers to take orders from American soldiers," said Mucino, also a member of the lower house's Defense Commission.

"We do not have the military resources, the political interest or the public support to become a launch pad for U.S. and Canadian forces that want to keep watch on Central America, South America or anywhere else."

Mexico’s war against drug cartels continues. What began nearly two years ago with President Felipe Calderon’s inauguration has since escalated in nearly every way possible. The past 12 months, in particular, have seen some significant developments as a result of Calderon’s campaign. Weapons and drugs have been seized, key members of drug cartels have been arrested and greater cooperation has been established between Mexico and the United States. Despite the genuine hurdles presented by Mexico’s bureaucratic infighting and rampant corruption, there is simply no denying that the government has disrupted the cartels’ operations in meaningful ways.

One result of these achievements has been greater volatility in the balance of power among the various drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. During at least the past five years, the criminal environment had been characterized by bipolar domination, with the Gulf cartel on one hand and the Sinaloa cartel on the other. Mexico’s security forces’ relentless focus on the Gulf cartel has damaged the organization’s capabilities, leaving a vacuum of power that other cartels have sought to fill. It is still too early to determine which cartels will be left on top once the dust has settled, but what is clear is that this past year has been a year of flux for the cartels.

The year has also seen a shift in the geography of drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere, nearly all of which is attributable to the situation in Mexico. One of these shifts involves the increasing importance of Central America. After the Mexican government implemented greater monitoring and control of aircraft entering the country’s airspace, airborne shipments of cocaine from Colombia decreased by an estimated 95 percent. Maritime trafficking has decreased more than 60 percent. Consequently, Mexican traffickers have expanded their presence in Central American countries as they have begun to rely increasingly on land-based shipping routes to deliver drugs from South American producers. In addition -- and likely as a result of the more difficult operating environment -- Mexican drug trafficking groups have also increased their operations in South America to begin providing drugs to markets there and in Europe.

One apparent paradox for the Calderon administration has been that, even while the government has clearly succeeded in damaging the cartels, the country’s security situation has continued to deteriorate at what appears to be an unstoppable rate. The total number of drug-related homicides has continued to increase while the violence has continued to escalate in several ways, including high-level assassinations, beheadings, use of a growing arsenal of cartel weapons and the indiscriminate killing of civilians.

The deteriorating security situation certainly has the attention of the Calderon administration. The government is considering the implications of increasing casualties, not only among security forces but also among civilians. In addition, the initial strategy of relying on the military only over the short term appears increasingly unfeasible, as police reforms have proven far more difficult to achieve than the administration anticipated. Despite the costs, Calderon has shown no sign of letting up. Assistance from the United States will begin increasing as the Merida Initiative is implemented, but there is only so much that Washington can do given Mexico’s historic reluctance to allow the United States to establish a stronger security presence on its territory.

I have a friend that for years has been saying we should take over Mexico. I think it to be wrong morally. Just put troops on the border and keep the invaders out.

I used to live in El Paso. I read that there were 1600 murders in Juarez last year. Which is right across the border. I've been to Juarez a few times.

Because Los Federales have been caught escorting tons of smoke across the border, what would begin as a police action against civilian narco terrorists would ultimately become a war with Mexico.

And if Mexico started playing hardball, i.e. naming names of corrupt border officials who "streamline the delivery of product" or, seizing CIA aircraft (perhaps forcing them to land in Mexico with fighter jets) then The Company would have to act, and now we're in Nam all over again with The Phoenix Program and other "semi covert" actions plans that ultimately fail, but not before spilling a river of blood to show 'em, "Quien es El Patron?" (Who's the boss?)

That's exactly the MO we have used in the past, and I can see it happening now. Despite Richard's protestations, the place is an ungovernable mess, much to our delight. We need a reason to occupy Mexico and what better excuse than for the "safety of our children"? Mexico also offers some wonderful beaches, and has a nice supply of oil. The last time I looked, we import 25% of our oil from Mexico. This can't stand.

Christine, after everything that you have read about Iraq and Afganistan, do you need to see more than simply this?

In 2008, more people lost their lives in Mexico do to violence then were lost in the war torn countries of Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Sounds like a pretty good excuse to invade, does it not? Amazing, since I only live here, have relatives in the state police of Sonora, and speak the language, that nearly none of that appears here.

Most of the murders committed have occured in just three cities, where the war to control the access to America is concentrated. I would suspect that most of that is fueled by the CIA, and, is done so as an excuse to dupe dumb Americans as to why another invasion is neccessary.

because you live in Mexico, if you can find the time and are so inclined, i'd like for you to email the author and ask him to provide documentation for that assertion.

Mexico will also allow Cubans to fly over and move freely about, and you know what a severe irritant The Beard was and will continue to be with his hermano at the helm.

As one former musician pal put it, "Mexico has no govt. Just a flag and a phone number".

"Hello, Mexican Government, may I help you? El Presidente? Oh, he's in the de baño right now. Can I have him return your call?"

The greatest threat looming over America is the reemergence of third world diseases and those that have been eliminated here such as polio and leprosy, and many others (with names I cannot remember or pronounce) that we've never had here that have ghastly consequences.

Years ago during my militant "AR-15" days in CA I bought a copy of Soldier Of Fortune Magazine at the gun shop, and there was a very frightening article about the consequences of unchecked immigration. To drive the point home they published a photo of a Mujado who worked the salad bar at an upscale Chicago restaurant. He looked normal in his clean and starched white smock but when they showed his bare chest, well, starting just below the collar he was eaten up with wet leprosy!

I think of this every time I see an Azteca serving or handling food, and I won't even order or eat in those places. (I won't let darkies prepare my food, either. If I make eye contact with one in the kitchen I assume my food will be tainted, so I order something that's in a package or on display right out front.)

I rarely eat out for these very reasons. Here it's all college kids whose personal hygiene is waaaaaaaay below my standards. As for the colored and Aztec- looking folk, I do see some as cashiers. When given the option never choose one to check you out. Personal checks, drivers licenses, debit cards and basic math confuses them and thus their lines are always longer. Go white in these situations.

I'll get in a line of folks with a white cashier before going to a darkie with no one ahead of me.

And, you know the little details that experienced cashiers know such as how to type in a product code and weigh a bag of coffee beans?

No, it can not, and when there is something this grossly wrong in an article, that should send up every red flag that you need to see.

I did look for an Email location for the author, and did not turn one up. However, I did find this;

It is obvious from the tenor of the articles that this is an author that is tasked with generating hatred and a 'need' for the US to invade Mexico. Can anyone say, North American Union? Mexico is not willing to go along with all of the plans that include them; refusing is not an option, obviously.

Now, if you really want to see some facts about murders, look up Detroit, Washington, DC, Chicago, Baltimore and New York. Everyone in the 4um wants to climb on the band wagon, as usual, and mash Mexico, yet; (Washington, DC) experiencing 474 homicides in 1990.

Has that come down? Yes, but primarily because the crime was pushed out of DC _ (then known as the murder capital of the world) into nearby communities, where murder and property crimes are and have been on the rise for some time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/06/05/AR2008060503487.html

I really fail to see what everyone wants to talk about in Mexico. All you have to do is study the United States to get sick to your stomach.

Among developed nations, the United States has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[164] In 2007, there were 5.6 murders per 100,000 persons,[165] three times the rate in neighboring Canada.[166] The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 42% between 1991 and 1999, has been roughly steady since.[165] Gun ownership rights are the subject of contentious political debate.

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate[167] and total prison population[168] in the world. At the start of 2008, more than 2.3 million people were incarcerated, more than one in every 100 adults.[169] The current rate is about seven times the 1980 figure.[170] African American males are jailed at about six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.[167] In 2006, the U.S. incarceration rate was over three times the figure in Poland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.[171] The country's high rate of incarceration is largely due to sentencing and drug policies.[167][172]