Dog Brothers Public Forum

DBMA Espanol => Espanol Discussion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on June 10, 2005, 07:42:00 AM

Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 10, 2005, 07:42:00 AM
Abro este hilo para platicar temas de interes sobre Mexico.  

Veo en el periodico hoy que se mataron el nuevo jefe de policia de Nuevo Lardeo en su primer dia de trabajo , , ,
Title: Mexico
Post by: Anonymous on June 14, 2005, 01:10:00 PM
Disculpen por favor que lo siguiente sea en ingles , , ,

========================

TERRORISM BRIEF

Increasing Danger on the U.S.-Mexican Border
June 14, 2005 1730 GMT

Mexican President Vicente Fox ordered Mexican army troops and federal agents to detain all 700 officers of the Nuevo Laredo police force June 13 and assume policing duties in the town, just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas. The move, which came in response to a breakdown of law and order in the city, will be extended to other border towns, authorities said. It is indicative of the serious deterioration in the security situation along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Assailants killed Nuevo Laredo Police chief Alejandro Dominguez on June 8, just nine hours after he took over the job. Dominquez was not accompanied by a personal protection detail at the time, meaning he was either arrogant, naive about crime in the city, or under the protection of one of the city's criminal gangs who then betrayed him. One of Nuevo Laredo's many drug cartels might have killed him to make the statement that the cartels, not the police, control the city.

A federal investigation of Dominguez's killing caused tensions to rise
between federal officers and local police, and on June 10 shooting erupted
between the two groups, leaving a plainclothes federal agent wounded. In
Chihuahua city, capital of the border state of Chihuahua, three gunmen
assassinated the operations chief of police on June 13.

Corrupt police, growing anti-U.S. sentiment in Mexico and a war raging
between rival drug gangs have made the border increasingly dangerous for U.S. citizens and corporations. Mexican National Police reported 550
drug-related homicides in Mexico in the first five months of 2005, most of
them occurring in towns along the border. In Nuevo Laredo alone, more than 60 killings related to organized crime have occurred, seven police officers among them.

Nuevo Laredo is a battleground for several rival drug gangs, most notably
the Juarez Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, a cartel from western Sinaloa state,
and the Gulf Cartel from Matamoros. As the cartels battled over turf, they
have infiltrated Nuevo Laredo's police force and placed corrupt police
officers on their payrolls.

Growing anti-U.S. sentiment in Mexico, stoked by election-year rhetoric and negative publicity over a group of American vigilantes that organized its own border patrol in Arizona, also contributes to a dangerous situation for Americans on the border. To further complicate the situation, the so-called Minutemen are soon to expand their activities from Arizona into New Mexico and Texas.

In one sign of the increasing anti-U.S. sentiment, officials in the border
cities of Tijuana and Mexicali recently revoked permission for U.S.
corporations to bring U.S. security details into the country, saying
security must be provided by Mexicans. The city officials invoked a federal
law against such practices, although U.S. embassy officials who contacted
the Mexican government on behalf of U.S. corporations were unable to verify the existence of such a law. In any case, if the law does exist, it was not enforced before mid-May. Many U.S. firms with dealings in Mexico are now scrambling to find trustworthy Mexican companies to provide security for their personnel.

Few Mexican security firms, however, meet U.S. standards. These companies consist of former police officers or off-duty officers who possibly continue to maintain corrupt relationships with organized crime. At the same time, Mexico offers no reliable process for conducting background checks on these officers, suggesting that the only way to ensure reliable security is to develop a personal relationship with a local firm over time. In the meantime, U.S. corporate personnel are facing a higher risk of falling victim to crime in Mexico.

American tourists visiting U.S. border cities also are facing increased
threats. Dozens of reports have appeared over the past 18 months of U.S.
citizens going missing in Mexico during short trips across the border. With
the increase in activity by drug gangs, many of the missing likely ran afoul
of organized crime.  Mexican police so far have proven ineffective at solving the disappearances.

With drug wars raging on both sides of the border -- and law and order
broken down in Nuevo Laredo to the point in which the army has been sent in -- the U.S.-Mexican border has become a dangerous place.
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on June 15, 2005, 09:20:36 AM
Hola, esta es informaci?n del estado del Narco en M?xico, esta nota aparece en un diario de gran circulaci?n llamado la jornada, no apunte la fecha, pero es de la semana pasada:

Informe secreto de la PGR confirma que son los principales introductores de coca?na a EU
C?rteles mexicanos, lejos de ser desmantelados, se consolidan
 Existen en el pa?s al menos 100 bandas dedicadas al narcotr?fico; 85% operan en la frontera norte
ALFREDO MENDEZ ORTIZ
Al menos en los ?ltimos cinco a?os, los c?rteles mexicanos se han consolidado como los principales introductores de coca?na en el mercado estadunidense, se?ala la Procuradur?a General de la Rep?blica (PGR) a partir de informaci?n de las agencias Central de Inteligencia (CIA) y antidrogas (DEA) de Estados Unidos.
Asimismo, agrega que en el pa?s existen al menos 100 bandas y grupos dedicados al narcotr?fico, 85 por ciento de los cuales operan en la frontera norte, y que entre las principales organizaciones delictivas destacan los c?rteles de Ciudad Ju?rez, Sinaloa, Tijuana, del Golfo y del Milenio, as? como otros de menor ''impacto delictivo'', los cuales b?sicamente operan en el centro y sur del pa?s y se dedican a fomentar el consumo y distribuci?n de drogas entre j?venes y ni?os.
Pr?xima reuni?n de procuradores
De acuerdo con un informe de la PGR sobre la situaci?n actual de la delincuencia organizada en M?xico, elaborado a petici?n del nuevo procurador, Daniel Cabeza de Vaca, la dependencia federal busca reforzar los v?nculos de colaboraci?n con autoridades de inteligencia de Estados Unidos.
Una de las finalidades de la PGR es elaborar ''estrategias espec?ficas contra el crimen organizado'', y enfrentar con ellas la ola de violencia que ha aumentado considerablemente en territorio mexicano en lo que va de este a?o.
Adem?s -refiere el documento al que tuvo acceso La Jornada-, en los pr?ximos d?as M?xico y Estados Unidos fijar?n la fecha para una reuni?n entre sus procuradores (Daniel Cabeza de Vaca y Alberto R. Gonzales, respectivamente), a partir de la cual se pondr? de manifiesto la intenci?n de las autoridades federales de nuestro pa?s (PGR y Secretar?a de Seguridad P?blica) de obtener el apoyo necesario para combatir al narcotr?fico.
Otro de los fines buscados por la dependencia federal es incrementar la cercan?a con autoridades policiacas y de procuraci?n de justicia estatales y municipales, lo que permitir? profundizar los alcances del combate contra los narcotraficantes.
El informe refiere que la PGR tiene registro de que los c?rteles mexicanos, lejos de ser desmantelados, se han consolidado como los principales introductores de coca?na en el mercado estadunidense. Por lo menos esto ha ocurrido desde finales de 1999, de acuerdo con reportes de la DEA y la CIA.
La informaci?n precisa que en el vecino pa?s b?sicamente existen seis zonas por las que se trasladan de manera cotidiana diversos vol?menes de coca?na, cuatro de las cuales est?n dominadas por grupos delictivos que operan en M?xico, en tanto que los otros dos son compartidos por c?rteles de Colombia, Rep?blica Dominicana y Hait?.
Seg?n el documento, de car?cter confidencial, en M?xico existen al menos 100 c?rteles, y 85 por ciento operan en la frontera norte. Entre las principales organizaciones delictivas destacan los c?rteles de Ciudad Ju?rez, Sinaloa, Tijuana, del Golfo y del Milenio, as? como algunos de menor importancia que operan en el centro y sur del pa?s, conformados por pocos integrantes.
Las organizaciones menos importantes est?n dedicadas principalmente al narcomenudeo y recepci?n de coca?na procedente de Centroam?rica.
Por otra parte, funcionarios de la PGR consultados por este diario indicaron que Jos? Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, titular de la Subprocuradur?a de Investigaci?n Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada (SIEDO), recibi? la instrucci?n del nuevo procurador de ''reforzar'' el combate al narcotr?fico, y para ello le pidi? ''estrechar v?nculos con las fuerzas armadas, as? como con autoridades de Estados Unidos''.
El pasado viernes Vasconcelos acudi? a Washington para reunirse con autoridades de la DEA y de la CIA, a fin de acordar los canales de cooperaci?n e incrementar el intercambio de informaci?n.
Asimismo, las fuentes consultadas refirieron que durante las reuniones recientes entre Cabeza de Vaca y Vasconcelos, ?ste inform? a su superior que la lucha contra el crimen organizado se efect?a en dos v?as: la primera, combatiendo las c?lulas de delincuentes que fomentan el narcomenudeo e inducen a adolescentes y ni?os a dedicarse a la distribuci?n y consumo de estupefacientes. La segunda, identificando y persiguiendo a los l?deres o cabezas de los c?rteles, y que incluso tienen v?nculos con grupos delictivos de otras naciones.
Adem?s, el nuevo procurador le manifest? a Vasconcelos su ''gran preocupaci?n'' por el reciente incremento en el n?mero de ejecuciones perpetradas a nivel nacional, entre cuyas v?ctimas se encuentran servidores p?blicos y periodistas. Ayer este diario document? que, durante la semana pasada, se cometieron 29 asesinatos vinculados al crimen organizado, siete de los cuales ocurrieron el s?bado, y provocaron la muerte de dos estudiantes y un agente de la Polic?a Federal Preventiva (PFP).
De acuerdo con el informe de la PGR, tanto la recomposici?n de los c?rteles como el incremento en las ejecuciones a nivel nacional se deben al ''combate frontal'' y ''acciones constantes'' de la dependencia en contra de los integrantes de grupos delictivos.
Entre estas acciones destacan detenciones de diversos capos del narcotr?fico, como Osiel C?rdenas Guill?n, l?der del c?rtel del Golfo, y Armando Valencia Cornelio, El Juanito, uno de los pilares del c?rtel del Milenio, que encabezan los hermanos Valencia.
Sin embargo, la dependencia reconoce, aunque no de manera oficial, que pese a que se ha detenido a miembros de varios grupos delictivos 'importantes a nivel nacional'', eso ha provocado la ''conformaci?n de c?lulas'' que han hecho m?s complejo el combate al narcotr?fico.
Entre las asignaturas pendientes en la procuradur?a destaca la ubicaci?n y captura de varios capos que enfrentan ?rdenes de aprehensi?n o que se fugaron de alg?n penal federal o local, entre los cuales uno de los m?s sonados es Joaqu?n Guzm?n Loera, El Chapo, libre para operar el c?rtel de Sinaloa, tras fugarse en enero de 2001 del penal de Puente Grande, en Jalisco.
Del c?rtel de Ju?rez se encuentran pr?fugos Vicente Carrillo Fuentes y Vicente Carrillo Leyva, sus l?deres principales, as? como varios sicarios y operadores financieros. Del de Tijuana, Francisco Javier Arellano F?lix, El Tigrillo, de quien se dice actualmente encabeza el grupo delictivo. Del c?rtel del Golfo, Juan Manuel Garza Rend?n, uno de los operadores de Osiel C?rdenas Guill?n.
Una de las metas de la PGR al reforzar los v?nculos de cooperaci?n e intercambio de informaci?n entre autoridades de M?xico y Estados Unidos es que el pa?s cuente con polic?as federales especializados en el combate al narcotr?fico.
Polic?as de elite
Derivado de lo anterior, al menos 10 integrantes de la AFI, que fueron entrenados por la DEA y por la polic?a espa?ola, se encuentran en Coahuila y Sonora desde el mes pasado para enfrentar el resurgimiento de ejecuciones y actividades ligadas al crimen organizado. Esta acci?n, dijo la dependencia federal, es s?lo el inicio de lo que se planea hacer durante los pr?ximos meses en los estados con gran presencia de narcotraficantes, como Chihuahua, Nuevo Le?n, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Colima, Michoac?n, Yucat?n y Quintana Roo.
La informaci?n obtenida por este diario revela que, adem?s de la regi?n norte de M?xico, existe entre las autoridades federales la preocupaci?n por un posible ''calentamiento'' en la zona sur-sureste, por la presencia de bandas que pretenden asumir el control del narcotr?fico, principalmente en el Caribe y en la pen?nsula de Yucat?n.
Asimismo se ha documentado que por esa regi?n ingresa aproximadamente 66 por ciento del total de la coca?na que despu?s es trasladada por territorio mexicano a Estados Unidos.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Anonymous on June 28, 2005, 05:07:33 PM
Gracias por ese articulo interesante.  Ahora he aqui otro en ingles.  :oops:
===================

Mexico: Fox's Uphill Battle to Win the Drug War
Summary

Mexican President Vicente Fox recently deployed some 1,500 soldiers and federal police agents to Nuevo Laredo and seven other lawless cities in an operation that will be expanded in coming weeks to other parts of Mexico. However, the Fox government's "Operation Safe Mexico" will fail to dismantle Mexico's powerful drug cartels or contain escalating violence associated with rival drug-trafficking organizations' permanent efforts to rule Mexico's $50 billion-a-year illegal-drug industry. Moreover, an emerging crack-cocaine epidemic will drive Mexico's crime rates sharply higher in coming years.

Analysis

The government of Mexican President Vicente Fox recently launched "Operation Safe Mexico," deploying more than 1,500 army soldiers and federal police agents June 13 to the northern cities of Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Reynosa, Culiacan, Mazatlan, Mexicali and Tijuana to confront drug crime.

Mexico's crime-related national security crisis will be the biggest political issue in the country during Fox's final year in power until presidential elections scheduled for July 2, 2006, and will have a spillover effect on U.S. states bordering Mexico. Complicating things for Mexico, the crisis will intensify during a period in which Mexican economic growth will be slowing. In the face of these challenges, Fox's efforts to stymie the drug trade and its associated violence will fall short and will be complicated by an emerging crack-cocaine epidemic.

Fox initially deployed troops in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Baja California, Sinaloa and Sonora. Officials with the Mexican Attorney General's office, however, said deployments soon would expand to the state of Mexico, Mexico City (the federal district) and several states in southern Mexico, reportedly including Chiapas, Guerrero and Yucatan.

A presidential spokesman described Operation Safe Mexico as a two-pronged initiative. One part of the plan calls for aggressive deployments of troops and federal agents to secure cities with roadblocks, accompanied by vehicle searches and heavily armed patrols intended to suppress criminal activities. The second part calls for wholesale purges of corrupt police at the local, state and federal level. Thousands of police officers likely will be fired in the purge. While Mexican Foreign Ministry spokesmen routinely dismiss U.S. criticism of Mexico's security problems as an unwelcome intrusion in Mexican affairs, a spokesman for the Attorney General's office acknowledged recently that drug traffickers have corrupted and penetrated practically every local and state law enforcement agency in northern Mexico. The corruption also extends to federal police, generally afflicting law enforcement across the country.

At least seven major Mexican drug-trafficking organizations operate along the U.S.-Mexican border. Fox launched Operation Safe Mexico to end a vicious war between these rival drug cartels that began in 2003 after the dismantling of the Tijuana cartel upon the death and arrest of the cartel's two top leaders, Ramon and Benjamin Arellano-Felix. The chief combatants in this cartel war include Osiel Cardenas, the jailed leader of the Gulf cartel who is battling an alliance of drug traffickers that includes Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Juan Jose "El Azul" Esparragoza.

Mexican federal anti-drug officials estimate that close to 1,500 people have been killed in the cartel war since 2003. During roughly the same period, about 1,750 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. Since the beginning of 2005, Mexican police agencies have tallied more than 600 killings related to the war between the rival cartels. Human rights groups, on the other hand, estimate the warring cartels have killed close to 900 people in the first six months of 2005.

Cardenas and the Gulf cartel control the drug trade in northeastern Mexico, which is headquartered in Nuevo Laredo. Cardenas also is trying to seize control of drug-trafficking routes and activities in Baja California and Sinaloa, controlled until 2003 by the Arellano-Felix family's Tijuana cartel. However, Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel and his associates Zambada and Esparragoza oppose Cardenas' bid for control of Baja California and Sinaloa. This group, the Sinaloa alliance -- also known as "the federation" by some Mexican police officials -- in turn is trying to wrest control of Nuevo Laredo's drug trade from Cardenas and the Gulf cartel.

Nuevo Laredo and Tijuana represent the strategic prizes in Mexico's drug-cartel wars. The U.S.-Mexican border crossing at Laredo-Nuevo Laredo accounts for 38 percent of total U.S.-Mexican trade. More than 10,000 trucks and 1,200 rail cars per day cross the four bridges joining Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in both directions. Tijuana ranks No. 2 in terms of cargo volume and cross-border traffic after Nuevo Laredo. There are close to 2,000 transportation and customs-brokerage companies between Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo. Whichever drug cartel controls these cities, including their local police forces, controls the Mexican drug-trafficking industry along the entire U.S.-Mexican border.

The impact of Mexico's security crisis over the coming year on U.S. states such as Texas and California that border Mexico will be greater. The resources of local law enforcement in U.S. communities and counties abutting the U.S.-Mexican border will come under increasing strain by Mexican drug-related violence that spills into U.S. territory. The integrity of local U.S. law enforcement in the border area also will face an increasing challenge from Mexican drug traffickers seeking to corrupt police in the United States, just as they have done with Mexican police.

Mexico's security crisis and election-year uncertainties also will cause foreign companies to postpone or cancel investment projects in Mexico over the coming year. Such fallout will come along the lines of Toyota Motor Corp.'s recent cancellation of a $445 million project in northern Mexico because of security concerns. Instead, the Japanese automaker will build its new factory, employing 1,500 people, in Ontario.

Mexico's crime-related security crisis will continue to increase over the coming year before the scheduled July 2, 2006, presidential elections for several reasons. First, the Fox government does not have the law enforcement resources to battle an illegal narcotics industry that produces more revenue than oil exports. Mexico's illegal drug trade generated more than $50 billion in revenue in 2004 for the country's drug cartels, while oil exports the same year totaled slightly more than $21 billion. These totals afford Mexican drug barons the firepower and cash flow to kill and corrupt law enforcement.

Second, Fox lacks the political capital to persuade the Mexican Congress to pass tougher anti-crime legislation and to earmark substantial funding to expand the country's law-enforcement agencies. Opposition parties in Congress already are criticizing Operation Safe Mexico as an illegal security initiative because army troops are stopping and searching vehicles at random -- without probable cause or legal search warrants.

Economic need represents a third reason why Mexico's crime-related security crisis will intensify. The economy's growth is slowing in 2005 as a result of slowing U.S. growth, higher U.S. interest rates, competition from China and a Mexican regulatory environment that discourages some foreign investment. Some Mexican economists estimate that fewer than 2 million Mexicans in a country with more than 100 million inhabitants earn more than $1,000 a month. Sluggish economic growth and high poverty rates assure a steady supply of new recruits into the Mexican drug-trafficking industry.

The cartel wars between Cardenas and his rivals from Sinaloa will continue until one side kills off the other side and absorbs its drug trafficking operations. This process could take another year or two before the body counts in Tamaulipas, Baja California and Sinaloa drop.

Making matters worse for Mexico, the nation also is in the early stages of a crack-cocaine epidemic that could last a decade, and could be more violent than the U.S. crack epidemic of the 1980s. Crack is powerfully addictive, and crimes such as armed robbery, assault, carjackings and murder will increase in many Mexican cities as the country's crack epidemic gains momentum.

Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
Title: Narcotr?fico
Post by: 9-terremoto on June 29, 2005, 10:14:53 AM
Hola todos.

Duro hablar del narcotr?fico en M?xico y USA, pues esto implica hablar de corrupci?n. Obviamente, los due?os del negocio tienen suficiente dinero para repartir a las autoridades y cada qui?n trata de hacer su agosto (ayer volvi? a reportarse un "error" de ?una tonelada! en el conteo de una carga de coca).

Independientemente de las luchas por el poder, por ah? esciribi? William Burroughs, el escritor adicto, por lo menos durante 20 a?os, a drogas "duras", palabras m?s, palabras menos, que es fantasiosos creer que se acabar? con el narcotr?fico atacando s?lo a los narcotraficantes, pues mientras exista alguien dispuesto a hacer LO QUE SEA por una dosis, el narcotr?fico continuar?.

Gracias
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 07, 2005, 04:28:06 PM
Un "amigo de internet" se ha escrito:

Hi Guys

I've been asked to prepare a risk/threat assessment for a visit to Mexico by a client. Not the capital or any of the major cities, just the tourist spots (Cancun,Xcaret, Tulum, Riviera regions, etc).
I am working on the major details, but just wondered if anyone here had "hard" information/experiences regarding crime levels (both organised gangs and street attacks) as well as no-go areas at these destinations.

Also what is the status regarding personal weapons carry (knife, asp, etc) in Mexico - any ideas.

Any information would be greatly appreciated and a real big help. Thanks in advance.


?Alguien aqui se le puede ayudar?
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 11, 2005, 10:15:41 PM
!Hijole!  !Otra vez en ingles!  Comentarios?
==========================


Mexico: The New Generation of 'Revolutionary' Militants
July 11, 2005 20 04  GMT



Summary

A faction of the Mexican militant group Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) has claimed responsibility for the July 7 killing in Acapulco of Jose Ruben Robles Catalan, former secretary of Guerrero state. The faction, which appears to be a younger, more militant EPR offshoot, is out to make a name for itself.

Analysis

The Nation is First (LPEP) faction of Mexico's Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) took responsibility July 11 for the assassination of Jose Ruben Robles Catalan, a former Guerrero state secretary who was shot nine times outside an Acapulco hotel July 7. The group also said it would continue to target those it believes were responsible for the 1995 deaths of 17 farmers in the Guerrero town of Aguas Blancas. Former Gov. Ruben Figueroa, prosecutor Antonio Alcocer, police chief Gustavo Olea and Figueroa's political ally Hector Vicario Castrejon were specifically named as targets.

Founded in 1964, the EPR remained a low-level threat in Guerrero until the mid-1990s, when the Aguas Blancas massacre and other violence in Guerrero provoked expanded recruitment efforts by a new generation of EPR militants to bring more radical members into the fold. Since the EPR resurfaced, its main tactics have been sporadic drive-by shootings or grenades tossed at police stations, mostly around the Acapulco tourist area. One such incident occurred as recently as June 28, the 10th anniversary of the Aguas Blancas incident. The appearance of the LPEP faction and its new tactics nine days after such a lackluster anniversary attack suggests that not everyone in the EPR is content with the group's current status.

The EPR fissure most likely divides the old-guard leadership, whose members are now in their mid- to late-50s, and a generation of fighters in their 20s who joined during Mexico's political turmoil in the 1990s. The LPEP -- which takes its name from a quote by Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's second president and namesake of the state -- likely is controlled by the younger generation. This faction will seek to first increase the capabilities and notoriety of the EPR within Guerrero and other southern Mexican states such as Oaxaca and Chiapas in hopes of making the group a force across Mexico. The group also likely will try to raise its profile in Mexico state and the federal district surrounding Mexico City.

Should the EPR-LPEP manage to kill other targets, the Mexican army likely will crack down in Guerrero, and possibly Oaxaca and Chiapas. This could generate more political violence in Mexico's poor south and alienate other armed opposition groups throughout the area, such as the Zapatista National Liberation Army in Chiapas. Regional destabilization on that scale could indeed be an EPR objective.

The killing of Robles Catalan, however, does not indicate that the EPR is capable of significantly threatening Mexican security. Although there were reports in December 2004 that the EPR had been agitating Mexico City slum residents to participate in a larger, countrywide campaign of militancy, Stratfor has said, and continues to believe, that the EPR poses no credible threat to the capital. The increasing violence of the LPEP faction should warrant more precaution from foreign tourists, however, just in case the EPR-LPEP begins kidnapping people for political reasons.

If the LPEP is successful in assassinating another one of its targets, it could garner enough publicity to more effectively expand its operations, perhaps even to establish a base in Mexico City. Until then, however, the EPR and its factions will remain a localized threat within Guerrero, mainly to Figueroa and his old partners.
==========

y, desde Diciembre

======

The Real Threat of Violence in Mexico City
December 27, 2004 15 45  GMT



Summary

Mexico City's governor has discredited an intelligence report allegedly written by his public security chief that links a small militant group from Guerrero state to crimes in the capital. Although the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) militant group exists, and may be proselytizing politically in Mexico City's slums, the group does not have the urban tactical capabilities to engage in politically motivated violence. Mexico City residents and visitors face far greater threats from ordinary criminals and corrupt cops than from EPR militants.

Analysis

Mexican Federal District Gov. Manuel Lopez Obrador has denied a report in the Mexico City daily Reforma that says cells of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) militant group are operating in Mexico City, saying there is "no evidence" of such activity. Separately, Public Security Secretary Joel Ortega denied that his office had written a 21-page report -- on which the Reforma article allegedly was based -- claiming that the EPR is actively recruiting and raising funds in Mexico City's poor slums, and has staged bank robberies and kidnappings in the capital. Federal District chief prosecutor Bernardo Batiz said "not a single crime" in Mexico City has been attributed to the EPR.

Lopez Obrador, Ortega and Batiz stopped short of claiming the Reforma report is false. Reforma managing editors said the newspaper stands by its Dec. 22 report. It is possible that the alleged report is, in fact, a real official document prepared in secret by the federal district's public security secretariat. However, its assertion that the EPR is involved in violent criminal activities in the state of Mexico and the federal district likely is inaccurate. EPR forces do not directly threaten residents and visitors in Mexico City. The real threat of violent crime comes from ordinary criminals, professional kidnappers and bank robbers that flourish thanks to the incapacity of an inefficient, undermanned, poorly commanded and frequently corrupt police force.

The alleged Public Security Secretariat document reportedly was prepared several days after two undercover police officers were beaten and burned to death in a poor Mexico City neighborhood by an angry mob that mistook the police officers for child kidnappers. The report makes no mention of this particular incident, although some news media had hinted that police officers in the area had the EPR under surveillance in the area at the time.

According to Reforma, the report states that the EPR's presence has been detected in eight Federal District municipalities and seven municipalities in the state of Mexico. The Federal District municipalities reportedly include Iztapalapa, Gustavo Madero, Xochimilco, Alvaro Obregon, Tlalpan, Magdalena Contreras, Cuajimalpa and also Tlahualc, where the two police officials were murdered Nov. 23. The Mexico state municipalities are Nezahualcoyotl, Ecatepec, Naucalpan, Tlalnepantla, Ixtapaluca, Chimalhuacan and Los Reyes.

The report also states that the EPR is raising funds by carrying out ransom kidnappings and bank robberies in the Federal District. However, Batiz emphatically dismissed any connection between the EPR and crimes such as kidnapping and bank robbery in Mexico City. These crimes, he said, involve "common criminals that start hijacking vehicles, assaulting people and then ascend to kidnapping. We have not found any link between these crimes and any armed guerrilla groups.

Lopez Obrador and his leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) are seen as leading contenders to win the presidency of Mexico in the 2006 national elections. President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN) and the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have a strong interest in undermining Lopez Obrador's electoral prospects. Between now and the 2006 elections both the PAN and PRI repeatedly will seek to bring Lopez Obrador's political star down by linking him to corruption or portraying him as a weak leader. Confirming the EPR's active presence in the federal district could be pitched as a sign of weakness that renders Lopez Obrador unfit for the presidency. This may explain why Lopez Obrador led the charge to discredit and dismiss the alleged report prepared by his own public security chief.

The EPR is the military wing of the Democratic Popular Revolutionary Party (PDPR), a small regional militant organization based in the southern state of Guerrero. The EPR officially announced its existence in June 1996 in the community of Aguas Blancas in Guerrero, where it declared war against the country's ruling economic and political elites and called for an armed Marxist-Leninist revolution and the creation of a centrally planned socialist state. However, the EPR is not a new revolutionary movement in Mexico.

The EPR was originally founded in 1964 in Guerrero, during the early years of the Cuban Revolution. It initially emerged as an armed response by poor landless peasants against wealthy local landowners and politicians in Guerrero state. However, although the EPR has killed close to two dozen people since mid-1996 and has conducted small-scale attacks in several southern and central states against military and police outposts, public buildings and power stations, it has never threatened Mexican national security.

The EPR mainly is a very low-level threat in Guerrero state, where its armed actions have involved local landowners and political strongmen with ties to the opposition PRI, which ruled the country for seven decades until Fox became president in 2000. Its presence in such activities has been detected in at least eight states since 1996. This means it is possible that EPR activists are proselytizing politically in poor Mexico City slums. The group has been seeking for years to establish a political presence inside the country's capital region.

However, the EPR does not currently have the manpower, weaponry, organization and tactical capability to conduct offensive operations against targets in Mexico City. It is even less likely that EPR cells are engaged in bank robberies and ransom kidnappings in the country's capital. Federal and local law enforcement officials in the Mexico state and the federal district are certain that professional criminals -- not armed political militants -- perpetrate the frequent kidnappings and bank robberies in Mexico City. These officials point out that the EPR is a rural-based insurgency, not an urban militant group. Stratfor agrees.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty Dog on July 30, 2005, 09:07:32 AM
Otra vez in ingles :oops:  

?Comentarios?

La puerta siempre esta' abierta para articulos en espanol.
---------------------------------------------------------

U.S. shuts consulate in chaotic Mexican border city Sat Jul 30,12:43 AM ET
 


NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - The United States is closing temporarily its consulate in this lawless Mexican border city after rival drug gangs clashed with bazookas, hand grenades and heavy machine-gun fire.

 
"A violent battle involving unusually advanced weaponry took place between armed criminal factions last night in Nuevo Laredo," U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza said on Friday.

He said he was ordering the consulate in Nuevo Laredo closed for all of next week and would only reopen it if the security situation improved.

Garza called on Mexico to swiftly bring the situation under control.

Mexico reacted angrily to Garza's words, saying both countries shared a responsibility to fight drug crime.

"Repeated public statements by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico about the border situation in no way help bilateral efforts to end border crime," the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The latest battle erupted late on Thursday when about 30 masked gunmen opened fire on a suspected drug-cartel safe house in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas, blasting off its doors and strafing the facade with bullets.

Police and witnesses said six men trapped in the house returned fire in a gun battle that raged for 20 minutes, littering the street with spent cartridges and sending neighbors diving for cover, although no one was killed.

"I grabbed my daughter tight ... and we hid under the bed until the explosions stopped," said one neighbor, who identified himself as Carlos.

Nuevo Laredo is a key trade hub but it is also gripped by warring drug cartels seeking control of lucrative cocaine, marijuana and amphetamine smuggling routes.

Dozens of people, including 18 police officers, have been murdered here this year in a war between well-armed gangs from western Sinaloa state and the local Gulf cartel.

The State Department has this year repeatedly warned American citizens not to travel to Nuevo Laredo, a city of 330,000 people that has long been notorious for drug crime and kidnappings.

Public order lurched to new lows in early June when gunmen shot and killed the city's new police chief just hours after he was sworn into office.

The government then sent troops and federal police to take over Nuevo Laredo, and the city's entire local police force was suspended for investigations into links with the drug barons.

Despite the heavy presence of army troops, more than 20 people have since been shot dead.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Anonymous on August 01, 2005, 11:38:21 AM
Ausencia de investigaci?n.

El problema de inseguridad en M?xico seg?n varios analistas, radica en la ausencia total de un proceso de investigaci?n , la instancia encargada de realizarla a nivel federal es la Proci?uradur?a General de la Rep?blica (PGR) y a nivel local (por estados) la Procuraduria General de Justicia (PGJ), ambas generalmente se dedican a acciones contestatarias y de disuasi?n (labor indicada para los policas vestidos de azul), en el mejor de los casos y de extorsi?n en el peor. Incluso en los recientes "operativos " en Tamaulipas, donde participa el ejercito, la AFI. las corporaciones mensionadas, la PFP, etc la presencia solo es disuasoria y no hay investigaci?n; ademas se origina el fenomeno de cucaracha y las operaciones ilegales se trasladan a otro sitio.

La prueba de la ausencia de investigaci?n es la reciente liberaci?n del hermano del expresidente Salinas (por falta de pruebas) y la orden de una Magistrada de suspensi?n del proceso de Echeverria. Los analistas opinan que estas personas al tener acceso a abogados pueden aprovechar los "huecos" en la presentaci?n de pruebas de la fiscal?a y pueden salir a pesar de lo fraglante de los delitos. Los ?nicos que recienten el estado de derecho son los ladrones comunes (en 1998 fu? muy sonado el caso de un robo de un pollo rostizado, unas papas y una soda que se castg? con cerca de 5 a?os de prisi?n).

Por ?ltimo mensionaron que "el ataque a solo una organizaci?n criminal crea vacios de poder que van a ser ocupados por otras organizaciones criminales con la consiguiente violencia"
Title: Mexico
Post by: mauricio on August 02, 2005, 10:13:53 AM
  La violencia en Tamaulipas traspas? la franja entre M?xico y EU, dice DEA

Francisco Sandoval

     La violencia que se vive en el municipio de Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, ha traspasado la franja fronteriza que divide a M?xico y Estados Unidos, revelan informes oficiales de la Agencia Antidrogas de los Estados Unidos (DEA, por sus siglas en ingl?s).
De acuerdo con el ?ltimo informe de la dependencia, la situaci?n que impera en localidades como Ciudad Ju?rez, Chihuahua, y Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, ha provocado que los c?rteles del narcotr?fico no solo contin?en con el trasiego masivo de droga hac?a Estados Unidos, sino que utilicen ciudades como El Paso, Texas, para almacenar este tipo de sustancias.
Los informes de la DEA, incluso, se?alan que esa zona del pa?s es ?vital? para los capos del narcotr?fico mexicanos, colombianos y dominicanos que operan en territorio nacional, pues su ubicaci?n y cercan?a con Estados Unidos , otorga una ?ventaja natural? para la distribuci?n de droga a lo largo del territorio estadunidense.
En ese sentido, la Agencia Antidrogas precisa que el oeste de Texas sirve como ?entrada? de las distintas organizaciones criminales que pasan las drogas al vecino pa?s, y que tienen como destino final las ciudades m?s importantes de la Uni?n Americana.
Precisan que la frontera entre Texas y M?xico abarca mil 252 kil?metros de largo, lo que representa el 40 por ciento de la franja que divide a ambos pa?ses.
Por esa zona las organizaciones mexicanas utilizan las carreteras este/ oeste y norte/sur que se entrecruzan con la divisi?n de la ciudad de El Paso, Texas, lo que permite a los capos trasladarse de un estado a otro, sin mucho riesgo de ser aprehendidos.
Reconocen adem?s que los c?rteles utilizan construcciones y edificios en la ciudad de El Paso, Texas, para almacenar y esconder la droga, y posteriormente, con la ayuda de sus distribuidores, transportarla v?a terrestre y a?rea a los destinos programados.
A su vez, la DEA reconoce que peque?as empresas de El Paso, Texas, tambi?n son utilizadas para ?lavar? cantidades significativas de dinero, producto del narcotr?fico.
Para realizar las acciones de vigilancia, en los 54 condados de Texas que colindan con nuestro pa?s, la DEA ha destinado a 117 agentes que detecten y combatan el trasiego y proliferaci?n de los capos mexicanos en territorio estadunidense.
De tal suerte, los agentes federales tienen como prioridad trabajar en tareas de investigaci?n en 80 puntos que son considerados como territorios clave para el tr?fico de la droga. Varios de ellos colindantes con las ramificaciones del r?o Bravo.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 02, 2005, 10:21:12 AM
Guau:

Muchisimas gracias por los articulos con procedencia de Mexico compartidos aqui.  Lamento que otra vez poner otro en ingles.  Si alguien tiene programa de traduccion, se le agradeceria mucho su traduccion por los quienes no leen el ingles.

Tambien lamento no tener tiempo en este momento para ofrecer mis pensamientos sobre estos graves acontecimientos, pero cuando yo tenga el tiempo para hacerlo, si' lo hare.

Crafty Dog
==============

http://www.washtimes.com/national/2...22047-2623r.htm

Mexican mercenaries expand base into U.S.

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 1, 2005


A renegade band of Mexican military deserters, offering $50,000 bounties for the assassination of U.S. law-enforcement officers, has expanded its base of operations into the United States to protect loads of cocaine and marijuana being brought into America by Mexican smugglers, authorities said.
The deserters, known as the "Zetas," trained in the United States as an elite force of anti-drug commandos, but have since signed on as mercenaries for Mexican narcotics traffickers and have recruited an army of followers, many of whom are believed to be operating in Texas, Arizona, California and Florida.
Working mainly for the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico's most dangerous drug-trafficking organizations, as many as 200 Zeta members are thought to be involved, including former Mexican federal, state and local police. They are suspected in more than 90 deaths of rival gang members and others, including police officers, in the past two years in a violent drug war to control U.S. smuggling routes.
The organization's hub, law-enforcement authorities said, is Nuevo Laredo, a border city of 300,000 across from Laredo, Texas. It is the most active port-of-entry along the U.S.-Mexico border, with more than 6,000 trucks crossing daily into Texas, carrying about 40 percent of Mexico's total exports.
Authorities said the Zetas control the city despite efforts by Mexican President Vicente Fox to restore order. He sent hundreds of Mexican troops and federal agents to the city in March to set up highway checkpoints and conduct raids on suspected Zeta locations.
Despite the presence of law enforcement, more than 100 killings have occurred in the city since Jan. 1, including that of former Police Chief Alejandro Dominguez, 52, gunned down June 8, just seven hours after he was sworn in. The city's new chief, Omar Pimentel, 37, escaped death during a drive-by shooting on his first day, although one of his bodyguards was killed.
Authorities said the Zetas operate over a wide area of the U.S.-Mexico border and are suspected in at least three drug-related slayings in the Dallas area. They said as many as 10 Zeta members are operating inside Texas as Gulf Cartel assassins, seeking to protect nearly $10 million in daily drug transactions.
In March, the Justice Department said the Zetas were involved "in multiple assaults and are believed to have hired criminal gangs" in the Dallas area for contract killings. The department said the organization was spreading from Texas to California and Florida and was establishing drug-trafficking routes it was willing to protect "at any cost."
Just last month, the department issued a new warning to law-enforcement authorities in Arizona and California, urging them to be on the lookout for Zeta members. An intelligence bulletin said a search for new drug-smuggling routes in the two states by the organization could bring new violence to the areas.
The number of assaults on U.S. Border Patrol agents along the 260 miles of U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona known as the Tucson sector has increased dramatically this year, including a May 30 shooting near Nogales, Ariz., in which two agents were seriously wounded during an ambush a mile north of the border.
Their assailants were dressed in black commando-type clothing, used high-powered weapons and hand-held radios to point out the agents' location, and withdrew from the area using military-style cover and concealment tactics to escape back into Mexico.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada in Nogales said his investigators found commando clothing, food, water and other "sophisticated equipment" at the ambush site.
Since Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year, there have been 196 assaults on Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector, including 24 shootings. During the same period last year, 92 assaults were reported, with five shootings. The sector is the busiest alien- and drug-trafficking corridor in the country.
U.S. intelligence officials have described the Zetas as an expanding gang of mercenaries with intimate knowledge of Mexican drug-trafficking methods and routes. Strategic Forecasting Inc., a security consulting firm that often works with the State and Defense departments, said in a recent report the Zetas had maintained "connections to the Mexican law-enforcement establishment" to gain unfettered access throughout the southern border.
Many of the Zeta leaders belonged to an elite anti-drug paratroop and intelligence battalion known as the Special Air Mobile Force Group, who deserted in 1991 and aligned themselves with drug traffickers.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Anonymous on August 11, 2005, 03:42:29 PM
!Hijole! !Otra vez en ingles!  

============================

Mexico: Lopez Obrador and the Attack from the Left
August 11, 2005 13 44  GMT



Summary

Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), came out of hiding Aug. 6 to condemn left-wing presidential candidate Andres Lopez Obrador and his Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). Marcos urged Mexico's left to join the EZLN in a new political alliance. Some PRD officials claim that Marcos has made secret alliances with PRD foes -- though Marcos' remarks more likely reflect an effort by Mexico's radical left to raise its public profile at the expense of what many Mexicans perceive as the moderate left.

Analysis

Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expected until Aug. 6 to easily win his country's 2006 presidential election. On that date, however, Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), appeared publicly in Chiapas for the first time since April 2001 to denounce Lopez Obrador and his left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), calling them "scoundrels and traitors."

Marcos also called for the Mexican left to choose whether to support the PRD or the "new" left-wing political movement consisting of strategic and electoral alliances with the EZLN. "If you are with (the PRD)," Marcos said, "then you are not with us." The Zapatista leader's condemnation of Lopez Obrador and the PRD stunned the candidate's supporters and senior party officials. Without the EZLN's explicit endorsement and the accompanying votes of millions of Mexicans who support the Zapatistas, Lopez Obrador's chances of winning the 2006 presidential election could decline significantly.

Some PRD leaders dismissed the "traitor" label because there has never been any tacit alliance between the PRD and EZLN. PRD officials said both political groups share some ideas about how to reform Mexico, but the PRD does not support armed struggle. Some PRD leaders also claimed -- without offering proof -- that the Zapatista leader's public condemnation of Lopez Obrador and the PRD resulted from a secret political alliance with unnamed groups that want to stop Lopez Obrador from becoming Mexico's next president. Assuming for the sake of discussion this is true, the question is: Who would seek an alliance with the EZLN to cripple Lopez Obrador's chances of being elected?

The ruling National Action Party (PAN) and some factions of the historically dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) are obvious suspects. The PAN's political prospects in the 2006 elections are poor because many Mexican voters feel President Vicente Fox and the PAN have not achieved any of the economic and political reforms Fox promised during the 2000 election campaign. The pro-business, right-leaning PAN, then, could see an alliance with the EZLN as a way to thwart the PRD in the elections -- though this seems very far-fetched. For its part, the PRI has been a powerful force in Chiapas and other southern Mexican states for decades, while the EZLN also has emerged in the past decade as a group with apparent staying power in Chiapas.

As a result, a political accommodation between the EZLN and PRI is not completely out of the question. However, the PRI and EZLN are naturally mortal foes, so a PRI-EZLN alliance against Lopez Obrador would be difficult to sustain, and likely would become public news quickly in Mexico as members of both parties opposed to such an alliance leaked word of it to the media.

A third possibility is that PRD founder Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who is closer ideologically than Lopez Obrador to figures such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, could be seeking to stop Lopez Obrador's election to the presidency, which would automatically diminish Cardenas' historical leadership of the PRD. Cardenas officially bowed out of the PRD presidential race in April because polls showed Lopez Obrador as the front-runner -- and Cardenas barely a blip.

The EZLN's leader's biggest motive for condemning Lopez Obrador and the PRD, however, probably is the EZLN's quest for survival as a viable political organization in Mexico. The EZLN has been hunkered down in Chiapas for more than a decade. Although it has substantial appeal among poor Mexicans, the EZLN -- whose members are called Zapatistas -- is not an active player in Mexican democratic politics, mainly because its leaders have chosen to exclude the EZLN from electoral politics. The problem with the EZLN strategy of self-exclusion is that it makes it much easier for the PAN, PRI and PRD to ignore the EZLN as a political competitor.

Marcos and his Zapatista colleagues apparently have finally realized that the longer they remain on the sidelines, the greater will be their exclusion from -- and irrelevance in -- Mexico's political process. The EZLN cannot compete successfully against the PAN and PRI. It does, however, have an opportunity to stake out a position to the left of Lopez Obrador and the PRD. The Zapatistas are doing this by condemning Lopez Obrador and the PRD's movement toward the political center. In effect, a radical socialist political movement is trying to raise its electoral profile by attacking the moderate left projected by Lopez Obrador and the PRD.

This could cost Lopez Obrador and the PRD Mexico's presidency next year, but it would position the EZLN to enter Mexican electoral politics successfully as a radical grassroots force that would replicate tactics used successfully by similar groups in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Title: Mexico
Post by: valar2006 on August 16, 2005, 02:32:55 PM
I agree!
(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://zolpidem-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://xalatan-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://sibutramine-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://lescol-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://terazosin-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://nasonex-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://flovent-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://arava-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://lipitor-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://provera-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://clonidine-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://propecia-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://alprazolam-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://spironolactone-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://flonase-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://prevacid-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://celexa-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://insulin-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://tylenol-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://glucophage-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://albuterol-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://paxil-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://klonopin-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://zocor-without-prescription-db6.fxhost.hopto.org/)(http://www.neighbour-wife-nude.com/transp.gif) (http://pravachol-without-prescription-db6.neighbour-wife-nude.com/)
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on August 19, 2005, 10:30:40 AM
Hola a todos

Despu?s de su fallida insurrecci?n (en enero del 94) y de ser replegados a su posici?n actual, el EZLN, ha lanzado varias convocatorias hacia la sociedad civil: la Convensi?n Nacional Democr?tica, el Frente Zapatista de Liberaci?n Nacional, el Frente Amplio para la Liberaci?n Nacional, las Coordinadoras Zapatistas, los Caracoles y la 6a Declaraci?n.

Durante la Convensi?n Nacional Democr?tica, ?l descarta la posibilidad de lanzar candidatos zapatistas (dentro de la estructura del PRD),  para la elecci?n local en Chiapas. Es necesario saber que la base social del PRD tiene multiples simpatias hacia otros movimientos sociales, en mi experiencia puedo mensionar que en 1994 el 80% de la militancia perredista nacional tambi?n simpatizaba ideologicamente con el EZLN. Sin embargo Marcos en cada uno de sus intentos de agrupar a la sociedad civil con las demandas del EZ, no tom? en cuenta este dato y sobretodo a partir de la conformaci?n del FZLN la postura es "no doble militancia, ni simpatias (mucho menos a un partido pol?tico), se es indio o no se es" Ante semejante planteamiento "ideol?gico" el apoyo civil (que es mayoritariamente meztizo), se redujo notablemente y logicamente la influencia politica de EZ se redujo a?n m?s.  

El Sub se equivoc? y no lo acepta: despresi? el pocisionamiento pol?tico en un momento clave de m?ximo apollo, se dedico a una estrategia de medios (dirigida al extranjero) y descuid? totalmente el apollo de los civiles mexicanos.  Marcos se encuentra en el olvido y quiere meterse a como de lugar en la siguiente coyuntura pol?tica, por ignorancia (quiero pensar), lo unic? que va a conseguir es dividir el voto en el mejor de los casos o en el peor, fomentar el abstensionismo, situaci?n que favorece sobretodo al PRI, pues tiene una base permanente entre sindicatos, campesinos y fuerzas armadas que votan religiosamente a su favor (recordemos que en las pasadas elecciones en el Estado de M?xic? se observ? un abstensionismo de casi 60%, pero la base priista vot? diciplinadamente consiguiendo el triunfo para ese partido).

Una caricatura publicada en la jornada resume el actual papel de Marcos durante su "alerta roja", se ve un pasamonta?as (simulando un fantasma) y emitiendo un Buuuuuu!

Omar
Title: Mexico
Post by: Anonymous on August 20, 2005, 09:17:01 AM
Siempre es riesgoso entrar en la politica interna de otro pais-- y aun mas por un pobre gabacho loco en Mexico. :wink:  

Tengo entendido que un gran parte del apoyo de ALO esta' debido al dinero que el repartia en el DF.  ?Es cierto eso?

Para mi, esa tendencia de gobiernos por todo el mundo de repartir dinero que tomaron de unas personas para darselo a otras personas es uno de los fuentres principales de la pobreza.

Y hablando del PRD ?no es cierto que fue formado por Echevarrista Munoz Ledo y C-Cardenas, hijo del Presidente Cardenas y por su propio cuenta un ex-gobernador del PRI?  Desde mi punto de vista, la ala izquierdista del PRI que ahora se llama el PRD representa una de las tendencias mas destructivas del crecimiento y el empleo en Mexico.  Lo mas que uno puede adenlentarse en la vida abogando a traves del sistema politico y no dedicandose a una vida productiva, lo menos desarollo habra'.

Con mis propios ojos vi' mucho de Chiapas en 1977-- entre desde el norte del estado, viajando por cientos de kilometros en carretera sin pavimiento y llegando a San Cristobal de las Casas donde, debido a una bronca en la calle en la cual un amigo chilango y yo defendian dos gringas, pase tres dias en la carcel :shock:   y yo me acuerdo de la probreza que veia y la tremendo tension que habia en el aire en el pueblito en la selva donde estaba ubicada el ejercito.

Pero lo que no entiendo es que quiere las Zapatistas--?casi cien anos despues de la Revolucion todavia se busca reparto de tierras?

Guau,
Marc (porque aqui hablo de politica, no firmo como "Crafty Dog")
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on August 23, 2005, 03:03:58 PM
Hola, no se preocup?, siempre se tiene una visi?n de lo que pasa en otro pa?s, pero tratar? de dar una opini?n de lo que percivo en este pa?s.

Aunque a primera vista pareciera que esa es la raz?n de la popularidad de AMLO, es necesario precisar que la ayuda se da a ni?os en riesgo de vivir en la calle, madres solteras y adultos mayores de 70 a?os, es decir sectores marginados de la sociedad, en especifico de los adultos si existe un gran agradecimiento de parte de ellos pues en Mexico ya es rara la persona que tiene seguro social por trabajar (los patrones evaden este requisito usando sin numero de trampas) y los pocos que gozan de esta prestaci?n reciben pensiones de risa (mi padre trabaj? 40 a?os y recibe cerca de 20.00 dolares al MES !!!), mientras que los magistrados y ex presidentes gozan de pensiones excesivas. Amlo en una entrevista reciente declar? que el no regala dinero, pues su onjetivo es generar empleos permanentes pero que al ser un proceso largo, se deben generar mediso para proteger a la gente mas vulnerable, hasta que se genere la infraestructura suficiente para que esto ya no sea necesario (un escritor llamado Tomas Mojarro mensiona que en un pais con verdadera estabilidad econ?mica no son necesarios programas sociales), una vez dicho esto creo que la popularidad se debe a su actitud de buen administrador, espiritu de austeridad y por la forma en la que ha enfrentado los problemas politicos que se le han presentado.

En efecto, Mu?oz Ledo y Cardenas salieron del PRI, algunos analistas mensionan que su necesidad de democratizar al pa?s, otros m?s que por haber hecho "berrinche" y no ser beneficiados por una candidatura, yo me inclino por la segunda opci?n. Sin embargo creo que la gente, la base social que se integr? al Frente Cardenista de Reconstrucci?n Nacional rebas? a sus "lideres" , y en efecto ellos formaron varias organizaciones sobretodo en el campo que desembocaron el la creaci?n del primer PRD (de 1990 a 1993) y precisamente en ese periodo es donde se margina a esa gente productiva de las ciudades de las esferas del direcci?n del partido y se crea ese partido destructivo que mensiona. La gente quiz? no se acuerde pero hubo un peque?o ba?o de sangre en las provincias mexicanas donde a la fuerza se excluyo a los productivos del partido (publicaciones como proceso daban datos de 780 liders campesinos muertos en esa epoca)

La situaci?n que mensiona de Chiapas no ha cambiado desde el a?o en que la visit?, siguen los mismos caminos de tierra y la pobresa; de hecho uno de los argumentos de los Zapatistas es que a seis a?os del segundo milenio, no era posible que en Chiapas la gente muriera de enfermedades curables (como gripa o infecciones intestinales) y precisamente el surgimiento de este movimiento fu? para sacudir conciencias. Esto en el sentido de que uno de los dogmas que justificaba la permanencia del PRI en el gobierno era su capacidad de mantener "paz social" en el pa?s; pocos sabian que esa "paz" se manten?a (y mantiene) en las zonas rurales a trav?s de las "guardias blancas" (especie de paramilitar pagado y entrenado por los terratenientes), quienes actuan con total impunidad, si a esto se le agrega que la policia y las autoridades son parientes de los terratenientes, tenemos la edad media en pleno siglo veinte; como comentario no dudo que las personas con las que ?peleo en esa ocaci?n hayan sido guardias blancas.

Se de primera mano que en los a?os noventa a los campesinos que trabajaban en las fincas de los terratenientes no se les permitia salir de la finca pues se les encerraba en los graneros de las mismas. A los ni?os se les obligaba a hablar en espa?ol y se les inpedia comunicarse en su lengua. De hecho los Zapatistas no quieren reparto de tierras, sino que se les permita regirse por sus sistemas de gobierno propios y que salgan las autoridades federales de sus territorios pues por dar un ejemplo, los juicios se hacen en espa?ol y un indigena no tiene derecho a traductor. El reparto de tierra fu? un espejismo de los gobiernos priistas, pues lo que sucedia era que en efecto, se repartia tierra, pero el terrateniente cedia las peores tierras y controlaba los manantiales; el campesino se veia obligado a trabajar denuevo para el patr?n y a traves de presiones a "venderle su tierra" de nuevo quedando exactamente como antes.

En palabras de los mismos Zapatistas (cuando digo Zapatista me refiero a los milcianos no a Marcos), ellos proponen nuevo gobierno, nuevo contitullente y nueva constituci?n, es decir un gobierno legitimo (el gobierno del 94 fu? ilegitimo), legisladores que se opongan a ese gobierno ilegitimo y reconoscan al real (el de Cardenas) y una modificaci?n de las leyes mexicanes, que no den pie a interpretaciones sino al cumplimiento de las mismas. Otro planteamiento de ellos es paz justa y digna, por lo que mension?, en 70 a?os se mantuvo al pueblo quieto a traves de grupos que en apariencia no existian y para los Zapatistas la paz que emana del miedo no es una paz digna. Lo de justa es que no solo exista en las ciudades sino en cualquier rincon  del pa?s.

Esa atmosfera de miedo que sinti? en ese entonces sigue presente hoy, ?sabia que una de las principales actividades del ejercito es posicionarse en los campos de cultivo e impedir que se trabaje en ellos, al tiempo que construllen en ellos letrinas, arrojan basura indiscriminadamente, se ba?an en los depositos de agua comunal y secuestran a adolecentes indigeneas para mantenerlas en una especie de esclavitud domestica sexual?,  ?Que una de sus principales operaciones es hayanar los domicilios de los campesinos, matar a los animales de labranza, confiscar las herramientas, secuestrar a las adolecentes y mezclar los granos almacenados con detergente y estiercol? o ?Que  en estos momentos la cabeza de un hombre vale entre 25 a 35 mil pesos (un miliciano vale 35 mil pesos y un catequista 25 mil)?

La lucha Zapatista es necesaria pero ah?, como en el PRD la dirigencia a secuestrado los intentos de reivindicaci?n democratica de las personas.

Nos escribimos pronto Omar
Title: Mexico
Post by: Anonymous on August 28, 2005, 03:16:38 PM
Omar:

Gracias por tus pensamientos tan bien expresados.  Lamento no tener tiempo para contestar en este momento (salgo para Suiza el Martes) pero espero continuar esa charla con ganas.

Marc
Title: Mexico
Post by: 9-terremoto on September 22, 2005, 12:48:24 PM
Hola todos.

La pol?tica es un juego infantil y despiadado que sin embargo hay que jugar.

No es un tema sencillo, sobre todo cuando en M?xico no hay posiciones pol?ticas claras. El PRI, que se supone ser?a el partido del "centro", ha aplicado alternadamente pol?ticas econ?micas de derecha (como las privatizaciones) y de izquierda (como las expropiaciones). Muchas de las pol?ticas neoliberales del PRI cuando estuvo en el poder fueron apoyadas por el PAN y no es sorpresa cuando se descubren nexos PRI-PAN como el reci?n destapado de Elba Esther Gordillo con Santiago Creel Miranda.
Ahora bien, la llamada "izquierda" no es tan consecuente: el PRD aloja en sus filas m?s de un ex priista. La "izquierda" en M?xico suele asociarse con una simpat?a por todo lo que tiene que ver con el contra-poder (los ind?genas, los estudiantes, los ancianos, los homosexuales, y un largo etc?tera) y esto no es necesariamente cierto.
Otro tema bastante enredado es el asunto de la "indianidad", por llamarlo de alguna manera (lo retomo porque alguien m?s lo mencion? unos mensajes arriba). Pienso el mestizaje es una cuesti?n cultural m?s que racial en M?xico. La mayor?a de nosotros somos lo que se dice en sociolog?a "ind?genas aculturados", y para comprobarlo ni siquiera hace falta hacerse una prueba de sangre. Sin embargo, no se ha logrado una aceptaci?n o rechazo definitivos de esta identidad y eso es parte de lo que provoca serias divisiones entre la misma tribu.
Entre las divisiones de "raza" y de estrato econ?mico hay l?neas muy tenues.
Ahora, la otra cara de la moneda: la "derecha" est? en el poder, y para sacarla de ah? va a ponerse bien divertido. Mientras un supuesto centro y una supuesta izquierda (o mejor dicho, muchas supuestas izquierdas) se dividen y subdividen, los militantes de derecha S? se identifican con sus compa?eros de lucha pol?tica, que adem?s son miembros de la misma clase econ?mica y hasta comparten, la mayor?a, rasgos digamos que ?tnicos.
Muchos de nosotros, los gobernados, parece que no nos damos cuenta de c?mo va la cosa. Mientras el presidente de la naci?n se dice defensor de la democracia, tenemos en su gabinete al se?or Abascal, quien en su tesis de licenciatura se pronuncia con todas sus letras en contra de la democracia.
En fin, que, a pesar de lo monstruoso del asunto, creo que, por eliminaci?n, la opci?n "menos peor" para la presidencia es el PRD.
Pero tambi?n creo que nos falta mucha cultura pol?tica, mucha memoria hist?rica y abandonar el paradigma juandiegano que nos hace ap?ticos; cambiarlo por un car?cter combativo (y no me refiero a una revoluci?n armada, ustedes, maestros, estudiantes y practicantes de AM saben a lo que me refiero), que finalmente est? en nuestras ra?ces culturales aut?nticas, y alimentarlo con nuestra formaci?n personal.

Pienso que las AM son una excelente opci?n para formar car?cter.

Gracias.
Valdemar
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 22, 2005, 04:05:55 PM
Lo siguiente no es una respuesta al anterior.  Buscare' responder mas tarde.

==============

The Foreboding Death of Mexico's Security Minister
September 22, 2005 18 30  GMT



Summary

Mexican Security Minister Ram?n Mart?n Huerta and several other government officials died in a Sept. 21 helicopter crash that appears to have been caused by bad weather. The consequences of this apparent accident likely include a further deterioration of Mexico's security environment, reduced cooperation between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement on border issues, increased levels of capital flight and decreased foreign investment.

Analysis

Mexican Security Minister Ram?n Mart?n Huerta and five other government officials, including Federal Police Chief Tom?s Valencia Angeles, died in a helicopter crash 20 miles outside Mexico City on Sept. 21. Government officials said the helicopter, which was attempting to detour around inclement weather, crashed head-on into a wall of rock on a wooded hillside at an altitude of more than 11,000 feet. The helicopter's pilots also died in the crash. A pilot flying a second helicopter said he lost visual contact with Huerta's when it flew into a dense patch of clouds shortly before it crashed. Although an investigation is just beginning, bad weather is the most plausible explanation for the crash.

The helicopter was on its way to maximum-security La Palma prison 35 miles outside Mexico City. Huerta, Valencia and other officials were to inaugurate a new prison security force intended to improve security at the jail, which is notorious for its gang- and drug-related business and violence -- a state of affairs aided by the prison's heavily corrupted security personnel. Huerta was a close friend of President Vicente Fox, and his death, as well as Valencia's, will leave a vacuum in the government security apparatus. This, in turn, portends a decline in domestic security and in cooperation with the United States along the border -- as well as a slowdown in foreign investment and an increase in capital flight.

Fox appointed Huerta to the country's top security job in August 2004 with a mandate to tackle Mexico's exploding drug-trafficking problems in the face of a rapidly deteriorating domestic security situation. In his one year on the job, the drug trade's influence on local and regional governments increased -- as did violent crime. Huerta, however, was seen as someone with the potential to begin turning the ship around.

His death will not only bring an end to any new initiatives directed toward combating Mexico's drug traffickers and crime rates, but in combination with Valencia's death, will leave Mexico's security policies and main crime-fighting force rudderless. This will ease the work of Mexico's gangs and narcotics traffickers until replacements are found, meaning these groups are likely to take advantage of the vacuum to step up their activities in the near term. The result should be a further deterioration in domestic security.

Huerta and Valencia also played significant roles in cooperative efforts with U.S. law enforcement to improve security along the increasingly perilous U.S.-Mexican border. Without counterparts to work with, and eventually with the added complication of having to build new relationships with less-familiar officials, U.S. law enforcement will face a more daunting task, meaning security along the border is likely to decline as well in the near term.

Mexican politics will further complicate efforts to stabilize the country's security, as presidential elections due in July 2006 are fast approaching. Fox already is a lame duck, and with the campaign season under way the legislative and executive agendas will be limited as all parties focus on the elections. Huerta's replacement, therefore, likely will be unable to implement any new policies to substantially alter the security situation, meaning that any effective security policy unlikely can be put in place until the new administration takes office.

Expectations of worsening security will impact the Mexican economy as well. The central bank reported Sept. 20 that capital flight in the first half of 2005 stood at $10 billion, the highest figure for this period since 1980. Although the Mexican economy has an established history of hemorrhaging capital, this number is cause for concern. The leading reasons for the high figures are political uncertainty ahead of elections, the inability of the Fox government to push through needed reforms, and a higher risk environment caused by inadequate security. Huerta and Valencia's death will only compound these concerns and likely send more money abroad.

Foreign direct investment will likewise be affected by the more unstable security environment. Foreign investment has remained surprisingly strong in 2005 with an increase of 8.8 percent in the first half of the year to $7.4 billion compared to the same period in 2004, but this growth rate has been notably slower than in years past. This, again, is because of political uncertainty tied to the 2006 elections, the government's failure to further liberalize the economy and the business- and personal-security issues associated with rising crime in Mexico City and along the border. The fallout from the crash is likely to further slow foreign investment until after the elections.

Economic growth, expected to be 3 percent for 2005, is likely to come in below this figure. Expectations of 3.5 percent growth for 2006 also are likely to be negatively impacted by the deaths. This accident, then, will put many critical issues in Mexico on hold, thereby increasing the overall uncertainty in the country at least until after the presidential election.
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on September 23, 2005, 12:41:46 PM
Hola a todos, este solo una prueba para ver si entraba mi mensaje, me costo trabajo entrar luego comenbto de los ultimos dos mensajes
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 06, 2005, 11:16:05 AM
Quiero agradecer los mensajes de 9-Terremoto y Omar tan bien expresados.

Yo quisiera ofrecer otro hilo al analisis; lo del crecimiento de poblacion.  No tengo conocimiento a los datos acutales, pero cuando yo estudiaba esos asuntos en la universidad hace casi 30 anos, la taza de crecimiento fue alredor de 3.5% lo cual implicaba, despues de hacer un calculo matematico, que la mitad de la poblacion no habia cumplido 16 anos de edad y que 700,000 mas personas cada ano entraba al mercado de trabajo.  En aquela epoca cuando la economia crecia bien (5%, una taza muy buena) creo' unos 350,000 empleos, osea el desempleo crecia 350,000 mas cada ano.

En otras palabras, debido a la estructura demografica de la poblacion Mexicana, fue imposilbe salir adelante-- al contrario, fue inevitable que la situacion se empeore mas cada ano.

Desde mi punto de vista aqui en los EU, cualquier paso a la izquierda se hara' peor la situacion por la simple razon que izuierdismo no funciona-- no se puede deshacer la ley de oferta y demanda y el izquierdismo en la practica quiere decir mas burocracia y mas corupcion-- muchas veces en favor de los grandes interes.

Mi conclusion actual es que Mexico necesita frenar su taza de crecimiento de poblacion, lo cual puede implicar un choque con La Iglesia, y debe seguir un modelo de seguridad juridico de derechos de contrato, bienes raices, y un mercado libre y honesto.
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on October 06, 2005, 03:23:12 PM
Hola a todos,  despues de una larga ausencia regreso,  creo que la politica no es un juego infantil, de serlo los griegos no le hubieran dando tanta importancia; m?s bien el problema est? en distinguir la diferencia entre politica y politiquer?a; es evidente que en Mexico tenemos politiqueria. Coincido con Valdemar en que el menos peor es AMLO, como lo expres? antes, es mejor administrador y pues no es tan de "izquierda" como dice, por lo tanto no creo en una radicalizaci?n de la politica, nada mas hay que ver con quien se codea.

El "accidente" como se ha afanado el gobierno en calificar el avionazo donde murio el Secretario de Seguridad P?blica, parece que va a quedar en el olvido como el sin n?mero de casos de muertes de pol?ticos y gente relacionada con la pol?tica; entre la gente es casi generalizada la opini?n de un narco atentado. Es tan increible la conclusi?n que el propio presidente Fox dijo lo siguiente -No hay que especular, fu? un accidente... hay que esperar el peritaje-  :roll:

Respecto a la "izquierda", el mismo Lennin denuncia la inexistencia de esta corriente pol?tica, calificandola de traici?n al proletariado y a los principios marxistas. De hecho es muy evidente por ejemplo en el movimiento de los nazis y en el de la revoluci?n rusa, la forma en la que una fracci?n de gente que solo queria beneficiarse del poder, realiza sendas matanzas a lo interno de esos grupos. Con los nazis fue evidente como los lideres nacionalistas alemanes fueron eliminados por oportunistas como Goering, Himmler y Hitler; en Rusia sucede lo mismo a manos de Stalin y sus complices. En ambos casos se establece un gobierno vertical y autoritario que en lo primero que piensa es en armarse e invadir a otros pueblos; es muy evidente como se conserva el discurso revolucionario o nacionalista pero la gente  com?n ya no participa en la toma de deciciones, se convierte en una especie de titere. Sobre todo en rusia lo que pas? despu?s de 1915 puede ser cualquier cosa menos socialismo y menos comunismo.

Es evidente que las leyes de oferta y demanda se aplican; no se pueden ignorar, pero ser? posible que puedan permearse con una visi?n de la vida diferente?,  las grandes compa?ias que imponen ese sistema socio politico econ?mico no les importa el ambiente, ni pagar salarios justos ni el tiempo libre de la gente que colabora con ellos; ser? posible que ambas cuestiones caminen juntas?

Creo que la soluci?n no est? en un gobierno si no en el cambio de actitud de nosotros, la gente de a pie como se dice ac?, lo que mensiona Guro Ctafty sobre la explosi?n demografica es un ejemplo claro de lo que podriamos hacer las personas sin tomar armas o sin "perder el tiempo en la pol?tica", simplemente cuidarse: usar anticonseptivos, independizarse nuestro pensamiento y visi?n del mundo de nuestros padres y creencias religiosas (en lo retrogrado claro est?), son cosas peque?as que se pueden hacer.

Como ?ltimo comentario hace alg?n tiempo trabaj? de comerciante ambulante y me alarmaba la cantidad de mujeres jovenes (cerca de 14 - 15 a?os), embarazadas, estuve en ese empleo dos a?os y en los ratos que estaba sin venta llegaba a contar cerca de 200 mujeres  :shock: , hagan cuentas.

Omar
Title: La marcialidad y el problema de la identidad
Post by: 9-terremoto on November 14, 2005, 11:27:31 AM
Me disculpo por haber pegado este mensaje en otro lado. Mi intenci?n desde el inicio era ponerlo aqu?, pero me equivoqu?. Va el mensaje.



Algunas precisiones que considero necesarias para la discusi?n.
1) El profesor Enrique afirma que el car?cter filos?fico y moral de lo que conocemos como AM (es decir, las AM de Asia) no existe en disciplinas como la esgrima europea. No practico esgrima ni he combatido contra un esgrimista, pero s? conozco una practicante muy seria y que, mediante el trato laboral cotidiano y pl?ticas acerca del tema, me ha demostrado que s? existen en esa disciplina valores como el honor, de hecho es la columna vertebral de un esgrimista. Claro, tal vez el honor no lo practiquen algunos que se auto denominan esgrimistas, como tal vez no lo practiquen algunos que se dicen practicantes de otras disciplinas. La historiograf?a nos ense?a que, hasta antes del imperio romano, la orden (o casta) de caballer?a exist?a, por lo menos en el mundo celta, con un prop?sito noble. En cambio, el equites romano es un mercenario y un saqueador. En la Edad Media, el clero cristiano desarrolla una batalla ideol?gica para devolver la esencia honorable a los caballeros, como nos lo demuestra la existencia de los templarios (ojo: Europa les debe el haber llevado la civilizaci?n desde Asia hasta sus tierras). Eso no implica que nadie haya conservado nada de esa tradici?n honorable hasta la fecha. De cualquier manera, si comparamos el actuar de Hern?n Cort?s (quien se dec?a un caballero al servicio del rey) con los preceptos de caballer?a del sabio catal?n Raimundo Lulio, vemos que quienes llegaron a Am?rica desde Espa?a no ten?an nada que ver con los caballeros aut?nticos. Eso nos lleva al punto
2) El profesor Enrique nos dice a) que debemos sentirnos orgullosos de nuestro pasado hispano y b) que ?en una pelea en la calle debe surgirnos lo espa?ol, no lo mexicano?, aludiendo a que ?si debemos culpar a alguien de la derrota de los aztecas ante los espa?oles, debemos culpar al AM de los aztecas?, volver? sobre este punto despu?s. No creo que debamos sentirnos orgullosos de ?nuestro pasado hisp?nico? por una sencilla raz?n: lo que lleg? a An?huak no era la crema y nata de Espa?a. Eran presidiarios, asesinos, galeotes, que ten?an de dos sopas: pudrirse en la c?rceles y las minas o arriesgar el pellejo yendo a tierras desconocidas. Por eso, desde la primera expedici?n de Crist?bal Col?n, comenz? el bandidaje: los espa?oles le disparaban a todo lo que se mov?a. El t?rmino ?resgatar? en ese momento es sin?nimo de ?arrebatar?, que es lo que hicieron ellos. Reitero adem?s, que la mayor?a no somos ?mestizos?, sino ind?genas aculturados. Personalmente creo, y s? que no estoy exento de cr?ticas, que lo verdaderamente rescatable de la Espa?a de los siglos XVI y XVII es su literatura y su pintura, pero es un arte en apogeo como reflejo de una sociedad en decadencia. La prueba de ello est? en que, por un lado, Cervantes escribe la m?xima obra de la literatura en lengua espa?ola, tamb?n est?n Fray Luis de Le?n, Luis de G?ngora, Garcilaso de la Vega, Lope de Vega, El Greco? Por el otro, los espa?oles sacan en barcos el oro de An?huak, mismo que les es arrebatado por los corsarios ingleses. El oro que llega a Espa?a no es usado en sentar las bases para la industria, como en otros pa?ses, sino para que los nobles lo despilfarren en extravagantes banquetes.
3) Volviendo al punto a. Si con AM azteca el maestro Enrique se refiere meramente a la utilizaci?n de las armas como lanzadardos, maqui?huitl (macana con incrustaciones de obsidiana), y dice que ?no era mortal?? ?Entonces c?mo es que Cuitl?huac hizo correr a Cort?s y sus hombres por lo que hoy es la avenida M?xico-Tacuba, en la mal llamada ?noche triste?? Esto, a pesar de los caballos, las armas de fuego y las armaduras. El profesor dice que las macanas usadas en la guerra contra los invasores eran las mismas usadas en la guerra florida, y que s?lo serv?an ?para atontar? al enemigo? ?entonces por qu? el mismo Cort?s se?ala varias veces en sus Cartas de relaci?n que esas armas ?hac?an tanto da?o como las espadas de metal??
4) Cuando mencion? que los factores que decidieron la guerra no fueron ?que los espa?oles s? mataban con sus espadas y los aztecas s?lo atontaban?, sino a) la viruela que diezm? terriblemente a los aztecas y b) la presencia del numeroso ej?rcito tlaxcalteca, el profesor me respondi? que eso no ten?a nada que ver con AM, sino con ?factores sociales?. Mi pregunta es: una epidemia que diezma a uno de los bandos, ?no tiene que ver con la guerra? ?un ?factor social? est? separado de la guerra? o al rev?s ?puede la guerra, y por tanto el AM, desligarse de un ?factor social??
5) Ahora, si el profesor se refiere a AM no s?lo como la utilizaci?n de las armas, sino tambi?n las t?cticas, arquitectura marcial, etc., simplemente respondo que la guerra que se ejerc?a aqu? era diferente a la europea. En ese sentido amplio s? podemos culpar en parte a su AM, pero tambi?n a las relaciones pol?ticas de los mexicas con otros pueblos.
6) Creo que no se puede hablar de marcialidad si no sabemos qui?nes somos, si no identificamos qui?nes son los nuestros. Por eso no coincido con la idea del profesor de que ?est? a toda madre que en los doyanes saluden a la bandera de Korea y despu?s a la de M?xico? (y aclaro que la palabra ?madre? no me parece malsonante, por eso la uso). ?Por qu? habr?amos de saludar la bandera de otro pa?s? Si bien coincidimos en que, aunque hablemos espa?ol no nos vamos a volver espa?oles, tal parece que ?l piensa lo siguiente: ?si practicamos Tae Kwon Do, debemos volvernos koreanos, si practicamos Karate, Judo o Aidkido, debemos volvernos japoneses??. Lo que me refuerza esa conclusi?n es un comentario suyo, al decir que ?tomamos algo de Asia, pero no queremos tomarlo todo?; uno m?s: ?si ya estamos practicando un AM, ?para qu? investigar, por ejemplo, acerca de la m?stica del cristianismo?? Mi pregunta es ?por qu? no? El hecho de estudiar Muay thay no implica que me convierta al budismo, aunque cada quien es libre de profesar la religi?n que m?s le convenza.
7) Por ?ltimo, un comentario que me parece no de mal gusto, sino francamente lamentable: ?Los p? lacandones s?lo sirven para tomarse fotos con los turistas.? El profesor dice haber viajado a Tailandia y Korea. Mi pregunta es: ?por qu? est? en profesor tan seguro de que ellos est?n mal y ?l est? bien? ?Ya conoce de la cultura, la literatura, la religi?n de An?huak lo suficiente como para despreciarla? Yo creo que los verdaderos in?tiles son los que se la pasan viendo el futbol, los porros, los narcotraficantes, los chavos banda, los intelectuales adaptados a cualquier temperatura de agua, y uno que otro cr?tico de literatura? Y sinceramente creo m?s f?cil encontrar un sabio entre los ind?genas no aculturados que entre cualquiera los que acabo de mencionar. Hay m?s: ?l dice que los danzantes zocaleros son unos farsantes por auto deniminarse herederos de una tradici?n marcial. Yo tampoco creo que el esp?ritu marcial de An?huak est? all?, pero, tengo una noticia: existen 62 grupos ind?genas en An?huak. Los nahuas de guerrero, con su tradicional ?danza de los tecuanis? no se parecen en nada a los danzantes de Z?calo.
 En este mismo sentido, cuando Miguel Le?n-Portilla escribe Visi?n de los vencidos (obra y autor vituperados por el profesor), se refiere exclusivamente a los aztecas. En ning?n momento dice que debemos los mexicanos adoptar una postura de vencidos, ni siquiera que todos los mexicanos seamos descendientes de los aztecas. Es una falacia que descendamos de espa?oles y aztecas, pues aunque eran los que dominaban gran territorio en el momento de la invasi?n, no eran los ?nicos, y adem?s fueron pr?cticamente eliminados. ?Qu? tal la resistencia de Tenamaxtli en el Baj?o??Y los pur?pechas, y los tlaxcaltecas? ?Y los ?a?u? ?Y los dem?s grupos, de los que ?l dice que ?afortunadamente son minor?a?? Algo m?s: no todos los ind?genas son neozapatistas, como ?l parece creerlo.
9) En el mismo rubro, despu?s de sus comentarios abiertamente anti-ind?genas, toda la bonita pl?tica sobre ?el camino del guerrero?, el ?guerrero espiritual?, el ?sendero luminoso?... se le viene abajo.

Gracias.
9-Terremoto
Title: Mexico
Post by: 9-terremoto on November 14, 2005, 12:00:10 PM
Hola todos.

Copio y pego ?ntegros los mensajes que andaban por otro lado, comenzando con la respuesta del carnal devnul.

9-terremoto


Quote:

1) El profesor Enrique afirma que el car?cter filos?fico y moral de lo que conocemos como AM (es decir, las AM de Asia) no existe en disciplinas como la esgrima europea.


---> La principal y gran diferencia entre las AM que se pueden practicar en Asia,respecto a Europa o America, es que en Asia, las AM son una filosofia de vida,mientras que fuera de ahi,simplemente se toma como un deporte.

Aunque se intenten inculcar los valores de honor,respeto,etc.. no es lo mismo que se ense?e desde una via deportiva,o desde una via totalmente filosofica.

En cuando entra por medio el dinero (a la hora de ense?ar/aprender), la fama,el querer reconocimiento,nombre.. (muy propio de los occidentales) se hecha por tierra todos los principios basicos Orientales,que son precisamente los contrarios, y esque los pilares fundamentales en los que se consolidan las AM como una forma o filosofia de vida,en Europa o America son totalmente inviables,por los motivos anteriormente citados (por desgracia)



Quote:


?si debemos culpar a alguien de la derrota de los aztecas ante los espa?oles, debemos culpar al AM de los aztecas?



------> Con todo respeto,esta frase es una tonteria. Partiendo de la base de las diferencias armamentisticas de los espa?oles frente a los aztecas,ni artes marciales, ni gaitas... no se pueden comparar los dos bandos,por el desarrollo tecnologico armamentistico que tenian,ademas,que muchisimo indigenas murieron por enfermedades portadas por los espa?oles (inofensivas para ellos,pero que fueron letales para los indigenas)

Quote:

3) ?entonces por qu? el mismo Cort?s se?ala varias veces en sus Cartas de relaci?n que esas armas ?hac?an tanto da?o como las espadas de metal??


----> A la hora de analizar texto antiguo (castellano antiguo) hay que ce?irse a la epoca en la que estaba escrito y las metaforas a las que se alude,circunscribirlas exclusivamente en esa epoca. Decir que "hacian tanto da?o como las espadas de metal" (ahora,en nuestro tiempo) induce a pensar que eran armas letales,duras,fuertes... (por simbolismo) pero interpretativamente,en aquellos a?os, el "hacer tanto da?o como..." no queda claro si se refiere al numero de bajas, a las heridas producidas,etc etc etc... ademas,que de un texto antiguo,se pueden hacer miles de interpretariones

Quote

4) Cuando mencion? que los factores que decidieron la guerra no fueron ?que los espa?oles s? mataban con sus espadas y los aztecas s?lo atontaban?, sino a) la viruela que diezm? terriblemente a los aztecas y b) la presencia del numeroso ej?rcito tlaxcalteca, el profesor me respondi? que eso no ten?a nada que ver con AM, sino con ?factores sociales?.
Quote


------> Efectivamente

Quote:

Mi pregunta es: una epidemia que diezma a uno de los bandos, ?no tiene que ver con la guerra? ?un ?factor social? est? separado de la guerra? o al rev?s ?puede la guerra, y por tanto el AM, desligarse de un ?factor social??


Vamos a ver, no se pueden mezlcar las AM en una guerra donde la tecnologia es diferente. Es como decir,que en la guerra del Vietnam,mientras los americanos usaban el Napal como AM (ridiculo verdad?) ellos usaban sus AM para defenderse (ridiculo tambien)

Hay que tener en cuenta que las enfermedades que afectaron a los indigenas,no fueron: "pum,llegamos,infectamos,mueren" sino que tienen un proceso de inoculacion,desarrollo,etc. El factor social,aparte de como estaba organizada la sociedad en aquellos tiempos,y como estaba organiado el "ejercito" espa?ol, la superioridad, etc...

Entendamos AM como forma de atacar/defenderse de enemigos conocidos,puesto que las AM estaban basadas precisamente en eso. Las "AM" de los indigenes,frente a la tecnologia (antes,despues,ayer,hoy y ma?ana) son absurdas, es como si tenemos un ejercito de 10.000 hombres expertos en Ninjutsu, y en el bando rival, un solo hombre, con una bomba atomica... De que sirven las AM frente a la tecnologia??? De nada.Supongo que se querria referir a ese hecho en cuanto a lo social: estructura,jerarquia,tecnologia,mentalidad,educacion (militar) etc...


Quote:

5) Ahora, si el profesor se refiere a AM no s?lo como la utilizaci?n de las armas, sino tambi?n las t?cticas, arquitectura marcial, etc., simplemente respondo que la guerra que se ejerc?a aqu? era diferente a la europea. En ese sentido amplio s? podemos culpar en parte a su AM, pero tambi?n a las relaciones pol?ticas de los mexicas con otros pueblos.


Si y no. Las tacticas y las estrategias "militares" se basan en funcion del armamento que tienes y del personal militar (numero de soldados). Pero de nuevo,todo esto queda desfasado contra un "ejercito" mas potente,mejor preparado,curtido en batallas "de mas nivel", con armas mejores,con protecciones mejores,con instruccion "militar",etc etc etc

Se puede hablar de diferentes tacticas militares entre los romanos y los Unos, por ejemplo, pero no con los aztecas, y de nuevo influye lo social, como esta estructurada la sociedad,la jerarquia de la misma,etc etc etc

Es decir,estamos hablando de paises que tenian un desarrollo altamente superior (en todos los aspectos) frente a otra sociedad (que comparada con los invasores) no tenian ninguna opcion.

Todo ello lo digo sin menospreciar a los indigenas,pero el mismo nombre ya lo dice: indigenas VS Soldados. El resultado era obvio.Back to top
     ?
9-terremoto
Joined: 28 Jun 2005
Posts: 7
Location: M?xico
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:52 pm?? ?Post subject:      
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Muchas gracias a devnul por su respuesta.

Le pido a quien responda estos mensajes que lo haga en la secci?n "M?xico", para no perder orden.

Ante tu idea de superioridad, y sin ir m? lejos, s?lo vuelvo a preguntar: ?Por qu? no ganaron los espa?oles desde la primera escaramuza, con su teconolog?a, sus caballos y sus armaduras? ?Por qu? ganaron hasta que contaron con los tlaxcaltecas?

Tambi?n habr?a que ponernos de acuerdo en cuanto a qu? entendemospor AM: la sola lucha cuerpo a cuerpo o todo lo que implica tener presencia en una guerra. En el contexto de la ponencia, parec?a ser lo segundo.

Por otra parte, USA perdi? la guerra de Viet-nam a pesar de su napalm, sus aviones, etc. y aqu? definitivamente marc? la diferencia un factor social: las estrategias se multiplicaban porque era TODO el Pueblo, y no s?lo los soldados, los que guerreaban contra los soldados estadounidenses.

Gracias.
9-terremoto
_________________
"S?lo en el centro se puede vivir." Huehuehlahtolli, la antigua palabra
Title: Mexico
Post by: devnul on November 14, 2005, 12:10:41 PM
Quote

Muchas gracias a devnul por su respuesta.

Le pido a quien responda estos mensajes que lo haga en la secci?n "M?xico", para no perder orden.


Oks,no sabia que habia que responder en este apartado :)

Quote

Ante tu idea de superioridad, y sin ir m? lejos, s?lo vuelvo a preguntar: ?Por qu? no ganaron los espa?oles desde la primera escaramuza, con su teconolog?a, sus caballos y sus armaduras? ?Por qu? ganaron hasta que contaron con los tlaxcaltecas?


Pues la verdad es que no lo se, y contestarte con una suposicion,seria solo eso, una suposicion,asi que voy a informarme del tema (que desde que lo estudi? hasta ahora ha pasado muchiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisimo tiempo) para poder contestarte mejor :)


Quote

Tambi?n habr?a que ponernos de acuerdo en cuanto a qu? entendemospor AM: la sola lucha cuerpo a cuerpo o todo lo que implica tener presencia en una guerra. En el contexto de la ponencia, parec?a ser lo segundo.


Exacto, una cosa son las Artes Marciales y otra cosa es una Accion Militar (y lo que conlleva eso).

Segun mi opinion habria que diferenciar (si se quiere englobar todo dentro de AM) entre AM enfocadas al ambito militar (KravMaga,System-a,Sambo) Am enfocadas al deporte (aqui entran practicamente todas,exceptuando las de ambito militar) y las AM puras y duras (es decir las originales) de los Monjes Shaolin (kungfu limpio)  y los Guerreros Samurais.

Aunque dentro del ejercito/policia se utilicen tecnicas para controlar,neutralizar,inutilizar a un enemigo,yo no lo pondria como arte marcial (aunque sea de aplicacion militar) aunque como decia antes, cabe destacar que desde un principio habria que tener muy claro que en oriente es una filosofia de vida y en occidente un deporte (excluyendo lo militar)

Quote

Por otra parte, USA perdi? la guerra de Viet-nam a pesar de su napalm, sus aviones, etc. y aqu? definitivamente marc? la diferencia un factor social: las estrategias se multiplicaban porque era TODO el Pueblo, y no s?lo los soldados, los que guerreaban contra los soldados estadounidenses.


Usa la perdio,porque se creia tan pero tan superior a su enemigo,que los subestimo, pasaron de estrategias militares,fueron directamente a por ellos, "a saco" (como se dice aqui) disparando a discreccion,y bombardeando a diestro y siniestro.

Aunque tampoco creo que unos la ganaran y otros la perdieran, ya que ambos bandos sufrieron muchisimas bajas...y,si la estrategia utilizada por los vietnamitas no la hubiera seguido todo dios (es decir personal civil,militar,ni?os,etc) se hubieran quedado sin gente (aun con una buena estrategia) Aun asi... creo que la guerra del Vietnam ha sido una de las guerras mas bestias (en la actualidad) que mas secuelas psicologicas ha dejado tras ella, aunque siempre se habla de la secuelas de los soldados americanos,pero supongo que los vietnamitas... tambien pasaron lo suyo

Quote

Gracias.
9-terremoto


A ti :) un saludo :)
Title: Mexico
Post by: 9-terremoto on November 16, 2005, 06:36:30 AM
Estimado Devnul:

Da gusto ver que se puede tener una pl?tica en t?rminos tan respetuosos. En la red no siempre es as?, y supongo que a ti tambi?n te ha tocado. Yo tambi?n investigar? m?s (yo, con m?s raz?n)  y tratar? de ser objetivo, aunque dudo que alguien pueda llevar su objetividad al 100 %, sobre todo en lo que a historia se refiere.
Atendiendo a la sugerencia de Guro Mauricio S?nchez, aclaro que he firmado con mi nobre calend?rico, 9-terremoto. Mi nombre "oficial" es Valdemar Ram?rez Loaeza y soy estudiante de la academia Sistemas Integrados de Combate.

Gracias por tus comentarios.
Title: Mexico
Post by: devnul on November 16, 2005, 09:13:36 AM
Quote from: 9-terremoto

 dudo que alguien pueda llevar su objetividad al 100 %, sobre todo en lo que a historia se refiere.


Efectivamente,ya que el problema principal, es que la Historia la escribe siempre el ganador de las batallas (es decir,la historia es escrita por aquellos que ganaron la guerra,no por los que sucumbieron).Es por eso que la objetividad es un tanto complicada de obtener,ya que los mismos textos historicos no son objetivos, por eso siempre digo que,aparte de juicios y opiniones personales,siempre habria que investigar las dos caras de la moneda para poder intentar enteder que pas? como cuando y porque :)

Por cierto, mi nombre es David :)  (lo digo porque como todo el mundo firma diferente en los post que no son de AM,pues yo tambien)
y aunque no viene a cuento,como no lo puse en el post de presentacion pues aprovecho para ponerlo aqui :P (algunos datos sobre mi)

Tecnico Superior D.A.I
Tecnico en Electronica Industrial
Tecnico en Automatas Programables

y referente a las AM

Kick Boxing,Boxeo,KravMaga,Systema,WingTsun,BJJ,FMA (aunque a excepcion del KickBoxing & Boxeo) el resto es de forma autodidacta

:)
Title: Mexico
Post by: 9-terremoto on November 29, 2005, 07:33:50 AM
Hola todos.

Mucho tiempo despu?s de leer el mensaje, a?ado un par de notas del perdi?dico "La jornada", donde creo que se explica parte de lo que buscan los zapatistas (o neozapatistas). Cabe aclarar que entre los pueblos ind?genas de M?xico hay una extensa variedad de posturas, es decir que el EZLN no represeta a todos. Por ejemplo est?n grupos pur?pechas de Michoac?n, quienes apoyan al sinarquismo, movimiento en total oposici?n a la izquierda, pues fue con los sinarquistsas donde encontraron respeto a sus tradiciones, entre otras cosas.

Para finalizar mi intervenci?n, quiero se?alar que la fontera sur de M?xico desgraciadamente alberga tambi?n gente muy violenta, que  no necesariamente son mexicanos. Unos de ellos son los miembros de la "mara salvatrucha", organizaci?n criminal que opera en El Salvador, M?xico y el sur de USA. Son verdaderos asesinos con un rollo psicol?gico bastante enfermo: se creen satanistas, pero lo creen en serio. Alguos de ellos, en cambio, han decidido "dejar su vida criminal" con ayuda de la Iglesia Cat?lica, como lo document? hace unos meses la televisora TV azteca. Como soy un aguafiestas, me da muy mala espina el hecho de que esa instituci?n los est? "reclutando".


Gracias.
Valdemar
Va:

 
Martes 29 de noviembre de 2005

Rechazan proyecto de ley ind?gena para Jalisco por "racista y grotesco"
En su declaraci?n emitida en la comunidad huichola de Tuapurie Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitl?n, municipio de Mezquitic, Jalisco, los representantes de pueblos, comunidades y organizaciones ind?genas a la decimos?ptima reuni?n del Congreso Nacional Ind?gena de la regi?n centro-Pac?fico se?alan que el proyecto de ley sobre derechos y desarrollo de los pueblos y comunidades ind?genas de Jalisco -que recientemente les dieron a conocer integrantes del Congreso jalisciense- "no tiene m?s finalidad que restringir los derechos y la autonom?a de nuestros pueblos para provocar su desintegraci?n".
Expresan que las autoridades tradicionales, agrarias y de pueblos y organizaciones ind?genas huichola y nahua de Jalisco enviaron un documento al Congreso jaliciense, en el que afirman que el proyecto de ley sobre derechos de los pueblos ind?genas del estado tiene car?cter "racista, grotesco, violatorio de nuestros derechos humanos b?sicos y contrario a la existencia de nuestros pueblos" por lo que lo rechazan tajantemente.
Anuncian que en caso de ser aprobado por esta legislatura "lo har? en contra de la voluntad" de sus pueblos y, por tanto, recurrir?n a todas las instancias nacionales e internacionales para solicitar se dejen sin efectos dicja ley y las consecuencias jur?dicas que pudiera producir.
En la Delaraci?n de Tuapurie, detallan entre las agresiones contra los pueblos indios que se han incrementado, lo que ocurre con la comunidad wix?rika de Bancos de San Hip?lito, Durango, a la cual se le niega el reconocimiento de sus tierras y su existencia como comunidad, en tanto que otras personas reciben autorizaciones para aprovechar sus ricos bosques de ocote y encino; igual ocurre en el municipio aut?nomo de Suljaa', Guerrero, y su radio comunitaria, que son perseguidos y reprimidos desde el gobierno.
Mencionan que en Misi?n de Chichimecas, Guanajuato, caciques de la regi?n amparados en ilegales resoluciones judiciales pretenden apropiarse de sus tierras comunales; o en Tepoztl?n, Morelos, en cuyas tierras poderosos grupos econ?micos insisten en la construcci?n de un club de golf y actualmente la comunidad lleva su defensa ante los Tribunales Agrarios a pesar de las amenazas para despojarlos, y el caso del ejido nahua de Ayotitl?n, Jalisco, donde la Minera Pe?a Colorada, del grupo Hylsamex, "roba y destruye las tierras, montes y aguas del ejido con la complicidad del gobierno".
Se?alan que en las comunidades zapotecas del istmo de Tehuantepec las compa??as espa?olas como Gamesa, Endesa, Preneal e Iberdrola "est?n robando sus tierras con la intenci?n de construir plantas eoloel?ctricas; o es lo que ocurre en las comunidades nahuas de Cuzalapa y wix?rika de Haimats?e, en el estado de Jalisco, que pretenden ser desmembradas por la aplicaci?n del Programa de Certificaci?n en Comunidades".

Rosa Rojas


Y el otro:
 
Martes 29 de noviembre de 2005
 Llaman a sumarse a la otra campa?a para "resistir la guerra de exterminio neoliberal"

Ratifica el CNI su adhesi?n a la Sexta Declaraci?n de la Selva Lacandona
 La Declaraci?n de Tuapurie condena el uso de transg?nicos y la tecnolog?a terminator
HERMANN BELLINGHAUSEN
 
El Congreso Nacional Ind?gena (CNI) ratific? ayer su adhesi?n a la Sexta Declaraci?n de la Selva Lacandona emitida por el EZLN, as? como su participaci?n dentro de la otra campa?a convocada por la organizaci?n rebelde, "con la finalidad de construir con otros sectores sociales en lucha una gran alianza anticapitalista y de izquierda que permita la construcci?n de una nueva sociedad efectivamente justa, libre y democr?tica".
Las organizaciones reunidas este fin de semana en las monta?as de Jalisco hicieron un "urgente" llamado a la unidad del movimiento ind?gena nacional en torno al CNI, "para que en el marco de la otra campa?a podamos resistir la guerra de exterminio neoliberal y avancemos en el fortalecimiento de la autonom?a de nuestros pueblos, en alianza con todos los sectores de la sociedad empe?ados en la construcci?n de un nuevo proyecto de naci?n y una nueva Constituci?n".
Reunidos en In'akwaixit'a, comunidad wix?rika de Tuapurie, Jalisco, para la decimos?ptima reuni?n del CNI (regi?n Centro-Pac?fico), numerosos pueblos, comunidades y organizaciones de Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco, Colima, Michoac?n, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Morelos y Oaxaca acordaron la Declaraci?n de Tuapurie.
Dicho documento asienta que el neoliberalismo "es una guerra de conquista y saqueo contra nuestros pueblos, la naci?n y la humanidad en su conjunto, para multiplicar las ganancias de las empresas capitalistas que hoy dominan el mundo y controlan al gobierno del pa?s". Seg?n la declaraci?n "la contrarreforma agraria de 1992 y la contrarreforma ind?gena de 2001, junto con las leyes que en los ?ltimos a?os han aprobado legisladores de todos los partidos pol?ticos, tienen el fin de destruir la naci?n entera".
El documento expresa el rechazo de los pueblos indios a las nuevas leyes Agraria, Minera, de Desarrollo Forestal Sustentable, de Aguas Nacionales, de Bioseguridad y de Consulta a los Pueblos Ind?genas. Tambi?n a las iniciativas de leyes de Acceso a los Recursos Gen?ticos y de Energ?as Renovables, y la reforma de la Ley de Propiedad Industrial, pues "tienen el prop?sito de privatizar y destruir los territorios de la naci?n y de nuestros pueblos, separando cada una de sus partes, que para nosotros son inseparables: aguas, aire, tierras, montes, ma?ces, plantas, animales, bosques, minerales, costas y mares, incluidos nuestros saberes tradicionales".
El rechazo del CNI se extiende a los programas gubernamentales de certificaci?n de derechos ejidales (Procede), certificaci?n en comunidades (Procecom), Oportunidades y pago por servicios ambientales, as? como los intentos por restringir y prohibir la medicina tradicional. Se opone a la introducci?n de ma?z transg?nico y de la llamada tecnolog?a terminator que provoca infertilidad de las semillas; la construcci?n de represas, autopistas, corredores interoce?nicos, megaproyectos tur?sticos, mineros e industriales que facilitan la migraci?n de las familias.
En una menci?n particular, el CNI repueba el proyecto de Ley sobre Derechos y el Desarrollo de los Pueblos y Comunidades Ind?genas de Jalisco, actualmente en proceso, pues "no tiene m?s finalidad que restringir los derechos y la autonom?a de nuestros pueblos para provocar su desintegraci?n".
El CNI manifiesta que los pueblos han incrementado su resistencia y protegido sus territorios y culturas "del modo que les ha sido posible". En este sentido, el levantamiento armado del EZLN "representa un parteaguas hist?rico en el largo caminar de nuestros pueblos y en la lucha por nuestra plena liberaci?n". Junto con los zapatistas, dice, "construimos un movimiento que conmovi? a la naci?n y al mundo, buscando el reconocimiento constitucional de nuestros derechos".
Tras referirse a la "traici?n de todos los poderes del Estado" al aprobar en 2001 la reforma ind?gena conocida como "ley Bartlett-Cevallos-Ortega", el CNI se?ala que esto llev? a los pueblos "a desconocerla y declarar los acuerdos de San Andr?s como la Constituci?n en materia ind?gena". El CNI refrenda su llamado a los pueblos ind?genas para "no solicitar m?s reconocimientos del gobierno, sino fortalecer en los hechos nuestra autonom?a, nuestros gobiernos y nuestra cultura".
El pronunciamiento agrega: "Estamos dispuestos a incrementar nuestra resistencia e incorporarnos al llamado del EZLN para construir una gran fuerza anticapitalista que junte la resistencia de los pueblos ind?genas con las luchas de los trabajadores del campo y la ciudad, y de todo el pueblo de M?xico para construir una sociedad efectivamente justa, libre y democr?tica".
El CNI llama a defender la autonom?a, el territorio, los recursos y las culturas; fortalecer los gobiernos, asambleas, autoridades tradicionales y agrarias "bajo el principio de mandar obedeciendo"; defender el ma?z propio y evitar la introducci?n de transg?nicos. Por ?ltimo, expresa solidaridad con las comunidades de Chiapas afectadas por el hurac?n Stan y los pueblos de Guerrero que se oponen a la presa La Parota.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 21, 2005, 11:56:17 AM
Mexican gangs force Indians to grow opium By Tim Gaynor
Wed Dec 21, 8:12 AM ET
 


PINO GORDO, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican Indians have grown maize, worshiped nature and lived by the light of pine torches in the canyons of the western Sierra Madre mountains for centuries. But this way of life is abruptly changing.

ADVERTISEMENT
 
 
 
 
Now armed drug gangs are forcing them to plant opium poppies and marijuana in their ancestral lands, which lie in a notorious region dubbed Mexico's 'Golden Triangle' of drug trafficking.

The rugged point where the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa meet is home to around 90,000 Tarahumara, Tepehuan, Pima and Guarijio Indians, around half of whom are getting caught up -- only a few of them willingly -- in the spiraling trade, community leaders say.

The vulnerable groups live in log cabins or caves hewn from the rock of the plunging mile-deep canyons. Speaking in a consonant-rich dialect, they live by planting maize and beans and raising goats in a precarious hand-to-mouth existence.

Since the 1970s, tribal activists say at least 40 indigenous leaders have been gunned down by the chainsaw-wielding loggers and drug planters, in a conflict that is little known in the rest of Mexico.

The problem has recently become so bad that it is reaching even far-flung villages like Pino Gordo, a highly traditional Tarahumara Indian community watched over by peyote-chewing shamans, some 50 miles (80-km) from the nearest road.

"Outsiders are coming in and cutting down our oak and pine trees without our permission," the community's traditional leader Prudencio Ramos said in broken Spanish.

"They walk among us with guns and sow marijuana and poppies, and people are afraid," he added.

DRUGS, GUNS AND CHAINSAWS

While home to indigenous groups, the rugged tri-state area is also the cradle of the Mexican drug trade, where Chinese settlers first came in the 19th century to grow opium poppies for morphine-based painkillers sold in the United States.

Now, locals say traffickers are pushing ever deeper into the labyrinthian canyons of the Sierra, felling the old growth forests and planting illegal drug crops away from the vigilant gaze of the Mexican army, who set up road blocks in the area.

"The traffickers look for the most out-of-the-way places to plant marijuana and poppies ... and these are precisely the areas where the indigenous groups live," said Ramon Castellano, a local agricultural consultant of mixed Pima Indian descent.

They force some Stetson-wearing Indian farmers to plant marijuana and poppies at gun point. Others accept seeds, money and provisions from the traffickers in a bid to squeeze a few extra pesos from their marginal lands.

Toward harvest time in March and April, locals say burly cartel minders with assault rifles and two-way radios watch over the pockets of opium poppy blooms, which are transformed into increasingly pure "black tar" heroin and smuggled over the U.S. border.

"If it's a good year, the farmers can earn more than they can by planting maize," said Isidro Baldenegro, a Tarahumara activist who won a prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize this year for his efforts to protect the forest communities.

"But if the army goes in, then they lose the crop and they don't even have the maize left to eat," he added.

Baldenegro, whose father was killed by an unknown gunman in 1986, has an armed police escort when he travels in the mountainous region after being harassed by powerful and well-connected drug loggers.

He was jailed on false charges of arms and drug possession in 2003, before being released 15 months later following pressure from international organizations including Amnesty International.

TRADITIONS UNDER THREAT

Mexican drug gangs are growing increasingly violent, and authorities say they have killed more than 1,000 people since the start of 2005 in a war for control of the lucrative trade in cocaine, marijuana, heroin and amphetamines worth billions of dollars in the United States.

The Sierra Madre Alliance, a nonprofit organization which supports threatened indigenous groups in the region, says the cartels' profits and networks of influence are forcing the Indians off their traditional lands.

The fall-out from the trade is also hitting tribal peoples' customs hard, filling traditional villages with guns, cash and consumer goods, while rates of drug and alcohol abuse there are starting to climb.

"There are now Tarahumara youngsters who smoke marijuana, which they never did before, and it's very common for them to get drunk when they have the money," said Baldenegro.

"They also buy loud radios and play music, which annoys people during the traditional festivals," he added.

Locals say some youngsters now play thumping accordion ballads called 'narco-corridos' honoring local drug lords, while others venerate Jesus Malverde -- the bandits' patron saint.

As the snarling chainsaws and cartel pistoleros close in on Pino Gordo, regarded as one of the last untouched Tarahumara strongholds in the sierra, Baldenegro is desperate.

"We are calling to the four winds for help," he said. "If we don't get it, there is a real danger that traditional life here will simply disappear."
Title: Mexico
Post by: 9-terremoto on December 22, 2005, 11:04:25 AM
Hola todos.

Creo que el tr?fico de drogas es uno de los males m?s arraigados en esta parte del mundo. Desgraciadamente tambi?n es uno de los ?negocios?m?s rentables: quien controla la droga tiene suficiente dinero para repartir entre sus sirvientes y los funcionarios corruptos, y a?n as? vivir con un lujo que muchos de nosotros ni siquiera hemos imaginado.
Pienso que el negocio de la droga se basa, antes que cualquier cosa, en los vac?os existenciales de las personas. William Buroughs, escritor estadounidense adicto a las drogas peligrosas durante muchos a?os, alg?n d?a hizo un comentario que me parece esclarecedor y tambi?n aterrador: mientras haya clientes, habr? tr?fico de drogas. Si liquid?ramos a los grandes vendedores de drogas, otros ocupar?an ese lugar de inmediato (como de hecho sucede), pues mientras haya alguien dispuesto a matar, robar, prostituirse, arrastrarse por su dosis de droga, habr? narcotr?fico.
La otra cara de la moneda es que para muchos j?venes el narcotr?fico se convierte en una atractiva expectativa de vida. Esto es un fen?meno cultural bastante lamentable, y aunque mucha gente puede decir que exagero, pienso que gran parte de esa p?rdida de valores la debemos a aberraciones como los ?narco corridos? y las pel?culas donde se presenta esa forma de vida como algo excitante, inclusive admirable. (Por cierto, si no han visto ?Don de Dios?, h?ganse un favor: no la vean, aparte de cursi, hace quedar el barrio de Tepito, cuna de boxeadores, como un sitio donde los asesinatos son una cuesti?n totalmente aceptable. Propongo cambiarle el t?tulo: ?Los asesinos tambi?n lloran?.)
Por ?ltimo, pero no menos importante: grupos ind?genas de M?xico, como los wirr?rika (huicholes) y los yaquis, han tenido que luchar mucho tiempo para que su relaci?n religiosa con las plantas alucin?genas no sea tipificada como drogadicci?n y distribuci?n de narc?ticos. Ahora los narcos (los jefes son ?mestizos?) han alcanzado a otros grupos vulnerables, que seguramente han pasado por la misma intolerancia, lo cual me parece una desgracia nacional. Su relaci?n con los alucin?genos est? sometida a una cosmovisi?n y a una disciplina f?sica y mental que minimiza los da?os en ambos sentidos. Desgraciadamente, muchas personas de procedencia urbana, con una cosmovisi?n y un estilo de vida diferentes y sobre todo, sin una gu?a, han tomado la costumbre de incursionar a zonas rurales para ingerir hongos, peyote y otros alucin?genos. Por supuesto, lo ?nico que obtienen es un ?viaje? que no les ayudar? a mejorar en nada, pues no tienen el corpus de conocimientos necesario para su interpretaci?n y seguimiento. Este aspecto de los ?para?sos artificiales? ha sido impulsado por la literatura de Jorge Castaneda (?Las ense?anzas de don Juan? y sus no-s?-cu?ntos libros subsecuentes). A sus lectores, antrop?logos y soci?logos en su mayor?a, les sucede lo que le sucedi? a James Douglas Morrison: a ?l se le hizo f?cil ingerir alucin?genos en busca de un ?conocimiento?, confiando ingenuamente en que estaba preparado para hacerlo, cuando toda su instrucci?n chocaba totalmente con ello. Para muestra un bot?n: su cultura intelectual Nietszcheana.
Ahora bien, el uso de alucin?genos por los miembros de distintos grupos ind?genas del continente (pues tambi?n se practica desde lo que hoy es Canad? y Estados Unidos hasta el Cono sur, y por lo menos se practicaba en el Caribe, por parte de los ta?nos), en su contexto, me parece tan respetable como los giros rituales del derviche musulm?n, la meditaci?n del monje budista mahayana, las operaciones del alquimista (si es que a?n los hay) o los eboses (sacrificios) de los yorub?.
Volviendo a la cuesti?n cultural: si bien no es el ?nico factor del narcotr?fico, hay uno muy importante: la educaci?n. Dec?a Confucio que si se educara a la gente, no habr?a necesidad de castigarla. Por supuesto no me refiero a la instrucci?n escolar, sino a la que se recibe, en primera instancia, en casa. Ahora bien, parte de la propia educaci?n tambi?n la elige cada quien. (?C?mo escribir acerca del tema sin sonar publicitario? ja ja ja , en fin) : La formaci?n que proporcionan las AM me parece de primera, pues es una formaci?n para la vida y nos ayuda a permanecer lejos de esos vac?os existenciales de los que hablaba l?neas arriba, y a los cuales debemos gran parte de nuestras dolencias sociales.

9-Terremoto
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 23, 2005, 09:51:51 AM
Si no me equivoco "Jorge Castaneda" es la Sec. de Relaciones Exteriores, y Carlos Castaneda el autor del libros de Don Juan :D

Buen comentario.

La Aventura continua!
Title: ?Resbal?n!
Post by: 9-terremoto on December 23, 2005, 11:01:58 AM
Es verdad, Carlos Castaneda es el antrop?logo, y Jorge era el funcionario, aunque ahora ya no tiene cargo pol?tico. ?Ni hablar, ahora s? tuve un lapsus! :D. ?Juro que s? la diferencia, ja ja ja ja!

Valdemar
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 26, 2005, 06:35:44 PM
Todos:

Disculpen por favor que lo siguiente sea en ingles-- si alguien tiene la manera de traducirlo, pues adelante!

Jude Wanniski, recientemente muerte, fue un economista de tremenda profundidad, aunque tambien fue algo de un "crank" en unos asunstos.

CD
===================



Published: April 12, 1994
El Economista, Mexico City
MEXICO REFORMS
by Jude Wanniski

The most important problem facing Mexico today is the inadequacy of its political system in serving the myriad needs of the Mexican people. From a U.S. perspective, it even occurs to me that the business and political leaders of your country should consider a grand political reorganization, not merely the kind of incremental reforms that are being debated.

The reason is that Mexico`s existing political mechanism evolved during its experiment with socialism, which requires a concentration of power at the elite center. Democratic capitalism functions best when political power is diffuse, widely shared by ordinary people. Luis Donaldo Colosio had embraced this view of political decentralization, as does Ernesto Zedillo and the candidates of the other major parties. This essay may help further the discussion by taking it to a broad, philosophical plain.

More than a century ago, Karl Marx correctly saw that for capitalism to thrive, political power must be dispersed through active universal suffrage. What he saw as the flaw of capitalism was that successful businessmen -- those at the top -- would always tend to use their political power to discourage competition from those at the bottom. Only a democracy that puts political power in the hands of the many can it act as a check on that tendency.

Mexico is now experiencing terrible social distress because the economic reforms of the Salinas Administration have taxed the existing political structure to the breaking point -- like a growing boy who is splitting through an old suit of clothes.

"Salinastroika," as I came to call it in 1989, has been a great boon to Mexico, benefitting the nation in general by reviving an economy that had stagnated under a burden of taxes, inflation, and public enterprises that squandered national resources. But the benefits thus far have been largely concentrated in the industrial and financial centers -- in Mexico City and Monterrey.

The answer is not to tax the centers more heavily in order to redistribute wealth to the less developed states -- Chiapas, for example. The answer lies in reorganizing the national political structure so that states, like Chiapas, will have the ability to increase their own economic welfare instead of relying on the good will of those at the center.

Giving up political power at the center sounds difficult to those who now have it, but it should rather be seen as an investment that will expand the power of all Mexicans -- in the same way a father gives up power over his growing sons. The people of Chiapas do not wish to drag down the people of Mexico City and Monterrey. They just do not want to be left behind.

At a meeting in Mexico City last November, for example, I recommended to some of Mexico`s leading businessmen that Mexico import one of the most successful of the institutions of the United States -- the practice of issuing state and municipal bonds that have been approved in elections by the people whose taxes must ultimately guarantee the bonds.

In the past several decades, Mexico`s national ruling class has maintained the allegiance of the people by gathering in resources at the center and, with a rough sort of justice, distributing those resources through the socialist mechanisms of the PRI.

President Salinas has taken this a step further, by distributing capital assembled at the center to public works projects given priority by the local citizenry. This at least draws on the intelligence of the people of the grass roots in discovering which uses of national capital will provide a reasonable return on investment.

In the United States, because political power is diffuse, the power to tax is diffuse as well. This enables even the smallest political subdivisions to draw upon public resources when all those affected democratically agree to shoulder the increased tax burden should the public investment fail.

There has been no better demonstration of the wisdom of ordinary people when democratically assembled than the public bond issues of the federal system in the United States. Over the last two hundred years, literally several hundred thousand bond issues have been floated by states, counties, cities, and towns as well as districts representing schools, airports, sewer and water systems. Rarely have such bonds failed, so careful are taxpayers and property owners in assessing the investments before they vote.


Democracy works so splendidly when voters can focus on a single issue because the electorate is like a giant computer, linking together the power of the small computers at the heart of the human brain. Individual voters may not be able to compete with the wisdom of the elite at the center, but when massed together in an integrated circuit, ordinary people can outperform any small number of experts on a single yes/no political decision.

The electoral reforms being discussed by leaders of the three main political parties in Mexico attempt to insure honest elections at the presidential and gubernatorial levels. The reforms are naturally resisted by local political operatives who see their way of life challenged by these reforms. From their perspective, Mexico City is taking away political power from the rest of the country in the name of political reform -- increasing power at the center.

The only way to neutralize their opposition is for the three national political parties to agree that some of the taxing power at the center should devolve to the perimeters -- along with the power to capitalize public resources through bond finance. In the United States, income from interest on state and local bonds are tax exempt, which is an efficient way of attracting capital from the wealth at the center to those locales deficient in capital. The system is perfectly suited to Mexico, which is already structured loosely along federal lines.

With this kind of power shift to the states comes responsibility. When people have an opportunity to acquire wealth, they develop a greater respect for property rights. As a result, communities that have honest elections do better than communities that do not. Instead of the national government attempting to police the voting booths, the people do it themselves out of self interest.

The current structure of government in Mexico is perfectly suited to the kind of corporate socialism that has served the people for better or worse. It is organized along the lines of a giant conglomerate called Mexico, Inc., with a chief executive officer who reports to a board of directors, who serves six years and, with the general approval of the board, is permitted to name his own successor.

The formula is superior to monarchy, which transmits power from one generation to another through blood and kinship. In the corporate method, anyone born in Mexico can theoretically grow up to be president. In some of the best days of the Roman Empire, emperors followed the practice of adopting sons deemed worthy of power. Over time, the system broke down through slippage in the selection process -- less able leaders chose less able successors.

The most efficient system is that which gives the whole people the power to select their leaders from the widest possible talent pool. The great religions of the world teach us that saviors can be found born in a stable or abandoned in the bulrushes. In establishing a new political system, the concept might again draw upon the experience of the United States.

It has only been in the last forty years that the American president has been chosen from candidates themselves chosen by the people at large. Prior to the 1950s, there were few primary elections. Democratic and Republican party leaders chose candidates through the convention process, which concentrated power in the hands of the party elite. In a new, decentralized political system, there would have to be some method that would give electoral weight to the considerations of those furthest from the center.

Yet another democratic concept that has served the United States well is that of the electoral college, which is suited to Mexico`s federal system. Its important ingredient is the winner-take-all aspect of state-by-state balloting. This maximizes the importance of small states, whose numbers would otherwise be swamped by the several megastates like California and New York.

It also forces the dominance of two political parties, as it is almost impossible for a major third party to survive a winner-take-all system. A two-party system is technically superior in advancing the national interest because it forces a clear choice in the agendas of the two parties. Multi-party systems introduce confusion in the electorate, leaving critical issues facing a nation unresolved.

If Mexico were to adopt a winner-take-all federal system, one of the three major parties would fade to minor status -- equivalent to the Libertarian or Socialist parties in the U.S. The other two would likely organize around the fundamental principles that have faced all people in all times -- one being the party of security, the other the party of opportunity.

In the smallest political unit, the family, the tension usually lies between the mother`s role of security, wishing to limit risk, and the father`s role of expanding opportunities through greater risk. The modern nation state may seem exceedingly complex next to the family unit, but in simplest terms, it operates best when it is organized the same way, as an aggregation of millions of family units.

If Mexico wished to carry these concepts to the state of the art, it might consider another democratic mechanism that is not now available to the people of the United States, but can be found in Switzerland. That is a national initiative and referendum process, which carries the concept of democracy to its logical conclusion.

In Switzerland each year, the most important issues facing the people are decided by the people in national referenda. Instead of assigning the most important policy questions to national legislatures, which can be considered "committees" of the whole people, the national electorate itself grapples with these five, six, or seven topics.

This mechanism makes Switzerland the most democratic country in the world. It should not be surprising that it is also the most prosperous, with the highest per capita income in the world. It is also a peaceful country, despite the fact that it accommodates four official languages of four distinct ethnic groups.

If Mexico had such a mechanism, it could put questions that now are impossible for it to address to the whole people. Should Pemex be privatized? If the people are asked this question in a public opinion poll, the answer comes back in the negative. In a national referendum on the subject, with voters having to educate themselves on the pros and cons, the results could be quite different. It could also lead to a question on whether citizens who own property should also own the mineral rights to that property -- restoring the law as it existed prior to the revolution.

The same is true of fundamental questions of monetary and fiscal policy, of social policies, and the environment. Instead of national political leaders having to guess at where the people wish to go, they can on the most important questions simply ask them. The ruling class at first glance will always be suspicious of this kind of expansive, active democracy -- believing it would diminish the importance of the elite. Instead, it would put a higher premium on the other elites of society, in business and finance, in the arts and sciences.

The global trend is in the direction of more, not less democracy, as communications become instantaneous, and as competition between nations requires the most efficient decision-making at the level of public policy. Instead of waiting for it to happen elsewhere, Mexico should now consider getting ahead of the curve, of taking this opportunity which history has presented it and discussing the frontiers of democratic possibilities. Instead of incremental reform, it should think of a constitutional convention and a grand reorganization that would put it first in the world at the edge of the new century.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 17, 2006, 05:24:43 PM
Mexico: As Violence Spreads, the Threat to Corporations Rises
February 15, 2006 18 02  GMT



Gunmen killed two police chiefs in northeastern Mexico within hours of one another Feb. 14; one in a wealthy suburb of Monterrey about 150 miles south of the Texas border and the other in the smaller city of Sabinas Hidalgo some 80 miles south of the border. Although still under investigation, the two killings indicate that violence at the hands of organized crime is spreading south from increasingly lawless Nuevo Laredo. Moreover, it seems just a matter of time before the drug lords move into the realm of corporate extortion -- if they have not already.

The first shooting took place in Sabinas Hidalgo after gunmen abducted Police Chief Javier Garcia as he arrived at city hall. Shortly after the abduction, police found Garcia's body on the side of a highway outside the city. Garcia, whose hands were handcuffed behind his back, had been shot in the back of the head. The second attack occurred four hours later in normally peaceful San Pedro Garza Garcia, the Monterrey suburb that is home to most of the city's rich and powerful, and many of the Americans and other foreigners who work in northern Mexico's industrial giant. In that attack, gunmen overtook Police Chief Hector Ayala's vehicle as it traveled in the city, and shot Ayala dead. Although it is unclear whether the two killings are directly linked, they appear to be the work of the drug cartels that operate in the region.





On the same day, heavily armed men entered the emergency room of a hospital in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, and gunned down a patient receiving treatment for a gunshot wound, bringing to 31 the number of people killed in the Mexican border town since the year began. In 2005, at least 181 people died violently in Nuevo Laredo, including 20 or more active and former police officers.

Monterrey, the capital of neighboring Nuevo Leon state and a pillar of the Mexican economy, is connected to the U.S. border by Highway 85 at Nuevo Laredo. On the U.S. side of the border, Highway 85 becomes Interstate 35, running from Laredo through San Antonio, Dallas and on through the central United States. Because of this, the Highway 85 corridor has long been a route for shipping goods -- and for smuggling drugs into the United States.

Monterrey has established itself as a major center for transnational corporate activity. High-tech companies such as Nextel and distribution-intensive companies such as Wal-Mart and the Texas-based supermarket chain HEB all have a presence in the city. Additionally, Mexican transnationals, including Bimbo, Jugomex and Mexican brewing giant Cervecer?a Cuauht?moc Moctezuma have centers of operations in Monterrey. Its geographic location makes it a major transportation hub in the supply chain from Mexican manufacturers to U.S. consumers.

U.S.-based businesses have long conducted operations in some of Mexico's most crime-ridden areas, and have found a way to come to terms with the security risks and the government and police corruption. The spreading violence -- especially to Monterrey -- could indicate increasing moxie on the part of the gangs, however. If they have not yet done so, the gangs could move beyond the realm of drug smuggling and into the world of corporate extortion. In many countries, shaking down corporate executives for protection money is a common practice, and there is little reason to believe such activity could not reach into Mexico. Moreover, in some cases -- Russia, for example -- these shakedowns can come from the host government as well.

It often is hard to tell the extent of underworld extortion of corporations, as more often than not the transnational corporation will opt to deal with the matter privately, rather than report it to the host government or the U.S. Embassy. Reporting a threat to U.S. officials in the country would have little effect, as the most they can do is report these threats back to the host government.

It remains to be seen whether criminal extortion of transnational corporations in Monterrey will become a significant problem. These latest killings do show that gang violence is moving beyond the border cities and into industrial zones. Mexican President Vicente Fox has gone on record as saying that gang violence and activity in the region will continue for the foreseeable future. The transition from drug smuggling to corporate extortion is inevitable, if not already present.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 01, 2006, 04:14:21 AM
Mexican heroes, not Chavez or Lula, inspire leftist By Alistair Bell
Mon Feb 27, 2:43 PM ET
 


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The man favored to win Mexico's presidential election is often compared to the new breed of Latin American left-wing leaders but he prefers to delve deep into Mexican history to find his role models.

ADVERTISEMENT
 
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist front-runner for the July election, denies he is a populist in the mold of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and he rejects similarities to Bolivia's new leader, Evo Morales, or Brazil's more moderate president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Instead, Lopez Obrador is a keen admirer of Benito Juarez, a poor Zapotec Indian who became Mexico's first indigenous president and a modernizer in the mid-19th century.

At campaign rallies, amateur history buff Lopez Obrador lauds Mexico's independence heroes in the fight against Spain, and famous revolutionaries like Emiliano Zapata and Francisco "Pancho" Villa.

But he reserves most praise for the liberal Juarez, offering a glimpse into the kind of president he might try to be if he wins the July 2 vote.

"We are inspired by Benito Juarez's sobriety, austerity and the firmness of his republican principles," Lopez Obrador told a rally of up to 100,000 people in Mexico City on Sunday.

Lopez Obrador, the capital's former mayor, has topped opinion polls for the last three years, although his lead has faded a bit since campaigning began in January.

Wall Street investors and Washington policy-makers are anxious to know where he fits into Latin America's recent swing to the left. They worry Lopez Obrador will wreck Mexico's financial stability by spending heavily to create jobs, and that he might also take a firm anti-U.S. stance.

Lopez Obrador says he would take Juarez, who expanded civil rights and curbed Roman Catholic Church powers, as an example.

Juarez, a steel-willed man whose face adorns Mexico's 20-peso note, is a national icon for defeating French invaders, drawing up a federalist constitution and bringing a country torn by political and religious chaos under the rule of law.

TOUGH TASK

Lopez Obrador sees in himself a similar willingness to shake up Mexico, blighted by drug gang violence, mass emigration to the United States and grinding poverty, said left-wing historian Lorenzo Meyer.

"What is it that Andres Manuel sees in Juarez? He sees a political leader with a task that is almost impossible," said Meyer.

Lopez Obrador's reluctance to identify himself with other modern leftists might be an effort not to antagonize next-door neighbor the United States, Mexico's key trading partner.

"In their own ways, Lula, Chavez and Kirchner have conflicts with the United States," said Meyer. "Anything Lopez Obrador might say on foreign policy could turn into a problem for him."

But aides say Lopez Obrador, a widower and former Indian rights activist, is driven by a need to leave his own mark on history, in his case by raising millions of Mexicans out of poverty and fighting corruption.

"It is not just about putting the presidential sash on and sitting in the presidential seat," Lopez Obrador said on Sunday. "It's about a real renovation, a true purification of public life."

Lopez Obrador will make history of his own if he wins the election. No candidate from a left-wing party has ever become president in Mexico.

Lopez Obrador called former President Lazaro Cardenas the best Mexican president of last century on Sunday. Cardenas is remembered for nationalizing the oil industry in 1938 and the reference underlined Lopez Obrador's commitment to keep private investment away from state oil monopoly Pemex.

Lopez Obrador speaks little about foreign policy and other regional leaders, which is no loss for some Mexicans.

"We don't know much about them," said florist Estela Ramos, a Lopez Obrador backer. "We have enough problems in Mexico."
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 07, 2006, 11:01:39 PM
!Hijole!  !Otra vez in ingles!
==========================

Illegal Immigration and Tax Rates

Mar 7 2006

Memo To: Lou Dobbs
From: Patricia Koyce Wanniski
Re: Your Tenacity on the Immigration Issue

Until the recent Dubai Ports World uproar, you have been vociferous in covering the story of illegal immigration. While I agree with you the borders ought to be made more secure, I`ve come to believe you are spinning your wheels with the way you have pursued the issue.

One way to end the problem of illegal immigration is, of course, the way you have espoused: tougher border controls, tougher penalties for illegals caught in the U.S., and no amnesty for anybody. Nothing intrinsically wrong with any of those ideas, except that they are expensive and don`t work so well, as we`ve seen. The other way, which you have ignored, is for the Mexican government to make the country`s capital tax structure so attractive to its people that not only do they not want to leave, those who have left will return.

I came across an essay Jude wrote to President Vicente Fox that outlines a way in which this might be accomplished. Of course, some of the tax rates have changed: in 2005, the top marginal rate was lowered to 30 percent; unfortunately, the threshold was lowered as well, and kicks in around US$8,500. Even oil revenues can`t offset the tremendous burden. The tax structure is almost as heavy a millstone as it is in Africa: it`s no wonder Mexicans flee the country in droves for a life here. Solving the problem in Mexico would provide a template for other Latin American countries to follow, alleviating the burden of illegal immigration for the U.S. overall. Perhaps a journalist of your stature bringing the idea to light might encourage the government to consider some of these changes.

Anyway, having doggedly reported on the story for the last several years, I thought you might enjoy a fresh perspective. Here it is, with our compliments.

January 14, 2004

The Mexico Summit

Memo To: Vicente Fox, President of Mexico
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Exporting Your Citizens

Having had such high hopes for your tenure when you were elected in 1999, Mr. President, I am sorely dismayed that your economy remains in such sad shape that you have to negotiate with our President to send your unemployed to work here illegally. Nothing I saw in your meeting with President Bush indicates you are getting any closer to figuring out that as long as your tax system is so out of line with the US tax system, you will continue to export your people into the American Southwest and California. They are not leaving in search of lower tax rates, mind you. It is just that Mexico?s business class cannot form the capital necessary to sustain broader employment of your people at living wages.

As far as I can tell, your top income tax rate of 33% now applies at an income of about $20,000. In the U.S., the top rate is 38.6%, but that is not encountered until taxable income reaches $312,000. Your 25% rate is reached at $7230 and the closest U.S. tax bracket for a head of household of 27% is reached at $98,000. Your 10% rate is reached at $4114. The U.S. 10% rate is encountered at $10,000. Do you see what I mean?

Then there is your 15% Value Added Tax, which adds to the burdens of enterprise, a tax that the United States does not have at all.

If you check with your finance minister, Francisco Gil Diaz, he will tell you that I have been pestering him for the last four years to cut or eliminate your capital gains tax. There is a zero capital gains tax on shares traded on your stock exchange, I know, but you have to be a big company to trade on the Bolsa. If you are not big enough to be admitted to the Bolsa, you must pay capital gains at the ordinary rates. In other words, the system favors the elites and punishes the pool out of which you would expect to find entrepreneurs who someday might become big enough to compete with the elites. If you would eliminate the capgains tax, which I?m sure you will find brings in very little revenue to your government. This is because it encourages businesses to remain small or to find ways to avoid the tax. You would immediately find the Mexico stock market surging ahead, not because the elites would get a more favorable treatment than zero, but because the economy underneath them would be pushing up the value of all assets. Revenues would then increase dramatically on your income tax and your VAT tax, and you could then easily make provision to lower the burden of the VAT and income tax. I?d recommend you leave the top rate in place at 33% and increase the threshold to at least $100,000.

There are a great many other things you can do to catch up with the United States in the way you originally envisioned, President Fox. But this would be a good start. What you would find, even if you presented such a program to the legislature, that there would immediately be a hesitation of your citizens to leave the U.S., and in a short time there would be a reflow of Mexican nationals who are now struggling to make ends meet in California and the other Southwestern states.

Monetary policy is also something to consider, although here Minister gil Diaz has done a better job in stabilizing the value of the peso. You are always at risk, though, because of the floating U.S. dollar. Here is a memo I wrote to Paco Gil on July 23, 2001, ?Those Unhappy Mexican Farmers.? It was written when your economy was suffering terribly from the monetary deflation caused by the Federal Reserve?s management of the floating dollar.

http://www.wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=1538

With best wishes for the remainder of your six-year term,

Jude Wanniski
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 14, 2006, 11:55:58 AM
Thugs, Drugs and Coyotes on the U.S.-Mexican Border
In response to testimony that violence along the U.S.-Mexican border is at an all-time high -- and getting worse -- the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to recommend that the United States increase the number of Border Patrol agents on the job from Texas to California. Even if Congress were to approve the biggest and fastest increase discussed -- as many as 12,000 more agents over two years -- the move is unlikely to stem the wave of humanity and associated violence surging into the United States.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told the committee that assaults on his agents increased 108 percent between 2004 and 2005, mainly because drug smugglers and "coyotes," those who help illegal immigrants enter the United States for a fee, are more willing than ever to fight agents when confronted, rather than run. The increase in assaults indicates not only that the stakes are getting higher in the smuggling business on both sides of the border, but that a new, more violent group of coyotes is vying for control of the human-smuggling operations in northern Mexico: Central American street gangs known as Mara Salvatruchas, or MS-13.




Meanwhile, violence is raging along the Mexican border -- and in other parts of Mexico -- between rival drug cartels that are competing for control of drug-smuggling operations into the United States as well as for control of the overall illegal drug market within Mexico. In 2005, Mexican President Vicente Fox sent the army to increasingly lawless Nuevo Laredo after two of the last three local police chiefs died at the hands of the cartels, which have started using heavy weapons to fight their wars. Across the Rio Grande in Laredo, Texas, crime rates increased as the fighting spilled over from Mexico. In Arizona, which includes the porous Tucson border sector, meanwhile, federal prosecutors handled 32 cases of kidnapping involving cartel members in 2005, compared to only two cases in 2001.

Although the insecurity along the border has increased concerns in the United States that jihadists and other militants will attempt to enter from Mexico, violence associated with the cartels, the gangs and the coyotes likely will remain the biggest threat. Terrorist infiltration across the Mexican border is possible, but risky. Rather than risk sending a valuable attack team through the violent and unstable border area, jihadists determined to commit terrorist acts in the United States are more likely to enter the country through international airports on valid passports, as did every one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Even if Congress were to approve nearly doubling the size of the Border Patrol from its current 11,300 agents, the agency still would be vastly outnumbered. According to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. agents apprehended 1.1 million people along the border in 2005, although the Border Patrol's catch-and-release policy can force agents to apprehend the same person over and over. Of the total apprehensions, 139,000 of them were criminals, including many from MS-13 and other gangs. For example, of the 2,388 gang members arrested in Operation Community Shield, a two-week law enforcement round-up of illegal immigrants that began Feb. 24, 922 belonged to MS-13 gangs. The criminal element coming over the border has spread throughout the United States, to cities such as Dallas, San Diego, Washington, Miami and Raleigh, N.C. An estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants succeed in making it across the border each year.

Although the vast majority of illegal immigrants continue to be Mexicans and Central Americans lured to the United States by the hope of finding jobs, the new reality on the border, and beyond, is an ever-stronger criminal presence. Congressional debate on immigration reform, which could begin as soon as March 27, will address this new reality -- though fixing the problem will be close to impossible.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 16, 2006, 01:30:55 PM
Mexico: Too Late for New Oil to Help?
March 15, 2006 22 42  GMT



Summary

Mexican President Vicente Fox recently said a new oil field has been discovered off the coast of southern Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico. The field, which could hold reserves of up to 10 billion barrels of crude, would significantly increase Mexico's total oil reserves, which currently stand at 46.4 billion barrels. However oil production at this site will take several years for technical reasons alone, not to mention the current legal and financial restrictions that Petroleos Mexicanos faces in developing this and other fields.

Analysis

Mexican President Vicente Fox on March 14 officially announced the discovery of a new offshore oil field in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The "Deep Coatzacoalcos" oil field, located around 60 miles from the coast of southern Veracruz, could hold 10 billion barrels of crude, which amounts to more than 20 percent of Mexico's current total reserves of 46.4 billion barrels.

This discovery is important in the context of declining proven reserves. Mexico's main oil field, Cantarell, which is located off the coast of Campeche and accounts for nearly 75 percent of the country's daily production of 3.4 million barrels, has reached its production peak this year. Mexico has started developing other fields, but none of them is large enough to substitute for Cantarell. If the reserves in the Deep Coatzacoalcos field turn out to be as large as announced, Mexico could continue being a relatively important player in the oil market (it is currently the fifth-largest producer and ninth-largest exporter) and secure a stable domestic supply for years. However, it will be several years before production begins because of technical, financial and legal restrictions.

Mexico, which once based most of its exports on oil, has been able to transform and diversify its economy in the past two decades. However, the Mexican government continues to depend heavily on oil revenues to finance public expenditures; more than a third of the government's total revenues come from oil. By taking most of the profits away from state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the government has left Pemex in a state of chronic underinvestment. This has hampered Pemex's ability to explore for new fields, exploit current fields and process and refine the extracted crude.




The Mexican government also has not used oil revenues to finance a tax reform that would help the government rely less on oil profits over the long run. Moreover, Mexico has not taken advantage of the high oil prices during the past couple of years, since it has been unable to increase production. And when Mexico finally starts producing in the currently underdeveloped oil fields, the high prices might not be there anymore.

Pemex officials admit it will take at least eight years to start producing from the Deep Coatzacoalcos field. With the most modern technology, it would take at least five years to be able to start any kind of production using deep-sea deposits such as those in the new field -- and that is without the financial constraints Pemex faces. Currently, production costs are around $4 per barrel at Cantarell and $5 per barrel at the Ku Maloop Zaap field, which is next in line for exploitation. Pemex estimates that production costs on the new deep-sea fields could reach between $11 and $12 per barrel -- before taxes charged by the Mexican government, which in 2005 equaled around 60 percent of the total sales. Additionally, Pemex faces a total debt of $50 billion. This puts significant financial limitations on the exploitation of Deep Coatzacoalcos.

Mexico not only faces technical problems -- it is clear that Pemex does not have the latest technology to minimize development time -- and high production costs, but the government also restricts private and foreign investment, which could be the only way to sensibly exploit its oil deposits. The Mexican Constitution prohibits foreign and private investment, so the government has been forced to resort to limited subcontracting and even joint investments to build refining plants outside the country. This, along with the aforementioned financial and technical restrictions, could mean that Mexico will see its role as a leading oil exporter diminish while the country faces internal bottlenecks that affect its economic competitiveness.

All the candidates running in Mexico's presidential election, which will be held July 2, have named energy as one of their main concerns. Felipe Calderon, from Fox's National Action Party, and Roberto Madrazo, from the previously long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, favor changing the law to allow private investment in exploration. However, the current front-runner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, has made maintaining the current restrictions one of his campaign tenets. Lopez Obrador has promised heavy investments into Pemex's modernization, but it is not clear how he would get the money without private investment.

Fox's administration decided to concentrate most of Pemex's scarce investment resources into oil exploration. During the past five years, Pemex has invested more than an estimated $6 billion in finding reserves. The discovery of Deep Coatzacoalcos makes it look like some of that investment will pay off. However, while the discovery of the new oil reserves is good news for Mexico, it will not affect global markets in the short or medium term. Moreover, the economic significance of these reserves for the country could be very low if Mexico arrives late again by refusing to change the status quo so it can develop and take advantage of its oil riches. The discovery of the new reserves is a good opportunity to rethink Mexico's long-term oil strategy.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 14, 2006, 02:40:54 PM
Mexican Military Incursions into U.S. Territory
The current debate in the United States over illegal immigration focuses on the flood of average Mexican and Central Americans who are crossing into the United States to find jobs. An under-reported problem along the U.S.-Mexican border, however, involves incursions by Mexican military personnel into U.S. territory. In some cases, shots have been fired and U.S. citizens threatened. It appears that no government agency on either side of the border has a handle on the motives for these incursions.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, suspected Mexican military units have crossed into the United States 216 times since 1996: 75 times in California, 63 in Arizona and 78 in Texas. U.S. patrols that do encounter Mexican military personnel (or anyone in uniform), however, are under strict orders not to fire, so as to avoid inciting a gunbattle -- and a possible international border incident. Lacking sufficient manpower and resources to patrol the entire border, groups such as the Border Sheriff's Association and Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition have frequently appealed to lawmakers for help.





Some of these incursions could be accidental -- the result of Mexican authorities chasing drug runners or human smugglers into U.S. territory. During a pursuit, the Mexicans could easily lose track of where they are going and wander too far north. In some parts of the border, the demarcation line between countries is extremely hard to distinguish, even for seasoned professionals. And during dry seasons in the Texas region of the border, the Rio Grande can become nothing more than a trickle, making it appear little more than a ditch. It is unlikely that all Mexican military patrols along the border operate with global positioning systems (GPS), so the occasional navigational mistake should not be surprising. In fact, stand-offs have occurred between Mexican military troops and U.S. Border Patrol agents, each one believing the other encroached on their side of the border.

Not all of these crossing could be innocent, however. Mexican military troops could be running drugs over the border themselves or providing logistics and protection for cartels. The Sheriff's Office in Hudspeth County, Texas, reported Jan. 23 that men dressed as members of the Mexican military provided cover for drug runners near the Rio Grande. And, on March 2, Hudspeth County Sheriff's deputies apprehended a Mexican customs officer with detailed maps of the area and a GPS tracking system in his vehicle. The officer was believed to have been performing reconnaissance for drug smuggling routes. This latest case only highlights the relative ease in which Mexican officials can cross into the United States.

It should be noted, however, that in smuggling operations, corrupt Mexican officials and soldiers more than likely have contacts on the U.S. side of the border, possibly in law enforcement agencies.

Paramilitary units along the Mexican border could also be partly responsible. Groups such as the Zetas, highly trained ex-military personnel who have formed a muscle-for-hire organization, have a working relationship with the cartels. These hired guns control large expanses of the Mexican border with enough firepower and training to challenge the Mexican military as well as U.S. Border Patrols. Dressed in combat fatigues, carrying military weapons and driving military-style vehicles, Zetas would be indistinguishable from active-duty soldiers. It also is possible that the Zetas have recruited moonlighting active-duty soldiers along with their equipment and vehicles, further adding to the confusion.

U.S. law enforcement along the border face the constant threat of confronting armed smugglers and drug traffickers. In some cases, they also must deal with U.S. citizens who have formed private vigilante groups, such as the Minutemen. The incursions by Mexican military personnel only add to the chaos.
Send questions
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 23, 2006, 11:27:34 AM
In a City of Killings, Silence Is Golden
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, is a battleground in a drug cartel turf war. But talking about the crimes can be deadly, especially for journalists.
By H?ctor Tobar, Times Staff Writer
April 23, 2006


NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico ? Here, it's better not to know.

Information can be poison in this border city. Hard-boiled police reporters would rather you didn't tell them the names of certain criminals. When there's a shootout downtown, even the most ambitious radio reporter will not necessarily rush to the scene.

ADVERTISEMENT
 So it went the day last month that four undercover federal police officers were ambushed and killed in thick lunch-hour traffic on the city's busiest street. The offices of several newspapers and radio stations were just blocks away ? but the news broke 700 miles to the south, on the Mexico City wire services.

"I don't mention groups, I don't mention names?. I don't want to know anything," said a newspaper editor here and member of the Assn. of Journalists of Nuevo Laredo. His paper will publish only the barest facts of the crime wave sweeping the city.

"It's not fear, it's being prudent," he explained. Three journalists have been killed here in the last year. "We're not going to try to be the hero of the movie."

The war between the so-called Gulf and Sinaloa drug cartels has been blamed by Mexican federal officials for more than 230 killings in the city in the last 16 months. The journalists who ordinarily would report on such violence have been silenced by cartel operatives who kidnap reporters and repeatedly phone in threats to newsrooms.

Violence and intimidation have created a culture of silence in this city of 500,000 people. Municipal officials rarely comment publicly on the killings. Law enforcement authorities seem powerless. And people here are hard-pressed to remember the last time anyone was arrested or prosecuted for such sensational crimes as the killing of more than a dozen police officers.

"When a crime is committed there should be an investigation, an accused, a punishment," says Carlos Galvan, the owner of two newspapers here. "As long as those things don't happen, speculation eats up [the reputation of] the victim."

Indeed, rumor and mythology are filling the information vacuum in Nuevo Laredo.

Ask why so many people have died here, and there's a good chance you'll be told that the dead have only themselves to blame. The vox populi has it that no "good" or "innocent" person is ever killed in Nuevo Laredo.

"They must have been involved in something," a taxi driver said just a block from the site where the four police officers were killed.

The refrain is reminiscent of dictatorships in other Latin American nations, such as Argentina, where for years people were taken away by soldiers and police officers and "disappeared" without explanation.

Told that the dead were police officers, the taxi driver responded, "The police are all corrupt."

Another popular saying here draws on the Mexican myth that killers are fated to forever drag around the remains of their victims: "Only the person who carries the sack of bones knows why they were killed," people say.

Newspaper and radio reporters here say they would like to tell the full story of the killings. The names of certain drug kingpins circulate among journalists and in other border towns, but have never been printed. Facts might help dispel the myths, they say, as well as the aura of omnipotence that surrounds the cartels. But facts can get reporters killed.

"Some fortunate people who have not been touched directly by the violence can give themselves the luxury of thinking that honest people are not affected," said one journalist who, like many other people interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of not being named. "That's not true."

The cartels are a shadowy but ubiquitous presence. Longtime residents fear their wealth, their armaments and their apparent infiltration of institutions, such as the police force.

"Here, everyone knows who is a narco and who works for them," said one Nuevo Laredo resident, a university student.

"The important thing is not to get mixed up with them and keep a normal life. I even know some narco juniors," the student said, using a term for the young assassins from well-off families recruited to the cartels. "They're very obvious. They show up with the armored pick-up trucks, with guards and all that."

More than 60 people have been killed in the city this year.



 << back     1 2      


The pictures of the dead run in the local newspapers alongside screaming headlines such as "A Rain of Bullets!" Some papers routinely run stark pictures of open-eyed corpses torn up by high-caliber bullets. But rarely will a local newspaper, or a local official, explain why a person was killed or who the killer might be.

Are all the dead drug dealers, or connected with them, as many say?

ADVERTISEMENT
 When a police officer is killed, is it in retaliation for a police raid, or because the officer was mixed up with criminals?

When a journalist is killed or attacked, is it because he or she "offended the sensibilities" (a common Nuevo Laredo euphemism) of one of the drug bands by revealing something about its operations? Or was it because the journalist was working for a cartel and was killed by its rival?

Last year, Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez Flores told residents: "The people of Tamaulipas who behave themselves have nothing to fear" because those being victimized in the wave of violence "are in some way involved with organized crime."

Even people who were close to the victims wonder whether they can ever know why their friends and relatives were killed.

A Nuevo Laredo resident who described himself as a childhood friend of Alejandro Dominguez, a police chief assassinated last year, wonders out loud what his friend might have done to get himself killed.

"You have to go to the root of things. Why did it happen?" says the man, a Nuevo Laredo entrepreneur who asked not to be named. "What did he have in his past? What was his way of living before?"

Dominguez had worked in the attorney general's office.

"He was in law enforcement," the friend said. "And when you're in that job, whether you like it or not, you have to get involved with bad people."

The assassination of Dominguez shook Nuevo Laredo and garnered international headlines. He had been head of the Nuevo Laredo police force for just a few hours when he was gunned down.

"It hits you hard. You know that person, you are with that person, you listen to his dreams and aspirations," the friend said. Still, like many residents here, he was concerned that the killing had been blown out of proportion. He seemed to be angry with his old friend for getting assassinated in such a scandalous way.

"If he hadn't been killed in an hour, it wouldn't have had such an impact on Nuevo Laredo," he said.

Key facts about the drug war are unknown to the general public. For example, it's never been reported here that criminal gangs have threatened local radio stations and newspaper reporters to keep them from reporting on shootings.

Nor has it been reported locally that the narcos have kidnapped journalists. And one Nuevo Laredo reporter told the Mexico City magazine Proceso in February that none who have been kidnapped ? and sometimes tortured ? by the drug bands will file an official complaint.

"Because if there's anyone here who knows that the federal, the state and especially the municipal authorities cannot be trusted, it's precisely us," the journalist said.

The mayor of Nuevo Laredo rejected requests for an interview for this article, as did police officials.

To escape the pervasive sense of danger, many residents, including some journalists, seek out facts that suggest that violence is something that happens to others.

At radio station 95.7 FM, news director Marco Antonio Espinoza disagrees with those who say his colleague Ramiro Tellez was killed because he was a journalist.

"The problem did not occur because of journalism," Espinoza said. Tellez really wasn't a journalist, Espinoza said. "He'd come in here in the morning and do the weather report. Then he would leave."

Tellez, who was killed March 10, worked as director of the city's emergency and police communications system. Sources speculated that Tellez may have been killed because the city had recently installed a communications system that made it difficult for criminals to monitor police radio transmissions.

"We stay away from police stories," Espinoza said. "It was the other job that caused his problem."

The newspaper El Ma?ana decided to "self-censor" its coverage after editor Roberto Mora Garcia was slain outside his home in 2004. Nevertheless, on Feb. 6, the newspaper's offices were attacked and a reporter seriously wounded by men wielding assault rifles and hand grenades.

Sources in Nuevo Laredo's journalism community offered several theories about the reason. Maybe it was because of the Proceso article that had come out a day earlier. Maybe it was because El Ma?ana had recently participated in a journalism symposium with out-of-towners. Or maybe it was because of a certain story that mentioned the sighting of a cartel hit man.

"Who was responsible?" El Ma?ana asked in an editorial after the February attack. "We don't know. It could have been anybody. They are ghosts.

"Many times we in the media are attacked in order to blame a rival group, so that a crackdown by the authorities on that rival group will follow.

"It's the new method of doing terrorism."

*
Carlos Mart?nez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 04, 2006, 04:42:05 AM
Guau:

?Alguien quiere comentar sobre el nuevo proyecto/ley sobre posesion de varias drogas?

===========
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican President Vicente Fox refused to sign a drug decriminalization bill Wednesday, hours after U.S. officials warned the plan could encourage "drug tourism."
Fox sent the measure back to Congress for changes, but his office did not mention the U.S. criticism.
Fox will ask "Congress to make the needed corrections to make it absolutely clear in our country, the possession of drugs and their consumption are, and will continue to be, a criminal offense," according to a statement from the president's office.

On Tuesday, Fox's spokesman had called the bill "an advance" and pledged the president would sign it. But the measure, passed Friday by Congress, drew a storm of criticism because it eliminates criminal penalties possession of small amounts of heroin, methamphetamines and PCP, as well as marijuana and cocaine.


Earlier in the day, the U.S. government expressed a rare public objection to an internal Mexican political development, saying anyone caught with illegal drugs in Mexico should be prosecuted or given mandatory drug treatment.
"U.S. officials ... urged Mexican representatives to review the legislation urgently, to avoid the perception that drug use would be tolerated in Mexico, and to prevent drug tourism," U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Judith Bryan said.
There are concerns the measure could increase drug use by border visitors and U.S. students who flock to Mexico on vacation.

Bryan said the U.S. government wants Mexico "to ensure that all persons found in possession of any quantity of illegal drugs be prosecuted or be sent into mandatory drug treatment programs."
Jerry Saunders, mayor of San Diego - just a short drive from the border town of Tijuana, Mexico - applauded Fox's decision, saying he was "appalled" by the bill because it could increase drug availability north of the border.
"We have been a partner with Mexico in fighting against illegal drugs, and this will only help in the long-term in that relationship," he said.
The legislature has adjourned for the summer, and when it comes back, it will have an entirely new lower house and one-third new Senate members following the July 2 elections, which will also make the outgoing Fox a lame duck.

However, Sen. Jorge Zermeno, of Fox's conservative National Action Party - a supporter of the bill - said he thought Congress would be open to changing the legislation to delete a clause that extends to all "consumers" the exemption from prosecution that was originally meant to cover only recognized drug addicts.
"The word 'consumer' can be eliminated so that the only exemption clause would be for drug addicts," Zermeno told The Associated Press. "There's still time to get this through."
The bill contained many points that experts said were positive: it empowered state and local police - not just federal officers - to go after drug dealers, stiffened some penalties and closed loopholes that dealers had long used to escape prosecution.
But the broad decriminalization clause was what soured many - both in Mexico and abroad - to the proposal.

Mexico's top police official, Eduardo Medina Mora, acknowledged on Tuesday that the U.S. anti-drug agency has expressed concern about the law. Some senators and community leaders in Mexico also objected to the bill. But even if it had passed, he noted that Mexican cities have the power to impose fines and overnight jail detentions for those caught with drugs in public.
Current Mexican law allows judges latitude to drop charges if suspects can prove they are addicts and the quantity they were caught with is small enough to be considered "for personal use," or if they are first-time offenders.
The new bill would have made the decriminalization automatic, allowed "consumers" as well as addicts to have drugs, and delineated specific allowable quantities, which do not appear in the current law.
Under the law, consumers could have legally possessed up to 25 milligrams of heroin, a half a gram of cocaine and about one-fifth of an ounce of marijuana.
__________________

=============

Cambiando el tema, he aqui lo siguiente:

CD
==============


May 4, 1:21 AM EDT
Mexican Protesters, Police Clash; 1 Dead
By EDUARDO VERDUGO
Associated Press Writer
SAN SALVADOR ATENCO, Mexico (AP) -- One person was killed as machete-wielding protesters near Mexico's capital clashed with police Wednesday, blocking highways, throwing molotov cocktails and briefly seizing six officers.
A 14-year-old boy from San Salvador Atenco was killed, though circumstances surrounding his death were unclear, said Humberto Benitez, secretary general of the state of Mexico.
Benitez said, as did a spokesman for the Federal Preventative Police, that a federal police agent was also beaten to death. Hours later, however, Mexico state Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto called television stations to say the officer remained hospitalized in serious condition.

Television images from helicopters overhead showed residents repeatedly punching and kicking the semiconscious officer even after he had been put inside an ambulance.

The residents, who have a history of fights with authorities, attacked police after several of their companions were arrested in the nearby town of Texcoco, according to media reports.
Hundreds of police fired tear gas into the crowds and arrested 31 people. A tense calm settled over the town after dark, though residents continued to block nearby highways.

Shortly before midnight, community leaders released six state and federal police officers they had taken hostage hours earlier. Officials said it was a gesture of good will since all of the officers were injured in the clashes.
At least three dozen police officers were injured, according to media reports. An Associated Press photographer suffered minor bruises after being clubbed during the melee.

Elsewhere in Mexico, gunmen opened fire on a group of officers eating lunch in a restaurant in the troubled border town of Nuevo Laredo, injuring five officers and a bystander.
Three officers were in serious but stable condition after the attack while two others suffered minor injuries, said Rene Ruiz, an investigating agent.
No arrests were made and investigators said they didn't know why the officers were attacked or how many assailants were involved.
Nuevo Laredo, a city of 330,000 across from Laredo, Texas, has been caught in a turf war between rival drug gangs fighting for billion-dollar smuggling routes into the United States. Since Jan. 1, about 100 people, including eight police officers, have been slain in the city, compared to 23 during the same period last year.
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on May 04, 2006, 04:39:49 PM
Guau a todos, sobre la ley de posesion de droga en cantidades peque?as no hay mucho que comentar tan solo que es otra reforma confusa que da oportunidad al abuso y la extorsin de las autoridades, en ella definen cantidades de droga que se entiende como consumo personal :roll:  y mensiona que para poder ser amparado por esta ley el presunto infractor debe comprobar que es adicto y necesita esa dosis minima  :?:  :?: , asi como estar dispuesto a someterse a un programa de rehabilitacion, quienes promosionan esta ley dicen que es para poder distinguir un consumidor de un vendedor y evitar que el primero sea condenado como traficante por el hecho de llevar droga (el castigo ve de 2 a 8 a?os de prision)

Sobre los disturbios se originaron cuando un grupo de vendedores de flores del poblado de Texcoco intentaron ser desalojados de su habitual punto de venta y rehubicados, esta decision de la autoridad no les gusto, se opusieron y con la intervension de los pobladores de San Salvador Atenco la violencia del enfrentamiento se escalo a los niveles que mensiona el articulo, en estos momentos aun hay policias tomados como rehenes por la poblaci?n y una tensa calma.

Como algo para comentar los pobladores de Atenco luchan con machetes y esto se ha convertido en su distintivo, con esta tactica se opusieron a la cosntruccion del aeropuerto en sus tierras e hicieron retroceder al gobierno y se les conoce como los precursores de la ley del machete

Omar
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 12, 2006, 12:26:08 PM
Beheadings in Mexico: The Foreign Element in Mexico's Drug Wars
On May 8, authorities in the town of Aguaje in Mexico's Michoacan state found the beheaded body of Hector Espinoza, a lawyer whose client had been detained by authorities on suspicion of belonging to a drug cartel. The gruesome discovery came nearly three weeks after two police officers were beheaded in the resort city of Acapulco. Although beheadings bring jihadist groups to mind, these more likely were perpetrated by criminals or militants from elsewhere in Latin America.

Espinoza was defending Armando Sanchez Arreguin, an alleged member of an independent drug cartel led by Juan Far?as, also known as "the Grandfather." Arreguin was captured after being wounded in a shootout with the rival Millennium cartel. His lawyer's severed head was hung from an archway that serves as one of the entrances to Aguaje. A homemade "welcome" sign was affixed nearby.

On April 20, the heads of two police officers were left in front of a government building in Acapulco's La Garita neighborhood, mere blocks from the resort town's tourist strip. A red cardboard sign that read, "So you learn some respect," was taped on the wall nearby. The officers' bodies were found miles away, wrapped in plastic sheeting and duct tape. The killings appear to be revenge for the officers' part in a gunfight some months earlier between police and suspected gang members, in which four suspects were killed. One of the officers was subsequently seen in a video aired on Mexican television, which shows him killing a gang member execution-style during the shootout.

Killings of police officers, judges and other officials have become widespread in Mexico, as rival drug cartels battle over turf. The two main combatants are the Gulf cartel, allegedly run from prison by Osiel Cardenas since his arrest in 2003, and the Sinaloa cartel, run by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who escaped from prison in 2001. The Gulf cartel has used a group of former Mexican airborne troops known as "Los Zetas" in its war against the Sinaloa cartel. These well-organized and heavily armed enforcers have a well-deserved reputation for brutality. In addition to the main cartels, smaller cartels and autonomous gangs participate in drug-related violence.

The main fronts in the war are Nuevo Laredo and Tijuana, both on the U.S. border. In those cities, police officials have been killed, rival gangs have fought each other with heavy weapons, and U.S. citizens have gone missing. In recent months, however, Acapulco has become increasingly violent as the fighting spreads.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 15, 2006, 08:40:55 AM
?Nadie tiene algo para compartir del perspectivo Mexicano?

MEXICO: A new poll released by El Universal newspaper gives Mexico's Felipe Calderon from the conservative National Action Party the lead ahead of the July 2 presidential elections. Calderon is preferred by 39 percent of respondents, against 35 percent for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party and 21 percent for Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolution Party. This is the first time that an El Universal poll has given the lead to Calderon, who is now the front-runner in all the opinion polls released in the past three weeks.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 21, 2006, 05:21:31 AM
BEYOND THE LAW
A 'Black Hole' on a Porous Border
Corrupt police and complicit citizens make Jacume a forbidding redoubt where smugglers of drugs and immigrants operate with a sense of impunity. 'They own the place,' says a Mexican official.
By Robert J. Lopez, Richard Marosi and Rich Connell, Times Staff Writers
May 21, 2006


Perched on a ridge a few hundred yards from the international line, an A-frame house with a wraparound balcony gives smugglers a 180-degree view of U.S. border defenses.

Spotters track the movement of Border Patrol agents with binoculars and use two-way radios to steer drug runners and human traffickers through unguarded areas.

 As agents closed in on suspected smugglers last summer, lookouts on the Mexican side bombarded them with rocks and retreated to the A-frame.

"They have the high ground on us," said Sonia Spaulding, the supervising Border Patrol agent during the attack. "They can see our every move."

Jacume is a "black hole," an enclave largely beyond the control of authorities on either side of the border because of its remote location, complicit residents and corrupt Mexican police. Jacume has flourished as a launch pad for smuggling of drugs and people since U.S. authorities stiffened border defenses near San Diego a decade ago. Traffickers simply moved their operations east, into the forbidding valleys and mountain passes surrounding the village.  As President Bush prepares to use National Guard troops to help seal the border, Jacume and places like it represent a formidable challenge and illustrate why the U.S., as Bush noted, "has not been in complete control of its borders" ? and may never be.

Mile-for-mile, more drugs are seized in this area than almost anywhere else along the California line. In the last fiscal year, federal agents captured an average of 400 pounds of marijuana and 660 migrants each month. In the first eight months of this fiscal year, drug seizures are nearly triple last year's total.

Jacume residents have become beholden to smugglers whose activities pump cash into the community. Mexican federal agents have been taken hostage here. Police won't enter the town without heavily armed backup, so entrenched are the traffickers and their supporters.

"They own the place," said Armando Vale Saldate, civilian director of the Tecate Police Department, which oversees Jacume.

Little is known publicly about the inner workings of Jacume's smuggling economy. But confidential law enforcement documents, as well as interviews with residents, smugglers and U.S. and Mexican officials, reveal layers of corruption extending from the traffickers to top police officials and the ruthless Arellano-Felix drug cartel.

The A-frame with the strategic vantage point is used by a convicted drug felon who is "the leader of an immigrant trafficking organization," according to a report by the Mexican attorney general's office and other sources.

Complaints filed secretly by officers of the Tecate Police Department and reviewed by The Times say a top commander and other supervisors collected thousands of dollars a week in protection money from smugglers moving drugs and migrants across the frontier.

Smuggling Is a Mainstay

Tucked into an isolated high desert valley 70 miles east of Tijuana, Jacume sits at the end of a rutted dirt road. Swirls of dust and headlights announce approaching vehicles long before they pass an old chicken farm and the rusted shells of abandoned cars en route to the village's small plaza.

Founded 80 years ago as communal farm, the town has a few hundred residents, many of them related to one another. In the small grid of dirt roads and cinder-block homes, there are two restaurants, a few mom-and-pop markets and a small church with whitewashed walls.

Smuggling is an economic mainstay. Residents pocket up to $50 a day ? about 10 times the minimum day's wage in Mexico ? for each northbound migrant they harbor in their homes or farms. Storing drugs can earn them hundreds of dollars more. Merchants cater to the migrants' needs.

"It's good business for everybody around here," said Mario Ramirez, who operates Jacume's main restaurant. "People need to eat and need water."

Government authority has long been tenuous here.

In 1998, residents took two Mexican federal agents hostage for extorting money from smugglers, according to Mexican authorities. The captives were freed after an agreement was reached: The agents would return the money, and the smugglers would not file complaints against them.

A few years later, unarmed Mexican immigration agents who chased a suspected smuggler's car into Jacume were greeted by bat-wielding residents. The agents retreated without making an arrest and now rarely enter the town, said immigration officer Felipe Flores.

The alleged smuggler said to use the A-frame is Israel Martinez, 37, according to confidential law enforcement records and sources.


He came to the attention of U.S. investigators in 1995, when officers stopped two pickup trucks on the U.S. side of the fence across from Jacume and found 450 pounds of marijuana inside, according to San Diego Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Walter. Martinez and another man were arrested.

Martinez pleaded guilty to transporting marijuana and was sentenced to two years in California state prison. He was later deported.

U.S. authorities, working with Mexican agents, have launched a new investigation of Martinez and his suspected smuggling network.

Martinez's organization employs guides on foot, drivers and lookouts to shepherd drugs and people across the frontier, according to law enforcement records and sources.

Mexican and U.S. sources who have interviewed traffickers in custody, including alleged members of Martinez's group, say his organization is suspected of moving large quantities of marijuana across the border for the Arellano-Felix cartel, a Tijuana-based syndicate that controls drug trafficking across Baja California.

Efforts to reach Martinez for comment were unsuccessful.

A relative claimed to have no knowledge of Martinez's involvement in trafficking and said he went into hiding after 20 armed men stormed his home in Jacume in September.

The men, some with bandannas covering their faces, were looking for money and for Martinez, according to the relative, who asked not to be identified.

Investigators say his organization remains active. Martinez is not the first suspected of exploiting the views afforded by Jacume's hills.

A smuggler named Jaime Ochoa, alias "El Cachetes," or Cheeks, allegedly directed runs from tree platforms on his property.

In one of the few successful raids ever conducted in Jacume, a federal SWAT team from Mexico City posing as telephone repairmen stormed Ochoa's home three years ago. U.S. investigators pressed for action after learning that Ochoa might be operating a smuggling tunnel.

The Mexican agents found binoculars, two-way radios, an Uzi submachine gun, a map of smuggling routes and what appeared to be a partially dug passageway, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities.

Ochoa was caught fleeing in a pickup truck and later found guilty of weapons violations, Mexican authorities said.

The raid's success was unusual for Jacume because residents often tip off smugglers, said a U.S. agent who participated in the operation.

"We usually come back empty-handed," he said.

'I Like Police Raids'

The sun-baked hills and valleys between Tecate and Jacume, where the Arellano-Felix cartel stores and moves marijuana, is territory that has been overseen by Daniel Mora, until recently police commander for the area.

For Mora and other officers, who earn as little as $600 a month, patrolling this terrain involves a stark choice: Take a stand against the traffickers, or join them.


As Mora tells it, he's the kind who takes a stand.

Squat, with a thin mustache, he started as an officer in Tijuana. His left eyebrow and scalp bear scars from a head-on car crash with assault suspects. He has been involved in three shootouts and numerous operations against drug and car-theft rings ? some in the Jacume area.

 "I like police raids," the 33-year-old Mora says.

After three years in Tecate, he was promoted to commander. But last year he was suspended, demoted and banned from patrolling Jacume and other trafficking hot spots because of suspicions that he was in league with smugglers.

The Mexican attorney general's office is investigating the allegations.

Among information turned over to investigators are a dozen unsigned complaints e-mailed to the Tecate city internal affairs office. The authors, who identified themselves as police officers, said Mora and five supervisors, including one now overseeing Jacume, were running a protection racket.

One complaint, written in January, said Mora is tied to 10 human smugglers and drug traffickers and receives $5,000 a week in payoffs.

"We are asking with all our heart that these personnel ? stop interfering with public safety," said another complaint, received in February.

Contacted by The Times, the authors of the complaints said in e-mails that they feared for their lives and declined to reveal their names or answer questions.

Smugglers detained by Mexican officials have said they paid Mora a "quota" or had "an arrangement" with him to operate in the Tecate area, according to interview records.

Mora said the allegations are groundless and originate with disgruntled colleagues.

"It's political," Mora said in an interview at a San Diego-area restaurant. He predicted that he would be cleared, adding: "I'm not going to run, because I have absolutely nothing to hide."

Bold and Brazen

Lawlessness spills across the border from Jacume and into the United States month after month. An episode last summer, described in federal court records and interviews, underscores the smugglers' brazenness and sense of impunity.

One night in August, a white Chevrolet Suburban made its way through the village. It stopped at a ranch and an abandoned home, picking up half a dozen migrants who had paid up to $2,000 each to get to the U.S.

They squeezed into the SUV, alongside suitcases stuffed with 700 pounds of marijuana, a load worth more than half a million dollars. The vehicle's front bumper was reinforced with steel, and its tires were filled with silicon to withstand the spike strips used by U.S. border agents.

After snaking through town, the SUV rolled up to the international divide, where a pickup truck waited. Its driver yanked open a section of rusty fence that had been pre-cut by smugglers.

A hand-painted sign on the Jacume side of the border fence bade the migrants farewell: To the north is work and prosperity, but don't forget where you came from.

The SUV driver shot through the gap toward Interstate 8, a couple of miles away.

A short while later, a Border Patrol anti-smuggling team saw the SUV driving slowly and a California Highway Patrol officer pulled the vehicle over. As the officer stepped out of his car, the SUV driver made a daring move. He switched off the lights and raced up an offramp heading west toward San Diego in eastbound lanes.


----------------

CHP officers chased the vehicle. Up ahead, more patrol units weaved across lanes with their lights flashing, trying to hold back traffic and prevent a head-on crash.

Spike strips were thrown on the road. But the Suburban sailed over the devices. The migrants inside later told investigators the SUV had hit speeds as high as 90 mph. One remembered praying as sirens blared and lights flashed around them. "Get down and don't move!" the driver yelled in Spanish.

 
Seconds later, he smashed into a patrol car. The SUV veered to a halt and the driver bolted into heavy brush, escaping toward the border.

Five migrants were rounded up. They identified the driver as 26-year-old Jovanni Mendoza, according to court records.

Border Patrol agents had a thick folder on Mendoza, court records show.

In 2002, he was arrested by Border Patrol agents after a foot chase north of Jacume, suspected of driving a van crammed with 31 illegal immigrants. He was released after the migrants refused to identify the driver.

Last spring, Border Patrol agents fired at a blue Suburban registered to Mendoza as it allegedly tried to run them down at a U.S. checkpoint northwest of Jacume. The SUV took off on the wrong side of Interstate 8. Agents could not identify the driver.

A week after the wrong-way crash, Border Patrol received reports of a Suburban on a suspected smuggling run near the same stretch of Interstate 8. A vehicle matching that description was stopped at a checkpoint.

Mendoza was behind the wheel. He now faces 12 counts of smuggling humans and drugs and has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in San Diego. His arrest has done little to slow the pace of cross-border crime in Jacume.

Earlier this month, residents alerted Border Patrol agents when they saw a vehicle using metal ramps to drive over a low section of the fence near Jacume. When the vehicle fled, agents threw spike strips on the road, shredding its tires. The vehicle lost control and flipped. One thousand pounds of marijuana was found inside.

Within days, two more loads of marijuana ? 700 pounds each ? were intercepted coming out of Jacume.

"There's no bottom to their well," said a Border Patrol agent, standing guard one evening near the bullet-riddled fence below the A-frame house. "It just keeps coming."
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 23, 2006, 08:56:33 AM
Summary

Mexican President Vicente Fox will visit three U.S. states May 23-27, where he will address recent developments on the U.S. debate about immigration. Among these developments are U.S. President George W. Bush's May 15 proposal to deploy National Guard forces along the U.S.-Mexico border and his support for a guest-worker program. They also include the rekindled debate on border security and immigration reform in the U.S. Senate, which approved measures on both topics during the past week. The U.S. debates on border security and immigration reform resonate as strongly in Mexico as they do in the United States.

Analysis

Mexican President Vicente Fox will visit Utah, Washington and California, May 23-27. While the visit was planned some time ago, the agenda and talking points of Fox's trip will focus on the past week's developments in the U.S. immigration-reform and border-security debates. Among these developments are U.S. President George W. Bush's May 15 proposal to deploy National Guard forces along the U.S.-Mexico border and his support for a guest-worker program. They also include the rekindled debate on border security and immigration reform in the U.S. Senate, which approved measures on both topics during the past week. The Senate has also voted to build a fence along sections of the U.S. border, to establish English as the official language for government activities and to allow illegal immigrants possible citizenship under certain conditions.

A Deeply Rooted Issue

Without doubt, human migration tops the bilateral agenda between the United States and Mexico. Emigration from Mexico to the United States has deep historical and economic roots. It also affects a great number of Mexicans, who increasingly have relatives and friends who have immigrated to the United States, both legally and illegally. Thus, any change in the situation of the Mexican immigrants in the United States has major economic, social and political consequences in Mexico.

As we have previously discussed, immigration to the United States from Mexico is different from immigration to the United States from other countries due to history and geography. And while the flow of people coming from Mexico into the United States has existed for many, many years, these numbers exploded in the last 25 years. Thus, between 1.2 million and 1.5 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States during the 1970s, around 2.3 million did so during the 1980s, and around 3.3 million did so during the 1990s.

During World War II, the United States approached the issue by establishing a guest-worker plan known as the Bracero Program, which lasted until 1964. During its existence, the Bracero Program served as the most significant source of Mexican labor in the United States. After the program ended, with a limited number of visas available, many Mexicans crossed the border without official documentation. Several factors in Mexico prompted this exodus.

The Mexican economy experienced a series of crises in 1976, 1981-82, 1986 and 1994-95, which increased Mexico's relative poverty levels and hindered its economic performance. These crises generated the conditions for the continually increasing rate of Mexicans immigrating to the United States. Most other Latin American countries suffered deep economic crises during the 1970s and 1980s and political instability, yet they did not produce the number of immigrants to the United States that Mexico did. Mexico, by contrast, passed through these economic episodes with little political turmoil and largely pacific power transitions, and even so huge numbers of emigrants went north. Geography and -- more importantly -- economics explain the difference.

Mexico's Economic Safety Valves

Emigration toward the north became one of two very important safety valves for the Mexican economy, one successive Mexican governments used to maintain domestic social and political stability. The other safety valve was the notable increase in the informal sector of the Mexican economy. Emigration was traditionally a safety valve for rural areas while the informal economy served urban centers.

Over the years, however, the number and origin of Mexican immigrants to the United States has evolved. During the 1970s and 1980s, most of the Mexican immigrants to the United States came from Mexico's poorest and more rural states -- the same states most closely linked to the Bracero Program. Since the 1990s, however, that has changed. According to the Mexican Population Council, new immigrants to the United States come from all of Mexico's regions, and their gender and economic background diversity is growing.

Estimates of the number of Mexican immigrants to the United States vary, but hover around 10 million to 11 million people, which includes those of both legal and illegal status -- around 10 percent of the number of people living in Mexico. Estimates also hold that the informal economy in Mexico covers another 10 million to 15 million people. Combined, this means almost a quarter of the Mexican population is either not formally employed or is outside of the country. Starting in 1986, successive Mexican administrations engaged in fundamental economic reforms with the entry of Mexico into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the World Trade Organization, or WTO). The nation's economic crises were so deep-seated, however, that even the WTO-inspired reforms have not helped the Mexican economy grow fast enough to provide enough jobs for Mexico's swelling labor force.

Along with previous Mexican governments, the Fox administration has found that using the two aforementioned safety valves has greatly helped maintain social order. Mexico City sees Mexican immigration to the United States as a win-win situation for both countries, since the immigration safety valve means the United States does not have an unstable neighbor to its south.

The Importance of Remittances

As the number of Mexican migrants to the United States has increased, so have their money transfers to their families in Mexico. In 2005, Mexican migrants in the United States remitted around $18 billion back to Mexico -- an extremely important source of cash for Mexico, roughly equal to foreign direct investment in the country. The Mexican government clearly does not want these remittances from the United States to disappear.

The Fox administration has established programs to match every dollar received from Mexicans in the United States with money put into projects to improve infrastructure. All of the contenders in Mexico's July 2 presidential election have proposals on how to better use those resources, from improving those matching funds to establishing a structural fund to transfer money to impoverished regions of Mexico, as is done in the European Union. Thus, massive deportations of Mexicans from the United States would have immense economic and political consequences in Mexico.

The Mexican government also needs to walk a fine line between working closely with the United States and not appearing too subservient to Washington. For historical reasons, Mexico has a love-hate relationship with the United States. In the past couple of decades, this relationship has tilted more toward the love part of the equation. The signing of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) in particular shifted the historical equation. In general, Mexicans believe a close relationship with the United States is inevitable, and largely beneficial for both. Even so, they resent any perceived heavy-handed attempts -- or even suggestions -- by the United States to force policy on Mexico. Mexicans expect their government to respond harshly to the United States when needed, as long as those responses are kept on the rhetorical level.

Fox Falls Short

The Fox administration has worked to push for a migration agreement allowing Mexican nationals to cross the border and work freely in the United States on the premise that given geography and economics, the flow north from Mexico cannot be blocked successfully; something similar to what Fox proposed may in fact come to pass. But Fox pushed too hard, and was unable to convince many on the U.S. side that he was fulfilling his part of the job of ensuring border security.

Much of the U.S. resentment against perceptions that Mexico is not adequately securing its side of the border stem from the fact that while the Mexican government allowed its two economic safety valves to develop, it also allowed another development to flourish: drug trafficking and organized crime. This has led to a border security problem of considerable size, one that has accelerated over the past two to three years. Drug cartels operating in the border cities have become more violent, which has in turn fueled the security concerns of people living in the border region. While the Fox administration has tried to fight these cartels, the violence has increased -- thus complicating his efforts to push for immigration reform in the United States.

Whether the new Mexican administration taking office Dec. 1 will be any more effective in fighting the drug cartels than the Fox administration has been remains unknown. Changing public opinion in the United States, however, will require a more effective Mexican response to drug crime on the border.

A Not-So New Direction

Whichever political party wins the July 2 Mexican presidential election, the new government's position on border issues will be very similar to the current position. The Mexican government will always oppose the construction of any fence or wall, since most Mexicans deeply resent such a prospect. It will also oppose any attempt to turn illegal immigrants in the United States into felons because of the ill economic effects this would have in Mexico. And it will not follow any U.S. suggestions that it work to stop Mexicans from crossing into the United States, perhaps pointing out that the U.S. government does not prevent its citizens from leaving the United States as they please. What could change is the level of cooperation between the Mexican and U.S. governments.

Before Vicente Fox's arrival, Mexican governments were not as active in advocating for issues that concerned the Mexican community inside the United States. In contrast, Fox has advocated, for example, for the pardon of U.S. death-row inmates of Mexican origin. Nor did previous Mexican administrations make much noise when Mexican nationals were killed on the U.S. side of the border -- they did protest, but not with Fox's volume. Previous governments also adamantly opposed publicly acknowledging cooperation with U.S. law enforcement agencies in counternarcotics efforts. Many times, the lack of cooperation was not only rhetorical, but real. That changed with Fox; now there is considerably more U.S-Mexican anti-drug cooperation.

Both Roberto Madrazo from the Mexico's former longtime ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and his left-wing rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from the Democratic Revolutionary Party, will very likely return to the policy of a reduced level of cooperation with U.S. law-enforcement agencies. This reduction will extend past the rhetorical level if the situation on the border deteriorates -- if Mexicans are shot by U.S. authorities, for example. But at the same time, both are also likely to continue Fox's increased activism on issues affecting Mexicans within the United States. The Mexican community in the U.S. is now active politically in Mexican politics, since they can vote on Mexican elections beginning this July. Thus, expatriate Mexicans in the United States are a constituency worth wooing for political candidates in Mexico.

Unlike his rivals, Felipe Calderon from Fox's National Action Party -- the front-runner in the most recent polls -- would very likely maintain and increase cooperation with the United States if elected. Even so, domestic pressures would force him to adopt stances similar to those of his adversaries if killings of Mexican nationals on the border follow from Bush's proposed National Guard deployment.

Changing the Pre-Election Debate

While the Mexican position will not change markedly regardless of which party wins the July presidential election, the proposals under discussion in the United States -- namely the National Guard presence -- could help change the pre-election debate in Mexico, giving the advantage to the candidate best able to capitalize on the issue. Thus, the three main candidates will toughen their rhetoric against U.S. government border security and immigration policies in the final weeks of the campaign, and so will Fox when he visits next week. Some of the Mexican presidential candidates sought to take advantage of the immigration and border issues in the past week. Thus, Calderon criticized Bush's National Guard proposal, and Lopez Obrador criticized Fox for not being tough enough, though he toned down his comments later. By giving voice to the left wing's historical dislike of the United States, Lopez Obrador could be in position to gain the most from the border and immigration debate.

How much impact the issue will have in the run-up to July 2 remains unclear, though it will certainly become an increasingly important part of the agenda in the months before the change of administrations -- and during the entire length of the next administration. For someone like Lopez Obrador, cutting cooperation with Washington and joining the ranks -- at least in the rhetorical sense -- of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales could be attractive if the United States adopts a hard line on immigration.

While the overall positions of the Mexican government are not going to change, this does not mean no solution to border and immigration issues exists. In fact, much can be done to increase border safety. And if the Mexican economy begins to grow at an accelerated pace, it can create enough jobs to reduce the migration flow -- though this would take several years.

========================

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/world/americas/23mexico.html?th&emc=th

TUXTLA GUTI?RREZ, Mexico, May 19 ? Felipe Calder?n loves to make allusions to Mexican folk songs. These days, the conservative candidate for president is particularly fond of recalling a song about a nag named Rel?mpago who upsets a glistening champion, Moro, in a race.

 
Felipe Calder?n, of the National Action Party, speaking to voters last week in Tonal?, Mexico.
"I was not the favorite," he boomed over loudspeakers to a crowd of farmers, fishermen and business owners in the town of Tonal? on a swing in Chiapas on Thursday. "I was not the one who was up in the polls, but do you know what I did, gentlemen? I went to work. I set about telling Mexicans what each candidate really stands for."

After six months in second place, Mr. Calder?n has surged past the front-runner, Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, with a stream of attack advertisements portraying him as a dangerous and violent leftist who will bankrupt the country.

Now, a month before the vote, the race is a contest between Mr. Calder?n, a free-trade advocate backed by business leaders, and Mr. L?pez Obrador, a leftist who draws most of his support from poor people who feel that free-trade policies have failed to help them.

For his part, Mr. L?pez Obrador, 53, who was mayor of Mexico City until last year, dismisses the recent polls as "propaganda" and claims the numbers have been massaged to undercount working-class voters. Under his stewardship, Mexico City's finances remained solid. As for the charge that he is dangerous, he calls it simply ludicrous.

Mr. Calder?n, 43, a former congressman and energy minister, has engineered the turnaround with a nimble, slick campaign, relying heavily on radio and television advertisements, many of them negative, tested in focus groups and tailored to specific constituencies, his aides say. Mexicans vote July 2.

Mr. Calder?n, of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, has outspent Mr. L?pez Obrador two to one on attack ads that, among other things, link the left-leaning candidate to Hugo Ch?vez, Venezuela's anti-American president. He has also deftly played on the perception that Mr. L?pez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, has an authoritarian streak and a reputation as a rabble-rouser because of raucous protests against election fraud he led over a decade ago. Mr. Calder?n's ads call his rival "a danger to Mexico."

The personal attacks on Mr. L?pez Obrador were among several strategic shifts by Mr. Calder?n's young campaign team in late March. Mr. Calder?n now embraces President Fox, after first keeping him at arm's length, and staunchly defends the government's record on social programs and the economy.

Mr. Calder?n has also dropped his stuffy stump speech about the virtues of open markets and foreign investment, opting for a simpler message: he now vows to create jobs, jobs and more jobs. His ads call him the "president of employment," and his slogan is "My job will be to make sure you have a job."

One thing that unites the candidates is their opposition to President Bush's plan to build a wall along the border and deploy the National Guard. Both say the way to stop illegal immigration is to create more jobs and investment in Mexico.

Mr. Calder?n has also stolen a page from Mr. L?pez Obrador, who promises a raft of government subsidies and handouts. Mr. Calder?n, a fiscal and social conservative, now makes a point of saying he will extend and expand the welfare and health care programs Mr. Fox put in place. The promise to keep government largesse flowing draws the biggest applause at his rallies.

The upshot has been a remarkable political comeback. In January, five major surveys by respected pollsters showed Mr. Calder?n trailing Mr. L?pez Obrador by 6 to 10 percentage points. In April and May, however, all five polls showed the race tightening with a slim lead for Mr. Calder?n.

"We've managed to change the subject of the election," said Juan Camilo Mouri?o, 34, Mr. Calder?n's campaign manager, as he sat behind his desk in a dark blue suit at campaign headquarters, checking sports scores on a new laptop.

Mr. Mouri?o said the inner circle of the campaign had a fierce debate before deciding to bombard Mr. L?pez Obrador with negative advertisements. An attempt to knock him off the ballot for ignoring a court order failed badly last year, only making him more popular. The conventional wisdom was, the more you attack Mr. L?pez Obrador, the stronger he gets by casting himself as the victim of a conspiracy.

But Mr. Calder?n was trailing by 10 percentage points in late February. His free-trade message and "Passion and Values for Mexico" slogan was falling flat. "We had to make adjustments," Mr. Mouri?o said. One of the architects of the new campaign was Antonio Sol?, 34, a Spanish political consultant who was a top consultant to former Prime Minister Jos? Mar?a Aznar.

Mr. Mouri?o said he also had several informal conversations about the campaign with Dick Morris, the American consultant who once worked for former President Bill Clinton, but the Calder?n team decided not to hire him.


Mr. L?pez Obrador's campaign has been slow to respond. Until recently, the candidate had resisted advice to respond to mudslinging with mudslinging of his own. Only this week did his party broadcast a radio spot calling Mr. Calder?n "a liar."

Besides taking his time to go on the offensive, Mr. L?pez Obrador has made other gaffes, his aides concede. In February, he ridiculed Mr. Fox, called him a chattering bird and told him to "shut up" and stay out of the campaign, handing Mr. Calder?n fodder for his claim that Mr. L?pez Obrador is intolerant.

The leftist's decision in April to pass up the first debate, a classic front-runner's tactic, also backfired. Most analysts say it contributed to the notion that he can be arrogant, and contemptuous of other viewpoints. Mr. L?pez Obrador has also refused to let his aides use his modest lifestyle or his close relationship with his sons to soften his image, some inside the campaign say.

As for the polls, Mr. L?pez Obrador says they are the fabrications of media barons in a conspiracy to defeat him. (His aides maintain that their internal polls show he fell behind early this month, but has regained ground and now leads Mr. Calder?n by six percentage points.)

Mr. L?pez Obrador has stubbornly insisted on running a grass-roots campaign that relies more on speeches in town squares, loudspeakers atop cars and word of mouth than on television and radio spots, his campaign aides say. That decision could turn out to be a stroke of genius or his biggest mistake.

"The strategy will stay the same, because that's Andr?s Manuel's way of campaigning," said Ricardo Monreal, a senior aide. "His way of campaigning is, as always before, street by street, town by town, at the level of the people. He believes he will beat the marketing campaign that way."

Mr. Monreal added: "We all know that marketing has carried a lot of current presidents into office around the world. But L?pez Obrador isn't relying on this. He is relying on the strategy of the street."

Still, Mr. L?pez Obrador has made some adjustments, said C?sar Y??ez, his spokesman and a close adviser. For months, the candidate avoided interviews, unless they were with local radio stations. He has always been obsessive about controlling his message.

In the last two weeks, however, he has submitted to three interviews on national television. He even let himself be lampooned on a morning show by a political satirist who wears a clown outfit.

He has also begun to needle Mr. Calder?n. Last week, he said the conservative candidate was a captive of his campaign advisers.

Mr. Calder?n has kept up the invective. In Chiapas on Thursday, he leapt on Mr. L?pez Obrador's comment that President Fox was "a puppet" of the United States because of his restrained criticism of the United States Senate's support for more walls along the border.

President Ch?vez of Venezuela had used the same word to describe Mr. Fox last fall, and Mr. Calder?n did not let the chance pass to tar Mr. L?pez Obrador again with the Ch?vez brush. "He's an intolerant man, a very aggressive man, a hostile man and he has devoted himself to insulting the president," he said of his rival. Mr. L?pez Obrador, however, has kept his distance from Mr. Ch?vez.

The managers of both campaigns say the race is too close to call. The camps agree that the final debate on June 6, the only face-to-face confrontation between Mr. Calder?n and Mr. L?pez Obrador, will be pivotal.

"The debate will be important, and I say the dirty war has a limit in its impact on the election," Senator Ortega said.

"We have to win the debate," Mr. Mouri?o said.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 29, 2006, 05:50:40 PM
Kaibiles: The New Lethal Force in the Mexican Drug Wars
The investigation into the April beheadings of two Mexican police officers in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco has led to the Kaibiles, Guatemalan special forces deserters who have taken on the role of hired guns for Mexico's Gulf cartel, one of the most powerful drug cartels operating in the country.

Acapulco is fast becoming a battleground for cartels vying for control of drug-trafficking supply routes. The Zetas, the Mexican version of the Kaibiles, already are fighting on the Gulf cartel's side against skinhead gangs hired by the Beltran Leyva brothers, leaders of the rival Sinaloa cartel. With Mexican anti-drug authorities bearing down on the cartel, however, Kaibiles -- as many as 40, according to Mexico's attorney general -- were brought in to assist the Zetas in dealing with that front. With the Kaibiles now in the mix, fighting is likely to increase in the near future.

The Kaibiles, who are particularly brutal fighters trained in unconventional tactics, are infamous for forcing recruits to bite the heads off live chickens during training. In February 1999, the U.N. Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), a body established after Guatemala's civil war to investigate human rights abuses that occurred during the conflict, harshly criticized the Kaibiles, citing human rights abuses. Kaibil actions during fighting in the 1980s made the group one of the most feared special forces units in Latin America. According to the CEH, for instance, Kaibil units responding to guerrilla attacks near the Guatemalan town of Las Dos Erres in December 1982 entered a village believed to be sympathetic to rebel groups. Although the Kaibiles reportedly found no weapons caches or guerrillas, they proceeded to conduct a two-day purge, killing everyone in the village, including women and children.

As part of a national reconciliation process following Guatemala's civil war, the Guatemalan army has been restructuring and transforming its units, and has since dropped the name "Kaibil" from its special forces units, referring to them only as the Special Forces Brigade. The units have participated in U.N. peacekeeping operations in Africa.

On Sept. 10, 2005, Mexican authorities arrested seven Guatemalan nationals in the southern Chiapas town of Comitan for smuggling weapons into Mexico. Guatemalan authorities later confirmed that at least four of the seven were former Kaibiles who had deserted their special operations unit at different times, the most recent one in 2004. Unlike the Zetas, the majority of whom deserted at the same time, Kaibiles apparently have been deserting in small numbers for several years now.

A former high-ranking Mexican military official, Gen. Ramon Mota Sanchez, said in an October 2005 interview that former Mexican soldiers who deserted to join the Zetas possibly were trained by Kaibiles. Between 1994 and 1999, he said, Kaibiles trained several dozen Mexican special operations soldiers.

After the end of wars in Central America, bands of militants, mercenaries and death squads suddenly found themselves without a war to fight. Like many of these groups, the Kaibiles looked abroad for work as hired guns, some of them entering the Mexican drug scene through contacts with the Zetas. Special forces units in one region often will share training or establish partnerships with neighboring units.

The presence of Kaibiles in Mexico has introduced an additional foreign element into the Mexican drug wars, along with Mara Salvatrucha from El Salvador and Calle 18 gangs from Guatemala. With the well-trained and brutal Kaibiles and Zetas now in the mix, however, Mexico's drug wars are likely to get even uglier. Moreover, it is only a question of time before their level of violence reaches fronts in the drug war on the U.S. border, such as Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 01, 2006, 06:44:58 PM
Mexico: Of Soccer and Electoral Strategy
Summary

Mexico's presidential race has become a very close contest. The latest polls show the conservative National Action Party's candidate Felipe Calderon tied with the Democratic Revolutionary Party's candidate, left-leaning former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador; Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Roberto Madrazo is not far behind. On June 6, the candidates will meet for their second and last televised debate. Whoever wins that will have a good chance of winning the July 2 election.

Analysis

The final weeks of Mexico's presidential campaign have seen it become a very close race. After several months of leading the competition in virtually every opinion poll, left-wing Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) lost that position in May to Felipe Calderon from President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN). The latest voter intention surveys indicate that Lopez Obrador and Calderon are tied, with Roberto Madrazo of the formerly long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) not far behind.

As recently as five weeks ago, Lopez Obrador looked like the certain winner. He held a modest but consistent lead in opinion polls, which gave him the initiative to set the campaign and policy agenda. In an attempt to protect his lead, Lopez Obrador decided not to attend the first televised debate, opting to attack Fox instead. After two false starts, Calderon finally found a way to exploit Lopez Obrador's weaknesses and launched an advertising campaign comparing Lopez Obrador to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The campaign proved to be a success. Meanwhile, Madrazo has been trying to plug the holes that widespread scandals and internal discord have made in the PRI's ship.

The candidates' second and last televised debate, slated for June 6, is the most prominent event before the July 2 election The victor is likely to have a definitive advantage when voters go to the polls. Though the race has become more competitive, no candidate has created much excitement among the voters, and a large portion of the electorate will not even bother to vote. Furthermore, the soccer World Cup -- which will be held in Germany from June 9 through July 9 -- is expected to decrease voter attention even more. The three main candidates' electoral strategy is to try to get into first place before the World Cup begins, and the upcoming debate is likely their biggest chance to win over the undecided voters and consolidate their support bases.

Having lost his position as front-runner, Lopez Obrador also lost the impression of inevitability he was trying to bring to the upcoming debate. He has dismissed every poll that does not give him the advantage, maintaining that his own numbers say otherwise. He said in an ad on national television this week that he is focusing on just one segment of the electorate: those who earn less than $800 a month, to whom he proposed giving cash handouts as soon as he becomes president. The problem is that he would be dispensing those handouts to a great majority of the Mexican population, and he has yet to figure out where the money would come from. Lopez Obrador will continue attacking Fox, Calderon and the PAN's role in the bank bailout after the 1994-1995 financial crisis, which he considered a cover-up to protect rich bankers, even though Fox, Calderon and the PAN were not in power at the time. Also, having lost many of the "independent voters" who once sided with him, Lopez Obrador will appeal directly to voters identified with the PRI and try to win over those in the party's left wing to supplement the support from his own PRD.

Calderon, in turn, has had a tough time generating enthusiasm beyond his party base. Despite being the youngest of the candidates, he represents a brand of social conservatism that has not gone over well with the youngest voters. However, he could persuade many voters leaning toward Lopez Obrador that the PRD candidate poses a grave economic risk. Calderon's message that associates Lopez Obrador with Chavez and highlights his willingness to go on a spending spree once in power has played well in the northern states, where Calderon has consolidated a wide margin. However, he seems to have won over all those who can be convinced by that strategy, and he does not yet have sufficient support to win the election.

Madrazo, who has the highest personal negative ratings from voters, has been unable to run a consistent campaign. His run has been marred by scandals and party infighting -- some of which he is responsible for, and most of which was engineered by his opponents within the PRI. The scandals have put the once-invincible PRI on the verge of falling into third place, a position from which it would be hard to recover. Despite all that, the PRI has shown extraordinary resilience, and Madrazo is hoping that low voter turnout will allow him to take advantage of the party machinery's "get out the vote" strategy. Madrazo is also appealing to the segment of the population targeted by Lopez Obrador, saying he will help but without endangering the country's economic well-being. Madrazo also will relentlessly attack Calderon to undermine his support in the north.

Opinion polls after the debate could give a good indication of which candidate was able to win over the small segment of the electorate that is up for grabs. Economic and public security issues will dominate the debate. The candidates are not likely to pay much attention to the most prominent item on the U.S.-Mexican agenda -- immigration -- during the debate or during the rest of the campaign, unless there are incidents along the border involving the U.S. National Guard that result in the deaths of Mexican nationals. Such an event would directly affect Calderon, who would be identified with Fox's acquiescence to the U.S. National Guard deployment to the border.

This presidential election is the first in which Mexico is allowing absentee voting for Mexicans living abroad. This was a long-standing demand from the Mexican community in the United States, which accounts for an overwhelming majority of Mexicans living outside Mexico. Politicians had stalled on the issue for various reasons, but an eleventh-hour attempt in 2005 finally succeeded in allowing absentee voting. Of an estimated 4 million potential voters outside the country, only about 300,000 registered to vote, and even fewer will actually vote. The reasons for this are varied, but one major reason is that Mexicans living abroad whose status is not legal could be afraid of being identified if they send their votes. The number of registered Mexican voters outside Mexico will increase, and then the Mexican community in the United States will become an active constituency. This is likely to change the dynamics between Mexico City and Washington.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 06, 2006, 09:46:58 AM
MEXICO: Mexican presidential candidates face off in the second and last televised debate before the July 2 election. In Mexico City, unidentified assailants shoot at an armored vehicle carrying the wife and children of Carlos Ahumada, a jailed businessman closely associated with corruption scandals involving an array of politicians from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution. Ahumada has already released videos with evidence against the politicians. His lawyers announced June 5 they would release four new videos containing evidence against close associates of presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Ahumada's wife and children were not injured.

www.stratfor.com

?Alguien sabe algo al respeto?
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on June 08, 2006, 03:53:36 PM
Hola a todos, como algunos saben trabajo en el gobierno y la version que circula por los pasillos es que fue un autoatentado... dias antes del debate el Jefe del Gobierno del DF denuncio que estaba siendo extorsionado por gente de C Ahumada, la teoria es que tal chantaje se dio y al no ver reaccion por parte  del gobierno de la ciudad, ni de la gente cercana al candidato del PRD, la espectativa de sacar otro video escandalo empezo a diluirse y para no quedar como tontos prefirieron quedar como victimas... a esa distancia y como operan quienes se dedican a asesinar no hubieran fallado, ademas, porque disparar del lado del chofer, si los supuestos blancos eran la familia de Ahumada?

Omar
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 18, 2006, 07:50:50 AM
?Mas noticias de la eleccion?  Aqui se lee que las encuestas dice que AMLO y Calderon son iguales en apoyo.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 27, 2006, 02:37:39 PM
The Spread of Mexico's Drug Wars
Mexican authorities recovered four beheaded bodies from a vacant lot near the U.S. border in Tijuana the night of June 21, pulling the heads from the nearby Tijuana River. The victims, three local police officials and a civilian, reportedly had been abducted by a convoy of heavily armed men. Three days later, the bodies of four police officers kidnapped the week before were found near the resort city of Acapulco in southern Mexico's Guerrero state. One of the victims had been beheaded. These attacks appear to confirm the escalation -- and spread -- of Mexico's drug wars.

In Nuevo Laredo, Tijuana, and, more recently, Acapulco, rival drug cartels are using heavier and more powerful weapons to carry out increasingly brazen attacks against one other, and any local police officers who get in their way. In Guerrero state, two police posts at the Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo tourist resorts came under simultaneous attack with automatic weapons and grenades June 24.

The attacks against the police posts occurred during a violent weekend in Guerrero state that saw a total of 11 people killed. In addition to the four police officers, the bodies of a businessman and a former police officer were discovered in Acapulco. Four more bodies were found in plastic bags on the outskirts of Acapulco, in Pie de la Cuesta, while another shooting victim was discovered bound and wrapped in a black plastic bag in another nearby town.

Until recently, beheadings had been rare in Mexico, despite the numerous deadly wars between drug cartels going back decades. The change in tactics suggests a new element has entered into the equation, most likely from Central or South America. It also is possible that local enforcers have adopted some of the tactics that have been so effective in Iraq and elsewhere.

Deputy Attorney General for Organized Crime Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos said the beheadings in Tijuana were likely carried out by members of the Mara Salvatrucha crime gang working as enforcers for the Sinaloa drug cartel. Vasconcelos himself, however, has been accused repeatedly in the Mexican media of having a direct connection to some of the cartels. It is a fact, though, that while the Maras can be extremely violent, they are not known to behead their victims.

The real culprits, then, could be Kaibiles, former Guatemalan special forces soldiers who have signed on as cartel enforcers. The Mexican media, citing the April beheadings of two police officers in Acapulco, have claimed that Kaibiles have been active in Mexico over the past few months. Some Guerrero state officials have publicly said they believe the Kaibiles to be behind the attacks, while others have requested information from the Guatemalan army about possible former Kaibiles participating with drug-traffickers. A Guatemalan army spokesman said Mexico requested information on three specific individuals, one of whom was positively identified as a former Kaibil.

The Mexican government has tried various tactics throughout the years to stem the violence associated with the cartels -- to no avail. With presidential elections set for July 2, the new administration and its security services will face the same old problems of internal police corruption and outgunned forces -- and likely will be unable to stem the escalating violence in Mexico. The introduction of enforcers from outside the country indicates that, as the stakes rise, the cartels are responding with increasing violence.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 01, 2006, 05:36:45 PM
?Algun comentario sobre los procesos legales en contra de Luis Echeverria Alvarez por los acontecimientos del Masacre de Tlatelolco?

?Quien va a ganar la elecion-- AMLO o Calderon?
Title: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on July 04, 2006, 02:15:39 PM
Pues parece ser que por las escuestas el que ganar? sera Calderon, pero hay en la ma?ana escuche por televisi?n que los dirigentes del PRD aun se encuentran optimistas y tienen fe en que con los votos que faltan por recabar alcancen para que AMLO tenga el triunfo como presidente pero mucha gente lo duda. Para jefe de gobierno lo mas seguro es que quede Marcelo E. Ma?ana miercoles se definir? todo.

Saludos
Mauricio
Title: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on July 04, 2006, 02:16:31 PM
Pues parece ser que por las encuestas el que ganar? sera Calderon, pero hay en la ma?ana escuche por televisi?n que los dirigentes del PRD aun se encuentran optimistas y tienen fe en que con los votos que faltan por recabar alcancen para que AMLO tenga el triunfo como presidente pero mucha gente lo duda. Para jefe de gobierno lo mas seguro es que quede Marcelo E. del PRD. Ma?ana miercoles se definir? todo.

Saludos
Mauricio
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 05, 2006, 03:28:12 PM
http://www.eleccionesmexico.com.mx
 
http://www.felipe-calderon.org/fc/html/index.htm
Title: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on July 06, 2006, 02:08:41 PM
Aun hoy Jueves en la ma?ana hab?a 8 casillas que no contabilizaban sus votos, peroya en la tarde se tienen el 100% de los votos que son:

VOTOS TOTALES:  41,758,191

VOTOS NO REGISTRADOS:  297,960

VOTOS POR CADITATOS A LA PRESIDENCIA DE LA REP?BLICA:

- Felipe Calder?n (PAN)                          35.88%
- Andres Manuel L?pez Obrador (PRD)     35.31%

     Es decir que la diferencia entre los dos candidatos es del 0.57%, peero AMLO no esta conforme y esta pidiendo que se cuente voto por voto para verificar. FC dio las gracias a los otros candidatos que fueron sus contrincantes durante el periodo electoral y tabi?n contesto a AMLO que ese voto a voto ya se realizo el Domingo.

     Aun hay mecanismos para hacer protestar referente a los resultados y posteriomente se daran respuestas.

     De momento es todo.

Saludos Cordiales
Prof. Mauricio S?nchez
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 06, 2006, 05:09:28 PM
Uds. esta'n viviendo un momento histo'rica.  Yo me acuerdo viajando por todo Mexico en mi motocicleta en 1976 viendo los anuncios por Jose Lopez Portillo-- el candidato del PRI , , , y los demas partidos, y ahora el Presidente es del PAN, y en la eleccion el PRI esta' en tercero lugar y hay una democracia verdadera.

Absolutamente increible.

!Gracias por mantenernos al momento!
=================================

Mexico: Facing Its Greatest Democratic Test
Summary

Mexico's July 2 presidential election was the closest in the country's history. Conservative Felipe Calderon got an advantage in the preliminary vote count, which has just been ratified; the official tally gives Calderon a lead of about 0.56 percent over left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. However, Lopez Obrador has decided not to recognize the results and instead to challenge them officially in the election court. Despite Lopez Obrador's challenge, the country remains calm. Mexico's electoral authorities and the electorate are likely to accept the election results in what could be the ultimate test of Mexico's 20-year-old democratic process.

Analysis

Mexico's presidential election July 2 was the closest in the country's history. Just as opinion polls had predicted before the election, there was a negligible amount of difference between support for National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderon and for Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. On July 6, with 99.96 percent of the votes counted, Calderon maintained an advantage of 0.56 percent over Lopez Obrador.

After decades of suspicious electoral processes, one of Mexico's main political transformations during the past 15 years was the decision to build a reliable and independent electoral structure: the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), an independent body in charge of organizing federal elections in Mexico since 1994. The 1994 and 2000 Mexican presidential elections were regarded as clean, and in 1996 the IFE achieved total autonomy from the government and the Federal Electoral Court (TEPJF) was created just to handle electoral issues. However, since the beginning of this election season, Lopez Obrador has cast doubt on the IFE and refused to commit to recognizing the election results if he lost. Since Calderon's lead appears to be holding, Lopez Obrador announced the morning of July 6 that he and the PRD are challenging the election results and calling for a manual recount of the votes.

Given that Calderon and Lopez Obrador each have more than 14 million votes, either candidate would be able to mobilize supporters if needed -- yet Mexico has remained calm in spite of Lopez Obrador's challenge. Even though Lopez Obrador's contention is not with possible fraud but simply with the vote tabulations, this election could be the greatest test Mexico's democratic institutions have faced.

The legal path is certain, if lengthy: Votes were counted on election day, and the official tally and registration began July 5. IFE is set to announce an official result July 6 (as of this writing, the result has not yet been announced). The results will then be sent to the TEPJF for certification. That is the point at which the political parties can challenge the election in the court. After that, the worst-case scenario is that the TEPJF will take the maximum time allowed by law to certify the results, and the election will not be finalized until Sept. 7. Given the PRD's request for a total recount, it is very probable that Mexico will not have an official president-elect for several weeks, though the process is not likely to drag on to the latest possible date. Even after the court makes its decision, the PRD has not clearly signaled that it will accept the results even if the recount shows that Lopez Obrador lost the election.

This election is a test not only for Mexico's electoral authorities, but also for the political actors' negotiation and conciliation abilities. The results indicate that the country is deeply divided; exit polls show that Calderon got most of the votes among the richest two-fifths of the population and tied with Lopez Obrador among voters in the poorest fifth of the population. In geographic terms, Calderon won 16 states, all but two of which were in the north and western regions of the country. Lopez Obrador also won 16 states, all but two of which were in southern and central Mexico. Despite the closeness of the overall election results, few states were divided; Lopez Obrador won more than 60 percent of the votes in Mexico City, and Calderon did the same in several states like Guanajuato and Jalisco.

Given that around 35 percent of Mexico's voters supported Lopez Obrador, Calderon will need to shore up support from other segments of the population. This is especially important given that the July 2 congressional election left no party with an overall majority in either congressional house, though Calderon's PAN will have the relative majority in both the Senate and the House. Support from the once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) could prove critical. Robert Madrazo, PRI's presidential candidate, came in third, just as opinion polls forecast; however, it was a very distant third. The PRI also lost its relative majority in the House and Senate and is relegated to third place in Congress. However, the PRI still has the support of about 25 percent of the population and thus could give Calderon a credibility boost and political support. Madrazo has already recognized his defeat and called the presidential election "fair, legal and legitimate." A negotiation with the PRI could not only help legitimize Calderon's victory, it could also help build a coalition in Congress to pass reforms once Calderon assumes power. However, a revolt to renew the leadership has started inside the PRI; the party's ability to show the electorate a commitment to change will be critical for the PRI's survival.

Calderon will face a tough healing process, though he indicated even before the election that he would seek to create some kind of coalition government. Even if the PRD loses its challenge -- as the results seem to indicate will happen -- it won its largest share of the vote ever and will become the second-largest force in Congress, with more seats than it has previously held.

Calderon will be declared the winner July 6, although the results will still not be official until the TEPJF validates and certifies the election. It will take several more days to resolve any PRD challenges. However, Calderon's victory has now been confirmed by the preliminary and official vote counts. If Lopez Obrador clearly states that he is committed to recognizing the final results, there will not necessarily be a problem if the election's certification is delayed a few days. However, as expected, Lopez Obrador has yet to make a declaration in which he says he will accept the results. He will face increasing pressure from the business sector, media and the population in general to accept the results, especially because he does not seem to have a strong case for overturning the results; if the court accepts a recount, Lopez Obrador will have no case at all. Violence has not erupted over the hotly contested election, and it seems very likely that both the electoral authorities and the populace will pass what could be Mexico's greatest democratic test to date.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 10, 2006, 06:39:48 AM
El prestigioso Wall Street Journal dice que el sistema de elecciones en Mexico es mas honesto que lo del EEUU-- y otro articulo sobre la eleccion.
=====================

JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL

How to Run a Clean Election
What Mexico can teach the United States.

Monday, July 10, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Mexico is likely to weather the controversy over its photo-finish election despite the protestors that losing candidate Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador brought into the streets on Saturday to claim the election had been stolen. Mexico's nonpartisan National Election Commission has built up a decade of credibility in running clean elections and international observers have certified the count as fair. Indeed, in its successful efforts to overcome its old reputation for corrupt vote-counting Mexico has a lot to teach the United States.

Mexico has developed an elaborate system of safeguards to prevent voter fraud. Absentee ballots, which are cast outside the view of election officials and represent the easiest way to commit fraud, are much harder to apply for than in the U.S. Voters must present a valid voter ID card with a photo and imbedded security codes. After they cast a ballot voters--just like those famously pictured in Iraq last year--also have a finger or thumb dipped in indelible purple ink to prevent them from voting again.

In the U.S. opponents of such anti-fraud measures as photo ID laws claim they will disenfranchise many voters and reduce voter turnout. But John Lott, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, notes that in the three presidential elections Mexico has conducted since the National Election Commission reformed the election laws "68% of eligible citizens have voted, compared to only 59% in the three elections prior to the rule changes." People are more likely to vote if they believe their ballot will be fairly counted.





But in the U.S. a growing percentage of people have doubts their votes are recorded properly, whether those doubts stem from concerns about new electronic voting machines or old-style political machines with a reputation for corruption. Residents of cities such as Philadelphia, where there are more registered voters than the number of adults over the age of 18, routinely note that "voting early and often" is a time-honored--and all too real--tradition.
Photo ID laws are considered one of the most basic and necessary election safeguards by a host of countries including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain, India and South Africa. But less than half of U.S. states have any kind of photo ID laws. Opponents continue to claim they are discriminatory. Just last week, a federal judge in Georgia blocked that state's new photo ID law from taking effect.

Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador, doesn't see what all the fuss over photo ID is about. In an era when people have to show ID to rent a DVD at Blockbuster or cash a check he told me "requiring ID can help poor people." He noted that Georgia is deploying a mobile bus to issue voter IDs and allowing groups like the NAACP to arrange for it to go to specific sites such as nursing homes.

Last year, the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker proposed a national photo ID requirement. They noted the importance of clean election rolls and the usefulness a photo ID law could provide in ensuring that the person arriving at a polling site is the same one that is named on the registration list. They also proposed that all states use their best efforts to obtain proof of citizenship before registering voters.

During the Senate's May debate on immigration reform, Kentucky GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell noted that with 12 million illegal immigrants in the country it made sense to have a national law to have voters show a photo ID before they vote and have them indicate if someone is a citizen. He proposed an amendment to the immigration bill that would have included a grant to ensure that states could afford to provide a free ID to anyone who needed one. Requiring someone to show a photo ID would cut down on potential fraud and misrepresentation at the polls, especially in states such as Wisconsin where voters can register to vote and cast a ballot on Election Day with no waiting period. "Last I checked, the constitutional right to rent a movie or buy motor oil in bulk was conspicuously absent. However, the constitution is replete, as is the U.S. Code, with protections of the franchise of all Americans," Sen. McConnell told colleagues.

The floor debate over the McConnell proposal was revealing. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois inexplicably claimed the proposal was a solution without a problem because there was no voter fraud in the country. Coming from a man who represents Chicago, his statement left some colleagues in slack-jawed amazement. Almost as unbelievable were claims by Sen. Ted Kennedy that a photo ID requirement would bring back the equivalent of a poll tax on voters. "How can it be a poll tax, if anyone can get the ID for free?" shot back Mr. McConnell.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in April found that 80% of Americans favored a photo ID requirement, with only 7% opposed. Nonetheless, every Democratic senator lined up in opposition to the McConnell amendment--a clear sign that key liberal interest groups must feel threatened by the idea of ballot security. Mr. McConnell's amendment survived an attempt to strip it from the immigration bill by a vote of only 49 to 48. Its prospects for becoming law this year are dim.

But it's important that the battle continue. After two bitterly fought and close presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, Americans need to improve both sloppy election laws that may needlessly hinder people from voting and also ensure the results are accepted by all but the most die-hard partisans. That means more oversight and stricter standards for the new electronic voting machines that more and more Americans are using. It should include photo ID laws that are uniform across state lines. It should mean states rethinking rules that in states such as California and Washington state routinely have more than a third of voters casting absentee ballots--thus changing the very meaning of an Election Day in which everyone votes at the same time with the same information.





Make no mistake. Close elections are becoming more common everywhere. In addition to Mexico, this spring Italy had a nail biter election that was decided by less than 22,000 votes nationwide. The Czech Republic is still struggling to break a deadlock from an election last month that left both sides with exactly 100 seats each in parliament. Last year, Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats took two months to acknowledge that Angela Merkel had narrowly won and had the right to become the country's first female Chancellor.
Michael Barone, the co-author of the authoritative Almanac of American Politics, spent a week in Mexico reporting on its election and the safeguards it has taken to ensure an accurate vote. "I have more confidence in Mexico's election procedures than I do in those in much of the United States," he concluded.

Americans should be ashamed that in a much richer country that has a much longer democratic tradition, too many states still have slipshod and defective security protections. In the 1960s, Americans fought a civil rights battle to ensure the right of everyone to vote. But every American also has an equal civil right not to have their ballot canceled out by someone who shouldn't be voting, is voting twice or in some case has long since died.

Mexico is ahead of the U.S. in ensuring its elections are both free and accurate. We should ask ourselves if we can afford to let that stunning contrast continue. Our next painfully close presidential election may be only a little over two years away. The time to act is now.

==============

 
 
 
 
   
     
 
 
 
 
DESKTOP NEWS ALERTS

 
 
Get alerts for breaking news -- such as Fed moves, major world events and big mergers -- delivered straight to your desktop. Alerts will appear in a small window on your screen, much like an instant-messaging window. See a sample and get more information.


advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR  
 
 
? Lawsuits Fly Over Google Founders' Plane
? 'Pirates' Plunders Box Office
? Before Rushing to Convert an IRA, Read This
? The Great Giveaway
? Saudi Arabia Tests Ability to Unlock Heavy Oil

 
 Personalized Home Page Setup
 Put headlines on your homepage about the companies, industries and topics that interest you most.  
 
 
 
Leftist Is to Press Challenge
Of Mexico's Election

L?pez Obrador Readies
Effort to Reverse Defeat,
Declaring 'This Isn't Over'
By JOHN LYONS and JOS? DE C?RDOBA
July 10, 2006; Page A3

MEXICO CITY -- Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, the left-wing candidate narrowly defeated in Mexico's presidential race, was expected to launch a legal campaign late last night to overturn the results, mixing allegations of vote fraud with broader claims that the election process was unfair.

The legal challenges were slated to come a day after Mr. L?pez Obrador held a rally in Mexico City, kicking off the first of several protests he hopes will pressure election authorities to accede to his demands. Mr. L?pez Obrador wants to nullify the results from more than a third of the 130,500 polling stations, and is demanding that all 41 million ballots be hand-counted a second time.

 
The 52-year-old former Mexico City mayor lost a July 2 vote by a slim margin -- around 240,000 votes -- to Felipe Calder?n, 43, the candidate of President Vicente Fox's pro-market National Action Party, according to an official hand count conducted by Mexican poll workers and party representatives. Although he initially said the vote was clean, Mr. L?pez Obrador has lashed out at election officials, Mr. Calder?n, President Fox, and big business since the results were announced, claiming they formed a conspiracy to deny him victory.

"I won the presidency," Mr. L?pez Obrador said early yesterday at a news conference. "I am going to defend our victory. This isn't over." The message was partly meant for the stream of heads of state, including Spain's socialist Prime Minister Jos? Luis Rodr?guez Zapatero and President Bush, who have extended congratulations to Mr. Calder?n.

Despite his rhetoric, analysts say the veteran politician faces an uphill battle both to win a court ruling to overturn the election as well as to galvanize Mexicans into taking to the streets to support him. "L?pez Obrador is now in the uncomfortable position of complaining about things that he said were fine at the time," said Federico Reyes-Heroles, a political analyst and writer in Mexico City.

 
Whatever the outcome, the dispute is likely to further polarize a divided nation, making governing more tricky for the next president.

Mr. L?pez Obrador's legal challenges mark the first major test for the nation's special electoral tribunal, set up in the 1990s as the ultimate authority on electoral disputes as part of an effort to stamp out fraud. The court earned a reputation for flexing its muscle in 2000, when it annulled a local election in Mr. L?pez Obrador's home state of Tabasco.

Now, the leftist is asking the electoral court to order a recount. In his legal complaint, due to be delivered to the court late yesterday, he was expected to ask that the results from as many as 50,000 polling stations be thrown out for reasons including vote buying. He also was expected to ask the court to rule that the election was unfairly tilted against him by the meddling of President Fox and the collusion of electoral officials.

Mr. L?pez Obrador's camp argues that Mr. Fox illegally campaigned for Mr. Calder?n through government-sponsored advertisements touting the achievements of his government. Under Mexican law, a president can't endorse or campaign for a candidate. Mr. L?pez Obrador may also argue that the Calder?n camp surpassed spending limits to launch an illegal negative advertising campaign.

FURTHER READING

 
? L?pez Obrador May Lack Support for Vote Protest
07/08/06
 
While the court may agree to review some ballot boxes, most analysts say it won't agree to the blanket recount that Mr. L?pez Obrador wants. Mexico's electoral system requires parties to observe and then sign off on almost every step of the process -- which Mr. L?pez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party did.

Mr. L?pez Obrador's vow to fill the streets with protestors worries many Mexicans, who fear their young democracy may be in for a period of uncertainty that could push new electoral institutions beyond the breaking point. Mr. L?pez Obrador's tone has become harsh, calling Mr. Fox a "traitor to democracy" during his speech yesterday, and declaring that the "stability of the nation" is at risk unless his demands are met.

Observers say these new attacks on the president may ultimately backfire with middle-class voters who still hold Mr. Fox in high esteem. What's more, observers say Mr. L?pez Obrador's first rally failed to pack the punch he was hoping to deliver, suggesting that his ability to stage massive rallies may dissipate over coming weeks.

Mexico City officials, seen as sympathetic to the former city mayor, said that 280,000 people attended Saturday's rally. News agencies put the number at closer to 100,000. That is about half as much as Mr. L?pez Obrador was hoping to attract -- and many times smaller than the one million supporters police say he gathered in a rally last year. Mr. L?pez Obrador called yesterday for supporters from across the nation to start walking toward Mexico City and attend a second rally in the plaza on July 16.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 11, 2006, 09:23:50 PM
?Noticias de la eleccion?  ?Se mantiene la aventaja de Calderon?
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 14, 2006, 07:45:02 AM
Videos, Doubts, and a Backlash in Mexico Vote
               E-MailPrint Single Page Reprints Save
 
By GINGER THOMPSON and JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 14, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 13 ? To an untrained eye, the scenes captured on video certainly looked like Mexico?s bad old days when votes were stolen instead of won. There was a man inside a polling station stuffing one vote after another into a ballot box.

Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge this Image
 
Agence France-Presse ? Getty Images
Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, the presidential candidate, playing a video that he says shows a poll worker stuffing a ballot box. But election officials, and a member of his own campaign, reject that characterization.

Related
In a Presidential Tone, Calder?n Rejects Recount (July 14, 2006) Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, the embattled leftist candidate for president, showed the video to a crowd of reporters on Monday morning and called it proof that poll workers had taken part in a conspiracy of fraud that robbed him of victory and handed it to his conservative rival, Felipe Calder?n.

That night, the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, and Mr. L?pez Obrador?s own representative at the polling station said Mr. L?pez Obrador was misrepresenting the video. The tape, they said, showed a poll worker putting misplaced ballots where they belonged, a common procedure that was perfectly legal.

By then, however, doubt had already been planted. Mr. L?pez Obrador has bet his political future that it will not take much to make that doubt grow into a national call for a recount in a country where rigging elections was once a kind of national pastime. His opponents in Mr. Calder?n?s camp are betting people will see things the way they do: that the only one playing dirty these days is Mr. L?pez Obrador.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Calder?n, who election officials say squeaked out a victory by 0.6 percent of the vote, said that Mr. L?pez Obrador had not kept his promise during the campaign to accept the election results, win or lose.

?It seems to me that the responsible thing to do is to respect the authorities,? said Mr. Calder?n, who has yet to be formally certified as the winner, ?and not to heighten tensions in the political atmosphere.?

?I don?t want to launch a personal attack on him,? Mr. Calder?n added. ?What I do think is that Mexico has a solid democratic system, credible institutions, like the electoral institute and the electoral tribunal, and that it?s not right that they be discredited, especially without proof.?

In the 11 days since the closest election in Mexican history, Mr. L?pez Obrador has tried to discredit those institutions and the election on two fronts. Last weekend he filed a massive complaint ? including nine boxes of documents and tapes ? to the Federal Electoral Tribunal, alleging irregularities at more 52,000 polling places and calling for a recount.

At the same time, he opened a campaign to cast doubt on the election, feeding the media daily doses of scandal in videotapes and what he describes as secret recordings and tally sheets with incorrect numbers.

On Saturday in the Z?calo, Mexico City?s historic plaza, a confident Mr. L?pez Obrador regaled some 150,000 supporters with a recording of a conversation that he said proved collusion by rival political parties.

He followed up at the press conference on Monday with the now disputed video that he said proved poll workers had inflated vote counts for his rival. He screened another video on Tuesday that he said showed electoral officials illegally tampering with ballot boxes. And on Wednesday, he played a video that he said showed poll workers recording more inflated tallies for Mr. Calder?n.

While the tapes were tantalizing, legal experts said they hardly made Mr. L?pez Obrador?s case for systematic violations that would support his demand for a vote-by-vote recount, and many analysts were concluding that the campaign was more smoke than fire.

The Federal Electoral Institute has fired back with a campaign of its own, including public service announcements and full-page advertisements in Mexico?s major daily newspapers. In a recent press conference, Hugo Concha, a spokesman for IFE, said there was no evidence of fraud in any of the videos.

Nor, he said, were they recorded in secret. Cameras were allowed in district offices during the official vote tallying, Mr. Concha said. And he said the videos screened by Mr. L?pez Obrador showed normal, legal activities.

?In other words,? Mr. Concha said, ?he is misusing the information.?

That seems to be the way Juliana Barr?n Vallejo sees things. She is a former factory worker in Guanajuato State who represented Mr. L?pez Obrador?s campaign at the polling place where the video shown on Monday had been recorded.

?There was no fraud,? she said in a telephone interview. ?Everything was clean.? Then, referring to Mr. L?pez Obrador, she said, ?I think he is angry because he lost, and so he is inventing things.?

Comments like those from Ms. Barr?n, which have also been reported here in the newspaper Reforma, stung the L?pez Obrador campaign. But Mr. L?pez Obrador?s response shook his supporters? confidence even further, as he refused to back away from the video and implied that his own campaign worker had been corrupted.


In a Presidential Tone, Calder?n Rejects Recount (July 14, 2006) ?I cannot say that all my representatives acted honestly,? Mr. L?pez Obrador said at a press conference on Tuesday. ?There is a lot of money out there. Unfortunately, some people are willing to sell their dignity.?

As for the Federal Electoral Institute, Mr. L?pez Obrador said: ?The IFE is trying to cover up an embarrassment that is making news around the world. What we are showing is that in this election we have not moved forward. We have moved backward.?

Some, including the leftist scholar Roger Bartra, say that Mr. L?pez Obrador has not only damaged himself, but that he has also set Mexico on a dangerous course.

Other political analysts, like Jorge Monta?o, say Mr. L?pez Obrador has capitalized on the overwhelming lack of confidence most Mexicans feel toward their institutions, and has shifted the debate from one about who won the election, to one about whether to reopen the ballots.

?Public confidence has fallen so low,? Mr. Monta?o said, ?that it is almost inevitable there will have to be some kind of verification that Felipe Calder?n won the presidency.?

Mr. L?pez Obrador?s appearances at press conferences and on television this week indicated that he was prepared for a long fight. That became clear in a heated exchange between Mr. L?pez Obrador, the populist former Mexico City mayor, and Mexico?s leading news anchor, Joaqu?n L?pez-D?riga, Tuesday night:

Mr. L?pez-D?riga: Where is this going to end, Andr?s Manuel? How far are you going to take it?

Mr. L?pez Obrador: To the people.

Mr. L?pez-D?riga: How far is that?

Mr. L?pez Obrador: As far as the people want and decide.

Mr. L?pez-D?riga: But you are driving this process.

Mr. L?pez Obrador: Yes, but we are going to drive it democratically.

Mr. Calder?n?s aides contend that what Mr. L?pez Obrador really wants is to use a recount as the first step to annulling the election. Echoing analyses by electoral officials, they say it is unlikely that a recount would change the results because the candidates would be likely to gain and lose votes in similar proportions.

But any broad recount, Mr. Calder?n?s aides say, is bound to uncover human errors, and perhaps isolated, but not systematic, cases of fraud, that could be used to throw out all the returns. ?The tactic might be a recount, but the endgame is annulment,? said Arturo Sarukh?n, an aide to Mr. Calder?n.

Mr. L?pez Obrador, 53, has repeatedly denied he wants a new election. He won this one, he said, adding, ?I am more and more convinced of this.?

For his part, Mr. Calder?n has stood firm, planning a tour of the country, sending aides to calm anxieties abroad, appointing officials to lead a transition team and playing down the demonstrations in favor of Mr. L?pez Obrador.

?Elections are won at the polls,? Mr. Calder?n said, ?not on the streets.?
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on July 14, 2006, 04:27:53 PM
Hola a todos, mucha efervecencia en Mexico por lo de las elecciones, la Jornada (un periodico de Mexico), en este viernes presentaba varios articulos que ni por equivocacion veran en los noticiros de television:

Continua la apertura ilegal de paquetes electorales por los empleados del IFE, para igualar cifras del PREP

Posible el fraude cibernetico, declaran cientificos de la UNAM

Sugieren academicos de la UNAM al tribunal electora conteo con maquinas y personal distinto

Es bueno aclarar que cuando Marc mensiona su viaje por mexico durante las eleciones de Portillo el sistema tenia impunidad absoluta  dentro y fuera del pais, en ese entonces estabamos en la etapa de farsa electoral, pues se hacia todo el proceso electoral, pero no se respetaba el resultado (dudo que siquiera se contara), las urnas ya llegaban llenas  o  votaba varias veces un grupo de personas. Cuando se crea el IFE como organo "independiente" del gobierno (en mi opinion no se puede ser independiente si se recibe un presupuesto del gobierno), comenso la etapa de fraude elctoral, en esta epoca si los informes de la votacion eran contrarios al PRI se disparaba contra la casilla y las personas que esperaban  su turno para votar, o se robaban las urnas o como sucedio en 1988 se cae el sistema de computo y curiosamente ya no puede volverse a contar pues los paquetes electorales fueron quemados. La eleccion del 2000 fue una muestra de que al ser los esultados favorables para los intereses del sistema el mismo presidente saltandose al tribunal electoral anuncia el triunfo "absoluto de Fox"

La pasada eleccion fue ejemplar, pues las personas independientemente de sus preferencias realmente salieron a votar, los funcionarios de casilla actuaron honestamente y los paquetes se entregaron sin falta a las oficinas del IFE; sin embargo el computo, la captura, es lo fraudulento, se mensiona que al ingresar los datos de AMLO la base de datos resta 4 votos por casilla, hagan el ejercicio de restar los votos por el numero de casilla y tendran el triunfo de Calderon.

Despues comentamos mas

Omar
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on July 17, 2006, 04:52:49 PM
Hola de nuevo  :) , mas informacion sobre el estado de las elecciones en Mexico, este es un articulo del periodista Julio Hernandez, del diario la Jornada, cada dia se habla mas del fraude cibernetico, a ver que comentamos:

Pruebas matem?ticas
- El mundo hildebr?ndico
- Manipulaciones cibern?ticas
- An?malos, el PREP y lo distrital
Astillero
Julio Hern?ndez L?pez
A?n cuando son muchos los testimonios del fraude electoral en su fase manual (premoderna), la clave del gran enga?o est? en la manipulaci?n cibern?tica de los procesos de captaci?n y difusi?n de los datos comiciales. Por m?s evidencias de manipulaciones que se logren juntar (y vaya que hay suficientes) y por m?s litigios ante tribunales electorales que se lleguen a plantear, la esencia del atraco est? en el mundo de lo hildebr?ndico: en el sistema computacional que posibilit? la instalaci?n del reino de las percepciones que ha hecho creer a las masas manipulables medi?tica y ?cient?ficamente? que Felipe Calder?n realmente gan? la contienda electoral./
La diferencia entre lo manual y lo computacional, entre lo real y lo virtual, parece no ser entendida adecuadamente por el lopezobradorismo. Tal vez porque varios de sus principales estrategas nutrieron sus conocimientos electorales de la fuente del priismo cl?sico es que ahora se ha puesto el acento de las denuncias p?blicas m?s en los aspectos tradicionales de la defraudaci?n (el embarazo de urnas, las diferencias num?ricas en actas, por ejemplo) que en los estudios de cient?ficos mexicanos que consideran imposibles, o inviables, o incre?bles matem?ticamente tanto los resultados electorales preliminares y de los conteos distritales como su expresi?n ante los medios de comunicaci?n y los ciudadanos en general./

La noche del pasado mi?rcoles, por ejemplo, esta columna recibi?, en horario que le hac?a imposible incluirlo en la entrega de ese d?a, el an?lisis estad?stico que de las elecciones 2006 hicieron diez acad?micos de la UNAM (los doctores V?ctor Romero, Ra?l Aguilar, Humberto Carrillo, Susana G?mez, Rosario Paredes, Luis Rinc?n y Francisco Portillo, y los maestros Pilar Alonso, Jos? Antonio Flores y Bol?var Huerta). Las observaciones de esa decena de especialistas (que hoy se publican en La Jornada, en una nota de Roberto Gardu?o, y est?n disponibles ?ntegramente en www.juliohernandez.com.mx) establecen que ?se present? una manipulaci?n en el c?mputo de los votos tanto del PREP como del conteo distrital, v?a la alteraci?n de los resultados o la administraci?n de las muestras de casillas tomadas que supuestamente deb?an ser aleatorias. S?lo mediante una manipulaci?n cibern?tica en el ?rea inform?tica del IFE dichos comportamientos anormales e improbables pudieron suceder?. La diferencia oficial de votos entre Calder?n y AMLO fue de ?s?lo dos votos por casilla?, pero ?una manipulaci?n de 30 votos en el 10 % de las casillas permitir?a revertir ese resultado?. Sin embargo (de lo manual a lo cibern?tico, de lo real a lo virtual), ?de igual manera, la manipulaci?n de las cifras en las computadoras del IFE pudo cambiar el resultado final de la votaci?n?. Por ello, los acad?micos de la UNAM recomiendan que se realice ?un nuevo conteo en todas las casillas electorales, usando un sistema de c?mputo distinto al que ha usado el IFE?./
Uno de esos diez acad?micos, V?ctor Romero Roch?n, ha dicho a t?tulo personal que ?las conclusiones respecto al conteo distrital son esencialmente las mismas que en el caso del PREP? y que ?lo que provoca mayor sorpresa es el orden, ascendente o descendente, del n?mero de votos conforme se contabilizan nuevas casillas, siendo que las muestras son independientes unas de las otras (...) un orden de esta naturaleza no puede descartarse en t?rminos estad?sticos, aunque si as? fuera tendr?a una probabilidad incre?blemente peque?a?. De all? se desprende ?la posibilidad final, que no puede ni debe descartarse a la ligera, de la intervenci?n de un agente externo al sistema de c?mputo del IFE?, por lo que un eventual nuevo conteo de votos tendr?a como ?condici?n necesaria? evitar que ?la informaci?n se vuelva a centralizar en las mismas computadoras? del IFE./
El an?lisis colectivo fue conocido en lo general por el propio L?pez Obrador una semana atr?s (el pasado viernes, cuando se preparaba para una entrevista en Televisa con Joaqu?n L?pez D?riga que ese d?a fue pospuesta). Los acad?micos trabajaron s?bado y domingo hasta la madrugada para alcanzar las consideraciones finales y buscaron hacerlas llegar a AMLO por la v?a de Federico Arreola, C?sar Y??ez u Octavio Romero, pero nada consiguieron. Claudia Sheinbaum s? conoci? el texto pero nada sucedi? porque la burocracia alrededor de L?pez Obrador sigue empe?ada en una batalla jur?dico-electoral al estilo antiguo./
No son, los de esos diez acad?micos, los ?nicos estudios sobre la materia. Ya aqu? se han difundido los trabajos de Jaime Ruiz Garc?a y Luis Moch?n. ?ste, en la versi?n m?s actualizada, establece en sus conclusiones que, con lo que ha analizado hasta ahora ?no es razonable creer que no haya habido una manipulaci?n de los resultados reportados por el PREP; se me ha dicho que el trabajo que he realizado es irrelevante pues a fin de cuentas el PREP no tiene validez legal, pues los datos importantes son los del conteo distrital. Sin embargo, me resisto a creer que el PREP haya puesto a nuestra disposici?n toda la informaci?n detallada de la elecci?n con el prop?sito de que nos entretengamos la noche de la elecci?n o que juguemos a las quinielas?./
La batalla c?vica por la defensa del voto debe pasar, desde luego, por el ?mbito jur?dico y por la movilizaci?n social, pero tambi?n debe apoyarse en estos an?lisis matem?ticos (difundiendo esos estudios, convirti?ndolos en argumento pol?tico y social, inaugurando rutas de litigio judicial a partir de consideraciones cient?ficas). De otra manera, el combate se quedar? en un campo acaso ya reorganizado con las mismas trampas cibern?ticas y manuales, como lo sugiere el manoseo de paquetes electorales que ha realizado el IFE en sedes distritales y que podr?a permitir al calderonismo el golpe efectista de anunciar su disposici?n a que sean contados uno a uno los votos de determinadas casillas en las que el tr?o Felipe-Hildebrando-IFE (FelHiFE) no hubiese aplicado (o ya hubiese disimulado) sus artes de magia./
Hoy, a partir de las once horas, en la Escuela Nacional de Antropolog?a (a un lado de la sala Ollin Yoliztli) este tecleador en una mesa redonda con Guillermo Almeyra, H?ctor D?az Polanco y Consuelo S?nchez. El pr?ximo viernes, en la Universidad de Guadalajara... ?Feliz fin de semana y... nos vemos el domingo, en la marcha! (fin)
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 17, 2006, 07:28:10 PM
Gracias Omar, muy interesante.

He aqui la interpretacion de hoy del Stratfor:
------------

Mexico: Lopez Obrador's Risky Hard Line
Summary

Left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) candidate who lost Mexico's July 2 presidential election, continued his increasingly radical path in a July 16 speech, calling for "civil resistance" unless he gets a complete recount of votes. He also said he would refuse to recognize conservative National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderon's win, even if the recount confirms the PAN candidate's victory. Though Lopez Obrador's intransigence does risk polarizing PRD and PAN supporters, continuing to contest the election will cost Lopez Obrador support, and he could find himself with depleted political capital.

Analysis

Left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost Mexico's July 2 presidential election to conservative candidate Felipe Calderon, called on his followers to mount a "civil resistance" movement if his petition for a recount of all votes cast in the election fails. Now Mexico's Federal Election Court (TEPJF) will decide whether such a recount will be held.

Lopez Obrador's statements have created a Catch-22. On one hand, he has demanded a full recount. On the other, he has said he will not recognize Calderon's win, even if the recount confirms Calderon's 0.58 percent victory. True, the left-wing candidate has also said he wants the civil resistance movement to be peaceful, and that he will call it off if there is a full recount. But given Lopez Obrador's statement that he will not accept a Calderon win, he will probably seek to continue his massive rallies, and some of his supporters might also stage road closings. This intransigence gives rise to a potentially dangerous radicalization and polarization of supporters on both sides. Ultimately, however, Lopez Obrador could find himself with depleted political capital.

Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) presented the election results July 6, handing the victory to National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderon. That outcome matched the preliminary results IFE released on election day, which were based on quick counts and exit polls. Shortly after the election, Lopez Obrador demanded a complete recount. While politically a recount makes sense, Mexican law says only TEPJF can determine whether to hold one.

Lopez Obrador's representatives wanted PAN to agree to a recount with or without TEPJF's permission. But doing so without TEPJF's authorization would create legal grounds for invalidating the entire election. PAN and Calderon wisely refused to make such a deal, arguing that it was not their decision. Lopez Obrador has sought to spin that as proof Calderon has something to fear from a recount.

The TEPJF sessions to hear and revise political parties' complaints about the July 2 presidential and congressional elections began July 14. Once the TEPJF reviews those complaints and rules on them, it will announce the official election results and declare the winning candidate president-elect. Essentially, Lopez Obrador has said that either he should be declared winner or the election should be declared invalid. In court, the PRD has asked the TEPJF to conduct a recount in only about 55,000 of the more than 130,000 Mexican precincts. However, on the street the party has demanded a recount of all votes in all precincts.

Even if the TEPJF acceded to all of the PRD's requests, it would still fall short of Lopez Obrador's insistence on a complete recount. And while the TEPJF has the legal authority to order the full recount, it is unlikely to do so if no political party has petitioned for such a move. Yet another inconsistency in Lopez Obrador's push for a recount is the PRD's failure to follow the proper legal procedures in asking for one. This hamstrung Lopez Obrador's recount petition before it was even submitted. Lopez Obrador has justified his demands by saying the electoral process was unjust, the results were not transparent and the election was rigged. Despite these claims, no party filed any complaints of irregularities anywhere in Mexico on election day, and even international election observers dubbed the election fair. Moreover, Lopez Obrador did not object to unfairness in Mexico's concurrent legislative elections, in which the PRD made a strong showing.

These inconsistencies have begun to produce a negative backlash against Lopez Obrador in the media and the already hostile business sector. And while Lopez Obrador may have managed to fill the Zocalo -- Mexico City's main plaza -- with backers, the hardening of his position has come at the expense of support from the wider population -- and perhaps at the expense of his political future. Some polls have shown that between 60 percent and 65 percent of the population wants Lopez Obrador to accept the IFE results and trust the electoral authorities. And while Lopez Obrador still has the backing of the majority of the 35 percent of Mexicans who voted for him, many are starting to have second thoughts. Still, he can create his civil resistance movement if only a small fraction of his initial supporters continue to follow him.

The TEPJF has until the end of August to verify all the evidence and until Sept. 6 to declare a president-elect. The length of the process will spawn uncertainty and allow Lopez Obrador to continue mobilizing his hardcore supporters. The sooner TEPJF certifies the election, the better.

Until then, Lopez Obrador will continue to press his case in the public arena. After the ruling, he will need to decide whether to accept the result or continue with his threats of a resistance movement. That moment will test the real strength of his support. In the meantime, Calderon will need to engage in heavy political bridge-building, especially with the once dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which came in third in this election but still has the support of about one-quarter of the electorate. More likely than not, the PRI will give its support to Calderon. But he will also need to reach out to elements inside the PRD who are not fond of Lopez Obrador, such as Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who ran as the PRD candidate in the last three presidential elections.

Since Lopez Obrador will probably not change his position, political isolation would be the best way to deal with him. His movement will be loud and designed to gain maximum visibility, but he will lose support rapidly, and he could find himself isolated. And if he continues on this radical path, Lopez Obrador could even become a liability for many inside the PRD, which enjoyed its strongest performance ever in the legislative elections.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 19, 2006, 05:55:44 PM
Mexico's Long Hot Political Summer
Summary

Felipe Calderon, the apparent winner of Mexico's presidential election, was heckled by angry protesters in downtown Mexico City on July 18. Polarizing public opinion is one of the objectives of defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's call for "civil resistance" unless the Federal Election Court awards him the election. While Lopez Obrador cannot actually close down the government, since his party controls less than one-third of the newly elected Congress, he can attempt other tactics like closing down oil facilities and blocking roads. He has engaged in such activities before and would not hesitate in doing it again.

Analysis

The apparent winner of Mexico's July 2 presidential election, Felipe Calderon, was heckled July 18 by about a dozen angry protesters in downtown Mexico City. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who was defeated in the presidential election, had on July 16 called for a "civil resistance" movement to protest the election results in which he lost by 0.58 percent. Polarization of public opinion is one of Lopez Obrador's objectives.

Lopez Obrador maintains that he won the election, yet he has discounted the entire process, calling it unfair and undemocratic. His legal complaints to Mexico's Federal Election Court (TEPJF) simultaneously seek a recount and the invalidation of the election. Since a full recount probably could not give him enough votes to overcome Calderon, Lopez Obrador will use demonstrations and other actions to try to press the TEPFJ to call a new election. He likely will use some of the tactics he has used in the past, such as closing oil facilities, as part of his "civil resistance" movement.

This is not the first time Lopez Obrador has used "civil resistance" to try to overturn an election. In 1994, Lopez Obrador ran for the governorship of his home state, Tabasco, and lost to Roberto Madrazo -- who was the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate in the July 2 presidential election. Madrazo had spent far beyond the allowed limits in the 1994 campaign, and Lopez Obrador used the occasion to claim fraud and start a "civil resistance" movement. He led groups of supporters to block the entry to several oil rigs and other Pemex facilities in Tabasco for several months. He also staged demonstrations and caravans to Mexico City. Lopez Obrador did not succeed in reversing the election, but he gained enough visibility to position himself as the next national chairman of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and then as mayor of Mexico City. Now, Lopez Obrador is almost at the political peak; there is nothing beyond the presidency, so he does not have much to lose.

This time, Lopez Obrador has said his movement is peaceful and does not aim to affect Mexico's citizens; he has created citizens' committees, resembling those of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, which will dictate the spread and scope of the movement. Thus, he would have deniability in case his supporters turn violent -- which is not out of the question. When he first issued the call for "civil resistance," Lopez Obrador asked Calderon to accept a full recount for "the well being of you, your family and your loved ones." The next day, one of Lopez Obrador's lieutenants, former Mexico City mayor and PRI defector Manuel Camacho Solis, warned that "all these people who are now smiling will raise their fists" if Lopez Obrador is not granted victory. The day after that, Calderon was heckled in Mexico City. Lopez Obrador said he did not condemn the heckling but did condemn the "electoral fraud."

Lopez Obrador could be planning to repeat his 1994 performance and close oil facilities, an act that would directly affect the government. The citizens' committees could also plan standard roadblocks and demonstrations as well as symbolic boycotts of businesses and media. Although highly visible and disruptive, demonstrations and blockades are not as problematic as some alternatives. Taking over oil facilities and using rhetoric to incite incidents like the heckling in Mexico City are more dangerous. Disrupting oil facilities would have a visible economic effect, and the use of violent language can easily spin out of control.

There are possible signs of growing disagreement inside Lopez Obrador's party about the route to follow and the intensity of the resistance. After Lopez Obrador's initial outburst, the PRD released a milder statement in the evening. On the morning of July 19, Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas, another prominent member of the PRD, explicitly condemned the aggression against Calderon.

Lopez Obrador has chosen a course on which he either will be declared winner or will try to prevent Calderon from assuming power. Since there are others inside the PRD who might attempt a run for the presidency in six years, Lopez Obrador might feel that this is his only chance. However, by further radicalizing his position, Lopez Obrador has started to lose popularity and erode his political capital. The most likely outcome is that he will find himself isolated. The PRI has expressed its support to the TEPJF and the election authorities and wants the election results to stand. And while Calderon might not have much to offer Lopez Obrador personally, he has a lot to offer the PRD, which had its strongest performance ever in the July 2 congressional elections. If the PRD is thinking of the future, it might find that Lopez Obrador's actions are detrimental to its interests.

Lopez Obrador's movement is likely to fizzle, but it will take time and there will still be several "civil resistance" acts. It will still be a long and hot summer for Mexico.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 22, 2006, 03:34:20 AM
Mexico: Acapulco as a Main Front in the Drug Wars
July 21, 2006 17 31  GMT



Gunmen killed former Mexican legislator Juan Jose Nogueda on July 19 after abducting him from Acapulco's main beachside street in broad daylight. The killing marks the latest incident of violence in the escalating drug war in Mexico's Pacific resort city. The war is making the popular resort destination increasingly dangerous as it continues to spread to other parts of the country.

Nogueda, a businessman in the construction industry and former federal deputy for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was snatched in plain view of tourists by several gunmen driving a sport utility vehicle. A few hours later, he was found slumped against a wall under some palm trees along the Cerrada de Cumbres road leading to the famous La Quebrada high-diving cliffs. He had been shot three times in the chest and groin -- a gesture meant to send a signal about what happens to people who cross the cartels.

The Sinaloa cartel is fighting a turf war against the Gulf cartel for control of Acapulco, and both sides are using enforcers from inside and outside of Mexico. According to Mexican media reports, Nogueda's killing is believed to have been carried out by members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, or the Kaibiles from Guatemala. The Maras reportedly are used as enforcers by the Sinaloa cartel, while the Kaibiles are on the Gulf cartel's payroll. The Gulf cartel also is known to use the muscle of Los Zetas, a group of former Mexican airborne troops.

Violence involving rival drug cartels has been increasing around Acapulco for several months, but has escalated dramatically over the past two weeks. On July 10, the chief of security for the Acapulco city government, Eusebio Palacios Ortiz, was grabbed by unknown gunmen while he drove with his wife and daughter on Miguel Aleman Coastal Avenue, the main tourist area. Hours later, another man, Oswaldo Moreno, was shot four times within yards of City Hall after exiting his car and trying to flee his attackers on foot. Two days later, two of Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado's security guards were brutally beaten, suffocated and left in a car.

In Mexico's climate of political corruption, police officers, officials, businesspeople and politicians have increasing links to organized crime, while the drug cartels are heavily entrenched in many of Mexico's local and state governments. Nogueda could have been targeted because of dealings with a rival cartel either through his business or former political connections. The police and security officers might have been attacked either because they obstructed the cartels' efforts to establish themselves in the area, or because they were working with a rival cartel.

This kind of violence has not been limited to Acapulco. A few weeks ago, in an operation similar to the one that occurred in the border city of Nuevo Laredo in June 2005, almost the entire municipal police force of Apatzingan in the western state of Michoacan was interrogated on suspicion of collaborating with the cartels following a July 12 sting operation. Of the 220 officers interrogated, 27 were arraigned on charges, while another 40 never returned to work.

The violence associated with Mexico's drug wars is spreading to Acapulco and other areas not previously involved in the conflict. On July 17, the governor of the state of Tabasco requested that the Mexican army be deployed there in response to armed attacks against police, purportedly by Los Zetas. In response, the army established patrols in the cities of Cardenas, Cunduacan and the state capital, Villahermosa.

The attacks in once-peaceful Acapulco are occurring closer to tourist areas, while the gangs are growing increasingly brazen in their actions -- as the daylight attacks and targeting of police officials indicate. It seems only a matter of time before a tourist is caught in the crossfire, or perhaps even directly attacked as a result of the increasingly violent drug wars.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 31, 2006, 07:12:15 AM
MEXICO CITY, July 30 ? Four weeks after a very close election plunged this country into political crisis, the leftist candidate escalated his campaign to undo the official results, telling a mass rally of his supporters on Sunday that they must engage in civil disobedience to ?defend democracy? and force the recognition of ?my triumph as president.?

?Mexico does not deserve to be governed by an illegitimate president,? said the candidate, Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who election officials say lost the national election by a mere 243,000 votes of 41 million cast.

A special electoral court has yet to ratify the results and Mr. L?pez Obrador has challenged the official tally, contending that there were widespread irregularities, human errors and, in some instances, fraud. He and his supporters want all the ballots counted again.

Felipe Calder?n, a conservative candidate who officials say received the most votes, contends that recounting all the votes is unnecessary and illegal. Poll workers, chosen at random like jurors and trained for the job, counted the ballots the night of the election in the presence of party officials and signed formal tally sheets.

While Mr. L?pez Obrador led a third huge march down Reforma Avenue to the Z?calo, Mexico City?s central square, on Sunday, Mr. Calder?n appeared before the Federal Electoral Tribunal to counter the leftist?s arguments that the vote count was flawed. ?We won cleanly,? he told reporters after an audience with judges. ?And we are not going to let these millions of votes be canceled.?

Mr. Calder?n also said Mr. L?pez Obrador could not win in court with sit-ins and other acts of civil disobedience. ?We believe in the force of the law,? he said.

The tribunal has until Sept. 6 to resolve the legal challenges and declare the president-elect. Mr. L?pez Obrador said he would not accept anything less than a full recount and promised to wage a campaign of civil disobedience until he got one.

The city police, whose commanders have political ties to Mr. L?pez Obrador, estimated that about 1.2 million people attended the march, making it one of the largest in the country?s history.

The estimate could not be confirmed by other means, but the central square, which holds about 100,000 people, was packed, a sea of people wearing the bright yellow of Mr. L?pez Obrador?s Party of the Democratic Revolution. The crowd spilled into nearby streets, filling major avenues for a half-mile in every direction.

The multitude ? farmers and working-class people bused from rural towns, as well as left-leaning urban professionals ? thundered the chant, ?Vote by vote, polling place by polling place,? as Mr. L?pez Obrador took the stage.

In interviews, protesters said Mr. L?pez Obrador had convinced them that the National Action Party, the party of President Vicente Fox and Mr. Calder?n, and its allies among business leaders had rigged the election.

?If there was no fraud, they would agree to a vote by vote recount,? said Gregorio Ruiz, a 33-year-old farmer from the southern state of Guerrero, who had a mouthful of silver-rimmed teeth.

Brenda Fern?ndez, a 33-year-old homemaker, said as she marched past the Palacio de Bellas Artes that she expected the court to deny Mr. L?pez Obrador?s request and that violence would erupt afterward. ?Look, there was already one revolution, why not another?? she said. ?We are at the point of violence, and the government better understand that.?

Mr. L?pez Obrador called for 32 sit-ins across the city, another step in his campaign to ratchet up pressure on the court to order a recount and on his opponent to accept it. So far, the protests and marches he has led have been peaceful, though he said Sunday that more acts of civil disobedience would be planned.

His court case rests largely on arithmetic errors he maintains he found in about 72,000 polling places. In some cases the number of votes exceeded the number of ballots delivered, he maintains. In others, ballots were delivered and never accounted for in the totals. In others, there were more votes than people registered.

But he also charges that poll workers manipulated the count to pad Mr. Calder?n?s advantage in polling places where Mr. L?pez Obrador had no representatives.

Election officials say most of the arithmetic problems can be explained by human error on election night, as poll workers reported numbers to election officials. The official tally three days later cleared up most of those mistakes, officials say.

Fraud is also highly unlikely, they say. One would have to bribe four polling officials, all chosen at random from lists of registered voters, to falsify results at a polling place.

Still, most of Mr. L?pez Obrador?s followers say not much has changed since the 1980?s, when the government controlled and manipulated the vote count to make sure members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party remained in power. That party ruled Mexico with only token opposition until Mr. Fox?s historic victory in 2000, after the Federal Election Institute became independent.

Indeed, many marchers said they believed the National Action Party had teamed up with the former governing party to commit fraud and give Mr. Calder?n a razor-thin advantage in northern states. Many said they saw both parties as stooges of big business and the United States.

For his part, Mr. L?pez Obrador, 52, has said his campaign for a recount is not an attempt to seize power, but a selfless drive to save Mexico?s fledgling democracy from what he sees as impure influences, like Mr. Fox?s use of his bully pulpit to help his party?s candidate and attack advertisements against Mr. L?pez Obrador paid for by business groups.

?I want to stress the cause we are defending is fundamental,? he said. ?I want to tell you that it goes beyond the fact that they should recognize my triumph as president of the republic.?

Then he added: ?I am not a vulgar opportunist. Money does not motivate me nor interest me. Power only makes sense when it is put at the service of others.?

Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting for this article.
Title: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on July 31, 2006, 08:51:20 AM
Hola Guro Marc y todos

     Pues por ac? la situaci?n esta tremenda, ayer me encontraba en el centro de la ciudad de M?xico y la verdad es un caos, ya que por las marchas de AMLO las calles estan cerradas, interrumpen el las v?as p?blicas y el transito vehicular esta terrible, adem?s de que llegan muchos camiones de provincia con gente que apoya las marchas y los estacionan cruzados en plena calle y por todos lados estorbando; haaa, y algo que me molesta mucho es que toda esa gente deja todo un basurero por todo el centro hist?rico, es el colmo por lo menos que no sean cerdos.

     El d?a de hoy la gente cerro avenida Reforma, que como sabemos es una calle super transitable que la gente ocupa para llegar a sus trabajos. El se?or AMLO pidio a la gente que se queden en campamentos d?a y noche hasta que se les de una soluci?n respecto al recuento de los votos para la presidencia del pa?s.

Saludos
Mauricio
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 02, 2006, 02:05:34 PM
?Se va a mantener la paz/orden social?
Title: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 03, 2006, 03:21:52 PM
Global Market Brief: Ripple Effects of Mexico's Contested Election
August 03, 2006 20 51  GMT



Supporters of Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is still contesting his failed bid in the July 2 Mexican presidential elections, surrounded the Mexican stock exchange in Mexico City for several hours Aug. 3, blocking workers from entering but having little effect on actual trading on the floor. The demonstrators, many of whom have been camped out along Zocalo Square and Reforma Boulevard during the week, have threatened to return again Aug. 4, and continue demonstrating and disrupting traffic in Mexico City until there is a total recount of the extremely close election.

As we noted in our June 29 Global Market Brief, the Mexican elections would have left congress divided no matter who won, which would then lead to difficulties in passing economic policies. The electoral margin between victor Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party (PAN) and second-place finisher Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) was razor thin -- just 0.56 percent, or 244,000 votes. Lopez Obrador has strongly contested the election, declaring himself the victim of massive fraud, and has vowed to stir public protests until there is a total recount or he is declared president.

Lopez Obrador's supporters have thus far remained relatively peaceful in their actions, though they are causing traffic disruptions in the capital. The second-place finisher has other options available, however, if he cannot achieve his goals through sit-ins in Mexico City. Two short-term risks are foremost. First, Lopez Obrador has created "citizens' committees" within his support base. This allows for more localized and self-directed action by his supporters, which would give the movement opportunities to expand and alter its characteristics throughout Mexico (or at least in those areas where Lopez Obrador has the most support). But the devolution of authority to the local committees also creates a situation where local groups, independently or with tacit central support, shift from the current non-violent actions to a more aggressive approach. The buffer of the citizen committee structure then insulates Lopez Obrador from direct responsibility should violence break out.

The second possibility is that Lopez Obrador takes his protests to a more economically significant target -- Mexico's oil fields. In 1994, after losing in gubernatorial elections in Tabasco state to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Roberto Madrazo (who coincidentally ran against Lopez Obrador and Calderon in the July presidential election), Lopez Obrador claimed fraud and launched a civil resistance movement in protest. He led caravans to Mexico City to protest, but more significantly he led supporters to block access to several oil rigs and other Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) facilities in Tabasco. The blockades lasted several months before Lopez Obrador finally relented.

Oil exports and related taxes account for some 40 percent of federal revenues in Mexico, and should Lopez Obrador shift tack and repeat his earlier course of action, there could be a more substantive impact on Mexico than traffic jams in Mexico City.

Such action would also resonate beyond Mexico. Even if the blockage of a few Mexican oil rigs would not substantively affect Mexico's overall oil output, it would certainly add to the psychological pressures on international oil prices. Oil is currently better than $75 a barrel, and while not at record highs, nor yet seriously affecting the U.S. economy, a crisis in the oil fields of the fifth-largest oil producer and ninth-largest exporter would add another premium on an already premium-heavy oil market.

But Mexico also faces a longer-term problem with its oil industry, one that was part of the election battle. Amid debates over Mexico's future economic policies, one of the trickiest is the question of energy. While Lopez Obrador's PRD remains strongly opposed to any change in the national nature of the oil industry, both PAN and PRI have presented options to open the oil sector slowly to private investments, potentially even foreign investment. Calderon has offered specific proposals to allow mixed partnerships in offshore oil and gas exploration and other ventures, for example.

Mexico's oil infrastructure, while not nearly as run down as Venezuela's, is in need of vitalization. While the Mexican economy has diversified during the past two decades, the government remains highly dependent upon oil exports for state revenues. As such, little of the money Pemex collects from exports is reinvested into Pemex. This practice weakens the company's ability to explore new oil fields, exploit existing resources or process and refine crude. There is a serious lack of investments, and it is showing in the declining proven reserves. Calderon has proposed opening up the system for complementary private investment while keeping Pemex under state control, but he will have a hard time convincing a divided congress to make the change. The new government's first priority will likely revolve around tax reform, leaving energy reform for later.

And given the divisions in the Mexican congress, the privatization of Mexico's oil industry -- even if on a limited scale -- will be a very contentious and difficult issue. With the PRD making a strong showing in the congressional elections, and PAN and PRI traditional competitors, Calderon is unlikely to try for a quick change in regulations surrounding private investment in Mexico's oil industry. And this delay will only continue the slow erosion of Mexico's position among oil producers.
Title: Mexico
Post by: omar on August 11, 2006, 03:09:24 PM
Hola a todos:

Pues a mi tambien me sorprendio la medida que se decidio, durante la asamblea masiva un dia antes yo vote en contra de la medida, pero la mayoria coreo la propuesta con un rotundo si. Aun el lunes no estaba convensido, pienso que lo ultimo que conviene es darle armas a los medios para que manipulen la informacion y la descontextualicen, pero como detienes a toda esa gente que ve como unica opcion esas medidas para ser tomada en cuenta?, el propio Monsivaes que una semana antes elogiaba la estrategia de resistencia civil, censuro duramente a AMLO, pero el martes otro intelectual le recordo que es mas desastroso la imposiscion de un presidente ilegitimo a un bloqueo (aun de esas dimensiones), otro intelectual (mas bien analista politico), Ramon Pieza Rugarcia menciono cosas muy importantes:

-El jodido, el que piensa distinto, el indigena, el campesino, el comunista, el pauperrimo, ?que medio real tiene de expresion?- ... -el IFE es acosado con plantones de "cuello blanco" por la COPARMEX, las televisoras, el clero, la derecha, etc, ?porque nadie se escandaliza por ello?, sera porque los simpatizantes de AMLO se instalaron en la esquina del barrio "nice" llevando la desigualdad social a sus propios balcones y los otros llaman con su telefono satelital desde un BMW o un rascacielos de cristal?-... -?que tiene que ver el bloqueo de una calle con la democracia?-... -la violencia se inicia se desarrolla y se desencadena desde un hecho inicial, porque ningun intelectual se escandalizo por el inedito e ilegal desafuero a un gobernante electo?, o porque ninguno paro la campa?a del miedo y la intervencion del presidente de la republica durante la campa?a electoral?-

Gandhi mismo fue desacreditado en su tiempo y hoy es el ejemplo de lo que tiene que hacer un politico bajo "medios pacificos", pero Gandhi no solo hizo huelgas de hambre, lo mas importante es que busco atacar economicamente al imperio britanico, paralizo con su tantica la venta de la industria salinera y la industria textil; en ese tiempo no solo era campa?a del miedo sino ballonetas y fusiles sobre personas desarmadas.

En cuanto a la paz social, si se rompe (espero que el IFE, el PAN y TRIFE, sean sensibles), no va a ser de parte de AMLO, pues La Jornada ha publicado dos articulos donde alerta sobre la movilizacion de soldados vestidos de campesinos y "chavos banda", alginas fotos muestran como esperan en los alrededores de la lagunilla varios veiculos militares y en ellos estas personas evidentemente militares pero con ropa de calle. Esto me atemoriza en particular pues es la misma tactica que utilizaron los Halcones en el 71.

Cierro con unas lineas de la Jornada:

La zona esta acordonada con mecates de pl?stico que la gente llama lazos y estos delimitan una cuadra de extensi?n que el s?bado al amanecer fue agredida furiosamente por un joven panista, Manuel Cosio Ramos, de 27 a?os, que en un acto de locura envisti? con su camioneta de lujo una decena de tiendas de campa?a, lastimando a varias personas antes de ser detenido por los elementos de una patrulla, a quienes dijo que era ?ayudante? de Manuel Espino, el presidente nacional del PAN.

Ahora en homenaje al muchacho, quien llevaba las placas de su veh?culo en la guantera ?lo que habla de premeditaci?n, alevos?a y mucho, mucho odio de clase de su parte-, una cartulina advierte ante las sillas de pl?stico partidas en cachitos: ?estos son los destrozos de un pacifico panista que trato de matarnos?[/
i]

La jornada, lunes 7 de agosto

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 11, 2006, 06:30:09 PM
Omar:


1)  Casi lo entendi, pero al final de cuentas no entendi nada :-)  ?Un resumen por favor?

2)  He aqui las palabras de AMLO en ingles como aparecieron en el NY Times:

CD
===============


Recounting Our Way to Democracy
               E-MailPrint Save
 
By ANDR?S MANUEL L?PEZ OBRADOR
Published: August 11, 2006
Mexico City

NOT since 1910, when another controversial election sparked a revolution, has Mexico been so fraught with political tension.

The largest demonstrations in our history are daily proof that millions of Mexicans want a full accounting of last month?s presidential election. My opponent, Felipe Calder?n, currently holds a razor-thin lead of 243,000 votes out of 41 million cast, but Mexicans are still waiting for a president to be declared.

Unfortunately, the electoral tribunal responsible for ratifying the election results thwarted the wishes of many Mexicans and refused to approve a nationwide recount. Instead, their narrow ruling last Saturday allows for ballot boxes in only about 9 percent of polling places to be opened and reviewed.

This is simply insufficient for a national election where the margin was less than one percentage point ? and where the tribunal itself acknowledged evidence of arithmetic mistakes and fraud, noting that there were errors at nearly 12,000 polling stations in 26 states.

It?s worth reviewing the history of this election. For months, voters were subjected to a campaign of fear. President Vicente Fox, who backed Mr. Calder?n, told Mexicans to change the rider, but not the horse ? a clear rebuke to the social policies to help the poor and disenfranchised that were at the heart of my campaign. Business groups spent millions of dollars in television and radio advertising that warned of an economic crisis were I to win.

It?s my contention that government programs were directed toward key states in the hope of garnering votes for Mr. Calder?n. The United Nations Development Program went so far as to warn that such actions could improperly influence voters. Where support for my coalition was strong, applicants for government assistance were reportedly required to surrender their voter registration cards, thereby leaving them disenfranchised.

And then came the election. Final pre-election polls showed my coalition in the lead or tied with Mr. Calder?n?s National Action Party. I believe that on election day there was direct manipulation of votes and tally sheets. Irregularities were apparent in tens of thousands of tally sheets. Without a crystal-clear recount, Mexico will have a president who lacks the moral authority to govern.

Public opinion backs this diagnosis. Polls show that at least a third of Mexican voters believe the election was fraudulent and nearly half support a full recount.

And yet the electoral tribunal has ordered an inexplicably restrictive recount. This defies comprehension, for if tally sheet alterations were widespread, the outcome could change with a handful of votes per station.

Our tribunals ? unlike those in the United States ? have been traditionally subordinated to political power. Mexico has a history of corrupt elections where the will of the people has been subverted by the wealthy and powerful. Grievances have now accumulated in the national consciousness, and this time we are not walking away from the problem. The citizens gathered with me in peaceful protest in the Z?calo, the capital?s grand central plaza, speak loudly and clearly: Enough is enough.

In the spirit of Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we seek to make our voices heard. We lack millions for advertising to make our case. We can only communicate our demand to count all the votes by peaceful protest.

After all, our aim is to strengthen, not damage, Mexico?s institutions, to force them to adopt greater transparency. Mexico?s credibility in the world will only increase if we clarify the results of this election.

We need the goodwill and support of those in the international community with a personal, philosophical or commercial interest in Mexico to encourage it to do the right thing and allow a full recount that will show, once and for all, that democracy is alive and well in this republic.

Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, the mayor of Mexico City from 2001 to 2005, was a candidate for president in 2006, representing a coalition led by his Party of the Democratic Revolution. This article was translated from the Spanish by Rogelio Ram?rez de la O.


Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: arpulpo on August 14, 2006, 05:00:46 PM
Que tal Foro:

Es la primera vez que escribo en este foro por lo que me presento antes que nada:

Mi nombre es Arturo Garc?a y soy alumno del profesor Muaricio Sanchez de Sistemas Integrados de Combate. Tengo aprox. un a?o y cachito de estar practicando el sistema ( y en general artes marciales) por lo que no me siento todavia listo para aportar en ese t?pico pero si en la parte de politica sobre M?xico.

Bueno, pues alla vamos:

Primero que nada es muy grato para mi saber que Marc se interesa tanto en nuestro pais. Espero que mis aportaciones te sean de utilidad.

El dia de ayer terminando el entrenamiento surgio un peque?o debate con el Super-Javier acerca de la situaci?n pos-electoral en el pais. Fue muy interesante oir su opini?n, ya que tenia tiempo de no encontrar a alguien que estuviera con la propuesta de Madrazo-PRI. El debate se ha polarizado tanto entre el PRD-PAN (la izquierda y la derecha) que es raro cuando alguien tiene una tercera ?propuesta? (perdon Javier por los signos de interrogacion pero si a  algun ex-candidato conozco bien es a el, porque trabaje en su campa?a interna del 2000).

Yo soy militante de izquierda desde mi etapa de licenciatura (estudie ingenieria en la UNAM), por lo que deduciran cual es mi posici?n ahora,  que es la de apoyo total a AMLO.

No soy una persona que se haya convencido en la campa?a electoral de el o piense que es la opci?n "menos peor". Estoy convencido de sus propuestas, estoy convencido de su proyecto de naci?n y creo que es el politico mas congruente que ha surgido en nuestro pais en las ultimas decadas.

Mucha gente se ha acercado conmigo para preguntarme si apoyo los plantones que desde hace unas semanas afectan a la capital...y creo que se han quedado mudos con mi respuesta...Si, si los apoyo. Y ahi comienza el debate.

Mi justificaci?n se las enviare en mi pr?xima participaci?n ya que debo de trabajar un poco.

Saludos a todos.

Arturo.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on August 15, 2006, 11:18:49 AM

     Gracias por tus comentarios Arturo, espero un buen debate de este tema. Que bueno que hay en el foro alguien que no teme expresar su opini?n, espero tambi?n lo hagas en la cuasti?n de las Artes Marciales, no importa el tiempo que lleves entrenando. Espero tambi?n los comentarios de Javier.

Saludos cordiales y nos vemos en el entrenamiento.

Prof. Mauricio S?nchez
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 15, 2006, 06:06:19 PM
Guau Arturo:

Esperamos tus justificaciones  :-)

CD
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 16, 2006, 07:00:01 AM
1119 GMT -- MEXICO -- Mexico's apparent President-elect Felipe Calderon will be placed "under siege" and unable to operate outside his office if he is declared the winner of the election, a spokesman for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party said Aug. 16. Official election results are due Sept. 6.

Lo que tengo entendido (corrigame si me equivoco por favor) es que AMLO se ha producido muy poca evidencia; que y "complete recount" seria fuera de la ley; y que la Comision Elector si' esta' cumpliendo sus deberes segun la ley.

Por lo cual, AMLO me esta' paraciendo un hombre a quien le importa mas su ambicion que el bienestar de Mexico y su democracia.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: xxxaviergs on August 16, 2006, 02:16:35 PM
Hola a todos, quisiera expresar algunos comentarios y reflexiones, mas que establecer una postura respecto a los resultados electorales y la pol?tica actual en el pais, pues a mi en lo personal no me convenc?an de inicio ni el proyecto PRD ni el proyecto PAN.

Marc, coincido contigo respecto a que el Se?or Andres Manuel Busca la presidencia m?s por un fin de ambici?n personal, que por los "nobles fines" que proclama.

En el intento de plant?n que llevaron a cabo los perredistas, los Diputados y Senadores del PRD se comportaron como unos porros y v?ndalos (quiz? por su extracci?n porril) mas que como lo que son funcionarios p?blicos. En esta ocasi?n, al igual que en el resto de los actos de descontento con el resultado electoral, provocan a la autoridad al transgredirla, incluso sus propias directrices (como el vando informativo 13 del a?o 2000), y al obtener la l?gica respuesta de la autoridad, lloran, y se quejan de que no son respetados como lo que son??? y presentan cargos por haber sido reprimidos, mientras que AMLO dice que no van a caer en provocaciones por parte del gobierno federal, ?Qui?n provoca a qui?n?

Me parece que el "noble acto" de las Dadivas del herario p?blico que se dan a los adultos mayores, a las madres trabajadoras y los programas de ?tilies escoolares (condicionado por cierto, a presentarse en las manifestaciones del PRD, y a formar parte de las redes de apoyo ciudadano) son mas un paliativo que una soluci?n de fondo, pues prefiero tener un trabajo que me de opci?n a una vida digna que recibir el trato de un vil acarreado.

Que el se?or AMLO Dijo desde que se enter? del resultado preliminar de las votaci?n que ten?a pruebas de un supuesto fraude (del cual no me consta que hubo o no tal), para declarar posteriormente en una entrevista para la cadena Univisi?n, que en los primeros dias posteriores s?lo era una sospecha infundada, pero que para el momento de dicha entrevista, ya ten?a todas las pruebas del fraude electoral.

Con situaciones como estas, ?C?mo creer que quiere gobernar para el bien de los mexicanos y no del beneficio propio?

Mas reflexiones y hechos del PRD y las propias del PAN en otro post, hay que trabajar.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: arpulpo on August 17, 2006, 12:36:23 PM
Que tal Foro:

He leido algunos de los mensajes al foro de Omar muy interesantes y bien documentados, por lo que voy a tratar unicamente de dar mi perspectiva del problema sin calificar de si esta bien o mal. Ahi va:

Si analizamos la situaci?n actual sin tomar en cuenta el contexto o la historia "democratica" de nuestro pais y tomarlo como un hecho aislado de un hombre y sus seguidores, creo que nos formaremos una opinion erronea de la situaci?n, por lo que les pido un poco de paciencia para analizar lo siguiente:
- Yo soy militante de izquierda desde mis a?os en la Universidad. Tome parte semi-activa en la promocion del voto para la opci?n de Cuauhtemoc Cardenas en la elecci?n de 1988. En aquel movimiento, se lograron juntar un universo de organizaciones y opiniones para "derrocar" de forma democratica a la "dictadura perfecta" (Mario Vargas Lllosa dixit) que ejercio el PRI por mas de 70 a?os. En esa epoca se llevo a cabo el fraude mas descomunal en la historia moderna de Mexico.
- En ese tiempo, toda la opinion publica se volco contra el fraude. Estaba en boca de todos. Y muchos estabamos listos en aquel entonces para defender el voto. Y no solo por el hecho de cambiar de partido en el gobierno. Sino porque ya era hora de un cambio real en la situaci?n de nuestro pais: marginaci?n, pobreza extrema, corrupcion a niveles grotescos, y un largo etc........
- En esos tiempos muy, muy tensos ocurrio el "accidente" del candidato del PAN (Manuel J. Clouthier) en una carretera y en una situaci?n muy, muy oscura.
- Para no "desestabilizar mas al  pais" Cuauhtemoc Cardenas decide no elevar mas la protesta y abdica. No es necesario que les describa la desilusion que causo en muchos de nosotros.

- Pasaron 18 laaaargos a?os para que una persona pudiera nuevamente tomar un liderazgo de todas esas propuestas y necesidades de muchos mexicanos marginados. Muchos se preguntan, que tiene ese tabasque?o que se traga las "s" que atrae tanto a las "masas"?? que atrae al "pueblo"?? que no quiere  negociar con las cupulas empresariales su llegada al poder? que se niega a las privatizaciones? y una larga lista de preguntas...

- Con mal o buen gobierno, con programas "populistas" o no (todas las propuestas, obras de gobierno, programas sociales los comentare en mi siguiente correo para tambien comentar un poco sobre el correo de Javier) comenzo a convencer a muchisima gente de diversas capas de la socieda en su propuesta y comenzo a hacerse de muchos seguidores.

-Y ahi fuen cuando COMENZO REALMENTE EL PROBLEMA. El gobierno panista del peor presidente que hemos tenido en la historia moderna de Mexico se dio cuenta de esta situaci?n y que estaban en riesgo muchisimos intereses (que tambien comentare en otro correo) si este "populista" llegaba al poder. Y comenzo con su campa?a ILEGAL para sacarlo de la contienda presidencial. Se de buena fuente (trabaje en la PGR) que el gobierno busco y rebsuco algo que pudira sacarlo de la contienda con algun argumento leguleyo. Y encontro el argumento mas estupido: no parar la obras por un mandato judicial extra?o  en la construccion de una carretera para acceder a un hospital (privado, si, pero al fin hospital).

- Busco un argumento legal para quitarle el fuero constitucional y poderlo llevar a juicio o abrirle proceso penal y asi dejarlo fuera de la carrera presidencial. Mas de un millon de personas marchamos para impedir esto. El presidente, sabiendose acorralado busco un chivo expiatorio (el director de la PGR) y echo todo para atras.

- La sociedad se dio cuenta en ese momento que el gobierno iba a hacer hasta lo imposible para que Lopez Obrador no llegara a la presidencia. Por lo que opto por llevar a cabo una campa?a mediatica negra para desprestigiar a AMLO y crear un ambiente de miedo contra ?l (algo parecido a la estrategia de Bush en EU con la campa?a terrorista). Algunas empresas incurrieron en DELITOS ELECTORALES al financiar spots en contra de AMLO. Esto esta PROHIBIDO por la legislaci?n mexicana. Fox en sus discursos no dejo de apoyar a su candidato (tambien prohibido por la ley), algo que el, a?os atras, habia combatido ferozmente contra Zedillo. Como todo en este sexenio, un doble discurso.

-Llegando el dia de la eleccion, hay una serie de irregularidades (que tambien puedo comentar en otro correo si gustan, para no alargar mas este). Muchos nos damos cuenta que efectivamente, el gobierno de Fox habia cumplido su promesa de no permitir que AMLO llegara a la presidencia. Pero nunca conto con lo que siguio.

- Marchamos mas de un millon y medio de personas (la mas grande manifestacion que haya habido en la hsitoria moderna de Mexico) para que se limpiera la eleccion. Que se contaran nuevamente los votos. Habia algun pecado o faltas en la ley en ello?? no se si otras personas que lean esto estuvieron en esa marcha. Yo si. Y reafirmo is convicciones. Me armo de paciencia y valor porque ahi nos dimos cuenta que la lucha iba a ser larga y apenas comenzaba.

-Y que paso?? el gobierno minimizo la marcha. Cifras oficiales decian que habiamos asistido cerca de 300 mil personas. Falso. Soy ingeniero de profesion. Se algo de numeros. Los medios minimizaron las propuestas y la cantidad de personas, asi como el tama?o de la protesta, que ahora ya llaman "insurreccion" y comenzo una campa?a  de linchamiento y desprestigio en contra de AMLO. Pero lo que no calcularon, lo que no se dieron cuenta es que no estaban desprestigiando a un hombre. Estaban desprestigiando a millones de mexicanos que lo apoyamos y que nos sentimos vendidos y robados. Que nos defraudaron nuevamente.

- Cual era el siguiente paso si no eramos escuchados?? si nos minimizaban...si decian que eramos unos cuantos "porros" (Javier dixit)??...se llego a la accion de bloquear Reforma.

Por eso mis amigos...apoyo el planton. No estoy de acuerdo tal vez en la forma pero, que seguia??...y ahora muchos dicen "es que habia otras formas"...puedo preguntar cuales?? seguir marchando??...quedarnos en la via legal??...cual legalidad??...renglones arriba menciono quien violo la ley primero en completa impunidad.

Ufff...creo que ya me colgue demasiado en este correo. Seguire en el proximo.

Saludos y muchs gracias por perimitirme expresar en este foro.

Un saludo.


Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 17, 2006, 12:43:16 PM

MEXICO: Mexico's highest electoral court rejected complaints about the July congressional elections, which gave conservative candidate Felipe Calderon's party, the ruling National Action Party (PAN), the largest stake in the legislature. PAN will have 52 seats in the senate and the rival Institutional Revolutionary Party will have 33 seats. Defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party will have 28 seats.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 22, 2006, 04:09:13 PM
Texas Sheriffs Say Texas Sheriffs Say Terrorists Entering US from Mexico
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 21, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The chief law enforcement officers of several Texas counties along the southern U.S. border warn that Arabic-speaking individuals are learning Spanish and integrating into Mexican culture before paying smugglers to sneak them into the United States. The Texas Sheriffs' Border Coalition believes those individuals are likely terrorists and that drug cartels and some members of the Mexican military are helping them get across the border.

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County, Texas told Cybercast News Service that Iranian currency, military badges in Arabic, jackets and other clothing are among the items that have been discovered along the banks of the Rio Grande River. The sheriff also said there are a substantial number of individuals crossing the southern border into the U.S. who are not Mexican. He described the individuals in question as well-funded and able to pay so-called "coyotes" - human smugglers - large sums of money for help gaining illegal entry into the U.S.

Although many of the non-Mexican illegal aliens are fluent in Spanish, Gonzalez said they speak with an accent that is not native.

"It's clear these people are coming in for reasons other than employment," Gonzalez said.

That sentiment is shared by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.).

"For years, Muslims and other 'Special Interest Aliens' from places other than Mexico have been streaming into the U.S. across our porous border," Tancredo told Cybercast News Service. "These people are not paying $50,000 or more a head just to 'take jobs no American will do.'

"Terrorists are working round the clock to infiltrate the United States," he added. "Congress and this administration must address this gaping hole in our national security and they must do it now."

Some of the more high profile pieces of evidence pointing to terrorist infiltration of the U.S. have been uncovered in Jim Hogg County, Texas, which experiences a high volume of smuggling activity, according to local law enforcement.

"We see patches on jackets from countries where we know al Qaeda to be active," Gonzalez explained.

The patches appear to be military badges with Arabic lettering. One patch in particular, discovered this past December, caught the attention of federal homeland security officials, according to Gonzalez and local officials familiar with the investigation.



Sheriff Wayne Jernigan of Valverde County, Texas, told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in March about one patch that read "midnight mission" and displayed an airplane flying over a building heading towards a tower. Translators with DHS have said some of the various phrases and slogans on the items could mean "martyr," "way to eternal life," or "way to immortality."

Gonzalez told the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation in July that the terrorists are getting smarter.

"To avoid apprehension, we feel many of these terrorists attempt to blend in with persons of Hispanic origin when entering the country." Gonzalez stated. "We feel that terrorists are already here and continue to enter our country on a daily basis."


Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County, Texas, told Cybercast News Service that he believes some Mexican soldiers are operating in concert with the drug cartels to aid the terrorists.

"There's no doubt in my mind," he said, "although the Mexican government and our government adamantly deny it."

Statistics made available through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show more than 40,000 illegal aliens from countries "Other Than Mexico," designated as OTMs, were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in the period ranging from October 2003 to June 2004, as they attempted to cross the southwestern border. An overview of border security challenges produced through the office of Texas Gov. Rick Perry indicates that almost 120,000 OTMs were apprehended while attempting to cross into the state from January through July 2005.

Local authorities are particularly concerned about illegal aliens arriving from Special Interest Countries (SICs) where a radical version of Islam is known to flourish. Perry's office cites Iraq, Iran, Indonesia and Bangladesh among those countries. A Tancredo spokesperson said the list also includes Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported an internal audit of DHS that combines the number of illegal aliens arriving from SICs with the documented instances of illegal aliens arriving from countries identified as being state sponsors of terrorism (SSTs) yields a grand total of over 90,000 such illegal aliens who have been apprehended during the five year period from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2005.

The border security report delivered by Perry's office focuses attention on the "Triborder region" of Latin America, which spans an area between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

"The Triborder Region is a focal point of Islamic extremism," the report states. "Al Qaeda leadership plans to use criminal alien smuggling organizations to bring terrorist operatives across the border into the U.S."

Carlos Espinosa, a press spokesman for Tancredo, said his office is aware of a training camp in Brazil that actually teaches people from outside of Latin America how they can assimilate into the Mexican culture.

"They come up as illegal aliens and disguise themselves as potential migrant workers," Espinosa said.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on August 22, 2006, 04:48:52 PM
Hola a todos, primeramente el resumen para Marc:

en general lo que expreso es un sistem?tico ataque en contra de AMLO, sobre todo de las televisoras y el radio, pasan todos los ?destrosos?, los ?retrasos? y ?perdidas? a causa del ?ilegal bloqueo?, pero no dicen una palabra de la serie de irregularidades que est?n siendo expuestas con el conteo parcial los unicos medios imparciales son el ?peri?dico la Jornada y el semanario Proceso. Comento lo de Gandhi para dar un par?metro real de lo que es una resistencia civil pacifica, la cual no significa la ausencia de ?da?os a terceros?, sino que es una protesta donde se evidencia la terquedad, despotismo e insensibilidad del poder ante demandas justas. Por ?ltimo dejo clara la imposibilidad de presi?n o expresi?n del individuo com?n, aquel que no tiene dinero, ni amigos poderosos ni dinero para pagar spots en los medios oficiales. Ademas la cuestion de la violencia, los medios siempre pasan "la pelicula reeditada", es como si vieramos la pelicula de Bruce Lee Chinesse Conetion en la escena cuando Chen "ataca violentamente" a los indefensos japoneses que aseaban el Dojo, sin tener previamente el contexto de la accion de Chen, si cualquiera de los LopezDoriga-Alatorres-Latapis (is the same tingh), nos comentaran la pelicula dijeran -con lujo de violencia un joven chino ataco despiadadamente a 5 trabajadores japoneses indefensos-, abviamente las personas pacificas y de buena voluntad dirian -ese chino es un salvaje, esta loco, deberian encerrarlo, o mejor aun fusilarlo-; es lo mismo en TODA protesta donde se ataque aunque sea infimamente los intereses de los poderosos, van a descalificar la legitimidad de una protesta y a cuestionar los mediso de DEFENSA, del que no tiene otra forma de ser tomado en cuenta. Resumiendo hay dos formas de violencia, la causa y la efecto, los plantones, huelgas, marchas,etc, son ACCIONES DE DEFENSA, no de ataque.

En segundo lugar una noticia alarmante:

La Brigada ?2 de julio

El 31 de julio el presidente Fox encabezo en el campo militar numero uno el abanderamiento de la unidad de infanter?a ligera Brigada 2 de julio, con una capacidad de casi mil 700 hombres dedicados a conflictos de baja intensidad (CBI), esto es, disturbios sociales, principalmente en el valle de M?xico.

De acuerdo con los dos funcionarios consultados, parte de esta unidad es la que esta siendo disfrazada como si se tratara de elementos de la PFP.

A finales del a?o pasado, la SEDENA solicito 3 mil 300 millones de pesos para impulsar 70 acciones, una de las cuales consist?a en equipar una brigada de la polic?a militar ?en funciones de seguridad p?blica?.

A diferencia de otras unidades militares, esta tiene gran capacidad de movilizaci?n en zonas urbanas y dispone de artiller?a ligera, metralletas, granadas e incluso de armas de calibre menores a los utilizados por el ejercito. Cuenta con un grupo entrenado en el manejo y control de masas, otro de reacci?n inmediata, uno mas de rastreo y un ?rea de inteligencia militar.

En el abanderamiento de esta unidad el presidente Fox expreso: ?M?xico cuenta y contara siempre con sus ejercito para defender las instituciones, la soberan?a, la democracia, la legalidad y la justicia? el secretario de defensa por sumarte enfatizo: ?M?xico es un pa?s de instituciones solidas, serenas y fuertes.

Al frente de este cuerpo militar estar? el general Rub?n Venzor Arellano, agregado militar en Cuba durante el mandato de Carlos Salinas.


En tercer lugar comentarios a otros comentarios:

Es valido el recuento voto por voto cuando en la muestra escogida por el TRIFE (10% de las casillas), se encuentren (como se han encontrado) irregularidades sistematicas, por lo tanto es perfectamente legal la peticion voto por voto.

Me es curioso porque siempre se reduce una protesta a "ambiciones personales", concediendo el beneficio de la duda a esta afirmacion, por que no hacerla hacia el otro lado: que ambicion lleva a Felipe Calderon a obstinarse en negar el conteo voto por voto, generando la polarizacion del pais?, si gano ?a que le teme?, no daria mas muestra de civilidad adoptando esa postura? no evidenciaria la cerrazon e incivilidad de su adversario y le quitaria los argumentos para su bloqueo y sus protestas?

Trabajo desde el 2000 en el gobierno, en el area de participacion ciudadana y desde hace tres a?os en desarrollo social, desde el gobierno JAMAS HE PRESENCIADO condicionamiento alguno de los beneficios como becas, utiles escolares, pensiones alimenticias, servicios medicos... a nuestra manera tenemos nuestra "KGB" interna, se llama contraloria y es implacable en relacion a estos abusos. Sin embargo siempre hay un mal servidor publico y malos compa?eros de partido que no pueden olvidar su pasado priista y continuan con esas practicas pero les puedo asegurar desde dentro que cuando se saben no son toleradas.

Quien o que nos asegura un futuro mejor con Calderon o lo opuesto con AMLO?, despues de 70 a?os nos liberamos del sistema priista y tan solo en 6 a?os la gran mayoria (segun yo) y un gran porcentaje (segun el IFE), decidio que el sistema PANISTA no garantiza desarrollo y se la jugo con el candidato de la izquierda, entonces porque no dar certidumbre al proceso electoral?, porque no arriesgarnos a consolidar la alternancia ahora con un gobierno de izquierda? el mismo IFE mensiona en sus manuales que - si no nos sentimos bien con el gobierno electo, tenemos seis a?os para reconsiderar y cambiar nuestra decision en la proxima eleccion-. Beneficios economicos?: cuanto ha aumentado su sueldo el trabajador ordinario con la politica economica de Fox, podemos argumentar miles de cosas pero cuando veas tu cheque o recibo de pago ahi esta la realidad cuantro trabajas en tiempo y cuanto ganas.. Muchos analistas han resumido el gobierno de Fox asi: un gobierno de empresarios para empresarios.

Otra cosa que tambien me llama la atension es porque insistir en decir que las personas son acarreadas, en las marchas y mitines mucha gente lleva un cartel: -Yo no vine por mis tortas, vine por mis huevos- y saben lo curioso de las cosas? al platicar con esa gente te das cuenta que no son siquiera del PRD, son ciudadanos comunes, a eso le tiene miedo Calderon a que la mayoria de gente que protesta no tiene partido, son ciudadanos. Durante la votacion (fui representanbte del PRD), los ancianos y algunos discapasitados, incluso ciegos llegaban por su propio pie, andadera o silla de ruedas, no vi el microbus de acarreados como en los tiempos priistas o al coyote espieando que votaran por tal o cual.

Si quieren ver un verdadero bloqueo dense una vuelta por la estacion TAPO, o el metro Candelaria, las rejas de casi dos metros bloquean el libre transito a los vecinos de los edificios de esa zona, se catea inconstitucionalmente al bajar en los puentes de la zona (dentro de una caseta "en lo obscurito"), se interrumpe el transito hacia una importante zona industrial y habitacional al cerrar inconstitucionalmente (ningun cuerpo policiaco y menos militar puede inpedir el libre transito sin una previa declaracion de guerra de un pais vecino), dos vias rapidas de la ciudad; ademas de que  hay cerca de 200 tanquetas del ejercito (perdon de la PFP). Quien esta recurriendo a la violencia? y de nuevo a la estrategia del miedo?... les recomiendo a las personas que vivan en el DF que salgan y vean, que pregunten , que no se queden con los noticireros y lo que dice la tele, salgan y hablen con su gente, con la gente real.

Finalmente si no creen en el poder de la television y los medios vean la pelicula "Wave Dog (escandalo en la casa blanca)", actuan Dustin Hoffman y Robert De Niro y denle el beneficio de la duda.

Un abrazo

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 31, 2006, 05:37:18 AM
Del primero plano (page one) del Wall Street Journal de hoy:

 
 
Disorderly Conduct
As Mexico Awaits Vote Decision,
Social Upheaval Is on the Rise

Calder?n, the Likely President,
Will Face Mass Protests,
Challenge to State Authority
Radical Takeover in Oaxaca
By DAVID LUHNOW and JOHN LYONS
August 31, 2006; Page A1

MEXICO CITY -- With conservative Felipe Calder?n now all but certain to become Mexico's next president, he faces a critical issue that will determine the success of his six-year term: How to prevent growing political confrontation from undermining the country's transition to democracy and free markets.

 
Mexico is coming off its version of the Florida 2000 election battle. Mr. Calder?n's narrow July 2 defeat of his leftist opponent Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador also landed in a court, which this week rejected Mr. L?pez Obrador's contention that the balloting was marked by fraud. The electoral court is now widely expected to name Mr. Calder?n the president by the legal deadline of Sept. 6. But unlike 2000, when former vice president Al Gore accepted the Supreme Court's ruling on the election, Mr. L?pez Obrador refuses to recognize judicial power. Instead, the former Mexico City mayor is promising to make the country ungovernable. It's as if Al Gore had called for revolution instead of calm.

On top of dealing with his election opponent, Mr. Calder?n faces other violent challenges. Radical leftist groups have taken control of Oaxaca, one of Mexico's most famous Colonial-era cities, shutting down the local government in an attempt to force out the elected governor. And in a sign of the growing reach of the drug trade, decapitated bodies turn up regularly in cities where frightened local authorities have largely given up police work.

The 44-year-old Mr. Calder?n promises to deal with these challenges through a combination of carrots and sticks. He wants to reach out to Mr. L?pez Obrador's supporters among the poor by promoting policies aimed at creating a more equal society, including expanding to poor urban areas a successful rural-welfare program that requires families to keep their children in school to receive aid. At the same time, he vows to strengthen a weakened Mexican state by confronting growing mob rule, using police to crack down on political and drug-related lawlessness around the country.

"I understand that people have the right to protest things, but only so long as they don't infringe upon the rights of others," Mr. Calder?n said this week in a speech to women business leaders. During his campaign, he promised he would not let groups of people "with machetes" interfere with his government.

Mr. Calder?n's first challenge will be simply getting to the presidential chair. Mr. L?pez Obrador's supporters have blockaded key roads in Mexico City for the past month, and plan to step up their campaign of civil disobedience. They pledge to block the country's annual armed forces parade during Independence Day celebrations on Sept. 16, and to prevent Mr. Calder?n from being sworn in at Congress on Dec. 1.

 
Mr. Calder?n's success in toning down political confrontation will shape his presidency, and determine whether he has the political skills to tackle some of the long-term problems that have stunted Mexico's development. Among them: reforming the energy sector, confronting monopolists and union bosses who have an iron grip on the country's largest industries, and asserting the rule of law in a country where police, courts and Congress are often dismissed as unjust or corrupt. The outcome will also determine whether the U.S. has a politically stable and prosperous neighbor next door or has yet another headache in its growing list of global problems.

Despite hard talk by the former energy minister, his camp is still debating how tough to get with Mr. L?pez Obrador's protest movement, according to people familiar with the discussions. One key issue on the table: Whether to urge President Vicente Fox to use force to clear Mr. L?pez Obrador's tent villages from Mexico City's main boulevard and the central square.

While some advisers think a crackdown could ease Mr. Calder?n's transition to government, others worry that confrontation would play into his rival's hands by inflaming a movement that is losing public support. Polls show support for the protest movement waning and moderates in Mr. Calder?n's camp believe Mr. L?pez Obrador's supporters in his Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, are likely to distance themselves from the increasingly unpopular leader.

Meanwhile, Mr. Calder?n faces some political weakness himself. Polls show that a third of the voters believe he won through fraud. And ideological inclusiveness doesn't come naturally to his National Action Party, or PAN, a buttoned-down Catholic organization that's tight with the business elite and often criticized as out of touch with broader Mexico.

Before the vote, Mexicans and foreigners alike assumed that Mexico's peaceful transition to a democracy was a done deal, completed when President Fox ousted the former ruling party six years ago. The prevailing wisdom was that the next government's challenge was how to transform a sluggish economy to compete with more dynamic Asian rivals. Even with Mr. L?pez Obrador's ongoing challenge, the peso and stock markets remain firm and foreign investors don't seem overly concerned.

But the bitter post-electoral fight has revealed a side of Mexico that many assumed was the stuff of history books. Mexico's political transformation during the past decade is the country's third attempt to build a lasting democracy, says Enrique Krauze, one of Mexico's most prominent historians and a L?pez Obrador critic. The first attempt, by President Benito Ju?rez, lasted nearly a decade but didn't survive his 1872 death in office. The second was the brief tenure of Francisco Madero, which ended in 1913 with his assassination and a complete breakdown in order, sparking one of the most violent stretches of the period Mexicans now call their "revolution."

"There should be no doubt that Mr. L?pez Obrador represents a revolutionary threat," Mr. Krauze argues. "This is no joke. I hope that he will not succeed and democracy will prevail. But nevertheless, it's important that people realize what the stakes are."

Political analysts say the provincial politician from the rural state of Tabasco is looking to re-enact recent events in Latin American nations like Bolivia and Ecuador, where radical protest movements forced out democratically elected leaders. In Bolivia, the leader of those protests, Evo Morales, went on to win an election last year and is now that country's president.

 
Indeed, Mr. L?pez Obrador, 52, openly says Mexico "needs a revolution" and has vowed to keep his protest movement going until the nation's "simulated republic" is brought down. He has promised to use mass protests to prevent Mr. Calder?n from carrying out his agenda -- saying, for instance, that he will block moves to allow private industry to have a greater participation in everything from oil and electricity production to pension funds. According to polls, about 16% of Mexicans say they would be willing to take part in actions like blockading roads or airports to help Mr. L?pez Obrador.

C?sar Y??ez, a spokesman for Mr. L?pez Obrador, says the movement intends to use street protests to force Mr. Calder?n to respond to the leftist's goals, such as ensuring that natural resources like oil remain in the hands of the state. He rejected comparisons with Bolivia and said there are no plans to use violence to bring down the Calder?n government. "For us, the Calder?n government will be illegitimate, but that's not the same thing as saying there will be violence," he said.

Protest movements like Mr. L?pez Obrador's have flourished in recent years, finding fertile territory in a new democratic landscape swept clean of the harsh tactics of the old authoritarian regime. The graceful colonial city of Oaxaca offers a glimpse of the kinds of tactics available to Mr. L?pez Obrador. There, a protest movement is trying to force out a democratically elected governor. For the past three months, the 70,000-strong teacher union has laid siege to the city demanding a wage hike. It has occupied the downtown area with roadblocks and prevented all three branches of government from working by blocking government buildings with protesters armed with sticks, pipes and machetes.

Hotels in the one-time tourism magnet are largely empty and the city is lawless. Small gangs of student radicals, their faces covered in bandanas, roam the city center and question passersby whom they deem "suspicious." Taking photographs is now banned. Police don't dare work -- no one answers the local equivalent of 911 -- the state Congress meets secretly at a hotel, and judges stay at home.

Oaxaca state governor Ulises Ruiz, from the former ruling PRI party, tried to clear the protesters from the city in mid-June, but the mob easily beat back his police, several of whom were briefly taken hostage. After the attempted crackdown, the protesters got more radical, demanding the governor resign as a precondition for talks. They also burned buses and cars, stormed eight privately run radio stations to urge citizens to take to the streets, briefly blockaded the city airport and set a 10 p.m. curfew. Mr. Ruiz now wants federal police to intervene, but Mr. Fox has indicated he doesn't want to get involved.

"This place is no man's land," says Elpirio Vel?zquez, who owns a stall that sells school supplies in the city's central market. Mr. Vel?zquez says he supported the teachers' wage demands but thinks they've gone way too far in taking up violence and calling for the governor's ouster. "If they kick him out, then what happens? They just kick out any governor they don't like?"

The parallels are striking between the Oaxaca protests and Mr. L?pez Obrador's Mexico City sit-in. Mr. Ruiz won a 2004 gubernatorial race by a very narrow margin over his rival, a candidate of Mr. L?pez Obrador's PRD, which claimed the loss was due to fraud and threatened to organize street protests.

Mr. Calder?n's PAN party supported the PRD's candidate in the state race two years ago against Mr. Ruiz, but is now throwing its weight behind the embattled governor, arguing that his resignation would undermine the rule of law. Top PAN officials also argue allowing Mr. Ruiz to step down might encourage Mr. L?pez Obrador to continue his protests in the hopes of eventually forcing Mr. Calder?n from office. "What's happening in Oaxaca is a blueprint for the PRD to try to force Calder?n from office," says Dagoberto Carre?o, the PAN's secretary general in Oaxaca.

Mr. Calder?n will have to make some tough decisions about the use of public force that his recent predecessors have shied away from. The government's reluctance to use force is partly explained by history. A 1968 massacre of hundreds of protesters in Mexico City is the country's version of Tiananmen Square. Mexicans tend to view the use of force by the government as repression rather than law and order. When President Fox took power in 2000, polls showed that 80% of Mexicans were opposed to the government's use of force to put down dissent. That figure has since dropped, but is still high at 60%.

Under Mr. Fox, the government's unwillingness to consider force had its cost. Consider what happened to Mr. Fox's plans for a new six-runway airport near Mexico City, a glittering symbol of Mexico's climb into the global economy. Shortly after work on the project began in 2002, peasants who were due to be relocated to make room for the airport picked up machetes, blocked construction crews and took 15 state officials hostage, threatening to set them ablaze unless construction was halted. They won.

After Mr. Fox killed the project, the Mexican press was rich with debate about whether the move was a win for democracy or set a troubling precedent for mob rule. Emboldened by their win, the airport protesters next ran the mayor and police force out of the nearby town of Atenco, and started a regular campaign of highway blockades to demand goods and services. But when a newly elected governor, Enrique Pe?a, decided to end the airport group's road blockades with force this year, results were mixed. Ill-trained and under-equipped police battled protesters for two days in a bloody confrontation. The protest leaders were later jailed, but Mr. Pe?a's career suffered after he was forced to respond to charges of brutality and even sexual assaults by the police.

Mr. Calder?n hopes to set a different tone, starting in the interim period before his Dec. 1 inauguration. During that time, Mr. Fox remains as a lame-duck president but must work with a new Congress, which will be sworn in Sept. 1. Mr. Calder?n wants to work with Mr. Fox to pass some high-profile measures and show he can govern despite the turmoil on the streets. Among the possibilities are a reform of the state-owned oil company's corporate finances and a shake-up in the federal police.

Many political observers say he must go far beyond that to send strong signals that he is serious about addressing the core issues of poverty and scarce job opportunity that gave rise to Mr. L?pez Obrador's movement. In private conversations, some business executives are even urging Mr. Calder?n to go after some of the sacred cows of the Mexican economy, such as limiting the reach of the privately held Mexican monopolies. They argue that this would prove that he is not afraid to disappoint constituents in order to unblock logjams to entrepreneurship and growth.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 01, 2006, 11:04:34 PM
Mexico: Politics and the Potential for Unrest
Mexican President Vicente Fox is set to give his annual State of the Union speech at the Palacio Legislativo de San Lazaro on the evening of Sept. 1. This will be the first in a series of critical events coming up in Mexico over the next several weeks that could aggravate recent tensions caused by the July presidential election. Protests, along with political and social instability, could increase during this time.

Political tensions in Mexico rose after former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lost the July 2 presidential election by a margin of 0.58 percent. Lopez Obrador's supporters claim the election was rife with fraud and voting irregularities. Thousands of his followers have been camped out along Mexico City's main avenues, Paseo de la Reforma, Juarez Avenue and Madero Avenue, from Chapultepec Park to the Zocalo, the city's main square. The camps are blocking traffic for five miles at the heart of the capital.




Fox's speech will be a rallying point for Lopez Obrador's supporters to voice their opposition to the election results. Though interruptions during presidential speeches are common in Mexico, the Sept. 1 address could see interruptions of an unprecedented degree. The intention would be to signal that the country is in chaos and that Fox -- who belongs to the same party as the apparent winner of the presidential election, Felipe Calderon -- cannot even deliver a State of the Union address. At least five protest marches are scheduled to converge on the Mexican Congress building the night of Fox's speech. If Lopez Obrador himself makes an appearance at the address, the assembly likely will descend into chaos. This could further destabilize the situation and raise tensions. To avoid this, Fox could submit his address to Congress in writing, as is permitted by the country's constitution, rather than risk being shouted down while trying to speak.

The next critical date is Sept. 6, the deadline for Mexico's election court to formally declare a winner in the presidential race. This announcement can come any time before that date, but the court is likely to wait until the last possible minute.

The third critical event will be Mexico's independence celebrations Sept. 15-16. Even if Lopez Obrador's supporters are no longer actively demonstrating by then, the large public gatherings in towns and cities all over Mexico will provide multiple opportunities for dissent to be stirred up. Starting Sept. 15, Mexicans will gather to celebrate the beginning of the country's struggle for independence from Spain. The celebrations are to begin at 11 p.m. local time, when Fox will re-enact Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's 1810 call for independence by ringing the country's historic liberty bell at the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City's Zocalo, which could still be occupied by Lopez Obrador supporters.

The celebration culminates the next day with a military parade through the capital -- along the Paseo de la Reforma, which is currently blocked by protesters. Lopez Obrador's supporters previously threatened to block the parade but later backed down. In addition, Lopez Obrador has called for an opposition national convention Sept. 16 to declare himself the "true" president of Mexico and urge the country not to recognize the "impostor" Calderon. This would basically be calling for revolution.

If Lopez Obrador is willing to go that far, armed groups could enter the equation. In Mexico City, his party has effective control over some potentially violent groups, such as the Francisco Villa group, and others in Milpa Alta and Tlahuac on the southern outskirts of the capital, Iztapalapa in the Federal District and Atenco in Mexico state. When he resigned as mayor of Mexico City, Lopez Obrador designated his close political associate and friend, former Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard, as his replacement. Based on old alliances and relationships, Lopez Obrador and Mayor-elect Ebrard could influence the municipal police to support his cause, or at least not to interfere with his movement.

At any point, Mexican federal authorities could react with force to attempts to further disrupt the capital, especially after the electoral court makes its official ruling. Police presence has increased in Mexico City. Municipal, state and federal police have taken up positions at the Palacio Legislativo and many of Mexico City's other important landmarks. Since a violent crackdown on student demonstrators in October 1968, Mexican authorities have been reluctant to use force against demonstrations. However, the size of the protests following the July 2 election -- an estimated 1.2 million people at one point -- is unprecedented, and could solicit an unprecedented response.

Mexico City and its outlying areas -- one of the world's largest urban areas, with a population in excess of 21 million -- is the center of gravity for this entire situation. The demonstrations and controversy have not taken on an anti-U.S. or anti-foreigner theme, but any large-scale demonstrations that elicit a heavy-handed response by federal security forces could result in chaos in the capital. If the situation erupts, foreign businesses could get caught in the turmoil. Businesses could suffer damage and employees might be unable to get to work. Sound contingency planning is the best way for multinational corporations to mitigate this disruption.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 01, 2006, 11:37:51 PM
Uno mas de www.stratfor.com

Summary

In a pivotal Aug. 28 ruling, the Mexican electoral court settled all claims made by Democratic Revolution Party presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador about the July 2 presidential election, paving the way for National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderon to be declared president. Lopez Obrador has vowed to continue his protest, and his supporters have announced that they will prevent outgoing President Vicente Fox from delivering his final address to the nation in Mexico City on Sept. 1.

Analysis

Mexico's Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary Power (TEPJF) ruled Aug. 28 to nullify about 237,000 votes from the partial recount that was called in August due to irregularities. The nullified votes affected candidates Felipe Calderon and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador proportionately; the gap between them closed by only about 4,000 votes. The ruling effectively certified that there were no major voting irregularities -- disputing Lopez Obrador's contentions -- and that Calderon did, in fact, garner more votes in the election. The TEPJF did not confirm Calderon's win since it still needs to release the complete findings of the partial recount to prove Lopez Obrador's loss and rule on the general fairness -- a factor that has been strongly question by Lopez Obrador and his Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

Since Lopez Obrador clearly did not win a majority of the votes, his -- and his party's -- ultimate objective is the nullification of the entire election. But nullification is extremely unlikely, given the rulings already made by the TEPJF. The final deadline for the TEPJF to make its unappealable ruling and declare the National Action Party's (PAN's) Calderon president is Sept. 6. The TEPJF is likely to wait until the deadline to make the announcement, though all eyes are focused on the court for an earlier ruling.

After the TEPJF's ruling, Lopez Obrador will have no more legal avenues for protest. He has called for a national convention Sept. 16, at which he will declare himself Mexico's "true" president and Calderon an "impostor." Lopez Obrador also will announce the continuation of his civil resistance campaign and will likely offer details for his planned resistance government. But without legal avenues, one question remains: Will Lopez Obrador's political coalition hold together? The answer is probably not.

Sept. 1 is a key day in the electoral conflict. Outgoing PAN President Vicente Fox will deliver his final State of the Nation address to the newly seated Congress from Mexico City at 7 p.m. local time. Lopez Obrador's supporters have promised to disrupt the speech at all costs. Though legislators from opposing parties have often interrupted presidential addresses, interruptions for the Sept. 1 speech are rumored to be unprecedented and involve much more than simple yelling; there could be confrontations with the Presidential Guard, an appearance by Lopez Obrador or a walkout by PRD legislators and their allies (who account for 159 of 500 lower seats and 36 of 128 senate seats). Though Mexico's federal government historically has been reluctant to use force to settle political protests, it recently broke this trend when federal forces used tear gas on Lopez Obrador supporters attempting to block the entrance to the Mexican Congress building. Security has been stepped up significantly for Fox's State of the Union speech -- an indication that the government may be less squeamish about sending in troops.

A walkout, with Lopez Obrador supporters facing off against security forces outside the congressional building, is the most likely scenario. By disrupting the president's speech in such a manner, the PRD intends to signal that the country is in chaos and that Fox is not in control. Though Fox is legally allowed to deliver his address via television or a written report, his camp has said he will publicly deliver his speech regardless of potential disruptions from Lopez Obrador supporters.

However impassioned his followers might be, and even if PRD Congress members are willing to stage a walkout during Fox's address, Lopez Obrador is not likely to be able to maintain a cohesive political coalition after the TEPJF announcement. Many moderates inside the PRD might feel the political costs of supporting Lopez Obrador after the TEPJF ruling are unbearable. Among those moderates are Gov. Amalia Garcia from Zacatecas, a frequent visitor to the United States who is in very good standing with many U.S. governors, and Gov. Lazaro Cardenas of Michoacan, son of historic PRD leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.

If the PRD divides after the TEPJF ruling, Lopez Obrador's movement will weaken, but his protest is not likely to end soon. Regardless of the loss of support from PRD moderates, Lopez Obrador still maintains support from radicals and control of Mexico City's streets; the city's current mayor, Alejandro Encinas, and incoming Mayor Marcelo Ebrard are both PRD members and strong Lopez Obrador allies. But if Lopez Obrador loses the support of Mexico City -- and the fiscal backing that comes with it -- his movement will almost certainly stall. Fox's speech and the conflict that is bound to arise will clarify where the PRD stands in relation to its allies and how significant Lopez Obrador's future protests will be.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 02, 2006, 08:15:59 AM
Del NY Times de hoy:
============
Protest Keeps Fox From Giving State of the Union Speech
 Marcos Delgado/European Pressphoto Agency
Lawmakers from the Democratic Revolution Party took over the podium in the chamber of deputies before President Vicente Fox was to speak.

               E-MailPrint Reprints Save
 
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: September 2, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 1 ? Leftist lawmakers who have charged that fraud marred the presidential election in July staged a protest inside Congress that prevented President Vicente Fox from making his final state of the union speech to lawmakers on Friday, ending a tense day of political brinksmanship here.

Federal riot police officers and soldiers with water cannons had sealed off the Mexican Congress with miles of steel fence to protect Mr. Fox from thousands of leftist protesters camped out in the city?s center.

The president had vowed he would give his last state of the union message, despite threats from the leftist candidate, Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador, and his followers to stop him.

At the last minute, however, Mr. L?pez Obrador backed down. In front of at least 5,000 supporters in the capital?s central square, Mr. L?pez Obrador, the former mayor of this sprawling city, told his followers it would be a mistake to confront the barricades and the police surrounding Congress. He said the ?fascist? government of Mr. Fox would seize on any clashes between the police and the protesters to justify the brutal repression of his movement.

?We are not going to fall into any trap, we are not going to fall into any provocation,? he told the crowd, which had waited through a rainstorm to hear him speak. ?Only those who are not in the right resort to force and violence, and we are in the right.?

Still, lawmakers from Mr. L?pez Obrador?s Democratic Revolution Party protested inside the Chamber of Deputies, taking over the podium just before President Fox was to speak at 7 p.m. Several waved Mexican flags and signs calling Mr. Fox ?a traitor to democracy.? The president of the chamber, Deputy Jorge Zermi?o, was forced to call a recess.

Mr. Fox arrived 15 minutes later. As he entered the chamber, wearing the traditional red, white and green presidential sash, leaders of his party said it would be impossible for him to speak. He dropped off his yearly report, turned on his heel and left.

At 9 p.m., the government broadcast a recorded version of the president?s speech, complete with pictures of happy citizens to illustrate the gains his government has made in housing, education and health care.

Mr. Fox staunchly defended the balance of powers and the government institutions Mr. L?pez Obrador claims are corrupt, notably the Federal Election Institute and the electoral tribunal. He also stressed that the rule of law was the basis of democracy and he took a veiled shot at Mr. L?pez Obrador, saying ?no one should try to corral democracy through intransigence and violence.?

?Whoever attacks our laws and institutions, attacks our history, attacks Mexico,? he said.

Mr. L?pez Obrador claims he won the election, even though an official count, vetted by the country?s highest electoral tribunal, showed that the candidate from Mr. Fox?s National Action Party, Felipe Calder?n, eked out a razor-thin victory.

Rather than concede, Mr. L?pez Obrador has promised to convene his own national assembly and set up a parallel government this month. He has said that he will never recognize Mr. Calder?n?s victory and has declared that Mr. Fox violated Mexican election law by campaigning for Mr. Calder?n, as did various business leaders who spent millions on attack ads against Mr. L?pez Obrador in the last days of the campaign.

He also claimed that his opponents stuffed ballot boxes with votes for Mr. Calder?n and disposed of votes for him in some states, a charge Mr. Calder?n?s aides called absurd.

On Friday, at least 6,000 police officers in riot gear ringed the congressional building with steel barricades and blocked nearby subway stations to discourage demonstrations. Before the lawmakers? protest, the only demonstration occurred just before 6 p.m., when a small group from the Francisco Villa Popular Front, a militant group allied with Mr. L?pez Obrador, painted antigovernment slogans on the fence and threw rocks at the wall and at the police, who ignored them.

For more than a month, thousands of Mr. L?pez Obrador?s supporters have blocked the major avenue running through the city, Paseo de la Reforma, and camped out in the main square, Plaza de la Constitution.

Newly elected lawmakers from Mr. L?pez Obrador?s party arrived en masse at the legislative building about 1 p.m., broke through one of the barricades, marched into the chamber and denounced the presence of the president?s federal police.

?This is unforgivable,? announced Senator Carlos Navarette. ?The chambers should not be invaded by the federal police. This is the house of the deputies, not of the president.?

Mr. Navarette later led the protest among the lawmakers, denouncing the ring of police officers outside as an infringement on Mexicans? right to protest as his partisans rushed the dais and occupied it.

Earlier this week, an electoral tribunal charged with ratifying the election and resolving challenges threw out most of Mr. L?pez Obrador?s arguments that there was widespread fraud. The court still must rule on his request to annul the election on grounds that the president and private businesses interfered too much in the campaign.

Aides to Mr. L?pez Obrador said he had acknowledged privately that the court would probably name Mr. Calder?n president-elect next week.

What form Mr. L?pez Obrador?s protest movement will now take remains unclear, but it is certain to keep him in the public eye for the next six years and make it hard for Mr. Calder?n to govern.

?He?s saying to the government, ?Everything that I am going to do is going to give you trouble,? ? a close adviser said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Antonio Betancourt and Marc Lacey contributed reporting for this article.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 08, 2006, 10:13:01 PM
The Temptation of Don Felipe

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
September 8, 2006; Page A15

With so much attention focused on Mexico's disputed presidential election, it's been easy to miss another story in Mexican court which may tell more about the challenges faced by President-elect Felipe Calder?n than do the anti-democratic antics of his losing rival Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador.

We refer here to four injunctions filed in Mexican federal court last month by companies owned by billionaire media mogul Ricardo Salinas Pliego. All four of the actions are against articles in a new securities law that protect minority investors, regulate insider trading, increase disclosure, mandate an all-independent audit committee and give the national banking and securities commission broader supervisory and investigative powers.

Mr. Salinas Pliego's attempt to destroy modern securities legislation in a fledgling democracy is worth paying attention to, as is the latest move in Mexican politics to grant, yet again, special treatment to telecom tycoon Carlos Slim. Both are symptomatic of the culture of privilege that has stifled Mexican growth and left a good part of the country so poor that it bought into the siren song of the authoritarian L?pez Obrador.

Mr. Calder?n is now wrestling with the clamor from the elite for more socialism in order to neutralize the radicalized Mr. L?pez Obrador, who has refused to accept defeat. The president-elect has even suggested that he is ready to lean to port as a counteroffensive to his former rival's intransigence. Last month Mr. Calder?n said that in order to address cries of illegitimacy coming from AMLO's tent-city protest movement, "from the government, we are going to pass them on the left." This week Reuters quoted Calder?n aide Juan Camilo Mouri?o saying that "Without a doubt the next government of Mexico must have a clear social leaning. Without a doubt this must be one of the priorities, if not the priority."

This is an alarming development from a president-elect who ran on a platform to make the country fairer, more competitive and more prosperous -- and won. To adopt AMLO's platform of redistributing wealth would not only be a betrayal of those who voted for him. It would also be a recipe for disaster.

Modern economics already widely acknowledges that developing countries need 5-6% annual growth rates for at least a decade to alter the poverty profile. Decades of empirical evidence show that growth, not an expansion of entitlement programs, is what will make Mexicans better-off.

To that end, Mr. Calder?n can best defeat the left by spending his political capital going against the country's notoriously anti-competitive cartels. As the World Bank's 2007 "Doing Business" report -- released this week -- notes, he will have the highest chance of success if he pushes reform early in his tenure. If he succeeds, greater competition and transparency will drive down the cost of doing business in Mexico. As the country becomes more attractive to investors, productivity, incomes and government revenues will all rise. The president will then have the resources to help the truly needy.

If Mr. Calder?n feels the need to compete with AMLO's rhetoric, he can tell Mexico's poor that, as their champion, he is about to end the culture of privilege that has left them behind. What he must not do, though, is shrink from the confrontation with the titans who think they own Mexico. As Mr. Salinas Pliego is now showing, it won't be easy.

The World Bank report -- which measures the business climate in 175 countries -- applauds the new securities legislation that Mr. Salinas Pliego now hopes to destroy. In the category of "protecting investors," the bank bumps Mexico up 100 places, from a ranking of 133rd in the world last year to 33rd, citing this reform. Mexico's modernizers expect the law to make the country more attractive to investors, both domestic and foreign.

But Mr. Salinas doesn't seem to like oversight. Last year the U.S. SEC filed fraud charges against his company TV Azteca and two of its executives. He denied the charges and took his company out of the U.S., citing "excessive regulation." Last year in Mexico, using his special interest clout, he nearly killed the same legislation relating to minority shareholder protections as it was being born. He also used his television station to attack the integrity of one of the architects of the law. Those efforts failed. Now he's taken the case to court.

Mr. Salinas is not the only Mexican tycoon digging in his heels as Mexico tries to modernize. Telecom magnate Carlos Slim, who still controls 95% of Mexico's fixed-line telephone industry and almost all data traffic, has used the injunction process for years to stonewall deregulation and competition. Without competition, Mexico's telecom costs make the country unattractive to investors, a fact that drives up joblessness and poverty. It partly explains why China is eating Mexico's lunch in manufacturing.

Mr. Slim, who claims to be an advocate for the poor, seems to be pretty good at defending his own agenda. His former employee Pedro Cerisola is now President Vicente Fox's telecom minister and has been allegedly protecting Telmex's interests from inside the executive branch. This week Mr. Cerisola tried to unilaterally grant Telmex rights to the cable television market even though its license does not allow for such a privilege. The decision sparked a heated, public confrontation between Mr. Fox's pro-competition Treasury Secretary Francisco Gil Diaz, who objected to the deal, and Mr. Cerisola. Mexico's competition commission took Mr. Gil Diaz's side.

Mr. Calder?n is not lacking political capital to spend. A poll conducted by Mexico's Reforma newspaper last week showed that if the election were held today, he would win handily with 54% of the vote and AMLO would run a distant second with 30%. That more people are now putting their hopes in Mr. Calder?n's modern, civil and democratic vision for Mexico than in Mr. L?pez Obrador's authoritarian path of vengeance is something to celebrate in North America's youngest democracy.

But now Mr. Calder?n must allocate that capital to its highest use. Rather than spend it mimicking the messianic militant in the tent, he should make a big down payment on a future assault on privilege.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: xxxaviergs on September 12, 2006, 01:19:16 PM
hola a todos.

He tenido d?as muy ocupados y por esa raz?n no hab?a podido escribir en el foro.

 Le? un par de intervencionespor parte de compa?eros y ex-compa?eros de entrenamiento a los que les causo escozor mi mensaje anterior.

Tengo que decirles que yo no estoy a favor del gobierno panista, que hace seis a?os presento a un candidato mesi?nico que nos iba a hacer crecer de manera brutal, que iba a reducir impuestos, que nos promet?a cosas irreales, bravuc?n, pagado de si y con un proyecto m?gico; muy similar a la estrategia que uso AMLO en las pasadas campa?as electorales -creo incluso que usaron a los mismos asesores de imagen-

Este gobierno fue carente de decisi?n, incluso para destruir a AMLO, como bien lo menciona Arturo, pues aunque tuvieronn la oportunidad y los elementos desde el CISEN(no s?lo los que dieron a conocer) les faltaron elementos para ejecutar sus planes, lo mismo sucedi? con el combate a la delincuencia, la creaci?n de empleos e incluso el control sobre su familia politica, ya que los hijos de la se?ora Martha se beneficiaron de manera brutal con el programa oportunidades.

Asi mismo menciona Arturo al Ingeniero C?rdenas, personaje politico al cual respeto much?simo y quien cont? con mi voto durante las elecciones para el gobierno del DF en su momento ( que adem?s resulto una bocanada de aire fresco despues de la porqueria de gobierno de Espinoza Villareal), y tal como lo menciona, en el cupo la mesura y la inteligencia para que los proyectos de su campa?a (como el IFE y la ley electoral) se llevaran a cabo empujandolos desde una trinchera diferente; y no sacando a la gente a la calle para polarizar a la sociedad y haciendo berrinches y pataletas, autoproclamandose presidente de Pejelandia. Lo molesto no es que cierre una avenida, o tres (que si es grave, pues apuesto que mis compa?eros aunque creen en el proyecto de la "izquierda mexicana" no estan en la zona de camping de reforma), el problema es que no le interesan los excelentes proyectos que presentaba en su campa?a, le interesa ser presidente.

Tienes raz?n en la marcha no fueron 300mil ciudadanos, y quiz? fueron m?s de dos millones de ciudadanos (que no de electores) pero en un pais donde gobierna la minor?a m?s grande y no la mayor?a de los ciudadanos (por errores en el sistema electoral mexicano) no podemos hacer lo que menos del 2% de la poblaci?n exige fuera del marco de la ley que ellos ayudaron a formar, tambi?n v? los carteles que menciona Omar, creo que tienen raz?n, los acarreados que iban por sus tortas son cosa del pasado, ahora ven por sus casas, sus permisos para taxi, por el dinero en efectivo, y no por sus tortas. Si hay ciudadanos como ustedes que creen en AMLO y lo apoyan de manera incondicional, pero tambi?n existen los grupos pagados que se mueven por interese personales y no colectivos.

Porro, si, creo que AMLO opera como tal, provocando, da?ando a la poblaci?n y no al los hoteleros de cadenal multinacionales, al Presidente en funciones y menos al reci?n electo; sino a esos mismos que no tienen representaci?n,  los que se tienen que perder una hora de sue?o y otra de convivencia familiar por el plant?n, los boleros, lo voceadores y todos los changarros que viven al d?a de sus ventas y que tampoco salen en la TV.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on September 13, 2006, 04:40:48 PM
Hola a todos:

Una correccion la pelicual recomendada no es Wave Dog sino Wag the Dog, una disculpa.

Del informe aca otras cosas curiosas de nuestra "joven democracia":

El perimetro de "seguridad" al rededor del congreso se esxtendio cerca de 6 km, se impedia el acceso y libre transito a los vecinos de la zona.
En las azoteas de la zona aleda?a al congreso se apostaron francotiradores.
Una cosa muy grave, al mismo recinto parlamentario se les permitio la entrada a francotiradores.
Empiezan a correr rumores de que cada magistrado recibieron 6 millones de pesos para el fallo a favor de Calderon.


Parafraseando a Fox, en efecto el problema NO se reduce a una calle, biene la mano dura y el ser "sospechoso de ser sospechoso", primero van a detener a los perredistas, pero despues pueden seguir con cualquiera que no piense como ellos.

Para terminar, sigo con la curiosidad porque se rechaza que se le de dinero a la gente en programas sociales?, Dinamarca, Suecia, Espa?a y otros paises europeos otorgan esos beneficios. El mismo Estados Unidos subsidia a sus campesinos (por eso ellos no emigran), aqui se condena que se le den ap?yos a la gente pero se olvida que un fraude bancario fue convertido en deuda publica, que segun los analistas se terminara de pagar hasta los hijos de nuestros nietos; al primero se le llama populismo, y al segundo como lo llamariamos empresariarismo?. Insisto en mi rechazo a que se plantara la gente en las calles de la ciudad, pero un fraude y una simulacion electoral es aun mas terrible. Ningun politico tiene la razon ni es la salvacion pero los cambios politicos son procesos que se efectuan a traves de coyunturas, hay coyunturas que abren oportunidad a que la gente participe en la toma de deciciones y hay otras que retrazan este proceso, de primera mano se de la apertura que se dio a la gente durante la administracion de AMLO, para que se decidieran cosas en materia de seguridad y se ejercieran partidas presupuestales, pero sera que las personas seguimos actuando como lo describia Simon Bolivar? -Libere pueblos y aboli la tirania y con horror vi como la misma gente reconstruia la tirania- (cito de memoria). En estos procesos? me decia mi maestro se condensa lo mejor de la sociadad pero tambien lo peor, no nos enga?emos pensando en movimientos puros o en lideres incorruptibles, todos tenemos clarobscuros, la mision es participar y en la medida de lo posible impedir que los corruptos tomen el control.En mi opinion un gobierno panista retraza el proceso, pero eso ya lo veremos en seis a?os.

Un Saludo

Omar

 
Title: La izquierda despu?s de Hugo Ch?vez y L?pez Obrador
Post by: captainccs on September 13, 2006, 06:58:24 PM
La izquierda despu?s de Hugo Ch?vez y L?pez Obrador

Ra?l Tortolero

Ciudad de Mexico 13.09.06 | Ante sus seguidores, o mejor, ante sus ?groupies?, Mr Hugo Ch?vez declar? ayer que no ?reconoc?a? como leg?timo presidente electo de M?xico a Felipe Calder?n, porque notaba que hab?an sucedido ?cosas? extra?as o raras en los pasados comicios del 2 de julio en M?xico. Bueno, esto no es ning?n problema. Porque los ?nicos que deben reconocer o no reconocer al presidente electo son los mexicanos. Y Mr Hugo Ch?vez no es mexicano.

Resulta, empero, extraordinario ?aunque mucho de lo que hace el presidente venezolano lo es- que un mandatario extranjero se autoerija como una suerte de juez electoral internacional, capaz de legitimar con su palmada en la espalda a otros jefes de estado, seg?n lo que le convenga.

Lo bueno es que siempre, en todo momento, neg? toda relaci?n con el PRD mexicano. Pero ahora aboga por el ?Peje?. Que su gobierno no ten?a nada qu? ver, que no hab?a enviado aqu? a su ficha el embajador Vladimir Villegas ?quien apareci? en actos de campa?a del PRD del ahora jefe de gobierno de la Ciudad de M?xico Marcelo Ebrard, violando la ley mexicana de no intervenci?n en pol?tica interior- a ayudar a formar los c?rculos bolivarianos para que se asociaran con las redes ciudadanas. Pero ahora lo apoya, y se suma a la campa?a de inestabilidad pol?tica encabezada en M?xico por unos cuantos a?oradores de una izquierda dogm?tica, estalinista y sumamente autoritaria. Que son personas que portan en la bloqueada calle Reforma estandartes de Lenin y de Stalin (a las fotos me remito). Y eso quiere decir que, en primer lugar, ya no est?n pensando, ya no est?n reflexionando seriamente. Stalin dej? un muerto casi en cada familia durante su gobierno, y esto suma al menos 10 millones de muertos. Eso es lo que admiran y enarbolan estos trasnochados de una izquierda que ya no existe sino en sus cabezas urgidas de figuras autocr?ticas. Esta gente es profundamente antidemocr?tica y, de hecho, as? como en Alemania est?n prohibidas las manifestaciones de neonazis, deber?an estar aqu? prohibidas las manifestaciones de neoestalinistas. No saben lo que dicen estas personas. Alzan en vilo a un carnicero. No necesitamos carnicer?as por ning?n ideal en M?xico. La carnicer?a no es lo que ayudar? a los pobres a comer y a educarse. La carnicer?a no es un m?todo de crecimiento econ?mico. Pero la carnicer?a s? es una mala terapia para el desahogo de la frustraci?n y el resentimiento social de quienes siempre han estado oprimidos y ahora no buscan qui?n se las debe sino qui?n se las pague. Pero no. Las carnicer?as no son lo que les dijeron en los adoctrinamientos: nada justifica que muera nadie. No se puede construir un pa?s dejando en la espalda una carnicer?a. Lo que est?n haciendo es demoler a la verdadera izquierda y tratar de sustituirla por un sistema amparado en la violencia y la sangre.

Ch?vez decidi? expl?citamente apoyar a Andr?s Manuel L?pez Obrador con estas versiones. Con ello, la verdad, lo ?nico que logra es reactivar las amplias sospechas de que hubo respaldo log?stico, pol?tico y econ?mico suyo al tabasque?o durante la campa?a electoral pasada. Ahora no quedan muchas dudas sobre la cercan?a entre ambas partes. M?s bien, ninguna duda.

?De qu? informaci?n dispone este mandatario sudamericano para descalificar lo que el Tribunal Federal Electoral en M?xico revis? y aprob?? Qui?n sabe, porque nunca lo aclar?.

?Cu?les son las ?cosas raras? que advierte?

No me imagino a Felipe Calder?n, por panista que sea, de centro-derecha si ustedes quieren, declarando que no reconoce como presidente a Hugo Ch?vez. No parece algo sensato. ?C?mo puede alguien estar por encima de lo que un pueblo ha decidido en votaciones legales?

Han sido tantas las agresiones que ha recibido M?xico de parte de Mr Ch?vez que no podemos imaginar qu? sigue. Tal vez le gustar?a invadir M?xico de alguna forma. Organizar algo. O a todos los pa?ses cuyos gobiernos no le cuadran. Pero s?lo deber?a ocuparse de sus propios negocios y dejar en paz a los mexicanos. Nosotros no nos ocupamos de ?l sino cuando primero ?l relanza en su agenda el tema M?xico, y habitualmente esto significa insultos, descalificaciones ?como la reciente del presidente electo- y hasta ciertas amenazas veladas.

Para los chavistas uno no puede sentirse libre de expresar sus opiniones en medios democr?ticos y respetuosos del mundo. No puede nadie pensar diferente. Por ejemplo, la Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana, Cap?tulo M?xico, hace al que esto escribe responsable de no s? qu? campa?as. (http://www.conbolivar.org/conbol/institucional/comunicados/mexico/mex-prononcia-crisis-11-08-06.htm) De paso quiero aclararles a los se?ores de esa organizaci?n que yo no encabezo ninguna campa?a contra nadie, ni la secundo, y tambi?n, que no me gusta que Hugo Ch?vez insulte a M?xico, a nuestros gobernantes de cualquier nivel o partido pol?tico y que estoy en mi derecho constitucional de expresar mis opiniones libremente. A ustedes no los conozco. No tengo nada contra ustedes, que quede bien claro, ni mucho menos contra el gran Sim?n Bol?var, pero otra cosa son los caudillos. Y si se sienten iluminados, peor. Eso es todo. Y tambi?n aprovecho para recalcar que no pertenezco ni al PRD, ni al PAN, ni al PRI ni a ninguna otra organizaci?n o gobierno.

Pulverizando a la izquierda

Lo que s? percibo con claridad es que la actitud descalificatoria de Ch?vez, aunada a las molestias de L?pez Obrador contra la propia ciudadan?a que hubiera votado por ?l debidas a los bloqueos, son claros ejemplos no de una lucha inteligente y creativa, sino de la demolici?n total de la izquierda. Al menos de la izquierda moderna, creativa, institucional, pol?tica, moderada. Es antipropaganda plena.

La izquierda extremista no es democr?tica, es autoritaria e implica una franca inestabilidad econ?mica y la entronizaci?n del m?s acendrado autocratismo. Ambos personajes son, en realidad, enemigos de la izquierda internacional. No les preocupa que la ciudadan?a termine repudi?ndolos a ellos y a sus m?todos, porque creen que est?n por encima de las instituciones y a?n de las ideolog?as.

Pero no, no es as?. ?Por qu?? Porque simplemente no existe una ideolog?a que sea impulsada por ellos. ?Cu?l es la ideolog?a de Hugo Ch?vez? ?El bolivarismo? No puede ser, ya que no le interesa la uni?n latinoamericana, de los pueblos, y prueba de esto es que descarta a los gobiernos que no se ajustan a sus intereses. ?Y la de L?pez Obrador? Ganar las elecciones presidenciales. En el fondo, lo que hay en ambos es una fuerte palpitaci?n por el regreso de un seudosocialismo setentero que no puede regresar, ya sea en programas populistas sociales de vivienda, de apoyo clientelar a ancianos o desamparados, como t?cnicas de publicidad personal y s?lo personal.

Habr?a que ver qu? queda de la izquierda latinoamericana luego de Ch?vez y luego de L?pez Obrador. Cenizas. Ser? exactamente lo mismo que en Cuba luego de Fidel. Nadie querr? jam?s saber nada de ese sistema se le llame como se le llame. Qu? puede importar una supuesta "ideolog?a" si la gente no come, no hay luz, agua, ropa, nada. (?Y Fidel en la lista Forbes de los m?s ricos del mundo, bendita igualdad!).

Ya nadie votar? ingenuamente por seguir en tales caminos. En M?xico, s?lo basta consultar en las calles a la gente. Ahora s? supimos los alcances de la otrora noble paloma que daba sus conferencias a las 6 de la ma?ana con voz suave y buen humor. Es la misma palomita que no le importa si los enfermos mueren en las ambulancias por su bloqueo de Reforma. Que cientos de meseros y garroteros y empleados se tengan que ir a Estados Unidos porque est?n quebrando los establecimientos. Que se hayan perdido 368 millones de d?lares, seg?n estimaciones del Consejo Nacional Empresarial Tur?stico (CNET) de la Ciudad de M?xico. ?stas son las secuelas arrojadas por un ex pol?tico, l?der de una coalici?n que se nombr? ?por el bien de todos?. Qu? decepci?n. Y qu? lecci?n.


http://vcrisis.com/index.php?content=esp/200609131522


Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana, Cap?tulo M?xico
http://www.conbolivar.org/conbol/institucional/comunicados/mexico/mex-prononcia-crisis-11-08-06.htm

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 14, 2006, 01:11:26 PM
Lopez Obrador Weighing His Next Move
The Mexican opposition leader must decide whether to form a shadow government or try to push reforms through protests.
By Sam Enriquez and Carlos Mart?nez, LA Times Staff Writers
September 14, 2006


MEXICO CITY ? Losing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will ask his followers Saturday whether they want him to head a parallel government or just chip away at the old one with a long campaign of civil disobedience.

A week after the nation's elections tribunal declared Felipe Calderon the president-elect, the summer-long protest movement by Lopez Obrador supporters demanding a national recount is fading. Tents pitched by demonstrators on Paseo de la Reforma, the capital's central boulevard, have started to disappear.

ADVERTISEMENT
Despite apparently dwindling popular support, Lopez Obrador maintains a firm grip on a loyal core eager to reshape Mexico for its legions of poor.

He's expected to chart their next move at Saturday's National Democratic Convention, which he called to protest the July 2 election, narrowly won by Calderon, and to revamp the nation's institutions.

Lopez Obrador knows he lost the election fight, most analysts said. What he wants now is a permanent opposition to the Calderon government, and a lever to nudge his Democratic Revolution Party cohorts in Congress.

"He's trying to force changes on a double path: one within the institutions and the other one on the street," said Roger Bartra, a sociologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

But Lopez Obrador will have to continue shaping hundreds of thousands of election protesters into a thriving leftist movement that can demand the attention of his party's congressional bloc, the second largest in the Senate and the lower house.

More than half a million delegates have signed up for Saturday's convention, organizers said, and tens of thousands more are expected to attend the event in the capital's central square, or Zocalo.

Delegates will decide whether they want to reform the government or start a new one ? a choice loaded with patriotic symbolism when offered on Mexico's Independence Day.

Simply declaring a new government doesn't give it any legitimacy. But followers of the charismatic Lopez Obrador don't seem worried.

The buzz among those rooting for a parallel government here is not whether the military will squash a nascent leftist rebellion or what to include in a reworked Mexican Constitution or even whether it's legal. It's over what to call their leader.

The longest thread on the convention's website forum concerns whether to declare Lopez Obrador the president of Mexico or name him "head of the resistance."

*

A Broader Debate

There's more to the discussion than a name: The many comments, protected by the forum's online anonymity, echo a broader debate over how far left to steer Mexico's new movement.

"He should be named 'Legitimate President' because it would be a very annoying counterbalance to Felipe Calderon," wrote "Hackal," who added, "He's already head of the resistance."

Others said they preferred a less provocative title than president, arguing that a direct challenge to the Mexican government was asking for trouble and reflected badly on their leader, who is often referred to by his initials.

"It's makes AMLO look like a dictator," said "Neon-Insurgents." "The key to the campaign of defamation against AMLO is to make him seem like a crazy person or a radical?. It's important that we're not so much a reactionary left but a left of center."

Rafael Hernandez Estrada, a member of the convention's organizing committee, said he believed delegates would favor naming Lopez Obrador the "elected president."

"We're also going to ask to create a parallel Cabinet," he said. "We won't vote on who'll be on the Cabinet. That will be up to the president."


None of the organizers could say what such a government would do next, or how they planned to govern. Lopez Obrador said the convention would draw its authority from Article 39 of the Mexican Constitution, which gives citizens the right to decide on their form of government.

But legal experts said the document does not envision changing the constitution by a show of hands on a public square, as planned for Saturday.

"Of course you can modify the form of government, but it has to be through established legal mechanisms," said Raul Carranca y Rivas, a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The registration of delegates, and their participation in the convention, keeps a tether on supporters and a ready-made contact list for Lopez Obrador as his recount campaign winds down. Some polls show his support fading.

Delegates could vote to keep the street blockades, but it's more likely protesters will go home next week, freeing up the Zocalo and several miles of Reforma after weeks of detours and worse-than-usual traffic jams, said Jose Agustin Ortiz Pinchetti, a member of the convention's organizing committee.

"We'll probably have new forms of civil resistance, but always peaceful ones," he said.

Lopez Obrador has not disclosed any plans beyond those that echo his campaign ? to narrow the income gap between rich and poor, and revamp the nation's justice system. Speaking to supporters this week, he promised a "true purification" of politics that would oust "domineering, ridiculous, mediocre, thieving politicians."

Lopez Obrador only hinted at using the pincer strategy of street protests and the PRD congressional bloc to implement his agenda. "We'll govern with one hand and transform with the other," he said in a speech Tuesday.

Bartra and other analysts are skeptical. "Lopez Obrador runs the risk of losing his influence over the PRD," Bartra said. "He's setting up all kind of confrontations, like when senators try to negotiate with other political parties."

Neither President Vicente Fox nor President-elect Calderon have had much to say about the planned convention. They have tried to drum up national pride during a week of Independence Day celebrations and turn attention away from Lopez Obrador's claim that the vote was fixed in favor of Calderon.

The threat of violent confrontation dimmed this week when Lopez Obrador agreed to keep protesters from the path of Saturday's Independence Day military parades in the Zocalo.

*

A Showdown of Sorts

Despite conceding the Zocalo to the military, however, he threatened a symbolic showdown with Fox on Friday night.

Fox, like most Mexican presidents, is to give the grito, or shout of independence, Friday night from the balcony of the National Palace.

Lopez Obrador, whose megawatt sound system and stage have stood all summer in front of the balcony where Fox is supposed to appear, says he may issue his own grito.

Calderon, who will take office Dec. 1, is on vacation until Monday, his spokesman said.

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sam.enriquez@latimes.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 14, 2006, 01:15:46 PM
y, cambiando el tema completamente, uno mas:

Source: http://www.nbc10.com/news/9850095/detail.html

NBC10.com

'Dog' Arrested At Mexico's Request 

POSTED: 1:54 pm EDT September 14, 2006
UPDATED: 4:02 pm EDT September 14, 2006

MSNBC has learned that U.S. officials have arrested TV reality star Duane "Dog" Chapman and two family members in Hawaii for extradition to Mexico.

Chapman's wife told MSNBC's Rita Cosby that heavily armed U.S. marshals arrived at the family's house today and took away Chapman, his brother, Tim, and son, Leland.
"I was getting the children ready for school and the U.S. marshals burst in our door and they just came right in and took him," said Beth Chapman on MSNBC.

"He was in shock. He was, he was shocked. He was shocked and he was amazed that the marshal's service that came to get him didn't even treat him as kind as he treats his own prisoners."

A representative from the Marshal's office had a different version of what happened in Hawaii. "There were 7 deputy marshals who went to Chapman's home," said Jay Beber, from the U.S. marshal's office in Hawaii. "We knocked on the door to announce that we were U.S. marshals. ? Mr. Chapman was compliant and very respectful."

The Chapmans were in custody and expected to remain in custody for three days until a bond hearing is held. Cosby said she was told that Mexican government officials wanted the three men sent back there in relation to a three-year-old case.

In 2003, the Chapmans went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to retrieve Max Factor heir Andrew Luster, who was wanted in the U.S. on rape charges. Bounty hunting is considered a crime in Mexico. At that time, Mexican prosecutors maintained that Luster's capture violated their sovereignty.

The Chapmans each could face up to 8 years in prison if they are returned to Mexico and convicted on kidnapping charges.
Luster is now in jail, serving a 124-year term, but at the time, the Chapmans were also jailed by Mexican authorities for a brief time three years ago.

The three returned to the United States after posting bail of their own.

Copyright 2006 by NBC10.com.


Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 15, 2006, 05:20:28 AM
Writing May Be Oldest in Western Hemisphere
               E-MailPrint Reprints Save
 
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: September 15, 2006
A stone slab bearing 3,000-year-old writing previously unknown to scholars has been found in the Mexican state of Veracruz, and archaeologists say it is an example of the oldest script ever discovered in the Western Hemisphere.

Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
 
Courtesy of Stephen Houston
Sixty-two distinct signs are inscribed on the stone slab, which was discovered in the state of Veracruz in Mexico.

Multimedia
Graphic
Oldest Writing in the Western Hemisphere
Related
Web Link
Oldest Writing in the New World (Science)The Mexican discoverers and their colleagues from the United States reported yesterday that the order and pattern of carved symbols appeared to be that of a true writing system and that it had characteristics strikingly similar to imagery of the Olmec civilization, considered the earliest in the Americas.

Finding a heretofore unknown writing system is rare. One of the last major ones to come to light, scholars say, was the Indus Valley script, recognized from excavations in 1924.

Now, scholars are tantalized by a message in stone in a script unlike any other and a text they cannot read. They are excited by the prospect of finding more of this writing, and eventually deciphering it, to crack open a window on one of the most enigmatic ancient civilizations.

The inscription on the Mexican stone, with 28 distinct signs, some of which are repeated, for a total of 62, has been tentatively dated from at least 900 B.C., possibly earlier. That is 400 or more years before writing was known to have existed in Mesoamerica, the region from central Mexico through much of Central America, and by extension, anywhere in the hemisphere.

Previously, no script had been associated unambiguously with the Olmec culture, which flourished along the Gulf of Mexico in Veracruz and Tabasco well before the Zapotec and Maya people rose to prominence elsewhere in the region. Until now, the Olmec were known mainly for the colossal stone heads they sculptured and displayed at monumental buildings in their ruling cities.

The stone was discovered by Mar?a del Carmen Rodr?guez of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico and Ponciano Ort?z of Veracruz University. The archaeologists, a married couple, are the lead authors of the report of the discovery, which is being published today in the journal Science.

The signs incised on the 26-pound stone, the researchers said in the report, ?link the Olmec to literacy, document an unsuspected writing system and reveal a new complexity to this civilization.?

Noting that the text ?conforms to all expectations of writing,? the researchers wrote that the sequences of signs reflected ?patterns of language, with the probable presence of syntax and language-dependent word orders.?

Several paired sequences of signs, scholars said, have even prompted speculation that the text contained poetic couplets.

Experts who have examined the Olmec symbols said they would need many more examples before they could hope to read what is written on the stone. They said it appeared that the symbols in the inscription were unrelated to later Mesoamerican scripts, suggesting that this Olmec writing might have been practiced for only a few generations and never spread to surrounding cultures.

Stephen D. Houston of Brown University, a co-author of the report and an authority on ancient writings, acknowledged that the apparent singularity of the script was a puzzle and would probably be emphasized by some scholars who question the influence of the Olmec on the course of later Mesoamerican cultures.

But Dr. Houston said the discovery ?could be the beginning of a new era of focus on the Olmec civilization.?

Other participants in the research include Michael D. Coe of Yale; Richard A. Diehl of the University of Alabama; Karl A. Taube of the University of California, Riverside; and Alfredo Delgado Calder?n, also of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

Mesoamerican researchers not involved in the discovery agreed that the signs appeared to represent a true script and that their appearance could be expected to inspire more intensive exploration of the Olmec past. The civilization emerged about 1200 B.C. and virtually disappeared around 400 B.C.

In an accompanying article in Science, Mary Pohl, an anthropologist at Florida State University who has excavated Olmec ruins, was quoted as saying, ?This is an exciting discovery of great significance.?

A few other researchers were skeptical of the inscription?s date because the stone was uncovered in a gravel quarry where it and other artifacts were jumbled and possibly out of their original context.

The discovery team said that ceramic shards, clay figurines and other broken artifacts accompanying the stone appeared to be from a phase of Olmec culture ending about 900 B.C. They conceded, though, that the disarray at the site made it impossible to determine if the stone was in a place relating to the governing elite or a religious ceremony.

Dr. Diehl, a specialist in Olmec research, said, ?My colleagues and I are absolutely convinced the stone is authentic.?

Road builders digging gravel came across the stone in debris from an ancient mound at Cascajal, a place the discoverers said was in the ?Olmec heartland.? The village is on an island in southern Veracruz and about a mile from the ruins of San Lorenzo, the site of the dominant Olmec city from 1200 B.C. to 900 B.C.

That was in 1999, and Dr. Rodr?guez and Dr. Ort?z were called in, and they quickly recognized the potential importance of the find.

Only after years of further excavations, in which they hoped to find more writing specimens, and comparative analysis with Olmec iconography did the two invite other Mesoamerican scholars to join the study. After a few reports in recent years of Olmec ?writing? that failed to hold up, the team decided earlier this year that the Cascajal stone, as it is being called, was the real thing.

The tiny, delicate signs are incised on a block of soft serpentine stone 14 inches long, 8 inches wide and 5 inches thick. The inscription is on the stone?s concave top surface.

Dr. Houston, who was a leader in the decipherment of Maya writing, examined the stone with an eye to clues that this was true writing and not just iconography unrelated to a language. He said in an interview that he had detected regular patterns and order suggesting ?a text segmented into what almost look like sentences, with clear beginnings and clear endings.?

Some pictographic signs were frequently repeated, Dr. Houston said, particularly ones that looked like an insect or a lizard. He suspected that these were signs alerting the reader to the use of words that sound alike but have different meanings ? as in the difference in English of ?I? and ?eye.?

All in all, Dr. Houston concluded, ?the linear sequencing, the regularity of signs, the clear patterns of ordering, they tell me this is writing, but we don?t know what it says.?
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 06, 2006, 06:07:14 AM
Geopolitical Diary: Flyovers, Troops and the Oaxacan Protests

Mexican military planes and helicopters flew over protesters in the colonial city of Oaxaca for the second consecutive day Oct. 1. The months-old protest in Oaxaca has continued to escalate. What arose as an annual labor dispute by public school teachers demanding higher wages has been forcefully suppressed by Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and hijacked by radical fringe groups to form the People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO).

Meanwhile, a large contingent of Oaxacan protesters that began marching Sept. 22 is expected to complete the 300-mile trek and arrive in Mexico City on Oct. 3. Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon has called for President Vicente Fox to hand over a peaceful, conflict-free government Nov. 30. Still, Fox has been pressed from all sides to do something about the protests. However, he has shown little inclination to do anything.

Mexico has had a strong aversion to the federal use of force since an Oct. 2, 1968, student protest was put down violently in Mexico City with as many as 300 students killed. Even during recent protests in Mexico City triggered by the narrow defeat of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the presidential election, crowds were getting out of hand directly in front of an important government building before any forceful action was taken. Things would have to go very badly for a skittish federal government to use force against the Oaxacan protesters, especially since Oct. 2 marks the 38th anniversary of the government violence against student protesters a few days before the beginning of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

However, tanks and troop transport trucks were seen arriving Oct. 1 in Huatulco, 150 miles from Oaxaca. Taken along with the military flyovers, this is certainly a significant development. Nevertheless, military intervention is far from a foregone conclusion. While the government's claim that the overflights are routine supply missions is questionable, they may be little more than an attempt to intimidate the protesters.

While fringe groups may have taken control of the protests, the people of Oaxaca do not have long-standing, intractable disputes with the government that would lead them to insurrection. The APPO is not Hezbollah. When "unidentified gunmen" -- likely to have been the governor's henchmen -- took potshots at protesters, there was no return fire. And while barricades have been built and buses set aflame, the protesters are not armed in any meaningful way.

Nevertheless, it is force that got the problem started in the first place. An annual strike took a new turn when the teachers made far-reaching demands about the rezoning of Oaxaca, but it did not become what it is until the governor used force to suppress it. (?Que debe de haber hecho entonces?)The protests have since centered around a call for Ruiz Ortiz's resignation. The governor has had ample opportunity to muster what local forces he has available, but he wants federal involvement. However, the only military activity we have seen thus far is hardly preparation for a push into Oaxaca -- military overflights and the movement of a small contingent of troops hardly constitutes preparation for military move against the Oaxacan protesters.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 15, 2006, 10:31:36 AM
Mexican Leftists Watching Tabasco Election
Today's gubernatorial vote may determine the political fate of former presidential candidate Lopez Obrador and that of his movement.
By Sam Enriquez, Times Staff Writer
October 15, 2006


TACOTALPA, Mexico ? If you ask Cesar Ascencio, there isn't much to cheer about in this sun-baked southern town. Jobs are scarce and even shade is hard to come by after trees in the central plaza were chopped down for a renovation that's stalled halfway to nowhere.

"We live in one of the worst pueblos in Mexico," the 72-year-old retiree said. "This place is dead."

ADVERTISEMENTA couple of hours later, it came to life, if only for a little while, when hundreds of townspeople gathered at the plaza to hear leftist politician Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promise to bring help to the nation's poor and vengeance on its rich. The crowd roared.

Lopez Obrador, who lost the July 2 presidential election to free-market candidate Felipe Calderon, isn't running for office. But his political future, and that of his fledgling leftist movement, may rest on today's gubernatorial election in Tabasco, Lopez Obrador's home state. He has spent the last several weeks campaigning for Cesar Raul Ojeda, a fellow member of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, who's making an uphill third bid for governor.

A win by Ojeda, 54, would also be a triumph for Lopez Obrador, whose followers barricaded Mexico City's main boulevard for weeks this summer to protest the national election. Lopez Obrador, who says Calderon won by fraud, plans to install himself as the "legitimate" president in an unofficial inauguration next month. But his fight may be an uphill one too, against perceptions that he'll bring Mexico more trouble than hope.

Support for Lopez Obrador has dwindled since protesters closed down their Mexico City encampments a month ago after judges rejected demands for a national recount. So the former Mexico City mayor returned to Tabasco and has since filled plazas in his bid to secure a victory for Ojeda ? and keep his message alive.

"Lopez Obrador is trying to use Tabasco as a catapult for his movement," said Andres Granier, the 58-year-old former mayor of Villahermosa, the state capital, and Ojeda's opponent. "But it's not going to work."

Granier, who holds a lead of 9 percentage points in polls, is a candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has run the state for seven decades. He has waged an aggressive campaign and was a well-liked mayor, but that doesn't fully explain his advantage.

Lopez Obrador won 56% of the presidential vote in Tabasco and remains wildly popular here. The trouble is, his so-called campaign of civil resistance has scared people off, including admirers such as Gilberto Macias.

Macias was in no mood to talk politics as he waited for his overheated car to cool down off a road just outside town. But he quickly rattled off a wish list for the next governor: better salaries, more jobs, safer streets, more hospitals, new roads.

"The minimum wage here is 44 pesos a day [about $4], and food is expensive, electricity is expensive, toll roads are expensive," he said. "We all want help, but now people are afraid of the 'hard left.' We're not sure anymore if we're talking about Allende in Chile or some kind of totalitarian state."

The takeover of the capital of nearby Oaxaca state this summer by striking teachers has people rethinking their support of Mexico's emerging left, he said. "We don't want any kind of trouble like that here," the 53-year-old taxi driver said.

Another Tabascan, Ciro Perez Gomez, said Lopez Obrador was "a good man who's taken the wrong road."

Ojeda said a vote for him was a vote for Lopez Obrador and for the fight to steer Mexico toward a moderate left that uses government spending and private investment to make jobs, that pays subsidies to farmers to keep them from fleeing to the United States.

"It's a modern left," he said, "with government shouldering its responsibility to the people. How can the state have so much money and yet have so many poor?"

He disagreed that losing the election would hurt Lopez Obrador.

"This movement has its own life," Ojeda said. "A loss would give opponents the chance to say it's over, but I believe the roots are deep."

His PRI opponents, he said, were up to the same old political shenanigans that had kept them in power and soured voters on the party's presidential candidate, former Tabasco Gov. Roberto Madrazo, who finished a distant third in the national election.

Ojeda supporters posted a video on YouTube.com that shows a warehouse with hundreds of new bikes that they allege the PRI had planned to give to voters. The video, indexed under "mapacheo," slang for vote-buying, shows the warehouse being emptied within minutes by passersby after its discovery by Ojeda campaigners.

A PRI spokesman said voter giveaways ? which included cooking pans and food ? were humanitarian aid. He would not say whether the bicycles were the PRI's.





"They think they can buy the vote of the people," Ojeda said. "But we have more dignity than that."

The PRI warned last week that Lopez Obrador and the PRD had recruited more than 2,000 radicals to start trouble at the polls. On Friday, authorities announced the arrests of several out-of-state PRD supporters who acknowledged that they had planned to disrupt voting. One man was injured in a jailhouse fall before his confession, police said.

Granier has campaigned on a platform of unity and promises to bring potable water, as well as jobs, schools and clinics to outlying towns.

"There are two distinct roads: ours, which is one of accord; and theirs, of provocation," he said Wednesday in his closing campaign speech.

Later that night, Lopez Obrador boarded the last flight to Mexico City. An aide brought him a cup of coffee and Lopez Obrador begged off a last interview.

"It's over, and I'm tired," he said.

He answered one question: Does he really believe he and his movement will survive a loss in Tabasco?

"Yes, I do," he said. "I believe it in my heart."
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 25, 2006, 06:36:16 PM
Mexico's Cartel Wars: The Threat Beyond the U.S. Border
October 25, 2006 20 52  GMT



By Fred Burton

The U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security subcommittee recently issued a report on the increasing security risks along the U.S.-Mexican border. The report, which focuses on the Mexican drug cartels and the threat they pose to citizens and law enforcement on the U.S. side of the border, cites the cartels' use of military weapons and mercenaries with advanced military training, as well as their affinity for brutality and gratuitous violence.

Violence stemming from the drug cartels has existed for decades in many parts of Mexico. What is new is the fact that cartel violence is now spilling over onto the U.S. side of the border. However, although the House report -- by the Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations -- focuses on the current risks in the border area, the threat posed by the cartels already is making its way farther north. If left unchecked, the fighting can eventually be expected to erupt more widely in nonborder areas, affecting unprepared law enforcement agencies and even civilians.

Much of the violence is a result of the ongoing struggle between the three main drug cartels -- Gulf, Tijuana and Sinaloa -- for control of lucrative narcotics- and human-smuggling routes stretching from Mexico into the United States. Although the Mexican government has made efforts to stem the bloodshed, two main factors have impeded any major progress in this area. First is internal police corruption. Beyond the police commanders and officers who gladly accept money in exchange for providing the cartels with protection are those who face the choice between "plata o plomo," -- "silver or lead" -- meaning take a bribe or take a bullet. Second is the fact that federal and local security services are way outgunned -- both in terms of the types of weapons used and the training level of the people using them.

President-elect Felipe Calderon has vowed to end corruption in Mexico, but his administration will face the same issues as did its predecessors, and there is no indication it will have any more success at stemming the escalating violence. Indeed, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City issued a statement Sept. 15 warning U.S. citizens of the rising level of "brutal violence in areas of Mexico," specifically the persistent violence along the U.S. border in Nuevo Laredo.

Escalating Violence

In one recent and particularly gruesome incident that illustrates the current level of violence in Mexico, a group of masked gunmen entered the Light and Shadow nightclub in Uruapan, Michoacan state, on Sept. 6, fired weapons into the air and then tossed five severed human heads onto the dance floor. Beheadings had already reached the U.S. border in June, when Mexican authorities recovered four beheaded bodies from a vacant lot in Tijuana, and then pulled the heads from the nearby Tijuana River. The victims were three local police officials and a civilian.

Mexican drug gangs, who used the beheadings tactic for the first time in April, are sending a clear message that they are willing to go to any lengths to get what they want -- and that anyone who gets in their way is doomed. This same message also has been delivered via a number of attacks using grenades and assault rifles in other parts of Mexico, including the U.S. border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Tijuana and Juarez.

Another example of the escalation in violence is the Sept. 22 firefight in an upscale neighborhood of Nuevo Laredo between enforcers for the Gulf cartel and the security forces of an assassination target (presumably from the Sinaloa cartel). The engagement, which raged on for some 40 minutes and involved anti-tank weapons, hand grenades and automatic weapons fire, reportedly resulted in the deaths of five Gulf cartel enforcers and five other people.

The Mexican government has tried various tactics throughout the years to stem the violence and corruption associated with cartels, including dispatching military troops to Nuevo Laredo and other border cities. In June 2005, a string of events in Nuevo Laredo -- including the killing of two police chiefs in the city, the second of which occurred only a few hours after he was sworn into office -- prompted the Mexican government to dispatch army troops and federal agents to the town. The army and federal agents detained all 700 officers of the Nuevo Laredo police force and temporarily assumed their duties until some semblance of order could be restored. Following interviews and drug tests, only 150 of the police officers retained their jobs; the rest were terminated or arrested. More recently, in March, the Mexican government assigned an additional 600 members of the Federal Preventative Police to Nuevo Laredo as part of another program to fight increased violence related to the drug trade. Such solutions, however, have failed to stem the corruption and violence. As evidenced by the major firefight Sept. 22, Nuevo Laredo remains a hotbed of cartel activity.

The Ongoing Cartel Wars

Because of its geographical position beneath the United States, Mexico long has been used as a staging and transshipment point for narcotics, illegal aliens and other contraband destined for U.S. markets from Mexico, South America and elsewhere. Turf battles have flared up as various criminal organizations have moved to take control of smuggling routes, or "plazas," that lead into the United States. Over time, the balance of power between the various cartels has shifted as new cartels emerge or older organizations weaken, shrink or collapse -- creating temporary power vacuums that competitors rush to fill. Vacuums sometimes are created by law enforcement successes against a particular cartel; indeed, cartels will often attempt to use law enforcement against each other, either by bribing Mexican officials to take action against a rival or by leaking intelligence about a rival's operations to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

These kinds of tensions and frictions often can lead to inter-cartel warfare. The February 2002 death of Tijuana cartel leader and chief enforcer Ramon Arellano Felix, who was killed in a shootout with police in Mazatlan, and the March 14, 2003, capture of Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen in Matamoros sparked the current period of particularly brutal warfare among the three cartels, which aim to take territory from one another. This war is being waged not only for control of Mexico's incoming drug shipments, in cities such as Acapulco and Cancun, but also for control of the outgoing network, where border towns have been focal points for violence.

The New Enforcers

The likely reason for the most dramatic changes between the drug wars of the past and the current intra-cartel violence is the makeup of the enforcing teams and the weapons they use. Though the cartels historically did their own dirty work, they now have started subcontracting out the violence to enforcers who apparently know no boundaries when it comes to who, how or where they strike.

This escalation has an obvious root cause: Some cartel leaders (notably from the Tijuana cartel) use active or retired police against their enemies, which has forced the targeted cartels to find enforcers capable of countering this strength. As a result, the Gulf cartel hired Los Zetas, a group of elite anti-drug paratroopers and intelligence operatives who deserted their federal Special Air Mobile Force Group in 1991. The Sinaloa cartel, meanwhile, formed a similar armed force called Los Pelones, literally meaning "the baldies" but typically understood to mean "new soldiers" for the shaved heads normally sported by military recruits. Because of attrition, the cartels have recently begun to reach out to bring in fresh muscle to the fight. Los Zetas has expanded to include former police and even motivated civilians. The group also has formed relationships with former members of the Guatemalan special forces known as Kaibiles and with members of the brutal Mara Salvatrucha street gang.

Though cartel enforcers have almost always had ready access to military weapons such as assault rifles, Los Zetas, Los Pelones and the Kaibiles are comprised of highly trained special forces soldiers who are able to use these weapons with deadly effectiveness. Assault rifles in the hands of untrained thugs are dangerous, but if those same rifles are placed in the hands of highly trained special forces soldiers who can operate as a fire team, they can be overwhelmingly powerful -- not only to enemies and other intended targets but also to law enforcement officers who attempt to interfere with their operations.

In addition to powerful handguns and assault rifles (which are frequently smuggled into Mexico from the United States), Los Zetas and Los Pelones are also known to possess and employ rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and improvised explosive devices, and have used them in attacks in several parts of Mexico. Such weapons are not confined to the Mexican side of the border, though. On Feb. 3, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that government agents operating in Laredo seized a large cache of weapons that included dynamite, grenades and materials for making improvised explosive devices. These weapons were associated with the drug cartels.

The various enforcer groups have targeted Mexican government officials protecting rival cartels, the leadership of the rival cartels and members of those cartels' enforcement arms. Some extremely brutal executions of members of Los Zetas and Los Pelones by their contemporaries have occurred, including not only beheading but also a tactic called "necklacing," in which a tire is placed around a victim's neck and set ablaze. (The tactic was made famous by the African National Congress in South Africa).

The drug cartels also conduct intimidation campaigns and reprisal attacks against noncriminal groups such as police, government security forces and journalists -- anyone who is seen as a threat to their business. Such attacks are quite significant, and gruesome executions are often the norm. That said, the crime gangs are not always precise in their targeting. At times, they have mowed down police on the streets with assault rifles or attacked police stations with grenades and other heavy weapons, causing considerable collateral damage.

The Future

In addition to their network of tactical operators, Los Zetas and Los Pelones also have provided the cartels with an advanced intelligence and surveillance capability. This network operates on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border and has been used to protect drug shipments from law enforcement interdiction and the forces of competing cartels. They also are accomplished at countersurveillance operations and at avoiding the countersurveillance activities of their rivals.

Law enforcement officers along the U.S. border have reported many encounters with armed smugglers who do not hesitate to shoot. In one encounter last summer, two deputy sheriffs in Hidalgo County, Texas, were attacked as they patrolled the north bank of the Rio Grande. They reported that their assailants fired 300 to 400 rounds from automatic weapons at them before withdrawing.

To date, the violence associated with this intra-cartel warfare has been much more severe in Mexico than on the U.S. side of the border. Although this trend will continue, violence can be expected to increase on the U.S. side as targeted criminals and others search for safe hiding places. Perhaps as a sign of problems to come, the Los Angeles Times reported Oct. 23 that cartel-related corruption has been "rising dramatically" on the U.S. side of the border. With corruption spreading north, it is only a matter of time before more violence follows -- particularly because the cartels are especially adept at parlaying their power to corrupt into opportunities to commit violence.

Traditionally, when violence has spiked, cartel figures have used U.S. cities such as Laredo and San Diego as rest and recreation spots, calculating that the umbrella of U.S. law enforcement would protect them from being targeted for assassination by their enemies. This is beginning to change, however, as the bolder Mexican cartel hit men carry out assassinations on the U.S. side of the border in places such as Laredo, Rio Bravo and even Dallas, where law enforcement contacts indicate Los Zetas members are believed to have assassinated at least three people.

This change will likely cause high-value cartel targets to move even deeper into the United States to avoid attack, though their enemies' brazen and sophisticated assassins will likely follow. Judging from their history in Mexico and along the border, these assassins will have no qualms about engaging law enforcement personnel who get in their way, or about causing collateral damage. Their intelligence network will be bolstered by their alliances with street gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha and Calle 18, which have affiliates in many large cities throughout the United States. These allies can either provide them with intelligence or, in some cases, be contracted to conduct assassinations.

Though the House report warns of the dangers to law enforcement and civilians on the border, the spread of this cartel violence beyond the border region could catch many law enforcement officers by surprise. Patrol officers conducting a traffic stop on a group of Los Zetas members who are preparing to conduct an assassination in, say, Los Angeles, Chicago or northern Virginia could quickly find themselves heavily outgunned and under fire. Additionally, because of their low regard for human life and disdain for innocent bystanders, any assassination attempts cartel members do manage to launch might be very messy and could result in collateral deaths of innocent people and responding law enforcement officers.

U.S. law enforcement officers along the border are aware of the problem of Mexican cartel violence and have made efforts to mitigate it, though they have found they cannot completely prevent it or root it out. This same reality will apply to the violence that will soon be seen farther inside the United States. The roots of this problem lie in Mexico, and the solution will also need to be found there.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 26, 2006, 06:28:53 AM
Uno mas con el mismo tema.  Es del NY Times hoy.

===============================

URUAPAN, Mexico ? Norte?o music was blaring at the Sol y Sombra bar on Sept. 6 when several men in military garb broke up the late night party. Waving high-powered machine guns, they screamed at the crowd to stay put and then dumped the contents of a heavy plastic bag on the dance floor. Five human heads rolled to a bloody stop.

?This is not something you see every day,? said a bartender, who asked not to be named for fear of losing his own head. ?Very ugly.?

An underworld war between drug gangs is raging in Mexico, medieval in its barbarity, its foot soldiers operating with little fear of interference from the police, its scope and brutality unprecedented, even in a country accustomed to high levels of drug violence.

In recent months the violence has included a total of two dozen beheadings, a raid on a local police station by men with grenades and a bazooka, and daytime kidnappings of top law enforcement officials. At least 123 law enforcement officials, among them 2 judges and 3 prosecutors, have been gunned down or tortured to death. Five police officers were among those beheaded.

In all, the violence has claimed more than 1,700 civilian lives this year, and federal officials say the killings are on course to top the estimated 1,800 underworld killings last year. Those death tolls compare with 1,304 in 2004 and 1,080 in 2001, these officials say.

Mexico?s law enforcement officials maintain that the violence is a sign that they have made progress dismantling the major organized crime families in the country. The arrests of several drug cartel leaders and their top lieutenants have set off a violent struggle among second-rank mobsters for trade routes, federal prosecutors say. The old order has been fractured, and the remaining drug dealers are killing one another or making new alliances.

?These alliances are happening because none of the organizations can control, on its own, the territory it used to control, and that speaks to the crisis that they are in,? said Jos? Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the top federal prosecutor for organized crime.

Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said a steadily rising tide of drug addiction within Mexico had spurred some of the murders, as dealers fought for local markets. At the same time, more and more honest police officers are trying to enforce the law rather than turn a blind eye to drug traffickers, often paying with their lives, prosecutors say.

But those assessments, other authorities say, are overly rosy and may explain only part of the picture. Some experts say the Mexican police forces, weakened by corruption and cowed by assassinations, are simply not up to the task of countering the underworld feuds unleashed by the arrests of cartel leaders over the last six years.

Many of the dead made their living in the drug trade and perished in a larger struggle for territory between a federation of cartels based in Sinaloa, on the Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf Cartel from the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, federal prosecutors say.

The five men beheaded in Uruapan, in Michoac?n, were street-level methamphetamine dealers, addicted themselves to the synthetic drug. They were linked loosely to the Valencia family, which once controlled most of the drug trade in the state and is a part of the Sinaloa group, the police say. The killers came from a gang called The Family, believed to be allied with the Gulf Cartel.

A day before, the killers had kidnapped the five men from a mechanic?s shop they had been using as a front for selling ?ice,? as crystal methamphetamine is called on the street. They sawed their victims? heads off with a bowie knife while they were still alive shortly before going to the bar, law enforcement officials said.

?You don?t do something like that unless you want to send a big message,? said one United States law enforcement official here, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The beheadings, in fact, have become a signature form of intimidation aimed at both criminal rivals and federal and local authorities. In the tourist town of Acapulco, killers from one drug gang decapitated the commander of a special strike force, Mario N??ez Maga?a, in April, along with one of his agents, Jes?s Alberto Ibarra Vel?zquez.

They jammed the heads in a fence in front of the municipal police station. ?So you will learn to respect,? said a red note next to them.

Page 2 of 2)


?This year has been one to forget, a black year,? said Jorge Valdez, a spokesman for the Acapulco police. ?It?s the most violent year in the last 50 years, and the acts are barbaric, bloody, with no trace of humanity.?

The dumping of five men?s heads last month at Sol y Sombra, a club in Uruapan, was just another grisly turn in the drug wars raging in Mexico.
The violence is by no means limited to Acapulco. In mid-July, about 15 gunmen attacked a small-town police station in Tabasco State at dawn with grenades, a bazooka and machine guns in an attempt to liberate two of their gang members, who were arrested after a bar fight the night before.

Two police officers died in the assault. The authorities said the attackers were dressed in the commando outfits of federal agents and belonged to the Zetas, former soldiers who work for the Gulf Cartel.

One reason for the wave of law enforcement killings is that the Mexican police do a poor job of protecting their own. Arrests have been made in only a handful of the assassinations of police officers this year. The overwhelming majority remain unsolved because witnesses fear testifying against drug traffickers. Even seasoned investigators are afraid to dig too deep into the murders.

?There is an atmosphere that affects us, of distrust, of terror inside the police force,? said Jes?s Alem?n del Carmen, the head of the state police in Guerrero, where 22 law enforcement officials have been brutally assassinated this year.

One of the officers killed was Gonzalo Dom?nguez D?az, the state police commander in P?tzcuaro, Michoac?n. In February, he received a death threat from a local businessman who law enforcement officials say has links to the Valencia crime family.

The threat came just minutes after Commander Dom?nguez arrested two men on weapons possession charges. He arrived home that night pale and shaken, said his widow, Fanny Carranza Dom?nguez. His anxiety grew over time, after prosecutors released the men he had arrested, for a lack of evidence, his wife said.

In early May, he told his wife that he had heard on the street that gunmen were looking for him. ?He said, ?I know that if I arrest them I am risking my life,? ? she recalled. ? ?I bring them to the capital, and they let them go.? ?

On May 8, a car cut off Commander Dom?nguez?s police car as he was driving home alone about 6:30 p.m. Within minutes, he was shot point blank in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun and twice in the chest with an AK-47. He never unholstered his sidearm. So far, prosecutors have made no progress in solving his murder. He was 47, the father of three.

?I think the commanders that haven?t been killed are in the game, and the ones that have been killed, it is because they attacked crime,? Mrs. Carranza Dom?nguez said.

?The prosecutor seems asleep here,? she added. ?He doesn?t do anything but collect his salary and go home.?

Commander Dom?nguez was one of 16 state and federal police commanders assassinated this year across Mexico, along with 2 judges handling drug cases and 2 federal prosecutors. Local police chiefs have also been targets. Eight have been murdered, most of them in Michoac?n.

Most were ambushed in their cars or outside their homes by men with machine guns. A few were kidnapped by men posing as federal agents. In these cases, the bodies were found later, shot full of holes, often showing signs of torture.

Commander C?ndido Vargas, 40, the second in command of the state police in Uruapan, died that way in August. Prosecutors say he was walking to his car when he was surrounded by about 15 heavily armed men dressed in black commando outfits like those used by federal agents. It was 3:30 in the afternoon, and he was just 100 yards from the police headquarters.

The men hustled him into one of their vehicles and sped off. He was found the next day on a nearby ranch, shot 25 times. A sign next to his body read: ?For playing with two bands.?

No one from the police department visited his wife and three children, who live in another town, to tell them of his death. ?We found out through the newspaper,? said Paula Vargas, his wife of 23 years. ?It was as if the whole world fell down on me.?

The state prosecutor in Uruapan, Ram?n Ponce, says he has found no evidence of Commander Vargas?s being corrupt. Neither does he have any leads, he said. ?The atmosphere is very tense,? Mr. Ponce said. ?It?s very difficult.?

While attacks on the police have risen, they have been far outpaced by grisly gangland killings. In Michoac?n, The Family is believed to be responsible for the beheadings of a dozen people besides the ones they delivered to the Sol y Sombra bar. The heads have often been accompanied by cryptic messages declaring the killings divine justice, accusing the victims of crimes, or daring their rivals to send more henchmen.

Nearly every day, new victims are found in states along the major drug shipment routes, especially Quintana Roo, Michoac?n, Guerrero, Tamaulipas and Baja California. Most are bound, gagged and shot to death, their bodies dumped on lonely roads.

In the towns hardest hit by the gangland warfare, the fear is palpable. For two years now, Nuevo Laredo has been the main battleground for a fight between gunmen loyal to Joaqu?n (Chapo) Guzm?n of Sinaloa and the remnants of the Gulf Cartel, whose leader, Osiel C?rdenas, is in prison awaiting trial.

?I wouldn?t be human if I said I wasn?t afraid,? acknowledged Elizabeth Hern?ndez Arredone, a state prosecutor in Nuevo Laredo who has taped to her door a photograph of a female judge who recently disappeared.

The effects are everywhere. Many local journalists have stopped covering drug violence for fear they may become targets themselves. Tourists used to spill across the border from Laredo, Tex., to swig tequila, buy trinkets and run wild. Not anymore.

Church attendance is down, said the Rev. Alberto Monteras Monjar?s of Santo Ni?o Church, because even a Sunday morning can be dangerous.

?People used to sleep outside on the porch if it got too hot,? he said. ?Not anymore. You stay inside, and you put three or four locks on the door.?
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 30, 2006, 04:41:04 PM
Supuestamente este foro esta' en espanol-- pero para que sea asi, necesitamos mas apoyo de los quienes de nosotros tengan mas fuentes en espanol.  :-P  Pues, he aqui lo presente sobre la situacion en Oaxaca.
====================================

MORNING INTELLIGENCE BRIEF
10.30.2006
www.stratfor.com



Geopolitical Diary: A Mexican Standoff Worsens

Mexican federal police advanced into the center of Oaxaca City on Sunday, firing tear gas and water cannons at protesters who have been camping there for months. The demonstrators, from the People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), are calling -- among other things -- for the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz, and their protest, which started out in May as an annual teachers' strike, has grown increasingly violent and widespread of late. By late Sunday, police were advancing on a group in the central plaza who were slowing their advance by burning tires and trash and, occasionally, throwing rocks.

The political action is intensifying at a key moment -- for both talks aimed at ending the standoff and the upcoming presidential transition.

On one level, the growing tensions point to the division between the teachers groups that initially took up demonstrations and the separate radical groups that attached themselves to the teachers' cause, uniting as APPO, in June. Both groups have favored calls for Ruiz's resignation, but beyond that they had little in common: The teachers demanded education reforms, while APPO's cause is, at its root, anti-government. With so little to bind them, then, it is hardly surprising that they splintered after entering into negotiations with the federal government. On Oct. 27, the teachers agreed to a deal that would allow classes to resume Oct. 30 -- and made no mention of Ruiz's resignation, a point to which APPO is holding firm.

In recent days, the protests have taken on a more serious tone. At least four people, including an American journalist, were killed when shots were fired in Oaxaca during the weekend, and demonstrations have been taken up in Mexico City as well. In fact, APPO members in the capital on Sunday surrounded a hotel where Ruiz allegedly was staying, demanding to see the guest list -- to prove he was not there -- before dispersing.

Given the rising violence and the break between APPO and the teachers' groups, it appears that President Vicente Fox has had enough. Fox has been notoriously hesitant to use federal security forces in the Oaxaca situation, though the option has been on the table for weeks. The military began conducting flyovers of Oaxaca City on Oct. 1 -- a show of force that temporarily quieted the unrest -- while soldiers assembled in a nearby city. But with supporters outside Oaxaca state taking up APPO's political cause and the clock ticking down toward President-elect Felipe Calderon's swearing-in ceremony, the government cannot afford to let the situation fester any longer.

A negotiated truce between the APPO and police is unlikely: The protest movement has been a rag-tag coalition since its inception, and the poorly organized leadership at this point is having trouble getting supporters to comply even with requests to stop throwing rocks. The stage seems set for more violence. That said, given historical aversions to using federal police to resolve domestic matters, it seems unlikely that government troops will resort to lethal force to quell the unrest.

Fox is attempting to make good on his promise to resolve the crisis before his term ends, but the operation likely has only just begun.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 31, 2006, 08:35:21 AM
MEXICO: Both houses of the Mexican Congress asked Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz to step down in order to end the months-old crisis in his state, which recently saw federal riot police removing protesters from the Oaxaca city center. Before the request, Ruiz had repeatedly ruled out resigning.

www.stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 02, 2006, 08:18:39 AM
MEXICO: The Mexican Federal Preventive Police moved against protesters in Oaxaca as the police took the Channel 9 news building, which was previously besieged by the protesters, and worked to clear the highway of barricades. Hundreds of Molotov cocktails and dozens of homemade rockets were found in the news building; Mexican authorities are preparing charges of interruption of federal communications and explosives possession against the protesters.
www.stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 06, 2006, 08:04:20 AM
MEXICO: Three bombs exploded simultaneously outside of the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a ScotiaBank branch and the Federal Electoral Tribunal building in Mexico City. Another homemade device was deactivated outside a separate ScotiaBank branch. No serious injuries have been reported.
www.stratfor.com

===================

www.newschannel5.tv/pdf/investigations.pdf
Title: Mexico City Bombings
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 06, 2006, 12:39:57 PM
Mexico City Bombings: An Escalation in Tensions
Just after midnight Nov. 6, emergency officials in Mexico City received two telephone calls from an unknown source warning that bombs were about to detonate. A few minutes later, bombs exploded outside of the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a Scotiabank branch and the Federal Electoral Tribunal building. Two more improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were defused later outside of another Scotiabank branch and another PRI building. No serious injuries have been reported.

Although those responsible for the bombings have not been identified, Mexico is facing political and social unrest from two separate camps -- suggesting one of the two, or perhaps a sympathetic outside group, is upping the ante.

Most of the bombs contained approximately 11 pounds of the commercial blasting compound hydrogel, making them fairly large devices (the IED defused outside the PRI building contained just about 1 pound of explosives). Moreover, Mexican security officials said the IEDs were more sophisticated than the kinds of devices seen in previous attacks in the capital, although these were the first bombings in Mexico City since November 2005. At that time, an anti-globalization group calling itself the Barbarous Mexico Revolutionary Workers' Commando detonated two similarly sized bombs outside of two banks, one U.S.-owned and one Spanish-owned.

The tactics employed in the Nov. 6 bombings are similar to those used in the past by leftist groups such as the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) and its various splinters. Although the bombs were larger than those normally used, they were operated on battery-powered timers that were set to detonate at night, when fewer people would be in the area. The defused bombs even had warning signs affixed to them that read "Danger -- Bomb."

The bombings could very well be related to the unrest in Oaxaca state, where an annual teacher's protest has spiraled into a full-blown insurrection that has seen leftists and other opposition groups demand the removal of state Gov. Ulises Ruiz of the PRI.





The People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), the main group in the poorly organized and loosely affiliated movement in Oaxaca, denied later Nov. 6 that it had any part in the bombings. The involvement of militants from the region or groups sympathetic to the APPO cause, however, cannot be ruled out. Even if the APPO leadership did not order the bombings, some of the group's fringe members -- those who believe the group's leadership is unwilling to take the necessary measures -- might have decided to take matters into their own hands.

Just last month, the crisis in Oaxaca took a more violent turn when previously unknown leftist group Revolutionary Armed Organization of the People of Oaxaca (ORAPO), detonated three small IEDs at banks in the troubled state. The ORAPO, however, claimed responsibility for that attack in a letter left at one of the sites. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the Mexico City attacks.

The bombings also could be related to this summer's controversial presidential election. Supporters of failed candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have been increasingly vocal about the strife in Oaxaca -- and could be planning to co-opt it into their agenda. The Federal Electoral Tribunal, which issued the ruling on the contested election that denied Lopez Obrador a victory, could have been targeted by his supporters.

If the bombings are directly connected to Oaxaca, it indicates the unrest that spread from rural Mexico to the capital is escalating. If the bombings are related to the elections, it suggests the opposition is raising the ante while the government tries to deal with the situation in Oaxaca. With both issues unsettled, the remnants of the EPR, its splinters or groups acting on behalf of the Oaxacans would have no shortage of motivations to carry out similar attacks.

Regardless of the motive, these bombings have serious implications for future stability and security in Mexico. President-elect Felipe Calderon, who had hoped to avoid having to deal with the Lopez Obrador or Oaxaca situations when he takes office Dec. 1, will likely find that both issues continue to fester -- and probably escalate. As long as the situation in Oaxaca is unresolved, the risk of similar attacks in the capital will remain.
Send questions or comments
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 08, 2006, 04:13:14 AM
Mexico: Jumping on the Oaxaca Bandwagon
Summary

An umbrella group composed of five armed revolutionary organizations claimed responsibility for the Nov. 6 bombings in Mexico City. In a Nov. 7 Internet statement, the coalition said it will continue to detonate bombs and expand attacks to target 40 national and multinational corporations throughout Mexico as long as Ulises Ruiz remains governor of Oaxaca state. And as the government cracks down on protests, as it recently did in Oaxaca, the movement probably will only grow stronger -- and extend its attacks beyond Mexico City.

Analysis

An umbrella group composed of five armed revolutionary organizations claimed responsibility Nov. 7 for Mexico City's Nov. 6 bombings outside the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a Scotiabank branch and the Federal Electoral Tribunal. The group added that it will carry out more attacks and expand its list of targets as long as Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz remains in power and the government continues to repress dissent. It also said it would target 40 main national and transnational organizations, as well as Mexican political and government institutions.

Mexico's left-wing groups traditionally rally behind prominent issues to harness attention for their causes. It is thus unsurprising that this group emerged amid the row over Mexico's 2006 presidential election and the ongoing crisis in Oaxaca to capitalize on the volatile political environment and win protesters' support. And as the government cracks down on protests -- as it recently did in Oaxaca, the coalition probably will only grow stronger -- and extend its attacks beyond Mexico City.

The coalition is made up of the Lucio Cabanas Barrientos Revolutionary Movement (MR-LCB), Democratic Revolutionary Tendency-People's Army (TDR-EP), Insurgent Organization-May 1, Dec. 2 Execution Brigade and Popular Liberation Brigades. Of these groups, the MR-LCB and TDR-EP are the most well-established. Both are more than five years old, and are offshoots of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), a left-wing guerrilla group that operates throughout Mexico.

The MR-LCB and TDR-EP recently took up the cause of the People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) by echoing the APPO's call for the federal police to withdraw from Oaxaca and for Ruiz to step down. So long as these demands go unmet, the threat to national and transnational companies and government institutions in all parts of Mexico will remain high. But the two groups probably will not drop their threats even if their Oaxaca demands are met. Statements from both reveal that their cause is fundamentally anti-government, and so the Oaxaca crisis merely represents a convenient platform to attract attention. The decision to target multinational corporations is therefore rooted in the group's fundamental ideology.

The new umbrella group said multinational corporations that support the government are responsible for rampant poverty and the marginalization of most Mexicans, and have assisted the "cynical dictatorship" of Ruiz and "governmental repression" on the state and federal level.

This language is reminiscent of defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, though there are no overt links between the umbrella group and Lopez Obrador's movement. Two of the targets of the Nov. 6 bombings -- the PRI headquarters and the Federal Electoral Tribunal building -- did play a role in the Lopez Obrador election row, however. Though PRI ideology is closer to Lopez Obrador and his Democratic Revolutionary Party's views than it is to President-elect Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, the PRI allied itself with Calderon after the election. The Federal Electoral Tribunal attack is more clearly linked to the Lopez Obrador affair, since that body rejected his claims of vote fraud and pronounced Calderon the winner of the July 2 election.

In response to the threats against government and enterprise, police stepped up security in Mexico City, focusing on transportation and state-owned companies, such as the capital's airport and subway system, PRI offices, Petroleos Mexicanos facilities, the Federal Electrical Commission and the Power and Light Co. But violence and unrest have surged beyond Mexico City.

In Oaxaca, a Burger King near a protester-occupied university was vandalized; the words "murderous multinationals" were scrawled on the building, though the restaurant is a franchise owned by local Oaxacans. And late Nov. 6, two small devices thrown at representatives of the Mexican attorney general's office in Ixtapa, a beach resort town in Guerrero state, exploded hours before a scheduled visit by Calderon. No one was injured, and Calderon's trip proceeded undisturbed. While no group has claimed responsibility for the incidents, the targets of the attacks -- a multinational corporation and government agents -- are consistent with the ideology of the coalition responsible for the Mexico City bombings.

The coalition behind the Mexico City attacks also took special care to avoid capture and cause no injuries. If it plans to continue along these lines, Mexico City's increased police presence means the groups will probably conduct future attacks elsewhere.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 09, 2006, 10:49:26 AM
MEXICO: Mexico's People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) said that in order to return to a dialogue, the state must cease all violent action against the group, re-establish the signal to the university radio station, liberate 60 political prisoners and find 30 missing individuals. In the meantime, APPO members have been offered asylum within the Roman Catholic Church.
www.stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 10, 2006, 08:21:22 AM
MEXICO: Members of Mexico's Oaxaca teachers union said they will return to classes Nov. 16 regardless of the ongoing conflict in the southern Mexican city. The teachers originally intended to return to classes Oct. 31 but were prevented from doing so by conflict between the Mexican federal police and the People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca.

MEXICO: Members of the People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca plan to march in Mexico City at 4 p.m. local time. The march will begin at the Independence Column and end at the office of the interior secretary.

www.stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 10, 2006, 12:01:02 PM
MEXICO: Mexican Deputy Interior Secretary Arturo Chavez said federal police forces that have been occupying Oaxaca City will shift from a containment strategy to public safety tactics. Chavez said the change is part of an effort to prevent opportunistic groups from taking advantage of unrest to commit crimes and harm citizens.
www.stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 15, 2006, 08:23:21 AM
MEXICO: Defeated Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he supports the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca's demands for the resignation of Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz. Obrador said his party, the Democratic Revolutionary Party, will support the cause in the legislature.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 20, 2006, 09:47:05 AM
www.strafor.com
MEXICO: Defeated Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans to hold a ceremony at 4 p.m. local time in the Zocalo in Mexico City to inaugurate himself and a 12-person Cabinet as leaders of a shadow government, El Universal reported. Thousands of people are expected to attend the ceremony.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 23, 2006, 05:07:29 AM
Lamento tantos hilos en ingles en un foro supuestamente para espanol.  ?Habra' alguien quien puede ayudarnos con informes desde Mexico?
------------------------------

Mexican Report Cites Leaders for ?Dirty War?
               E-Mail
Print
Reprints
Save

 
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: November 23, 2006
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 22 ? Just before leaving office, the administration of President Vicente Fox has quietly put out a voluminous report that for the first time states unequivocally that past governments carried out a covert campaign of murder and torture against dissidents and guerrillas from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.

The 800-page report is the first acceptance of responsibility by the government for what is known here as the ?dirty war,? in which the police and the army are believed to have executed more than 700 people without trial, in many cases after torture. It also represents the fulfillment of Mr. Fox?s vow when elected in 2000 to expose the truth about an ugly chapter in Mexico?s history.

?The Mexican government has never officially accepted responsibility for these crimes,? said Kate Doyle, the director of the Mexico project of the National Security Archive, a private research group at George Washington University.

Ms. Doyle and other human rights experts said, though, that the special prosecutor who issued the report, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, had not succeeded in prosecuting the officials responsible for the crimes it describes in such detail, notably former President Luis Echeverr?a.

Instead of being announced at a public event, as is often the case, the report was posted on the Internet late Friday night. Some human rights experts say that the way the report was released suggests that Mr. Fox?s enthusiasm for ferreting out the sins of past governments has waned since he took office.

The report relies on secret military and government documents that Mr. Fox ordered declassified. It contains lengthy chapters on the killings of student protesters in Mexico City in 1968 and 1971, as well as a brutal counterinsurgency operation in the state of Guerrero, where military officers destroyed entire villages suspected of helping the rebel leader Lucio Caba?as and tortured their inhabitants.

The report offers considerable detail, including the names of military officers responsible for various atrocities, from the razing of villages to the killing of student protesters.

It does not include orders signed by three presidents authorizing the crimes. Still, the document trail makes clear that the abuses were not the work of renegade officers, but an official government policy.

The events occurred during the administrations of Gustavo D?az Ordaz, Jos? L?pez Portillo and Mr. Echeverr?a. The federal security department kept the presidents informed about many aspects of the covert operations. Genocide charges against Mr. Echeverr?a, the only one still living, were thrown out in July by a judge who ruled that a statute of limitations had run out.

?At the end of this investigation,? the report says, ?it has been proved that the authoritarian regime, at the highest levels of command, impeded, criminalized and fought various parts of the population that organized itself to demand greater democratic participation.?

The authors of the report, which was assembled by 27 researchers, go on to state that ?the battle the regime waged against these groups ? organized among student movements and popular insurgencies ? was outside the law? and employed ?massacres, forced disappearances, systematic torture and genocide, in an attempt to destroy the part of society it considered its ideological enemy.?

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 24, 2006, 12:55:05 PM
Today's NY Slimes:



For years, Roger Barnett has holstered a pistol to his hip, tucked an assault rifle in his truck and set out over the scrub brush on his thousands of acres of ranchland near the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona to hunt.

Skip to next paragraph
 
The New York Times

Hunt illegal immigrants, that is, often chronicled in the news.

?They?re flooding across, invading the place,? Mr. Barnett told the ABC program ?Nightline? this spring. ?They?re going to bring their families, their wives, and they?re going to bring their kids. We don?t need them.?

But now, after boasting of having captured 12,000 illegal crossers on land he owns or leases from the state and emerging as one of the earliest and most prominent of the self-appointed border watchers, Mr. Barnett finds himself the prey.

Immigrant rights groups have filed lawsuits, accusing him of harassing and unlawfully imprisoning people he has confronted on his ranch near Douglas. One suit pending in federal court accuses him, his wife and his brother of pointing guns at 16 illegal immigrants they intercepted, threatening them with dogs and kicking one woman in the group.

Another suit, accusing Mr. Barnett of threatening two Mexican-American hunters and three young children with an assault rifle and insulting them with racial epithets, ended Wednesday night in Bisbee with a jury awarding the hunters $98,750 in damages.

The court actions are the latest example of attempts by immigrant rights groups to curb armed border-monitoring groups by going after their money, if not their guns. They have won civil judgments in Texas, and this year two illegal Salvadoran immigrants who had been held against their will took possession of a 70-acre ranch in southern Arizona after winning a case last year.

The Salvadorans had accused the property owner, Casey Nethercott, a former leader of the Ranch Rescue group, of menacing them with a gun in 2003. Mr. Nethercott was convicted of illegal gun possession; the Salvadorans plan to sell the property, their lawyer has said.

But Mr. Barnett, known for dressing in military garb and caps with insignia resembling the United States Border Patrol?s, represents a special prize to the immigrant rights groups. He is ubiquitous on Web sites, mailings and brochures put out by groups monitoring the Mexican border and, with family members, was an inspiration for efforts like the Minutemen civilian border patrols.

?The Barnetts, probably more than any people in this country, are responsible for the vigilante movement as it now exists,? said Mark Potok, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks the groups. ?They were the recipients of so much press coverage and they kept boasting, and it was out of those boasts that the modern vigilante movement sprang up.?

Jesus Romo Vejar, the lawyer for the hunting party, said their court victory Wednesday would serve notice that mistreating immigrants would not pass unpunished. Although the hunters were not in the United States illegally, they contended that Mr. Barnett?s treatment of them reflected his attitude and practices toward Latinos crossing his land, no matter what their legal status.

?We have really, truly breached their defense,? Mr. Vejar said, ?and this opens up the Barnetts to other attorneys to come in and sue him whenever he does some wrong with people.?

Mr. Vejar said he would ask the state attorney general and the county attorney, who had cited a lack of evidence in declining to prosecute Mr. Barnett, to take another look at the case. He also said he would ask the state to revoke Mr. Barnett?s leases on its land.

Mr. Barnett had denied threatening anyone. He left the courtroom after the verdict without commenting, and his lawyer, John Kelliher, would not comment either.

In a brief interview during a court break last week, Mr. Barnett denied harming anyone and said that the legal action would not deter his efforts. He said that the number of illegal immigrants crossing his land had declined recently but that he thought it was only a temporary trend.

?For your children, for our future, that?s why we need to stop them,? Mr. Barnett said. ?If we don?t step in for your children, I don?t know who is expected to step in.?

Mr. Barnett prevailed in a suit in the summer when a jury ruled against a fellow rancher who had sued, accusing him of trespassing on his property as he pursued immigrants. Another suit last year was dropped when the plaintiff, who had returned to Mexico, decided not to return to press the case.



===========



Page 2 of 2)



Still, the threat of liability has discouraged ranchers from allowing the more militant civilian patrol groups on their land, and accusations of abuse seem to be on the wane, said Jennifer Allen of the Border Action Network, an immigrant rights group.

Skip to next paragraph
 
Michael Mally for The New York Times
Ronald Morales, right, his daughter Angelique Venese and others won a civil suit against Roger Barnett. They said he detained them illegally then pointed a rifle at them after running them off.

 
Jeffry Scott/Arizona Daily Star
Roger Barnett owns or leases 22,000 acres near the border.

But David H. Urias, a lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund who is representing the 16 immigrants suing Mr. Barnett, said fewer complaints did not necessarily mean less activity. Immigrants from Mexico are returned to their country often within hours and often under the impression that their deportation ? and chance to try to return again ? will go quicker without their complaints.

?It took us months to find these 16 people,? Mr. Urias said.

People who tend ranches on the border said that even if they did not agree with Mr. Barnett?s tactics they sympathized with his rationale, and that putting him out of business would not resolve the problems they believe the crossers cause.

?The illegals think they have carte blanche on his ranch,? said Al Garza, the executive director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in Arizona, a civilian patrol group that, Mr. Garza says, does not detain illegal immigrants but calls in their movements to the Border Patrol. ?The man has had it.?

Mr. Barnett, a retired Cochise County sheriff?s deputy and the owner of a towing business, acquired his ranch in the mid-1990s, buying or leasing from the state more than 22,000 acres.

Almost from the start he took up a campaign against the people crossing the border from Mexico, sometimes detaining large groups and radioing for the Border Patrol to pick them up.

Chuy Rodriguez, a spokesman for the agency?s Tucson office, said the Border Patrol maintained no formal relationship with Mr. Barnett or other civilian groups. Agency commanders, concerned about potential altercations, have warned the groups not to take the law into their hands.

?If they see something, we ask them to call us, like we would ask of any citizen,? Mr. Rodriguez said.

Mr. Barnett?s lawyers have suggested he has acted out of a right to protect his property.

?A lease holder doesn?t have the right to protect his cattle?? Mr. Kelliher asked one of the men in the hunting party, Arturo Morales, at the trial.

?I guess so, maybe,? Mr. Morales replied.

Mr. Barnett has had several encounters with local law enforcement officials over detaining illegal immigrants, some of whom complained that he pointed guns at them. The local authorities have declined to prosecute him, citing a lack of evidence or ambiguity about whether he had violated any laws.

A few years ago, however, the Border Action Network and its allied groups began collecting testimony from illegal immigrants and others who had had confrontations with Mr. Barnett.

They included the hunters, who sued Mr. Barnett for unlawful detention, emotional distress and other claims, and sought at least $200,000. Ronald Morales; his father, Arturo; Ronald Morales?s two daughters, ages 9 and 11; and an 11-year-old friend said Mr. Barnett, his brother Donald and his wife, Barbara, confronted them Oct. 30, 2004.

Ronald Morales testified that Mr. Barnett used expletives and ethnically derogatory remarks as he sought to kick them off state-owned property he leases. Then, Mr. Morales said, Mr. Barnett pulled an AR-15 assault rifle from his truck and pointed it at them as they drove off, traumatizing the girls.

Mr. Kelliher conceded that there was a heated confrontation. But he denied that Mr. Barnett used slurs and said Ronald Morales was as much an instigator. He said Morales family members had previously trespassed on Mr. Barnett?s land and knew that Mr. Barnett required written permission to hunt there.

Even as the trial proceeded, the Border Patrol reported a 45 percent drop in arrests in the Douglas area in the last year. The agency credits scores of new agents, the National Guard deployment there this summer and improved technology in detecting crossers.

But Ms. Allen of the Border Action Network and other immigrant rights supporters suspect that people are simply crossing elsewhere
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 01, 2006, 03:58:06 PM
Lo presente me lo mando' Mauricio. !Gracias!

====================


Lo que Fox Cumplió (de sus promesas):
 
Gobierno al servicio de los ciudadanos:
 
. Construir un estado democrático de derecho: promover reformas legales y constitucionales que acoten las facultades del presidente de la republica que garanticen la autonomía y el equilibrio entre los poderes legislativo, ejecutivo y judicial; y hagan realidad el federalismo y el municipio libre.
. Fortalecimiento de instituciones públicas y consolidación de la transición democrática.
. Respetar la libertad, la diversidad y la pluralidad de la sociedad mexicana y a no usar nunca el poder de estado para imponer estilos de vida, creencias o códigos particulares de comportamiento.
. Un gobierno plural e incluyente que integre a mujeres y hombres de reconocida capacidad, calidad moral y sentido de responsabilidad.
(nada extraordinario ni fuera de lo común).
(solo 4)
 
Lo que NO cumplió Fox (sus promesas rotas):
 
Mas empleos y mejores salarios:
 
. Crear las condiciones para que la economía crezca a tasas de 7%, y genere, cuando menos, 1,300,000 empleos anuales.
. Garantizar la estabilidad de los indicadores fundamentales de la economía y asegurar la solidez del sistema financiero.
. Combatir el rezago laboral y el subempleo en el que viven millones de personas.
Superación de la pobreza y justa distribución del ingreso:
. Diseñar una política social de estado con visón de largo plazo.
. Aplicar medidas que disminuyan los elementos de pobreza con resultados en el corto plazo e eliminar los factores que provocan la transmisión generacional de la miseria.
. Garantizar el acceso a la infraestructura social básica.
 
Ataque frontal a la corrupción:
 
. Un gobierno honesto y transparente que inspire confianza a la ciudadanía.
. Un gobierno que informe con veracidad y oportunidad.
. Combatir la corrupción sin privilegios y salvedades.
. Fin de impunidad de funcionarios que cometen actividades ilícitas.
 
Construcción de un país seguro:
 
. Llevar a cabo la reforma integral del sistema de seguridad pública y justicia, a fin de incrementar la eficacia de sus instituciones.
. Atacar con firmaza la inseguridad y solucionar sus causas.
. Combatir el narcotráfico y el crimen organizado.
. Promover el respeto a los derechos humanos.
 
Desarrollo regional equilibrado:
 
. Democratizar la economía, distribuyendo las oportunidades para todos y en todas las regiones del país.
. Transferencia equitativa de recursos y facultades a estados y municipios.
. Reactivar las regiones más rezagadas e impulsar la actividad económica local.
. Fortalecer el campo y estimular la industria.
 
Nueva relación entre Mexicanos:
 
. Dar un mayor dinamismo al sector social.
. Promover acciones para eliminar toda forma de discriminación y exclusión de grupos minoritarios.
. Garantizar la equidad de genero creando oportunidades en todos los ámbitos a las mujeres.
. Crear las condiciones políticas para la solución pacífica del conflicto en Chiapas, y para los grupos armados que existen en el país, con estricto apego a derecho.
. Reconocer a los ciudadanos de la tercera edad su retribución al país.
. Verdaderas oportunidades para que la juventud construya su propio destino.
 
Gobierno ecologista:
 
. Un plan verde para revertir el desarrollo ambiental de agua, aire, suelo y subsuelo a lo largo y ancho de país.
. Un gobierno comprometido con la naturaleza y el desarrollo, que de vida a la política ambiental.
. Esfuerzo común: gobierno, sectores productivos y sociedad.
 
Relaciones exteriores:
 
. Política exterior preactiva y diversificada.
. Mayor participación en organismos internacionales.
. Ampliación del comercio exterior.
. Defensa de los derechos de los Mexicanos que viven en el extranjero.
. Dinamizar el papel de las embajadas y consulados de nuestro país.
(32 si no conté mal)
 
Lo que Fox medio cumplió (sus intentos mediocres):
 
Acceso a una educación de calidad:
 
. Garantizar una educación pública, laica y gratuita de calidad y con valores.
. Asegurar la educación a los niños y jóvenes marginados.
. Establecer la equidad como un imperativo de la educación a través del sistema de becas y financiamiento.
. Elevar el nivel y la calidad del sistema educativo así que las condiciones de trabajo para los alumnos como para los maestros.
. Proporcionar a los Mexicanos la posibilidad de capacitación y educación permanente.
 
Lo que Fox deja:
 
Administración:
 
. Disturbio legal y político: relacionado con el desafuero del jefe de gobierno de la capital del país.
 
Reformas estructurales:
 
. Vicente Foz no pudo impulsar hasta su aprobación las tres reformas más importantes que había planeado para su mandato: la reforma fiscal, la reforma energética y la reforma laboral.
 
Relaciones exteriores:
 
. Confrontaciones con países latinoamericanos particularmente con Cuba, Venezuela y miembros del MERCOSUR (Argentina, Paraguay y Uruguay).
. Defensa categórica del ALCA.
 
. El alejamiento de México con América latina también se ha puesto en evidencia tras diversos desencuentros con otros países de la región, coincidentemente todos con Gobiernos de tendencia de Izquierda; pero elegidos democráticamente en las urnas (Brasil, Uruguay, Bolivia y Chile).
 
Comercial:
 
. De 2001 a 2005 la Secretaría de Economía ejecutó una amplia estrategia de negociaciones comerciales internacionales que han respaldado la colocación de un mayor número de productos mexicanos en los mercados del exterior: o el tratado de libre comercio con el triángulo del norte (El Salvador, Honduras y Guatemala, 2001) o el TLC con la Asociación Europea de Libre Comercio (Islandia, Noruega, Liechtenstein y Suiza, Julio 2001) o el TLC con Uruguay en Julio de 2004 o el Acuerdo de la asociación económica con Japón desde Abril de 2005; el Acuerdo de Complementación Económica (ACE) con Brasil, 2003.
 
Situación Política:
Inestabilidad:
 
. Plantón de Reforma.
 
. Conflicto de Oaxaca.
 
. Inestabilidad política brutal y desacuerdos.
 
. Separación del pueblo de México.
 
Empleo:
 
. Antes de ser elegido como presidente, Fox prometió en su campaña que proporcionaría a cada Mexicano la oportunidad de un trabajo en México. En la práctica se asegura que Fox ha dependido en gran parte de una política de migración hacia los Estados Unidos como manera de proporcionar los medios de subsistencia a los obreros Mexicanos.
 
. Entre el 2000 y el 2005, más de 2 millones 632 mil Mexicanos decidieron ir a EU en busca de empleo, según datos del Pew Hispanic.
 
. En México solo unos 15 millones de trabajadores, solo una tercera parte de la población económicamente activa (PEA) desempeña una ocupación en el sector formal.
. Las personas más afectadas directamente por el desempleo y las más precarias condiciones asciende a 31 millones 700 mil, que representan 30% de la oblación del país.
 
. En Diciembre de 2000 el organismo reportó que el universo de desocupados en el país se ubicaba en 612 mil 209 individuos; de tal manera que esta cifra registró una expansión de 188% en el sexenio, lo que representó que un millón 150 mil Mexicanos se sumaron a la búsqueda de empleo que no encuentran, sin considerar a las personas que decidieron abandonar el país para radicar en el extranjero.
 
Popularidad:
 
. En mayo de 2006, recibió críticas nacionales e internacionales, debido a una declaración que fue considerada racista.
 
. Un uso descuidado de formas idiomáticas comunes en el lenguaje coloquial mexicano, lo cual sus detractores afirman que es una de las muchas pruebas de su falta de habilidad como político y estadista.
 
Pobreza:
 
. En los últimos 6 años la pobreza creció 10% hasta abarcar 75% de los 100 millones de habitantes del país, y la desigualdad social se acentuó.
 
. Uno de los más sonados triunfos del gobierno de Fox fue el reconocimiento tácito del Banco Mundial en cuanto a que los programas sociales que se aplican en México, han permitido disminuir el porcentaje de la pobreza “extrema” (no confundir con pobreza) en 17 puntos porcentuales, sin embargo esta reducción apenas es 1% menor del porcentaje que teníamos en 1994 antes de la crisis provocada por Salinas de Gortari.
 
. La pobreza alimentaría se redujo en 6.9 puntos porcentuales, lo que significa que 5.6 millones de personas superaron esta condición.
 
Derechos Humanos (¿hay?):
 
. Mientras fue el primer país del mundo en adoptar plenamente el Protocolo de Estambul para combatir y sancionar cualquier acto de tortura, sin embargo la actual administración (o la que terminó) no pudo dar respuesta a los más de 400 asesinatos de mujeres en Ciudad Juárez.
 
. En México cada día 3 mujeres, niñas y adulas, son asesinadas solo por condición de género. Esta cifra revela que los feminicidios van más allá del caso de las muertas de Juárez, pues en 6 años de 1999 a 2005, 6000 mujeres fueron victimadas en 10 estados del país.
 
. Según estadísticas de la Comisión Nacional de los derechos Humanos (CNDH) del primero de Noviembre de 2000 al 31 de Julio de 2006 se han presentado 246 quejas de agresiones a periodistas.
 
. En México son asesinados en promedio 4 periodistas al año y de 2000 a la fecha suman 22 casos.
 
Seguridad, Orden y respeto:
 
. De 2001 a Agosto de 2006 la red consular atendió 491 mil 125 casos de protección y asistencia a Mexicanos en el exterior, a fin de apoyarlos en su defensa contra actos que atentan contra su dignidad y libertad, así como sus derechos humanos y laborales, cifra que representa un incremento de 72,2% comparada con los casos atendidos en el sexenio 1995-2000. Lo que significa que la actual administración ha atendido casi el doble de casos que la anterior.
 
. En 2005, México suplanto a Colombia en el puesto del país más asesino para la prensa, de todo el continente americano.
 
. México se convirtió en un país peligroso para la prensa durante el gobierno de Vicente Fox (2000-2006) con más de 20 asesinatos de periodistas.
 
Felipe Calderón Hinojosa:
 
Para que se den una idea; nada más los retos que debe cumplir por lo heredado gracias al incompetente de Vicente Fox, es más que todo lo que anteriormente he escrito para compartirlo con Ustedes.
 
Escribiré solo o que considero (no más importante) pero si actual sobre los temas relacionados con los asuntos que Calderón hereda de Vicente Fox.
 
. Aumentar las reservas premolerás de México pues han caído drásticamente.
 
. Aumentar el Producto Interno Bruto (PIB) (supongo que no se refieren a personas como Fox).
 
. México ocupa el cuarto lugar entre las naciones con mayor grado de desigualdad en América Latina, que es la región más desigual del mundo.
 
. Deberá tomar en cuanta a los simpatizantes del PRD (no como lo hizo, o no lo hizo Fox) para evitar frustraciones que leven a conflictos mayores.
 
. Control a focos rojos de violencia o estado de sitio como Oaxaca.
 
. Contexto de inseguridad.
 
. Incrementar los servicios de seguridad social, actualmente, 54.5% de los Mexicanos no están cubiertos por la seguridad social tradicional.
 
. Reanudar relaciones con América latina, especialmente con Cuba y Venezuela.
 
. Estrategias para impulsar el comercio, la infraestructura y la cooperación científica, tecnológica y académica.
 
. Establecer acuerdos con EU en materia de migración.
 
. Terminar con la inseguridad, la violencia y el robo. Hoy la inseguridad ha alcanzado niveles desproporcionados, causados por la infiltración del crimen organizado, y/o narcotráfico en los distintos niveles de gobierno y fuerzas de seguridad.
 
. Disminuir la cifra de secuestros, desapariciones y asesinatos.
 
. Garantizar que todas las personas tengan una ocupación digna, bien remunerada y estable.
 
. Disminuir la informalidad y el trabajo precario.
 
. Reducir un desempleo de más de 11 MILLONES de Mexicanos.
 
. Crear oportunidades internas para detener la excesiva migración de indocumentados e EU.
 
. Promover la igualdad de oportunidades educativas entre grupos vulnerables de la población.
 
. Aumentar el nivel educativo en la población, actualmente 28 de cada 100 jóvenes no tienen garantizado su derecho a la educación media.
 
.hasta el año 2000 la deforestación era de una 600 mil hectáreas anuales, tendencia que se mantenía a principio de 2006. Nuestro país contaba originalmente con 22 millones de hectáreas de selvas húmedas o bosques tropicales, hoy en día difícilmente restan más de 800 mil hectáreas dispersas en la región Lacandona, en Veracruz y otras regiones de Oaxaca (a pesar de los planes de Gobierno Ecologista de Fox: Gobierno ecologista:
 
. Un plan verde para revertir el desarrollo ambiental de agua, aire, suelo y subsuelo a lo largo y ancho de país.
 
. Un gobierno comprometido con la naturaleza y el desarrollo, que de vida a la política ambiental.
 
. Esfuerzo común: gobierno, sectores productivos y sociedad.)
. Recientes análisis estiman que en México se perdieron 29,765Km2 de bosque (superficie equivalente al estado de Guanajuato) de 1976 a 1933, mientras que de 1993 a 2000 (bueno, aún no llegaba Fox) se perdieron 54,306 Km2 (superficie equivalente al estado de Campeche).
 
 
 
Y bueno … !Las Promesas!:
. Dar continuidad al cambio y seguir la democratización.
 
. Combatir la cultura de la ilegalidad; la corrupción (incluso en cuerpo policíacos); la impunidad; la ineficacia de la investigación criminal; y la ausencia de una política preventiva e integradora, donde lo relevante sea la participación ciudadana.
 
. Crear un sistema único de información criminalística.
 
. Hacer de México un país ganador y generador de empleo.
 
. Promover el crecimiento económico.
 
. Compromiso con la protección del medio ambiente, aunque dijo que hay obstáculos que superar (ya empezamos, pues ¿qué en lo demás no hay obstáculos?, y de haber obstáculos: ¿será más difícil eso que combatir la corrupción y la inseguridad social? Yo no lo creo).
 
. Política exterior responsable.
 
. Desarrollar una política exterior más activa a favor de los derechos humanos y democráticos universales.
 
. Procurarse mecanismos que refuercen y extiendan los lazos culturales (por fin), políticos y económicos con América latina mientras México es un país latinoamericano inserto en Norteamérica (¿y eso qué?).
 
. Complementar nuestras acciones con los objetivos del milenio propuestos por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas.
 
. Promover activamente los derechos humanos y la democracia en el plano nacional e internacional).
 
Muchas gracias por haberse tomado el tiempo de leer este correo, seguro estoy de que a todos les interesó, pues Vicente Fox (gracias a Dios) ya terminó su gestión, y (muy a pesar mío y de muchos millones más de Mexicanos) el IFE y el TRIFE dieron por vencedor a Felipe Calderón como presidente de México, y ahora (aunque el Peje haga teatro, maroma y circo con su supuesta toma de protesta y todo el show ridículo del 20 de noviembre de 2006 en el zócalo de la ciudad de México; que conste, de haber podido votar en las elecciones lo habría hecho pro el Peje, pero aún así no apoyo actos ridículos ni manifestaciones que atenten en contra de la paz social y de miles de Mexicanos (como el plantón de Reforma), ó que (en mi caso) arbitrariamente te me quiten 2 días de salario (por orden del Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas) para mantener y apoyar la campaña y faramallas del Peje) debemos apoyar y confiar nuevamente en que el nuevo presidente cumplirá debidamente con sus obligaciones, o si no: que el pueblo se lo demande (ojala lo cumpliéramos alguna vez). Yo esperaré que todo lo malo de mi querido, adorado y amado México se resuelvan por la vía pacífica y por el diálogo, se que un presidente no es un mago ni es Dios, mucho menos un Jedi (broma), por eso apoyaré lo más que pueda y mientras mi criterio y bolsillo me lo permitan al nuevo presidente, pero eso si, y que quede muy claro, si me falla se lo demandaré agresivamente, que quede claro, pues para mi el no debió asumir la presidencia de México.
Salud.
 
Deseo a todo el pueblo de México felices pascuas y próspero año nuevo,
 
Mauricio Sánchez Reyes
 
1 de Diciembre de 2006.
Texto tomado del enlace en la página principal del sitio de Prodigy / MSN.
 
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 05, 2006, 09:23:26 AM
MEXICO: The leader of Mexico's People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), Flavio Sosa, was arrested late Dec. 4 on charges of kidnapping, robbery, vandalism and irregular detentions, El Universal reported. The charges are related to the APPO's street blockades in Oaxaca. Sosa was arrested after arriving in Mexico City to re-establish negotiations with the federal government.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 12, 2006, 06:35:57 AM
stratfor.com

Geopolitical Diary: Calderon's Presidential Challenges

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who took office Dec. 1, began his term on unsteady ground. He faces an unresolved conflict in the southern state of Oaxaca, was inaugurated amid a physical brawl in the legislature, is troubled by widespread questioning of his legitimacy after his July 2 election win by a razor-thin margin, and continues to be publicly challenged by his defeated opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who established a "shadow" government.

Given his unsteady start, Calderon knows he must act with resolve if he is to preserve or earn any respect. Settling the Oaxaca conflict is Calderon's first attempt to assert his leadership.

Tensions in Oaxaca have recently lessened, following the Dec. 4 arrest of Flavio Sosa, leader of the People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO). Authorities arrested Sosa in Mexico City after he arrived to negotiate with the federal government. A Dec. 10 Oaxaca City march, calling for the release of Sosa and other arrested APPO members and the removal of Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz, drew less than 2,000 supporters.

High-ranking Democratic Revolutionary Party members led the march, since APPO's remaining leaders are in hiding for fear of being arrested. The hole-up of APPO members highlights the Federal Preventive Police's success in countering the group. The police have carried out massive arrests and raids, and have launched a full investigation into APPO allegations that many of the protest-related shootings have been by off-duty or undercover vigilante police officers.

Calderon's willingness to contend with Oaxaca and issue a serious response within his 10-day rule is a notable diversion from predecessor President Vicente Fox's reluctance to address Oaxaca's unrest. Fox deployed federal forces to Oaxaca at the last minute, making Calderon's administration committed to the conflict for the long haul. When federal forces eventually pull out of the city, Calderon wants to ensure they hand over control to a local authority that is accountable and trustworthy -- no easy task.

Calderon has something to prove, and the weakening APPO is a convenient target. But Sosa's arrest and the subsequent raids and investigations will not be enough to assure Calderon's authority for his entire term. Though he is unlikely to target Lopez Obrador's movement -- since it is largely irrelevant -- Calderon will seek out more avenues, such as cracking down on drug cartels and corruption and improving government transparency, to establish his validity as president and build alliances with opposing parties. He already intends to pursue massive governmental reforms, many of which will be undoubtedly unpopular; however, we can expect to see Calderon lead his quest for change with labor reforms that will create more jobs -- a popular issue in Mexico, where job creation has rarely approached demand.

Maintaining control of his government will prove to be a challenge for Calderon, who, regardless of his successful show of force in Oaxaca, must contend with a fractured populace and a divided Congress. Calderon has proven that he has the backbone to govern Mexico and settle internal conflicts, but Oaxaca is only a start.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 13, 2006, 01:43:37 PM

MEXICO: Former Mexican Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal Carranza and former President Vicente Fox will pay a political price for their role in the unrest in the southern state of Oaxaca, Guillermo Zavaleta, the president of Mexico's Congressional Justice Commission and a deputy from the National Action Party, said. Zavaleta said he believes Abascal has a "great responsibility" for the Oaxaca unrest because he took more than three months to respond to the growing violence.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 14, 2006, 08:28:06 AM
MEXICO: The Mexican federal preventative police force has doubled in size because of the transfer of 10,000 troops from the army and navy, El Universal reported. The move is part of President Felipe Calderon's campaign to combat crime in Mexico.

Stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 19, 2006, 06:07:21 PM
Mexico: Illusory Victories in Michoacan
Summary

Mexican officials said Dec. 18 they have arrested several major players in the drug cartels operating in the violence-plagued southwestern state of Michoacan. The arrests are part of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's effort to act on a campaign promise to aggressively target the cartels. Despite the dozens of arrests resulting from the operation, the sweep will result in only minimal long-term damage to the cartels.

Analysis

Security forces operating in Mexico's southwestern state of Michoacan have seized more than 100 weapons, 300 pounds of marijuana seeds and 17 pounds of opium poppy seeds, and have arrested more than 50 individuals suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. The seizures and arrests came as part of Operacion Conjunta Michoacan (OCM), an anti-cartel operation now entering its second week, Mexican officials said Dec. 18. The suspects include midlevel members of both the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels.

The arrests are part of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's effort to act on a campaign promise to aggressively target the cartels. And while the operation's results might seem impressive, the sweep will have little effect on the cartels' strategic positions in the long run.

Among the arrestees was Alfonso Barajas Figueroa, aka "Ugly Poncho," who was captured Dec. 16 in the town of Apatzingan, where he commanded a unit of approximately 35 Zetas -- the Gulf cartel's enforcers. Although Mexican authorities are calling him a "primary operator," he was not part of the Gulf cartel or Zeta national command structure. Elias Valencia, of the rival Valencia cartel, part of Sinaloa, was caught Dec. 15 along with four associates at a mountain ranch near Aguililla. (Many leaders in the Valencia cartel share the surname "Valencia.")

Two alleged "sicarios," or hired assassins, working for the Valencia cartel named Leonel Lopez Guizar and Rosalio Mendoza Gonzalez also were arrested. Finally, alleged Sinaloa cartel lieutenant Jesus Raul Beltran, who served under top cartel leader Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, was arrested Dec. 16 in Guadalajara. Raul Beltran reportedly tried to bribe the authorities $1 million not to arrest him.

Despite the high-profile arrests, crackdowns like OCM could be opportunities for cartels to offer up certain members in order to create diversions, or to have the police dispose of overly ambitious members without risking fighting within the cartel.

The operation also will have a minimal impact on the drug smugglers' organizations. The cartels are large intricate groups often made up of supporting alliances of smaller cartels, such as Sinaloa. Thus, even if the arrest of a leader or other figure damages one part of the organization, another part of the group can assume the damaged part's role. The cartels also are often compartmentalized so that one section's removal does not compromise the remainder of the group. Further hardening the illicit groups against law enforcement efforts, the cartels' organizational structures are robust. They are distributed horizontally, and are based on family relationships and personal alliances. Because of this, multiple figures can fill leadership vacuums when high-ranking members are arrested

Thus, while Calderon's efforts in Michoacan might initially bear fruit, their long-term effect on Mexico's drug war will be minimal. With so much attention being paid to Michoacan, the various cartels there could simply move to other states. And as for Michoacan itself, the only real possibility of relief from drug violence would come if one cartel were so weakened by OCM that its rival could expel it from the state.

Ultimately, the loss of midlevel operators will not cripple either the Gulf or Sinaloa cartels in Michoacan. A significant Mexican federal forces presence will therefore have to remain in the state for a long time in order to deny the area to the cartels.

www.stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on December 20, 2006, 03:21:24 PM
Hola a todos, despues de una larga ausencia me incorporo al foro, veo que hay mucha informacion, sobre todo en el presente topico, aunque tarde comparto con ustedes un articulo de un periodista estadounidense respecto a la toma de posesion del Calderon:

Asunción relámpago de un Presidente débil, perciben medios estadunidenses
   
DAVID BROOKS CORRESPONSAL
Entre los estadunidenses invitados al Palacio Legislativo estuvieron George Bush, ex presidente; Tony Garza, embajador en México, y Alberto Gonzales, procurador general

Nueva York, 1º de diciembre. Las escenas de golpes, jaloneos y concurso de coros en el Palacio Legislativo de San Lázaro se transmitieron aquí, en el contexto en que los medios reportaron sobre la toma de posesión de Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, a quien casi todos, de alguna manera u otra, califican como uno de los presidentes más débiles en tiempos recientes.

"Nuevo líder mexicano entró a hurtadillas a su puesto", fue la cabeza de la nota del traslado del poder presidencial en México en el portal de CBS News esta mañana. Casi a la misma hora, CNN transmitía múltiples veces las escenas dentro del Congreso ante el suspenso sobre si Calderón llegaría a la tribuna, e identificaba la imagen con "críticos dicen que Calderón se robó la elección". A lo largo del día se regresó al tema hablando de las condiciones de "debilidad" en que asume el poder, con un título abajo de la imagen: "López Obrador dice que es presidente 'legítimo'". Esta noche, en los noticiarios nacionales de ABC News y NBC News se mostraron las escenas caóticas del Congreso y se informó que Calderón tomó protesta "con prisa"; que hubo miles de manifestantes en la calle expresando su oposición y que la elección continúa en disputa.
 
Las agencias de noticias informaron sobre los golpes, empujones y el tiradero de curules en la pugna por controlar la sala, y una reportó que, al entrar el gobernador Arnold Schwarzenegger a San Lázaro, sonrió y dijo: "está buena la acción". El único comentario oficial desde Washington fue justo en respuesta a una pregunta sobre el tumulto en el Congreso por la toma de posesión. Tom Casey, vocero asistente del Departamento de Estado, aceptó: "ha habido un número de controversias políticas internas como secuela de la elección", y subrayó que "tenemos confianza en las instituciones democráticas de México".
Añadió: "es bienvenida la inauguración del presidente Calderón", y aseguró que el gobierno estadunidense espera continuar con la buena relación que se gozó con Vicente Fox.
Los Angeles Times publicó hoy que Calderón tomaría su puesto "como uno de los presidentes más débiles de México, rodeado por capos de la droga despiadados, monopolistas industriales, evasores de impuestos y un movimiento izquierdista frontal que amenaza con bloquearle cada movida".
El New York Times se enfocó en el espectáculo dentro del Congreso en días recientes como manifestación de los desafíos que enfrentará el Presidente, en particular la brecha que se abrió con la elección y "la parálisis que Calderón tendrá que superar para abordar
una gama de asuntos urgentes".
En un editorial publicado en su edición de este viernes, Los Angeles Times reitera: "Calderón aparece desmedidamente más débil que Fox" hace seis años, pero sugiere que esto puede ser también una oportunidad, no sólo un obstáculo, al afirmar que el presidente entrante "no tiene adonde ir más que para arriba, igual que Fox no tenía adonde ir más que para abajo (ya que llegó con tan amplio apoyo)".

Evaluaciones y consejos
Las interpretaciones de la coyuntura en México y los consejos para el Presidente empiezan a surgir por parte de expertos, editorialistas y ex políticos, sugiriendo desde "mano dura" en Oaxaca y mercados más libres hasta cómo enfrentar la crisis política en la cúpula.
El historiador John Womack, de la Universidad de Harvard, citado en el reportaje de Los Angeles
Times, considera que es errónea la percepción de muchos estadunidenses de que México cuenta con un sistema político de partidos.
"Es shakesperiano. Es como una dinastía enfrentada con un primo débil por ascender al trono y la corte jalada en 20 maneras diferentes por barones rebeldes. Es una corte en desorden tratando de formarse en una república constitucional."
La columnista Mary Anastasia O'Grady, del Wall Street Journal, tuvo un tono alarmante al advertir de la posibilidad de que extremistas lleguen a aliarse con los narcos y lleven el país al caos.
"La ilegalidad mexicana está alcanzando proporciones epidémicas", indica, y advierte: "actores violentos que prefieren el camino de terrorismo y extorsión para acaparar el poder y recursos están amenazando la seguridad nacional".
Sostiene que el desafío inmediato para Calderón es establecer orden en Oaxaca. Caracteriza a la asamblea popular y otras agrupaciones como "redes criminales bien organizadas y financiadas". Considera "particularmente preocupante pensar que grupos criminales organizados (...) podrían relacionarse con los que trafican drogas", y señala a Colombia como ejemplo de ello.
Eric Farnsworth, vicepresidente del Consejo de las Américas, elogia que Calderón y su equipo hayan reconocido que tienen que cambiar su forma de abordar el tema migratorio con Estados Unidos, asumiendo mayor responsabilidad para generar empleo y riqueza en México, en el contexto del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte.
En un artículo publicado en el Denver Post, Farnsworth agrega que "en algún punto, la apertura del sector energético a la inversión extranjera también tendrá que ser abordada".
Robert Pastor, director del Centro para Estudios de América del Norte de la American University, está de acuerdo con Farnsworth sobre la "nueva oportunidad"; sugiere que la agenda bilateral tiene que cambiar de migración a una en torno del desarrollo de América del Norte, y propone un fondo de inversiones en la zona.
A cambio de reformas en los sectores energético, educativo, laboral y fiscal y una mitad del dinero para fondos, plantea, Estados Unidos y Canadá pondrían la otra mitad. "Tal iniciativa no sólo empezaría a sanar la división política y económica dentro de México", sino que estimularía el mercado mexicano para beneficio de Estados Unidos.
El editorial de Los Angeles Times propone que la gran movida audaz que necesita Calderón al inicio de su periodo es enfrentarse "con sus apoyadores" en la iniciativa privada.
Agrega que si "avanza en enfrentar al gran empresariado y restaurar el imperio de la ley", podría "algún día obtener el estatus de una estrella de rock", como la que tenía Fox al inicio de su periodo.
A la vez, rechaza la "insensata" recomendación de adoptar algunas de las ideas de López Obrador. "Eso sería un error".
Lo que necesita México son "mercados más libres" y, por tanto, Calderón necesita romper los "monopolios y duopolios que enriquecen a las elites y actúan como un freno sobre el crecimiento" (el Times no menciona que este diagnóstico fue hecho esta semana por el Banco Mundial, como reportó La Jornada). Es obvio que habrá más consejos en los próximos días


Un comentario personal: segui los acontecimientos de ese dia a traves de la radio, desde el zocalo de la ciudad de Mexico, fue como estar en la epoca porfirista, junto a un presidente ilegitimo los obispos, los militares y la "gente bien"; fue muy impresionante los contrastes de apoyo a ambos personajes.

Un saludo

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 21, 2006, 02:25:16 PM
Gracias por ese articulo Omar.

Aqui en los EU, la gente que se toman cuenta (cuento?) de Mexico se preocupan por la creciente militarizacion de la guerra con los Narcos.  Mucha gente aqui tienen la impresion que la situacion en Mexico va por abajo:  Muchas matanzas de policia: en Nuevo Laredo se mataron el jefe (?o fue dos jefes en seguida? no acuerdo , , ,) a cuatros en Baja de les quitaron la cabeza dejandolas en sitio publico como amenanza a quien les piense desafiar, atentos al jefe de la policia en Acupulco que mato a sus guardasespaldas, etc.  Se habla del ejercito Mexicano facilitando que cruzen la frontera, apuntando armas militares a nuestro Border Patrol, y se habla de "Los Zetas" supuestamente ex-militares quienes son asesinos para los narcos, con armas militares.

?Que opinas de lo siguiente?

MEXICO: Mexican military representative Manuel Garcia Ruiz said that the Zetas, a violent organization of people with military or police training who hire their services out to cartels, are finished. He added that the majority of the remaining members have been captured or killed by the Mexican military in its efforts to drive the drug cartels from the state of Michoacan. The son of drug leader Alfonso Barajas Figueroa, who is already in federal custody, was captured.  www.stratfor.com

A mi me parece muy contradictoria a las otras cosas que estoy viendo.  ?Crees que Los Zetas estan termidos?  ?Si no, no corre el Presidente Calderon el riesgo que parezca ridiculo cuando Los Zetas atacan de nuevo?

Las preguntas son para Omar o otra persona quien quiere contestar.


Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 23, 2006, 02:20:28 PM
Mexico: The Vital Role of 'Gatekeepers' in the Smuggling Business
In mid-2005, former Mexican President Vicente Fox sent some 1,500 soldiers and federal police to the U.S.-Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo in an effort to bring escalating drug-related violence under control. The effort failed, and by May 2006 the homicide rate had more than doubled compared with the same five-month period a year earlier. One possible reason for the violence in Nuevo Laredo is the continuing war between two rival cartels over whose "gatekeeper" will control the transhipment of drugs and other contraband through the city on their way north into the United States.

Until now, little has been revealed about the all-important role of gatekeepers in the flow of narcotics from Mexico into the United States, and the flow of money back into the hands of Mexico's drug lords. Sources familiar with this aspect of the drug trade, however, say the gatekeeper is one of the highest and most powerful people in a cartel's hierarchy, perhaps second only to the kingpin.

In drug-trade lingo, the "gatekeeper" controls the "plaza," the transhipment point off of one of the main highways on the Mexican side of the border where drugs and other contraband are channeled. In Spanish, the word "plaza" means a town square, though it also can mean a military stronghold or position. In this case, it means a cartel stronghold. A gatekeeper oversees the plaza, making sure each operation runs smoothly and that the plaza bosses are collecting "taxes" on any contraband that passes through. The going rate on a kilo of cocaine is approximately $500, while the tax on $1 million in cash heading south is about $10,000.

Gatekeepers also ensure that fees are collected on the movement of stolen cargo and illegal immigrants -- including any militants who might be seeking to enter the United States through Mexico. Regardless of a person's country of origin, money buys access into the United States through these plazas, though the fees charged for smuggling Middle Eastern and South Asian males into the United States is more than for Mexicans or Central Americans. The gatekeepers' primary concern is ensuring that appropriate fees are collected and sent to cartel coffers -- and they operate in whatever manner best suits a given circumstance: intimidation, extortion or violence. Of course, one of their main jobs is to ensure that corrupt Mexican police and military personnel are paid off so plaza operations can proceed undisturbed.





The main plazas in Mexico along the Texas border are in Matamoros, south of Brownsville; Reynosa, across the border from McAllen; Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo; and Juarez, south of El Paso. These locations provide easy access to the U.S. interstate highway system, which the cartels use to deliver their drugs to the markets they control in major U.S. cities. Plazas also are operated in Piedras Negras opposite Eagle Pass and in Ojinaga opposite Presidio.

The plaza between Matamoros and Brownsville is controlled by Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, or "Tony Tormenta," the brother of Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen, who reportedly is running his cartel from a Mexican prison. Other gatekeepers operating in the area are Juan Gabriel Montes-Senano and Alfonso Lam-Lui.

Control of the Reynosa-McAllen plaza, which belongs to the Gulf cartel, reportedly is in flux. There are two prominent commanders from Los Zetas in the area: Gregorio "El Goyo" Sauceda-Gamboa and Jaime "El Humme" Gonzalez Duran. Some reports suggest that El Goyo recently was removed from his position as gatekeeper on the orders of Gulf chief Guillen, possibly because he was losing effectiveness due to alcoholism, drug addiction and cancer complications. El Humme, believed to be second-in-command of Los Zetas, might have been brought in to take over.

Edgar Valdez Villareal "La Barbie" and Miguel Trevino Morales operate in the contested plaza of Nuevo Laredo. La Barbie is a highly placed leader in the Sinaloa federation of cartels and chief of its enforcement arm, Los Pelones -- the Sinaloa equivalent of Los Zetas. He previously operated out of Acapulco, where he reportedly oversaw the capture, videotaped torture and execution of a team of Zeta operatives. Another gatekeeper in this area is Miguel Trevino Morales, who is believed to be affiliated with the rival Gulf cartel. The war between the two cartels over this important plaza is one of the reasons for the skyrocketing violence in the city.

Martin Romo-Lopez controls the plaza in Piedras Negras, while Sergio Abranda, Crispin Borinda-Cardenas and Benjamin Cuchtas-Valisrano operate in the plaza in Ojinaga.

The area around Juarez is firmly under Sinaloa federation control, and more cartel members appear to be moving into the area. The plaza in Juarez reportedly is controlled by the Escajeda family, through cousins Oscar Alonso Candelaria Escajeda and Jose Rodolfo Escajeda. Other alleged smugglers operating in the Juarez area are Jose Luis Portillo, Gonzalo Garcia and Pedro Sanchez. These men and the Escajeda cousins reportedly were associated with the Juarez cartel, which has been heavily damaged by the inter-cartel wars and the arrests of leaders. Many of the cartel members have since aligned themselves with the Sinaloa federation.

Because some provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act have made wiring money out of the United States more complicated than before -- forcing the cartels to physically transfer money between operatives along the border -- the gatekeepers also must ensure that these operations run smoothly. To facilitate this, the gatekeepers also operate the cartels' money-laundering operations, using small businesses along the border. U.S. law enforcement sources say there has been a fivefold increase in bulk currency seizures along the border in 2006 alone.

Although there are multiple smuggling routes through Mexico for drugs and other contraband, the plazas are the cartels' critical chokepoints. Therefore, efforts to shut down the flow of drugs or illegal immigrants cannot be effective until the gatekeepers are dealt with effectively. The gatekeepers' ability to heavily influence Mexican law enforcement and government officials through cash payouts and intimidation, however, suggests this will be no easy feat.

Even if Mexican law enforcement officers were to begin focusing their efforts on the gatekeepers, any success would be short-lived unless a sweeping, nationwide effort were made. When Fox sent the Mexican army into Nuevo Laredo in 2005, the impact on the cartels was minimal. A large, overwhelming law enforcement effort on both sides of the entire border would be required to shut down the plazas and bring down the gatekeepers, something Mexico is ill-equipped to do.

The Mexican government's recent efforts against the cartels in Michoacan state could prove to be effective against local organizations in the short term, but as long as the plazas are controlled by powerful gatekeepers, and the other routes through Mexico to the U.S. border are not impeded, the narcotics and drug money will continue to flow north and south.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 04, 2007, 06:50:24 PM
stratfor.com

MEXICO: Former Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador resumed traveling around Mexico, beginning in the state of Yucatan. Lopez Obrador has said he intends to gather the opinions of people in the countryside and will likely seek support for his shadow government.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 22, 2007, 06:16:43 PM
Mexico: The Obstacles to Calderon's Anti-Cartel Efforts
January 22, 2007 19 17  GMT



Osiel Cardenas, who ran Mexico's powerful Gulf drug cartel from a prison cell, was in U.S. custody Jan. 22, awaiting a court appearance stemming from a 2005 federal indictment against him. The recent handover of Cardenas and three other important drug figures -- extraditions U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales called "unprecedented in their scope and importance" -- coincide with major Mexican operations against the cartels as well as calls by the Mexican government for more U.S. assistance in fighting the country's drug wars.

Although it appears that Mexican President Felipe Calderon is serious about taking on the cartels, his efforts will face stiff resistance -- not only from the drug traffickers themselves, but also from corrupt Mexican officials.

The suspects handed over to U.S. authorities Jan. 19 are considered major players in some of Mexico's more significant drug-trafficking organizations. Cardenas, the most powerful of the four, has been running his organization from prison since his arrest in 2003, and his extradition could leave the cartel without top leadership -- at least until the fighting over his replacement is concluded.

In addition to Cardenas, brothers Ismael and Gilberto Higuera Guerrero -- former high-ranking members of the Arellano Felix drug cartel -- were extradited, as was Hector "El Guero" Palma Salazar, a former high-ranking member of the Chapo Guzman-Guero Palma cartel, part of the Sinaloa Federation. In all, Mexican authorities extradited 15 suspects wanted in the United States on charges related to drugs and violence.

Should the Gulf cartel be weakened by Cardenas' extradition, the drug-related violence will likely expand into places the cartel currently controls, such as Matamoros on the Mexico-Texas border, as the rival Sinaloa Federation attempts to take over Gulf cartel territory. A succession struggle by internal factions vying to assume control of the Gulf cartel also could lead to more violence. In addition, reprisal attacks against the Mexican government in response to the extraditions are possible.

With the sole exception of Arellano Felix cartel leader Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, who was extradited in September 2006, the government of former President Vicente Fox turned over only minor cartel figures to the United States. The handover of these other high-ranking members by Calderon's new government comes amid other government attempts to control the cartels, including the dispatching of federal police and troops to areas suffering major cartel violence.

In addition to the federal deployments and extraditions, Calderon also has asked for more assistance from Washington in fighting the cartels. Given Mexico's sensitivity to U.S. involvement in anti-cartel operations south of the border, however, Calderon likely meant that he wants more funds to fight the problem, rather than that he plans to give U.S. law enforcement agents greater freedom to operate in Mexico. U.S. operations not only are considered an infringement on Mexico's national sovereignty, they also are opposed by some because they threaten the corrupt Mexican officials who earn enormous sums of money protecting the cartels.

Although U.S. boots on the ground would elicit an outcry, the possibility of additional U.S. funds flowing into Mexico would be another matter entirely because these same corrupt officials could see it as a chance for further self-enrichment. Should Mexico receive its own version of "Plan Colombia" -- which could be Calderon's hope -- then corrupt officials could have access to hundreds of millions or even billions of U.S. dollars annually. The question then is whether a "Plan Mexico" would make a significant dent in cartel operations.

As government efforts against the cartels increase, there also is the possibility that the influential cartels will use the government as a weapon against rival cartels -- or even against other questionably loyal members of the same cartel -- by guiding law enforcement efforts toward certain people. The well-connected cartels, then, would consider these arrests and even possible extraditions as more of a housecleaning aid than as a blow to their operations.

In order to be truly effective, anti-cartel efforts in Mexico must be applied evenly against all of the cartels. If only certain ones are targeted, more violence is likely as the other cartels move in to fill the resulting power vacuums.

Stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 24, 2007, 07:04:34 AM
MEXICO: Mexican President Felipe Calderon said he plans to pursue reforms to break up monopolies by allowing businesses to operate without restrictions and increase competition, El Universal reported. Calderon specifically mentioned the telecommunications industry, saying the price of a phone call is too high.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 28, 2007, 05:57:13 AM
TAPACHULA, Mexico — Four Salvadoran men in jeans and T-shirts trudged along the railroad tracks under a hot sun, their steps carrying them steadily toward a fuzzy but seductive dream.

Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Photographs
Perilous Journey
Map
Enlarge This Image
 
Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times
Donar Antonio Ramírez Espinas lost both his legs during his attempt to cross into the United States. “You make the decision to look for a better life,” he said, “without knowing that you could end up like this.” More Photos »
They had been in Mexico for only a few hours and already federal police officers had forced them to strip and had taken almost all their cash, they said. They had some 1,500 miles to go to reach the United States border, with no food or water and $9 each.

They intended to walk along the Chiapas coast for the first 250 miles through a dozen towns where migrants are regularly robbed or raped. Then they planned to clamber aboard a freight train with hundreds of other immigrants for the trip north, a dangerous journey that has left hundreds before them maimed after they fell under the wheels.

“It’s dangerous, yes, one risks one’s life,” said one of the men, Noé Hernández. “One risks it if you have a family member in the States to help you. It’s not just for fun we go through Mexico.”

A month ago, Mexico’s new president, Felipe Calderón, announced measures to slow the flow of illegal immigrants across Mexico’s southern border and reduce crime in this lush but impoverished region. He stepped up the presence of soldiers and federal police here, told of plans for a guest worker program and promised joint state and federal operations to catch illegal immigrants.

But much remains to be done to stop or deter the migrants, and for now the measures have had little effect. Social workers and volunteers who aid the migrants say they keep coming.

Every three days, 300 to 500 Central Americans swarm the freight train in Arriaga, strapping themselves with ropes or belts to the tops of cars or riding between the wagons, they say.

The migrants still wade across the Suchiate River between Guatemala and Mexico with little hindrance. Corruption is rampant. Soldiers and police officers on the Mexican side extort money from the migrants but seldom turn them around, aid workers and migrants said.

“It’s an open border,” said Francisco Aceves Verdugo, a supervisor in the government agency, Grupos Beta, that gives food, water and medicine to illegal migrants. “We are confronting a monster so big in the form of corruption that we aren’t doing anything.”

The federal authorities do catch and deport illegal immigrants from Central America on their trek north — about 170,000 last year, according to Leticia Rodríguez, a spokeswoman for the National Migration Institute.

On the evening of Jan. 19, as part of Mr. Calderón’s new get-tough policy, about 400 federal police officers stopped the freight train just after it left Arriaga and arrested more than 100 immigrants who had climbed aboard.

Still, aid workers say a majority gets through. The biggest deterrent, migrants say, is not federal authorities but armed thugs who waylay them along the railroad tracks or on paths through the countryside used to avoid the immigration posts along the main highway.

This month, Misael Mejía, 27, from Comayagua, Honduras, was awaiting the train in Arriaga with nine other young men from his town. They had walked for 11 days after wading across the Suchiate to get to the railhead in Arriaga.

None of them had a dime after being ambushed a week before by three men in ski masks in daylight near Huehuetán. Two of the men carried machetes, the third a machine gun.

“They told us to lay down and take off our clothes,” Mr. Mejía said. “I lost my watch, about 500 Honduran lempiras, and 40 Mexican pesos,” about $31.

Mr. Mejía said he would press on. He has a brother in Arizona who has promised to pick him up if he can run the gantlet through the United States border patrol. He left a $200-a-month job as a driver behind, along with his wife. His brother makes $700 a week as a carpenter.

“I felt hopeless in Honduras,” he said. “Because I could never afford a house, not even a car. There is nothing I could have.”

Down the street from the tracks, at the Hearth of Mercy shelter, where illegal immigrants can get a free hot meal and medicine, Juan Antonio Cruz, 16, hunched over a bowl of rice and told how he had left El Salvador after members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang had threatened to kill him. “They wanted me to join them,” he said.

It was his second attempt to reach Arizona, he said. The first time he had endured eight freezing nights and sweltering days aboard the train by strapping his belt to bar atop a tanker car. The border patrol caught him as he crossed into Nogales, Ariz., and sent him back home to Usulután, where the gang members threatened him again.

“When I think about the train, I feel fear and panic, for the thieves who attack you, and also for falling off,” he said softly.

For some, that is how the dream ends, with a fall under the train’s heavy, whirring wheels.
=====

At the Shelter of Jesus the Good Pastor in Tapachula, Donar Antonio Ramírez Espinas rubbed the bandaged stumps of his legs, sheared off above the knee, as he recalled the night of March 26, 2004, when he dozed off while riding between cars, lost his grip and fell onto the tracks.


Map “I fell face down, and at first I didn’t think anything had happened,” he said. “When I turned over, I saw, I realized, that my feet didn’t really exist.”

Back in Honduras, he had been working menial jobs in a parking lot and at a medical warehouse, making about $120 a month. Then he and a few buddies decided to try their luck in the States.

“You make the decision to look for a better life, not to continue with the life your father led, and for this you risk your life, without knowing that you could end up like this,” he said. “An amputee.”

After the accident, he spent two years at the shelter in Tapachula, wrestling with depression and thoughts of suicide. When those black days finally passed, he returned home for five months, only to find his parents, his former wife and even his three children had trouble accepting his disability. “My 9-year-old said, ‘Papa, why did you come back like this?’ ” he remembered. “I didn’t dare answer him.”

Mr. Ramírez has returned to the shelter here, where he hopes to learn a trade — fashioning prosthetic legs and arms for other victims of the train. Others at the shelter told similar stories. Some doubted they would be able to make a living in their home countries, where even getting a wheelchair is hard.

But some of those with lesser injuries insisted their accident was just a temporary setback. Minor Estuardo Cortez, 33, from Guatemala, lost his left foot under a train wheel while climbing aboard in Oaxaca State. At the shelter, he has healed and learned to walk with a prosthetic foot. He intends to continue his journey. If he reaches Houston, he says, he has relatives who can get him a construction job.

“If something happens to me, I don’t scare easy,” he said. “I’ll do it again to see who wins, the train or me. Only thing is I can’t run, so I’ll have to wait until it’s stopped to get on.”

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on February 01, 2007, 02:37:09 PM
Hola a todos:

Una discupa por la tardanza en contestar :-D. La estrategia de pocisionar militares y lanzar ataques "frontales" al narcotrafico no es nueva, ha sido utilizada desde Zedillo (1994), es evidente que por el estado actual de las cosas que no funciona.

Coincido en que con la captura de su lider los zetas no estan destruidos, ya que es muy dificil terminar con un grupo organizado, donde cada miembro es potencialmente un lider y puede entrenar a mas personas casi al nivel de los zetas originales. Lo temible del primer grupo es que al ser parte de las GAFES (grupo aerotrasportado de fuerzas especiales), tenian una capacidad de fuego, movilidad, reaccion y de improvisacion muy superior a cualquier grupo gubernamental, incluso el ejercito; ademas de la elevada moral de combate y espiritu de grupo. Algo que he observado en cada cambio de gobierno en mexico es que necesita pactar con cierto cartel para conservar la gobernabilidad, muy al estilo de lo que retrata la pelicula Traffic (donde actua Benicio del Toro), en el actual estado del gobierno ademas de pactar necesita legitimarse y una cortina de humo para movilizar al ejercito sin sospechas de parte de la gente, y con la aprobacion del sector de la poblacion que interpreta orden como "estamos seguros porque hay muchos policias (y si es el ejercito mejor)"... en mi opinion, tambien  coincido con la militarizacion del pais, lo que esta  pasando en Oaxaca y la forma en como lo manejo el gobierno es un mal aviso de lo que puede pasar.

Un saludo a todos

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 05, 2007, 01:11:06 PM
Omar (y todos):

Un gusto tenerte aqui con nosotros de nuevo.

Lo siguiente habla de las mismas temas como tu-- auque sea en ingles  :oops:

CD
------------------
stratfor.com

Mexico: Violence Crossing the Line in Acapulco
Two Canadian tourists suffered minor injuries Feb. 4 when they were struck by stray bullets in an apparent drive-by shooting in Acapulco, Mexico. It was the second violent incident involving Canadian tourists in Acapulco in less than a month, though this time the incident occurred at a hotel. Violence, much of it related to drug wars, has been escalating in the Pacific coastal resort for some time -- and is now beginning to spread to the tourist sector.

The shooting occurred on the ground-level veranda of the Casa Inn Hotel on the main street in the city's tourist district, about half a block from the beach. The Casa Inn is a modest hotel that is popular with older tourists on a budget and college students on spring break. According to reports, the gunman appeared not to be shooting at the tourists, but rather was targeting another man who was walking in front of the hotel. Nonetheless, the incident further demonstrates that the city's growing lawlessness now directly affects foreign tourists. On Jan. 8, a Canadian teenager died after being involved in an incident outside an Acapulco nightclub. Local officials said the boy died in an auto accident, though another official alleged that he was struck by a car while fleeing the club's bouncers and local taxi drivers, who were beating him.

Aside from its popularity among Canadians and other foreign tourists, Acapulco is an entry point for drugs coming from Colombia for shipment to the United States. Because of its geographical importance, Mexico's rival drug cartels are vying for control of Acapulco, which caused violence to spike in 2006. The increase in violence, which has included several gruesome beheadings, forced Mexican President Felipe Calderon to deploy nearly 8,000 federal troops to Guerrero state in January. Although his efforts could have some initial success, they have little chance of stabilizing the situation over the long term, and could even incite more violence as the cartels test his resolve or try to defend their operations against federal troops. This happened in 2005 when then-President Vicente Fox sent a much smaller contingent of 200 troops to the city as part of a nationwide crackdown.

Although it is unclear whether this latest shooting was connected to Acapulco's drug-related violence, it does indicate that criminals no longer consider the once-peaceful tourist zone off limits -- and that the danger level is rising. Moreover, local police, who normally would react forcefully to incidents that can affect tourist revenue, appear quite unable to prevent the violence. As a result, some Canadians are pressuring Ottawa to update its standing travel advisory regarding Mexico, and slumping sales have caused a number of Canadian travel agencies to reduce or cancel package tours to Acapulco.

Acapulco's warring drug cartels -- whose concern is securing the flow of drugs into Mexico for transshipment to U.S. markets -- have little reason to avoid inflicting collateral damage on the city's tourist industry. With the winter tourist season in high gear and spring break crowds soon descending on the beach hotels, Acapulco's already weak law enforcement will have its hands full -- and cannot be counted on to keep the turf wars out of the tourist district.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 08, 2007, 04:37:40 PM
Global Market Brief: In Mexico, Calderon's Do-or-Die Task
February 08, 2007 20 21  GMT



Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Feb. 5 announced plans to revise and modernize the Mexican Constitution. Speaking at a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of Mexico's current constitution, Calderon established that, in order to make the Mexican system more flexible and efficient, he is seeking to renovate the charter outright instead of following the usual practice of making piecemeal reforms.

Though Calderon has not offered additional details as to how he intends to launch constitutional reform, the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party -- the party of his chief election rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador -- currently supports the president's plans for a full redraft. That is, with one exception: that the changes do not include the privatization of the electricity sector or state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

Although he entered office with a weak to nonexistent mandate, Calderon has done nearly everything right to solidify his position.

Calderon's first success occurred even before he took office -- a result of him (wisely) doing nothing. Between Calderon's election and inauguration, Lopez Obrador staged a constant series of strikes and protests that snarled political life throughout the country and economic life in Mexico City. Lopez Obrador's actions also had the twin side effects of alienating him from his own party and giving the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Calderon's National Action Party (PAN) something in common: annoyance with Lopez Obrador. All three major parties are now at the very least on speaking terms with one another, something that seemed impossible six months ago.

Among Calderon's first acts as president was moving decisively against anarchists in Oaxaca, restoring order to a city that had been embroiled in chaos for months. He also deployed regular army troops to a number of cities that either are under the de facto control of drug lords or are experiencing open battles among those drug lords for control. Neither problem has been resolved -- and will not be resolved under the current plan -- but there is a widely accepted perception at least that the problem is being addressed in a respectable way. The political capital Calderon has racked up for his efforts have strengthened his hand among his core supporters as well as Mexico's political center.

He also has departed from his ideological preferences to reach out to Mexico's left. For the past two months Mexico has suffered from a shortage of corn, partially as a result of the United States' newfound fascination with ethanol. As Americans become obsessed with establishing non-Middle East energy options, huge amounts of corn are being sucked into a growing ethanol industry. That growth has sucked Mexican corn across the border, resulting in higher food prices in Mexico -- particularly for corn tortillas, a defining staple of the Mexican diet. After first pledging his loyalty to market principles, Calderon correctly read the political winds and forced state stores to lower prices at the retail level while leaning on private bakeries to lower the wholesale price.

The net result of all this has been a surge in Calderon's popularity. As of Feb. 6 he stood at 58 percent approval across the political spectrum, making the president perhaps the most powerful leader Mexico has had in generations.

He will need that power for his chosen task.

Mexico, like many other developing economies, has found itself heavily dependent on a single commodity for its economic well-being: oil. Mexico's economic strength and social stability correlate closely with oil prices. Globalization and membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement have certainly helped Mexico's economy diversify away from such dependence, but oil monies remain the central factor in determining government spending -- currently making up about 40 percent of government income.

Yet Mexico's energy industry is failing. Roughly three-quarters of its oil output comes from a single field, Cantarell, which is now past maturity. Consequently, Mexico's oil output peaked at 3.8 million barrels per day in 2005, and is expected to decline incrementally for the foreseeable future. Specifically, the government now expects Cantarell to suffer a 14.5 percent reduction in output in 2007 alone. Mexico's reserves are similarly shrinking as the state has not invested sufficiently in fresh exploration efforts -- particularly in the technologically challenging and capital-intensive offshore.

Mexico faces two huge obstacles if it is to reverse this decline. First, the national government has to break its addiction to oil money. As long as Congress siphons off the bulk of state energy monopoly Pemex's revenues for its own use, Pemex will never be able to afford to invest in technology, exploration and fresh production.

Second, there needs to be a realization across Mexico that Pemex -- even with access to more money -- faces a challenge it cannot overcome alone. Pemex has been the government's cash cow for decades, and as such has never been able to catch up with the world's energy supermajors in terms of technical skill. Rectifying that problem is not a multi-year process, but a multi-decade one. And since Mexico does not have decades to fix the problem, Pemex itself has become the leading voice for diversifying the country's energy sector to allow for the participation of foreign firms (in a highly controlled way, of course).

That, to say the least, is a thorny issue. Just as social security reform is the third rail in U.S. politics, liberalizing the energy sector is Mexico's. Mexicans see their oil as a birthright, and have traditionally refused to even entertain the notion that any foreigner -- and particularly the Americans who import 85 percent of Mexico's exports -- should hold any interest in the energy complex. Because of this attitude, and the enormous powers within Pemex itself, Mexico has maintained full control of its energy -- but at the cost of both eroding oil output and creating a ball and chain on the Mexican economy. The constitutional prohibition against foreign and private involvement in energy covers not just oil, but natural gas and electricity as well. Mexico not only suffers from regular power crunches, but also is in the truly bizarre position of importing natural gas from the United States, despite its own generous reserves.

To alter this calculus, Calderon is arguing for a constitutional change, a monumental feat by any measure. Shifting constitutional language requires the approval of two-thirds of both houses of the national Congress, as well as majority support from more than half of Mexico's state assemblies. Calderon's PAN (hardly of one mind on the issue) boasts only 206 of the lower house's 500 seats and 52 seats of the upper house's 128.

Calderon's early political victories and personal ideology make him uniquely positioned to attempt to push through such an unpopular, yet desperately needed, provision -- despite the fact that he opened his presidency on such a weak note. Yet Calderon's self-set task is certainly of the make-or-break variety.

If Calderon can pull this off -- and it is a huge "if" -- he not only will regenerate Mexico's energy fortunes, but also will establish himself as one of the most powerful Mexican leaders in history. After all, if the president can bend the entire political spectrum to his will on an issue that enflames such core nationalist passions, there will be very little that he cannot do.

However, if he fails -- and this is a far smaller "if" -- he will have lost the political equivalent of a game of chicken with an oil tanker. And even should Calderon survive such a collision, he will have spent all of his hard-won political capital on a horrifyingly public defeat -- from which his administration will never recover.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 16, 2007, 11:38:15 AM
Mexico: The Looming Fight for Control of Matamoros?
Hundreds of Mexican soldiers briefly patrolled the streets of Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas state, Feb. 15 as part of the federal government's response to the seizure on the U.S.-Mexican border of a large weapons shipment that passed through the capital. The contents of the cache suggest an effort is under way to equip or reinforce a heavily armed unit of enforcers for one of Mexico's two main drug cartels. The cartels, in other words, appear to be gearing up to fight for ultimate control of Matamoros.

The Mexican attorney general's office announced Feb. 11 that a tractor-trailer containing weapons and an armored pickup was seized by the Mexican army in Matamoros, just south of the U.S. border at Brownsville, Texas. Among the weapons seized were 18 M-16 assault rifles, including at least one equipped with an M-203 40mm grenade launcher, and several M-4 carbines. Also recovered were 17 handguns of various calibers, more than 200 magazines for different weapons, more than 8,000 rounds of ammunition, assault vests and other military accessories. A Nissan Titan pickup truck outfitted with armor and bullet-proof glass also was inside the trailer.




The semi, which was registered in the United States, entered Matamoros from the south after having passed through both Ciudad Victoria and Valle Hermoso. It is unclear where the shipment originated, though it could have come from Central America, or even the United States along a circuitous route designed to avoid police roadblocks and other anti-smuggling measures. Putting soldiers on the streets of Ciudad Victoria, even for a few hours, might have been President Felipe Calderon's way of telling the cartels that authorities know what is going on there.

Matamoros, however, is where the real battle appears to be gearing up. Matamoros is in territory controlled by the Gulf cartel, the main rival of the powerful Sinaloa federation of cartels -- and it is possible the Gulf cartel's enforcers were attempting to prepare for an expected fight with the Sinaloa federation over control of the city's drug-smuggling operations.

One indication of this is the type of weapons and equipment seized. The identical assault vests, load-bearing equipment and other accessories, along with the standardized nature of the rifles -- exclusively variants of the M-16 -- indicate the shipment probably was meant to equip or reinforce a single heavily armed unit rather than an unorganized gang. Therefore, the Zetas -- former Mexican elite soldiers who work for the Gulf cartel as enforcers -- stand out as the mostly likely intended recipient of these weapons. Given their military background, the Zetas would want to have a high degree of standardization in the weapons and equipment they use, and they also would be more comfortable with M-16s, which are standard issue in the Mexican army.

Matamoros is a vital transshipment point, or "plaza," for the movement of drugs and other contraband into the United States from Mexico. From border towns like Matamoros that sit astride highways, high-ranking cartel members known as gatekeepers control the traffic of contraband across the border, collect payments from smugglers and oversee money-laundering operations for the cartels.

Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, who had run his operation from a Mexican prison since his 2003 arrest, was extradited to the United States in January, which could hinder his efforts to maintain control of the Matamoros region. The Sinaloa federation, then, might have decided to take advantage of the disruption in the Gulf cartel's command structure to make a play for the plaza at Matamoros.

Although Matamoros has not seen much cartel-related violence recently, that could change as the Zetas move to repel attempts by the Sinaloa federation to assert its influence in the city.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 08, 2007, 09:39:39 AM
Mexico: A Rise in Killings in Sonora State
March 07, 2007 18 57  GMT

Summary

Three police officers were killed March 6 in Mexico's Sonora state, the latest in a spate of drug-related slayings in this relatively quiet state. The rise in criminal activity is believed to be related to a campaign of intimidation by Mexico's drug cartels, but it could also indicate that rival cartels are moving into territory controlled by the Sinaloa federation.

Analysis

The body of a municipal police officer was found March 6 in a rural area near Hermosillo, the capital of Mexico's Sonora state. The officer, who had his hands and feet bound, had apparently been executed. A note left with the body says "the problem is not with the government" and lists the names of five other police officers. This could suggest that the officer had been an informant for the cartels and was killed by fellow officers. Later that day, a municipal police officer was shot and killed while patrolling Obregon Avenue in Cananea, near the U.S. border. The night before, an agent from the Sonora State Judicial Police was executed in the parking lot of Hermosillo's state attorney general's office.

Since the beginning of the year, crime has been on the rise in Sonora state. By late February, it was estimated that 15 executions had taken place in the state in 2007 and five had occurred during the last week, including the two in Hermosillo. This is well above the state's usual homicide rate. Almost all of the victims so far have been law enforcement officials.

The killings are believed to be a reaction to Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartel operations throughout Mexico. Sonora Gov. Jose Eduardo Robinson Bours Castelo, referring to the current situation as a "period of executions," has said the killings are part of the cartels' attempts to intimidate police and dissuade them from cooperating with Mexican federal authorities in the anti-cartel campaign.

Another explanation for the increase in violence in Sonora could be the movement into the state of members of various cartels escaping areas where Calderon's crackdowns are taking place. Organized crime in Sonora is controlled by a federation of drug cartels led by the Sinaloa cartel, which originated in Sinaloa state, which borders Sonora to the south. Sonora is important to the federation as a corridor for transporting drugs from Central and South America into the United States. While federal security efforts disrupt organized crime in other states -- such as Baja California, Tamaulipas, Michoacan -- areas with less federal presence, such as Sonora, could prove to be attractive cartel sanctuaries.

Despite the increase in violence in Sonora state, the threat to U.S. citizens visiting there remains minor. The main risk remains Sonora's notoriously hazardous roadways rather than the unlikely possibility of being caught in the crossfire between cartel and law enforcement personnel.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 12, 2007, 12:40:27 PM
Court Papers Show How 'Iron River' of Guns Flows Into Mexico

Monday , March 12, 2007

MESA, Ariz. —
Human and drug-smuggling organizations in Mexico are getting their guns from the same places law-abiding U.S. citizens are getting theirs: licensed gun dealers and gun shows, according to court documents.


"There's an iron river of guns flowing to Mexico," said special agent Thomas Mangan, spokesman for the Phoenix office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Search warrant affidavits show smugglers are getting guns from "straw purchasers," people with clean records who buy guns for smugglers, who then sneak them across the border for a few hundred dollars.  Records show the weaponry is bought from legitimate dealers in U.S. cities from Tucson to Scottsdale and Apache Junction to Avondale.

On Jan. 21, agents with the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Cedric Lloyd Manuel and Miguel Apodaca of Phoenix with nine assault rifles at the Arizona-Mexico border.  The guns had been bought the day before at gun stores in Apache Junction, Scottsdale and Phoenix. They were purchased by three brothers, Lucio, Rosendo and Marcos Aguilar.  Between November and the Jan. 21 arrests at the border, the Aguilars and others in the straw-purchasing crew bought 66 assault rifles, records show.

"Manuel (Aguilar) stated that he had taken probably about 20 loads of firearms into Mexico over the past couple of months," ATF special agent Heidi Peterson wrote in the affidavit.  The Aguilar family, Manuel Apodaca and the alleged ringleader, Blas Bustamante, have been charged in U.S. District Court with gun violations.  Mangan said the value of guns triples across the border.

He said Mexican crime organizations use the same infrastructure for smuggling humans and drugs north as they do to move the guns south.
He said the agency is working on a number of Arizona gun trafficking investigations while they also work with Mexican authorities to trace guns used in crimes across the border.

One such crime was the shooting of Ramon Tacho Verdugo, the 49-year-old police chief of Agua Prieta, Sonora, who was gunned down as he left the police station Feb. 26.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 13, 2007, 06:31:45 AM
Geopolitical Diary: U.S.-Mexican Relations Changing

U.S. President George W. Bush is scheduled to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday in Mexico -- the last stop of Bush's Latin American tour. The agenda for the meeting is predictable; issues to be discussed include trade, security, counternarcotics programs and the polarizing immigration and border control debate.

Bush's trip has focused on political alliances, and his stop in Mexico is no different. Mexico has traditionally been an ally, but tensions have recently risen over border and immigration policies. Smoothing these tensions and reaffirming Mexico's long-term status as a U.S. ally is the driving motivation behind the U.S. president's visit.

However, though Bush is arriving in Mexico with a largely rhetorical agenda, his counterpart could meet him with a much stiffer proposition.

Since taking office in December 2006, Calderon has aggressively approached his presidency. His presidential campaign called for massive reforms, and he has wasted no time pursing them. He already has announced plans for a constitutional redraft and a controversial reform of Mexican state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and already has launched a massive multistate offensive to counter narcotics trafficking. Though the attack against drug cartels has not severely impacted their operations, it has won Calderon domestic support; with recent approval ratings ranging from 58 percent to 73 percent, it is clear that Mexicans approve of Calderon's boldness. And since the Mexican government depends on oil money, Calderon desperately needs this approval to push through the Pemex reform.

Bush might not be prepared to meet with a bold Mexican president; former Mexican President Vicente Fox rarely challenged Bush and reveled in a close friendship with his U.S. counterpart. And while Calderon has not disparaged U.S.-Mexican ties, he has made it clear that he is not interested in helping to repair U.S.-Latin American relations, noting that the United States has to "regain respect" in the region.

Mexico has long demanded increased attention -- and a solution -- to the immigration debate. But a visit between Bush and Calderon will have little, if any, impact on the immigration front. Bush's hands are all but tied -- he faces an opposition Congress and a populace deeply divided on the issue at home -- and he is not in a position to settle the immigration issue, much less to do so in a way that Mexico would desire.

Calderon knows this as well as Bush does, and is not expecting a sudden shift in U.S. immigration and border policies. A breakthrough on the immigration front at this point is not plausible, but with this visit Calderon can earn himself a few more approval points at home.

Though Mexico's close relationship with the United States is not likely to change in the near future -- trade, security issues and proximity will tie the nations together indefinitely -- the Mexican government is no longer interested in pushing the U.S. agenda in Latin America. Calderon is ready to be an independent leader, and Bush could find him to be less of an ally than expected.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 19, 2007, 08:12:53 AM
Fly Me to Tijuana
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
March 19, 2007; Page A12

As President George Bush and President Felipe Calderón were meeting on the Yucatán Peninsula last week to discuss the disequilibrium in the North American labor market, a low-cost Mexican airline was celebrating its first anniversary 35 miles north of the capital in the city of Toluca. The presidential confab got the press, but the story of the new airline and others that have followed it in the domestic air travel industry is far more relevant to the future of Mexicans.

A big reason the Mexican economy is not growing fast enough to create the one million jobs per year it needs to satisfy its young work force -- and why migrants go north -- is a lack of competitiveness. Key sectors of the economy are controlled by monopolies; without consumer choice, prices are high, service is poor, the economy is inefficient and there is not much innovation.

Editorial Page columnist Mary O'Grady explains how an upstart low-fare airline is set to make traveling easier for many Mexicans.The international symbol for making a killing through monopoly privilege is now a Mexican, telecom tycoon Carlos Slim. Mr. Slim, who is the world's third-richest man, bought Teléfonos de México (Telmex) from the government in 1991 and was supposed to face competition in 1997. But he has famously used court injunctions and his own influence to block competitors and rake in a fortune. Telmex still controls 95% of the fixed-line market.

Mr. Slim's power play has cost the country dearly. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development notes in a recent report that Mexico has some of the highest telecom charges among OECD countries, and one of the lowest rates of telephony density. Its broadband prices are the highest in the OECD. In energy, transportation and cement -- vital components of the infrastructure -- a similar non-competitive environment impedes productivity growth and harms investment.

Mexicans have been discouraged by the slow pace of competition reform, but there are some glimmers of hope. The North American Free Trade Agreement brought competition to the retail sector and now the domestic airline industry is beginning to change.

For decades Mexicans had only two choices for domestic air travel, AeroMéxico and Mexicana Airlines. Both companies, once state-owned, were privatized in the 1990s, failed and were reabsorbed by the government. Mexicana has been privatized again.

Privatization did nothing to bring down sky-high airfares. Flying from Mexico City to Tijuana ran about $250, far above what most Mexicans could afford. Taking the bus costs about $80 and in 2005 bus companies carried some 250,000 passengers on the 33-hour trip.

Last year four business partners identified those tortured bus passengers -- and many other Mexicans who dared not venture from home on such grueling journeys -- as potential airline customers. They teamed up to launch Volaris Airlines.

It is no small irony that Mr. Slim is one of the four investors and another is television mogul Emilio Azcarraga, also known for his monopoly privileges. Their experience in Volaris shows that both are capable of competing if the regulatory environment demands it and there is money to be made. Former Finance Minister Pedro Aspe's Protego Discovery Fund owns another 25% of Volaris. The fourth investor is Roberto Kriete's Grupo Taca, which owns the Central American carrier Taca Airlines.

Competition drives innovation and Volaris proves the rule. The company came up with a number of creative solutions to problems that probably would not even been considered in a protected market.

Mr. Kriete told me by telephone from San Salvador that the economies of scale come from the decision to purchase identical planes. Volaris saves money because its mechanics and pilots are qualified to handle all planes and sourcing parts is uniform.

Mr. Aspe expanded on that point when I interviewed him in Mexico City two weeks ago, stressing the advantages of the brand-new Airbus A-319 fleet, which is more reliable and more fuel efficient than the industry average. The company also gains competitiveness, he said, with labor contracts that tie 50% of compensation to productivity. Another cost saver is the Toluca hub. Passengers traveling from Mexico City check in at what Mr. Aspe calls "the virtual terminal" in the northern suburb of Santa Fe and then travel 35 miles by bus, courtesy of Volaris, to Toluca's lower cost airport. Overhead costs are held down because 65% of reservations are made over the Internet and 20% are made through call centers.

Competition has put pricing pressure on traditional carriers but Mr. Kriete doesn't expect convergence. Volaris is "really a different product," targeting a different demographic. He says that some travelers are willing to pay more for business class and perks such as frequent flier miles but Volaris is going after price-sensitive flyers and people who never flew before.

At the time of its startup one year ago, Volaris had two planes and by the end of the year it had six. This year it says it will invest $560 million to add another eight. It is also doubling the number of cities it serves and adding a route between Tijuana and Los Cabos on the tip of the Baja Peninsula, which has the potential to capture the southern California market. The company expects to triple its sales this year.

The beauty of Volaris is the beauty of the market. Both the airline and its customers are happy and business is booming. Last year Volaris carried more than 922,000 passengers on almost 8,700 flights at less than half the price that the traditional carriers were charging prior to competition. Bus passengers bound for Tijuana from Mexico City who switched to Volaris paid $100 and shaved 30 hours off their travel time.

A number of other low-cost carriers such as Avolar, Interjet and Alma have also entered the field. According to airport operator OMA, domestic air travel was up 22% at its 13 airports last year thanks to the low-cost carrier business.

It is worth noting that the Volaris story is not entirely a free-market exercise. Mexico still limits foreign ownership in airlines to 25%. Also, Volaris took a subsidized loan from the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank that is engaged in promoting development in poor countries. It is highly doubtful that Mr. Slim and his partners needed government assistance but IFC bankers are always pushing money out the door and good capitalists don't turn down such offers.

Still, the lesson holds. If Mr. Calderón wants his legacy to be about curing low Mexican living standards, there is no better remedy than competition.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 21, 2007, 05:35:33 PM
Mexico: The Cartel Responds to Calderon
Summary

Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent federal troops into the southern state of Tabasco on March 17, opening up the latest front in a crackdown on drug cartels Calderon initiated shortly after taking office in December 2006. Coming after recent intimidation efforts by criminal gangs operating in the area, the redeployment is part of a systematic effort to squeeze cartels -- and increases the likelihood of retaliatory violence.

Analysis

Mexican troops searched houses and manned roadblocks in the southern state of Tabasco on March 19 after Mexican president Felipe Calderon dispatched more than 300 members of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), as well as army units, to Villahermosa, the Gulf Coast state's capital, March 17.

The deployment followed a spate of violence in the area attributed to drug cartels. Since then, the former chief of state police and four of his current or former subordinates, including three police commanders, were detained on suspicion of collaborating with drug cartels and of trying to assassinate the current state chief of police, who was wounded in the attempt.

The escalation in violence began after retired Gen. Francisco Fernandez assumed office as the state's police chief Jan. 1. Fernandez, who has led anti-drug units in the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa, aggressively combated drug traffickers and was investigating police ties to trafficking organizations. Two months into his tenure, gunmen fired more than 150 shots at Fernandez's Suburban shortly after he left a Villahermosa hotel, killing his chauffer. On March 15, a severed head was found in the parking lot of the Tabasco state security offices in Villahermosa. Hours later, the headless body of an alleged police informant was found across Tabasco's southern state line with Chiapas.

Police are not organized criminal gangs' sole targets. A reporter for the newspaper Tabasco Hoy disappeared Jan. 20 after naming alleged local drug traffickers in an article. Other journalists in the state also have received threatening phone calls and notes.

Following these incidents, Calderon deployed federal troops, who took over the state police headquarters, seized weapons from the police and searched the complex for evidence of police complicity in the assassination attempt. Federal police also arrested Fernandez's predecessor, Juan Cano Torres, in the town of Centla and raided his ranches, where authorities allege cartel assassins were allowed to hide out.

The seizure of weapons from police was similar to a January operation in the northwestern Mexican city of Tijuana, where federal police disarmed 3,000 police for several weeks while they investigated whether the weapons were tied to criminal acts. This and other operations initiated by Calderon since he took office Dec. 1, 2006, have involved approximately 30,000 federal forces in states such as Michoacan, Guerrero and Tamaulipas. They have effectively pressured the cartels, but also have caused them to shift trafficking operations in search of areas under less scrutiny.

The increase in cartel activity in Tabasco appears to be the result of pressure on Gulf cartel operations elsewhere in the country. The Gulf cartel and its enforcement arm, Los Zetas, operate on Mexico's Gulf Coast from Tabasco and Veracruz states up to the outskirts of the Tamaulipas city of Matamoros on the U.S. border. Los Zetas have deposited severed heads in public areas as an intimidation tactic outside of this territory, notably in Michoacan state and the city of Acapulco in Guerrero state. Another of Los Zetas' calling cards is replacing the letter "S" with a "Z" in threat notes, a scare tactic now in use against Tabasco journalists.

Both the Gulf cartel and Sinaloa cartel-affiliated organizations use Michoacan and Guerrero to import drugs from South America before they are transported through Mexico to the U.S. border. Recent federal anti-drug operations have targeted both of these states. Calderon's latest initiatives, combined with U.S. efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, likely prompted the Gulf Cartel to expand their use of areas like Tabasco as transit corridors.

Drug cartels in Mexico have shown a proclivity to respond violently to law enforcement operations and the flexibility to shift operations when they come under government pressure. New fronts in the efforts to combat drug cartels will continue to emerge as cartels seek the path of least resistance. These organizations are too well-equipped and ruthless to brook much interference, however, meaning conflict will escalate whenever they are pushed into a corner.

The cartels' tendencies to fight back and shift their operations will continue to manifest themselves as Calderon's anti-drug efforts proceed. But for all of Calderon's anti-cartel efforts in his short time in office, he has yet to encroach into the Sinaloa cartel's strongholds as effectively as he has other cartels' turf -- suggesting this game has much more room to play out.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 11, 2007, 03:40:40 PM
George W. Bush went to the U.S.-Mexican frontier to highlight his proposal for immigration reform this week. But on the other side of the border, a different U.S.-Mexico issue is getting most of the headline ink.

Since taking office in December, Mexico's new President Felipe Calderón has launched an all-out assault against the nation's organized crime networks, which supply U.S. narcotics demand. Given the money to be made under prohibition, it's not surprising that the drug cartels are not yielding easily. Rather, they've been fighting back with increasingly extreme terror tactics and threatening to turn Mexico upside down.

The month of March was one of the bloodiest on record for the country's "war on drugs." According to the Dallas Morning News, more than 50 people were killed in drug violence in a single week -- and not in only in notoriously rough cities like Tijuana but in traditionally stable locales such as Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon, which saw the brutal killing of a police officer, a police commander and numerous civilians. April hasn't started off too well either. On Good Friday, a reporter for the Mexican television station Televisa, who had just finished a radio interview in Acapulco, was shot in the back three times and killed. According to Reuters, local Mexican media also reported 12 other execution-style killings in Mexico on Good Friday. The killers have grown more vicious in their messages to would-be snitches, leaving behind severed heads, corpses with ice picks driven through them and most recently a Veracruz victim who had been castrated.

It's worth noting that lowly policemen, hundreds of whom are reported to have been handing in resignations around the country, are not the only targets. Last month Mr. Calderón confirmed that he and his family have been receiving serious death threats since he launched his "war." Nevertheless, Mr. Calderón says he's not giving in and that the war could last longer than his six-year term. If so, it looks like an awful lot of Mexicans are going to die for the cause of stopping Americans from using drugs.

-- Mary Anastasia O'Grady
Opinion Journal, WSJ
Title: bajas en produccion de petroleo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 12, 2007, 03:53:21 PM
MEXICO: Mexican President Felipe Calderon decreased Mexico's base commitment to supply oil to a proposed Central American oil refinery during the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) meeting in Campeche, Mexico, on April 9-10. PPP is a regional integration and development initiative started by Calderon's predecessor, involving Mexico's nine southern states and Central American countries. Although the PPP meeting aimed to revitalize regional development, Calderon reduced Mexico's commitment from 230,000 to 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) due to declining production at Cantarell, the country's largest oil field. Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala are vying to be selected as the site for the proposed refinery, which is to have a 360,000 bpd capacity; firms from China, India and Japan are bidding to build it. Calderon's reappraisal is a further indication that Mexican oil output is headed for a serious collapse if legal barriers to foreign cooperation in offshore exploration are not addressed soon. Furthermore, if Mexico cannot provide sufficient crude for the Central American refinery project, the project could become unviable.

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 23, 2007, 02:44:19 PM
Mexico's Security Woes: A Brazen Attack and High-Speed Chase
Mexican authorities have asked for U.S. help in locating the surviving gunmen who killed a top anti-crime official in Durango state and then broke through three police roadblocks as they led law enforcement officers on a dramatic high-speed chase that spanned two northern states. The audacity of the gunmen involved in this latest attack -- one of many during the month of April -- suggests the drug cartels and other criminals are undeterred by President Felipe Calderon's anti-crime efforts.

The chase began April 21 after Sergio Munoz, commander of the Durango state anti-organized crime unit, was abducted by about a dozen heavily armed men riding in two pickup trucks as he left his home in the city of Durango. Units from Mexico's military and the attorney general's office pursued the suspects, who fled north toward neighboring Chihuahua state. A first shootout, which occurred at a roadblock about 50 miles north of Durango in the small town of Donato Guerra, left two police officers dead and one wounded. A second gunbattle occurred at a roadblock farther north, near the town of Rodeo, leaving one officer wounded.




The suspects finally ran into tough opposition in the town of Inde, some 250 miles north of the site of the kidnapping. At that roadblock, law enforcement agents killed three gunmen, forcing the others to separate -- but not before they dumped Munoz's body on the side of the road. From there, some of the suspects reportedly escaped on foot, while others continued north in a black Suburban sport utility vehicle to the town of Las Nieves, where two small airplanes were waiting to take them to an old airfield in Parral, just across the border in Chihuahua state.

Despite tracking the suspects by helicopter, authorities on the ground were unable to locate them after losing radio contact with the airborne units. Believing Munoz's kidnappers to be headed toward the U.S. border, Mexican officials have asked the United States for help locating them.

April has been another violent month in Mexico. Munoz was at least the second state police official to be killed this month, after Guerrero state Police Chief Ernesto Gutierrez Moreno was shot to death by four men wielding assault rifles while eating dinner in a Chilpancingo restaurant with his wife and son. Moreover, the deaths of at least 30 people in several Mexican states during the month have been attributed to the drug cartels or other organized crime syndicates. Assassinations, grenade attacks, shootouts -- with police and one another -- and attacks against journalists are becoming the norm -- despite President Felipe Calderon's campaign against the cartels. So far in 2007, at least 720 people have been killed in organized crime-related violence across the country. At this rate, the death toll associated with such violence will top the 2006 toll of more than 2,000.

One of the reasons for the high casualty count, especially within the law enforcement community, is that officers are being targeted regardless of which side of the law they stand on. For example, Munoz, who headed Durango's Unit Against Organized Crime under the National Civil Police, could have been on the payroll of one of the cartels and been taken out by a rival cartel. On the other hand, he might have been an honest police officer who refused to cooperate with the cartels -- and paid the price.

Either way, the brazen assault on a top law enforcement official illustrates that Munoz's abductors had little fear of Mexican law enforcement -- or of the consequences should they be caught. Calderon's anti-crime campaign, it appears, has a long way to go before it shows much progress.
Contact Us

stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 04, 2007, 12:37:25 PM
stratfor.com
The Burgeoning Extortion Racket along the U.S.-Mexico Border

U.S. authorities are investigating what appears to be a new extortion scheme that involves the threat of bodily harm to attorneys, bankers and their families in Laredo, Texas. This is yet another sign that the extortion racket is expanding and escalating along the U.S.-Mexico border. Left unchecked, this criminal activity could escalate into violence on the U.S. side, similar to what is occurring now south of the border.

Since mid-April, at least a dozen attorneys and an unknown number of bankers have received phone calls from a man threatening to harm them or their families unless money is paid immediately. The caller, who speaks with a Spanish (CD: Mexican?) accent, provides a significant amount of personal information about the targets, such as names, addresses, habits and the birthdates and schools of family members.

The caller then orders the targets to wire a certain amount of money to various Western Union offices in Mexico, threatening that "bad things" will happen if they fail to pay. The amount of the extortion demand is unclear, but the victims are given just 30 minutes to send the money. They are told that if the money is even one minute late, they and their families will suffer the consequences -- a tactic designed to prevent targets from thinking rationally, and thus to increase the chances that they will pay. The tactic apparently has worked, as some victims reportedly have complied with the demands and transferred money.

These calls are very similar to the virtual kidnapping
schemes that are common in Mexico. Both exploit the fear generated by the frequent kidnappings in Mexico and the violence that occurs on both sides of the border. While a typical kidnapping requires the victim to be housed and fed -- and thus usually requires a group of accomplices to successfully execute -- crimes of the virtual nature are cheap and easy to commit, requiring very little physical risk and infrastructure. In essence, this crime takes far less effort than one involving an actual kidnap victim.

It is unclear whether the calls in this latest scheme are originating from the United States or Mexico, and whether the scheme is being perpetrated by a lone criminal or an extortion ring. The tactics, however, are similar to other extortion schemes targeting business owners along the border. The targets of those schemes have had connections to both sides of the border, such as a Mexico resident who owns property in Texas. In one case, a Mexican business owner was shown evidence that the criminals threatening him had surveilled his home in Brownsville, Texas. Considering that bankers and lawyers are the targets of this latest scheme, it appears the extortionists are focusing on those who have the ability to pay higher sums than earlier victims.

In most extortion schemes, the problem often is more widespread than it appears on the surface because victims can be reluctant to involve law enforcement authorities on either side of the border for reasons that include distrust of authorities, fear of the consequences and a desire to avoid publicity. This reluctance already has been seen in cases involving trucking companies operating between the United States and Mexico. Evidence suggests that, when threatened with the hijacking of their shipments, many truckers have found it easier and less damaging to their bottom line to simply pay the criminals rather than involve the authorities.

Unlike in extortion cases involving truckers, or even small-business owners and shopkeepers, however, lawyers have better access to law enforcement assistance -- and are more likely to use it. By targeting this group, then, the extortionists appear fearless of law enforcement involvement. This is cause for concern, especially considering that the extortion payments are being directed to Mexico, where drug cartels and other criminals often have killed lawyers and judges. Having already demonstrated a disregard for the law -- and the attorneys who practice it -- these extortionists could progress to more violent means to influence them.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 10, 2007, 04:37:24 AM
stratfor.com

MEXICO: Michoacan Gov. Larazo Cardena Batel said in an interview with Excelsior that the Mexican army is the only force able to fight drug trafficking in Mexico. Batel cited a May 7 shootout, which involved soldiers killing four suspected drug smugglers in Apatzingan, Michoacan, as an example of the army's ability to combat criminal organizations. Batel also said violent organized crimes in the state have decreased as a result of military presence.
Title: Attacks on the Army
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 13, 2007, 02:45:37 AM
Mexican Drug Cartels: Targeting the Military
May 11, 2007 18 24  GMT



Suspected drug cartel enforcers killed two state police officers May 11 as the officers patrolled the town of Villahermosa in Mexico's Tabasco state. The attack occurred two days after a Mexican sailor was gunned down in the Pacific resort town of Ixtapa. Although attacks against police officers and their chiefs are becoming quite common in Mexico -- a response to President Felipe Calderon's efforts to crack down on the country's drug syndicates -- the cartels now are upping the stakes by targeting the Mexican military.

To some degree or another, the military always has been part of government efforts to stem the flow of drugs through Mexico and reduce the violence associated with cartel wars. Military personnel, however, historically have not been prime cartel targets. That appears to be changing as the cartels better infiltrate the military, learning who they can bribe, who they can intimidate and who they can eliminate when cooperation is not forthcoming.






In some cases, military units are being attacked when they enter cartel territory or interfere with the flow of drugs from South America to markets in the United States, though it also appears that individual officers are being targeted. In Ixtapa, the sailor -- the bodyguard of a navy commander -- died after suspected cartel members attacked a vehicle carrying several Mexican navy personnel. It is unclear what prompted the shooting, though the sailors and/or their commander could have been either on the side of Calderon's anti-cartel efforts or cooperating with a rival cartel.

Seven attacks against police and security forces in April resulted in the deaths of at least eight police officers, including the commander of the Durango state anti-organized crime unit and Guerrero state Police Chief Ernesto Gutierrez Moreno, who was shot to death while eating dinner with his wife and son at a restaurant in the capital, Chilpancingo. During the first week of May, three state or city police chiefs were killed, while a firefight between a Mexican army unit and suspected drug smugglers left five soldiers dead near Caracuaro, in Michoacan state.

On May 8, suspected cartel enforcers killed Eduardo Vidaurri Esquivel, a police detective in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon state. Vidaurri reportedly was the 19th police official to be killed in Nuevo Leon in 2007. A day later, in Guerrero state, gunmen disguised as members of the Federal Investigative Agency shot and killed Artemio Mejia Chavez, public security director in Chilpancingo, while he was on his way to the gym. In that attack, the gunmen acted friendly as they pulled up to Mejia's truck in several vehicles, then opened fire when Mejia went to greet them. The attack against the sailor in Ixtapa, also in Guerrero state, occurred later that night.

As the cartels find weaknesses in the military -- and make inroads into the system through bribery and intimidation -- soldiers and sailors will find themselves at as great a risk of attack as Mexican police. Military units that try to interfere with the movement of drugs through Mexico, and thus the cartels' revenues, will be attacked.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 21, 2007, 11:34:46 PM
stratfor.com

Mexico: A Deteriorating Security Situation
May 21, 2007 22 26  GMT



Summary

About 150 state police officers in Mexico's northern Nuevo Leon state went on strike May 21, demanding higher salaries and more resources to fight organized crime, which has claimed the lives of six state police officers in the past four days. Given that drug cartels have increasingly targeted police, army and government personnel in response to a federal campaign to combat organized crime -- and are showing no signs of stopping -- the security situation in Mexico likely will continue deteriorating.

Analysis

About 150 state police officers in Mexico's northern Nuevo Leon state went on strike May 21, demanding higher salaries and more resources to fight organized crime, which has claimed the lives of six state police officers in the past four days. Reports indicate the strike temporarily left a large portion of downtown Monterrey with little to no police presence. City police officers filled in for the state police, who have reached a deal with the government and are scheduled to return to work May 22.

Mexico's drug cartels have increasingly targeted police, army and government personnel in response to a federal campaign to combat organized crime. As this campaign continues, Mexico probably will not be able to reduce violent drug-related crimes in the near future.






Although Mexico has become increasingly violent since the government began its crackdown on organized crime in December 2006, recent violence in the northern states of Nuevo Leon and Sonora has contributed significantly to the country's deteriorating security situation. In addition to the deaths of the six Nuevo Leon police officers in the last four days, threats against journalists have further strained state police forces. A group of about 30 newspaper and television reporters protested May 19 in front of a state government building, demanding greater protection after a TV cameraman and reporter reportedly were kidnapped by drug traffickers earlier in the month. Perhaps the most notorious incident occurred May 16 in the town of Cananea, in Sonora state, where 40-50 armed men abducted seven police officers and six civilians, later killing seven. The ensuing gunbattle with police brought the death toll to 23.

The federal response to such violence highlights the challenges Mexico's security forces face in combating organized crime. Despite a government move to send more than 300 federal and state police officers and army soldiers to the Cananea area, most of the attackers escaped. This increased police presence also did not prevent the May 17 targeted killing of Sonora Police Chief Pedro Cordova Herrera. In addition, the state government announced May 20 it would begin investigating all municipal police officers in Cananea for possible cartel links. This investigation highlights the fundamental corruption problem Mexico's security forces are battling as they continue to fight the cartels.

The recent wave of violence in Sonora and Nuevo Leon can be explained by geography; the states share borders with the United States, making them valuable to drug cartels and trafficking organizations that move narcotics and people across the border. But drug-related violence is on the rise throughout Mexico; according to the attorney general's office, Mexico saw an average of 225 crimes per day related to narcotics trafficking between Dec. 1, 2006, and March 31, 2007. This represents a 40 percent increase over the 2006 average of 159 deaths per day.

For now, the federal government still appears both able and willing to commit more troops and resources to President Felipe Calderon's campaign against organized crime. On May 21, Morelos was added to the list of states to which army soldiers have been deployed. But the effectiveness of federal troops is questionable in such operations, given that the Mexican army is primarily trained and deployed for disaster response. Hence, it seems the security situation in Mexico will continue to deteriorate.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: José Carballo on May 24, 2007, 03:49:10 PM
Primero que nada, hola a todos, justo hoy recibí mi nombre de usuario y contraseña para poder participar en el foro. No conozco a nadie en el foro, salvo a Mauricio. Mi nombre es José Carballo, empecé a entrenar en Enero de este año, un accidente me tiene fuera de circulación pero espero poder reincorporarme en junio.

Aprovecho este espacio para presentarme ya que mi trabajo es la seguridad y soy experto en protección ejecutiva, además leo bien en inglés y español y si alguien necesita alguna ayuda, no duden en pedirla.

Saludos.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 24, 2007, 04:07:00 PM
Hola Jose':

!Bienvenidos!

Lo que paso' aqui' es que una falla tecnologica borro' unos anos de hilos en este foro y pedimos la velocidad que teniamos.  Ahora se le hace falta al foro mucha contribucion en espanol y estoy reducido al contribuir muchas cosas en ingles.  Espero que sean de interes a personas como tu.

Tambien, que bueno que trabajes en proteccion ejecutivo.  Ojala que compartas con nosotros tu perspectiva aqui tanto como quieras.   Si quieres, comienza con tu ideas sobre lo que esta' diciendo Stratfor sobre la situacion en Mexico.  Segun ellos los narcotraficantes son creciendo en su potencia hasta que ahora son una verdadera amenaza al bienestar del ejericto y a la mera estado.

!La Aventura continua!
Crafty Dog

PD:  Agradezco cualquiera ayuda con mi espanol que me brinde.  :-)
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: José Carballo on May 24, 2007, 05:47:31 PM
Hola Marc, es un honor que personalmente me respondas, gracias y espero verte en México cuando vengas al seminario.

Respecto a los comentarios de Stratfor, difiero, el narco ha crecido en poder y ha pasado de controlar algunas plazas a controlar la mayor parte del territorio nacional, su control es a todos niveles ya que tienen practicamente como empleados a policias, personal de aduanas, aeropuertos y otros. La razón de tantos ataques a jefes policiacos es debido a los grupos de narcos que son enemigos entre si y luchan por el control, generalmente los asesinos de los policias son de algún grupo de narcos que no los tienen como empleados y los matan para enviar un mensaje a los que apoyan a esos grupos contrarios.
Por otro lado, los ataques al ejercito no significan que sean una amenaza al ejército, sino la reacción del narco al verse ellos amenazados en su bienestar y al ver disminuida su capacidad de operación con tanta presencia de fuerzas militares. En cuanto al país el narco si representa una severa amenaza ya que:
1. Se provoca una situación de inseguridad y de crimen que directamente provocan los diferentes grupos de narcos y sus luchas entre si y contra las autoridades
2. actualmente cuentan con grandes cantidades de droga (los grupos en Colombia les "pagan" con droga los servicios de acarreo de la misma a los Estados Unidos) por lo que cada vez en México es más fácil y más barato conseguir droga y esto representa un grave problema social y de salud
3. la situación entre los agricultores mexicanos es cada vez peor y muchos optan por ser también empleados de narcos o sembrar ellos mismos plantas de marihuana y amapola en vez de dedicarse a los cultivos tradicionales de alimentos que obviamente les redituan mucho menos ganancias.

No quisiera ahondar más por el momento, pero creo que todo esto da un panorama general de la situación actual.

Guau.....cias
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 25, 2007, 12:56:27 PM
Gracias Jose por su analyis/resumen de la situacion.

Veo en el pereiodico esa manana que Mexico sera' compartiendo con el gobierno Estadounidense lo que oiga en las llamadas hecho en Mexico.  Eso no se habra' visto hace unos pocos anos.



Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: José Carballo on May 25, 2007, 03:03:31 PM
Hola a Marc y a todos...

ya busqué tanto en el periodico de la Cd. de México (reforma) como en internet en CCN.com y no logré encontrar la noticia a la que te refieres. Sin embargo, yo te puedo decir que mi jefe anteriormente trabajó para la Procuraduria General de la República (General Attorney) y en verdad que desde hace muchos años se tiene mucha cooperación entre la DEA y la PGR. Aunque estoy consciente que algunas reglas que aplican aqui en México con los agentes de la DEA no tienen mucho sentido, como por ejemplo, no les permiten a ninguno usar armas, pero en cuestión de intervenciones telefónicas existen ya varios casos en que o se comparte la información o se comparte la tecnología, incluso algunas veces personal técnico de los Estados Unidos ha ayudado a intervenir conversaciones aqui en México.

Saludos
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 25, 2007, 03:39:30 PM

He aqui el articulo del Los Angeles Times, primera pagina:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico25may25,1,3049437.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Mexico to boost tapping of phones and e-mail with U.S. aid
Calderon is seeking to expand monitoring of drug gangs; Washington also may have access to the data.
By Sam Enriquez, Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2007

- LA PLAZA: News, observations and links about Latin America from Times correspondents
MEXICO CITY — Mexico is expanding its ability to tap telephone calls and e-mail using money from the U.S. government, a move that underlines how the country's conservative government is increasingly willing to cooperate with the United States on law enforcement.

The expansion comes as President Felipe Calderon is pushing to amend the Mexican Constitution to allow officials to tap phones without a judge's approval in some cases. Calderon argues that the government needs the authority to combat drug gangs, which have killed hundreds of people this year.

Mexican authorities for years have been able to wiretap most telephone conversations and tap into e-mail, but the new $3-million Communications Intercept System being installed by Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency will expand their reach.

The system will allow authorities to track cellphone users as they travel, according to contract specifications. It includes extensive storage capacity and will allow authorities to identify callers by voice. The system, scheduled to begin operation this month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems Inc., a politically well-connected firm based in Melville, N.Y., that specializes in electronic surveillance.

Although information about the system is publicly available, the matter has drawn little attention so far in the United States or Mexico. The modernization program is described in U.S. government documents, including the contract specifications, reviewed by The Times.

They suggest that Washington could have access to information derived from the surveillance. Officials of both governments declined to comment on that possibility.

"It is a government of Mexico operation funded by the U.S.," said Susan Pittman, of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Queries should be directed to the Mexican government, she said.

Calderon's office declined to comment.

But the contract specifications say the system is designed to allow both governments to "disseminate timely and accurate, actionable information to each country's respective federal, state, local, private and international partners."

Calderon has been lobbying for more authority to use electronic surveillance against drug violence, which has threatened his ability to govern. Despite federal troops posted in nine Mexican states, the violence continues as rival smugglers fight over shipping routes to the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as for control of Mexican port cities and inland marijuana and poppy growing regions.

Nonetheless, the prospect of U.S. involvement in surveillance could be extremely sensitive in Mexico, where the United States historically has been viewed by many as a bullying and intrusive neighbor. U.S. government agents working in Mexico maintain a low profile to spare their government hosts any political fallout.

It's unclear how broad a net the new surveillance system will cast: Mexicans speak regularly by phone, for example, with millions of relatives living in the U.S. Those conversations appear to be fair game for both governments.

Legal experts say that prosecutors with access to Mexican wiretaps could use the information in U.S. courts. U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held that 4th Amendment protections against illegal wiretaps do not apply outside the United States, particularly if the surveillance is conducted by another country, Georgetown University law professor David Cole said.

Mexico's telecommunications monopoly, Telmex, controlled by Carlos Slim Helu, the world's second-wealthiest individual, has not received official notice of the new system, which will intercept its electronic signals, a spokeswoman said this week.

"Telmex is a firm that always complies with laws and rules set by the Mexican government," she said.

Calderon recently asked Mexico's Congress to amend the country's constitution and allow federal prosecutors free rein to conduct searches and secretly record conversations among people suspected of what the government defines as serious crimes.

His proposal would eliminate the current legal requirement that prosecutors gain approval from a judge before installing any wiretap, the vetting process that will for now govern use of the new system's intercepts. Calderon says the legal changes are needed to turn the tide in the battle against the drug gangs.

"The purpose is to create swift investigative measures against organized crime," Calderon wrote senators when introducing his proposed constitutional amendments in March. "At times, turning to judicial authorities hinders or makes investigations impossible."

But others argued that the proposed changes would undermine constitutional protections and open the door to the type of domestic spying that has plagued many Latin American countries. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe last week ousted a dozen generals, including the head of intelligence, after police were found to be wiretapping public figures, including members of his government.

"Calderon's proposal is limited to 'urgent cases' and organized crime, but the problem is that when the judiciary has been put out of the loop, the attorney general can basically decide these however he wants to," said John Ackerman, a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "Without the intervention of a judge, the door swings wide open to widespread abuse of basic civil liberties."

The proposal is being considered by a panel of the Mexican Senate. It is strongly opposed by members of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. Members of Calderon's National Action Party have been lobbying senators from the former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, for support.

Renato Sales, a former deputy prosecutor for Mexico City, said Calderon's desire to expand federal policing powers to combat organized crime was parallel to the Bush administration's use of a secret wiretapping program to fight terrorism.

"Suddenly anyone suspected of organized crime is presumed guilty and treated as someone without any constitutional rights," said Sales, now a law professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. "And who will determine who is an organized crime suspect? The state will."

Federal lawmaker Cesar Octavio Camacho, president of the justice and human rights commission in the lower house of Congress, said he too worried about prosecutorial abuse.

"Although the proposal stems from the president's noble intention of efficiently fighting organized crime," he said, "the remedy seems worse than the problem."

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sam.enriquez@latimes.com

Carlos Martínez and Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau and Times staff writer Henry Weinstein in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 26, 2007, 04:14:35 AM
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-soldiers26may26,1,2186023.story?coll=la-headlines-world

LA Times
Mexico's drug war takes toll on army
Since December, 89 soldiers have been reported killed. They're among 1,000 narcotics-related deaths this year.
By Carlos Martinez and Sam Enriquez, Times Staff Writers
May 26, 2007


MEXICO CITY — The number of Mexican soldiers slain has jumped dramatically since President Felipe Calderon began using the army to battle drug traffickers, records show.

Since December, when Calderon began the campaign, 89 soldiers have been reported killed, compared with less than a dozen from January through November of 2006, according to army records provided to The Times.

The escalation of attacks on soldiers has come as 12,700 troops man roadside checkpoints and patrol cities in nine Mexican states where rival drug gangs battle for control of ports, roads and other smuggling routes.

The Mexican army reported that troops slain since December included 27 soldiers on duty and 37 off duty. The circumstances of 25 more deaths remain under investigation.

Calderon dispatched the army, along with several thousand federal police officers, shortly after taking office because of concerns that incompetence and corruption had hampered local and state police and judges in combating well-financed drug gangs.

More than 2,000 killings last year were reportedly drug-related.

The killings of troops include the ambush of five men, including a colonel, in Michoacan state this month. In April, authorities found the bodies of three soldiers bearing signs of torture. A message next to the bodies said, "Whoever gets involved will die."

The troop deaths are among more than 1,000 killings so far this year attributed to drug violence, according to tallies by Mexican newspapers. The government doesn't keep an official count.

Calderon's failure to slow the violence has drawn criticism from opposition parties, which have called on him to revise his military strategy. The president said Thursday during a speech in the state of Durango that he was not ready to change course.

"Organized crime wants to scare the Mexican people," Calderon said. "It wants to scare the Mexican people so that the government crosses its arms and they go unpunished. They want us to retreat…. Our stance is clear: not a step backward."

Army salaries have gone up slightly, but pay for the lowest ranks begins at about $2,460 a year, plus room, board, uniforms and medical care. Generals are paid between $8,000 and $10,000 a year.

The government pays the funeral expenses of slain soldiers and also provides a lump sum equal to 40 months' pay to their immediate families.

The families also continue to collect the monthly salaries of slain soldiers and are entitled to full medical coverage at military hospitals and clinics, as well as discounts at three luxury hotel chains.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 08, 2007, 10:18:09 PM
Lamento que otra vez lo siguiente sea en ingles, pero nadie esta' "posting" (?Como se dice "to post"?) en espanol.
===============

In Mexico drug traffickers silence media

Chris Hawley and Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 8, 2007 12:00 AM

MEXICO CITY

When hand grenades began exploding outside its subsidiary in Sonora state,
the largest newspaper chain in Mexico decided to throw in the towel.

"For the good of all, I recognize the imperative need to make this painful
and difficult decision and announce the temporary closure of the Cambio
Sonora newspaper," Mario Vázquez Raña, president of Organización Editorial
Mexicana, told readers in a letter.

That was two weeks ago. The newspaper has not published since.

Across Mexico, a tide of drug-related violence is silencing journalists, one
of the few institutions that people still trust in this country racked by
police and judicial corruption.

Mexico was the deadliest country for journalists after Iraq in 2006, with
nine dead and three missing, according to the Reporters Without Borders
watchdog group.

The numbers of attacks have been rising since 2003, as reporters are
snatched from the street by armed men in SUVs or gunned down as they leave
their offices. Just in the past month, a reporter and cameraman disappeared,
another reporter received death threats and a newspaper office was attacked.

The repression is hampering anti-crime efforts and threatening to destroy
Mexico's free press, which had just begun to flourish after decades of
control by the Mexican government, some journalists say.

"Before, the repression was political. Now, it's coming from organized
crime, and it's targeting the very lives of journalists, " said Adela
Navarro
Bello, publisher of the Zeta newsmagazine in Tijuana.

In some cases, attackers seem to be punishing reporters for specific
articles identifying drug-smuggling and other suspects. But other attacks,
like the Cambio Sonora grenades, seem to be aimed simply at sowing fear
among the news media, said Reporters Without Borders, which interviewed
reporters for its annual report.

"Journalists on the border were telling us they were afraid to write about
local crimes," said Lucie Morillon, Washington director for the group. "If
you know the mayor or a powerful politician is linked to drug traffickers
and you've just had a baby, you won't write that story."

Newsroom fear

In drug hotspots, many newspapers no longer write about drug-related crime.
Others bury news of shootouts and murders deep in the newspaper.

Nuevo Laredo's El Mañana newspaper stopped covering drug-related crimes
after a Feb. 6, 2006, attack on its offices with grenades and assault
rifles. Editors now review every crime story to see if it is safe to print,
editor Ricardo Garza said.

At Cambio Sonora, editors had stopped assigning drug-related investigative
articles more than a year ago, editor Roberto Gutiérrez said.

El Imparcial, the most prestigious newspaper in Sonora, cut back on its
drug-crime reporting after one of its reporters, Alfredo Jiménez,
disappeared in 2005. Now, the newspaper won't even talk about the issue.

In the past year, there have been at least 30 attacks, threats or attempts
to silence journalists or their employers, according to an analysis by The
Republic. And the incidents are getting closer to the Arizona border.

On April 16, gunmen killed Saúl Martínez, a reporter for the Interdiario
newspaper in Agua Prieta, just across the border from Douglas. Police said
he may have been involved in drug smuggling, a charge his family fiercely
denies.

Also in April, reporters in San Luis Río Colorado, near Yuma, filed a police
complaint alleging that lawyers for an drug-trafficking suspect were
pressuring them to change testimony about the 1997 death of a fellow
journalist.

The attackers have been picking increasingly high-profile targets.

On April 6, gunmen killed Amado Ramírez, correspondent in Acapulco for
Mexico's No. 1 television network, Televisa. On May 10, they abducted
popular television reporter Gamaliel López Candanosa and his cameraman in
Monterrey, Mexico's third-largest city.

Since 1994, 15 reporters have been confirmed killed because of their work,
according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The only conviction came
12 years ago, and only five cases resulted in arrests.

A main reason is that murder is not a federal offense under Mexican law and
state investigators often lack the tools or desire to hunt down journalists'
killers.

When journalist killings began to accelerate last year, the Mexican
government created an Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against
Journalists to handle such cases. But of 152 complaints investigated by the
office, only two have gone to court, special prosecutor Octavio Orellana
told La Jornada newspaper on May 16.

"More than a year has passed with no results. They haven't broken that cycle
of impunity," said Carlos Luria, Americas program coordinator for the
Committee to Protect Journalists.

Setback for democracy

Press watchdog groups say the pressure comes at a critical time, as Mexican
journalists were becoming more independent and aggressive after decades of
government control.

Until democratic reforms in the 1990s, Mexican presidents pressured the
media by controlling the flow of government advertising, manipulating unions
allied with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or cutting off
newspapers' paper supply through the state-run newsprint monopoly,
Productora y Importadora de Papel S.A.

Mexicans now trust the mass media more than they trust President Felipe
Calderón, the Supreme Court, the police and nearly every other institution
in Mexico, according to a February poll by the Mitofsky consulting company.
Only universities, the Roman Catholic Church, the army and the National
Commission on Human Rights ranked higher.

Watchdog groups say the attacks on journalists are crippling Calderón's
recent efforts to crack down on drug crime in Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo,
Monterrey, Michoacán state and other hotspots.

Police corruption in these places is rampant, and journalists are often the
only source of solid information about drug lords.

"The drug traffickers are getting rid of people who tell the Mexican people
the truth, who keep them informed." Morillon said.

"You can't solve the drug problem if you don't have the proper information.
"

Failing to address the drug problem will lead to more violence, she and
others said.

"It will be a very unstable situation and very dangerous, "Morillon said.
"It's terrible for Mexican civil society, and that will affect the border
states."

Silencing a giant

The May 24 closure of Cambio Sonora showed that even Mexico's biggest
newspaper chain could be brought to heel, analysts say.

"This goes beyond violence to the press," Lauria said. "It's limiting the
ability of Mexicans to communicate with each other."

Organización Editorial Mexicana, known as OEM, claims to be Latin America's
biggest newspaper chain, with 70 daily papers.

Gannett Co., which owns The Republic, has 102 daily newspapers.OEM also owns
24 radio stations, and Vázquez Raña, the company's president, briefly owned
the U.S. news agency United Press International in the 1980s.

Grenade attacks

The company's decision to close Cambio Sonora came after grenades exploded
in the newspaper's parking lot on April 17 and May 16.

The second grenade narrowly missed a reporter who was coming out of the
office. That attack came the same day as a confrontation between police and
drug smugglers that killed 23 people in northeastern Sonora.

OEM said it closed the newspaper because the Sonoran authorities ignored the
company's calls to put police around its office and failed to find the
perpetrators.

The company said that it did not believe the move showed weakness and hoped
that the closure would force the Sonoran government to take action.

"The very fact that we are such a large and strong chain should prevent
people from seeing this as a sign of weakness," company Vice President
Eduardo Andrade said.

"What we are hoping is that this will make everyone reflect on the
responsibility of the authorities to provide security."

Sonoran Gov. Eduardo Bours said detectives are doing their best to find the
attackers and accused the company of overreacting.

"The two grenades are regrettable, no doubt about it, and I'm not saying
they aren't regrettable, " Bours told reporters at a May 28 news conference.
"But the reaction seems extremely strange to me, to say the least."

Newspaper officials still don't know the motive for the attacks. Cambio
Sonora had not published any investigative articles recently, said
Gutiérrez, the newspaper's editor.

"We don't have the slightest idea what the attacks were about," he told The
Republic shortly before the paper closed.

The newspaper had already taken precautions to protect its reporters after
the disappearance of El Imparcial's Jiménez, he said.

Crime stories ran without bylines, and the newspaper had struck a deal not
to run investigative pieces unless all newspapers in the region published
them simultaneously.

Andrade said the newspaper's reporters will continue to be paid during the
paper's closure.

"It's worrying how they have managed to intimidate these media," said
Navarro, the publisher of Zeta.

"It's getting more serious and more widespread.

"We've lost media in the northwest of the country and some in the center and
others. We're just going to keep doing our job and hope these gloomy
statistics end."
Title: WSJ: Un reto a los monopolios
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 12, 2007, 07:21:22 PM
http://online.wsj.com/public/page/8_0004.html?bcpid=86195573&bclid=212338097&bctid=987396053

Una entrevista en ingles con una periodista bien informada sobre Latinoamerica
Title: El excremento continua pegando al ventilador , , ,
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 15, 2007, 01:41:22 PM
stratfor.com

Mexico: The Growing Risk to Businesses
Two days after the targeted killing of Nuevo Leon state legislator Mario Cesar Rios Gutierrez in Mexico's northern industrial city of Monterrey, Public Security Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said June 14 he will send 1,600 Federal Preventive Police officers to the city. The move is aimed at reinforcing the Mexican army soldiers who have been patrolling Monterrey since state police walked off the job May 21 to protest an increase in officer killings by drug cartels. The increased security presence could return a measure of stability to the once-peaceful state capital, though that might only push the violence elsewhere.

Although crime-related violence is not uncommon in Mexico, the trend toward gratuitous and extreme violence is growing. Moreover, serious crime and bloodshed are now being seen in areas that historically have been calm, such as Monterrey and other areas of the country. This means U.S. citizens living and traveling in Mexico -- as well as the many U.S. companies operating there -- face more risk than ever before. While the already dangerous security situation continues to deteriorate, an uptick in the number of attacks against multinational corporations can be expected.

The June 12 robbery at a U.S. electronics company's warehouse near Mexico City highlights this threat. In that case, a large group of armed men stole two full semi-trailers of electronics after having assaulted the security guards, secured all the employees on site and ordered the workers to report that things were running smoothly. Company officials suspect the perpetrators conducted extensive pre-operational surveillance on the facility, though it also appears likely that someone on the inside cooperated with the robbers.

One of the problems is that the cartel wars are occupying more and more police and federal resources. Another fundamental problem is that the cartels exercise de facto control over large portions of the country. Maintaining this control includes, in many cases, buying off police and government officials at all levels of government, as demonstrated by the June 14 indictment of four former top police officials in Tabasco state on charges brought by a special prosecutor's office on organized crime. Police officers not receiving bribes to cooperate with a cartel risk being killed, while those on a cartel's payroll risk being killed by a rival gang.

This kind of environment is leading to a situation in which crime in general can flourish. As a result, heists at commercial enterprises, with electronics and pharmaceuticals at greatest risk, can be expected to increase.

These problems are not new for Mexico, but as the federal government continues to crack down on organized crime, the drug gangs will continue to respond -- and the violence will soar. Problems like widespread corruption only mean that police and army efforts will continue to fall short. The one bright spot is that Mexicans overwhelmingly support Mexican President Felipe Calderon's efforts against the cartels. A recent poll published by Mexico City daily Reforma indicates that 83 percent of respondents support Calderon's use of the army in the fight against organized crime.

While the federal security presence increases in Monterrey, the cartels could move on to other areas of Mexico -- and then combat troops will be needed in those places as well.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on June 20, 2007, 02:03:18 PM
Hola a todos :-D, la última vez que hable sobre las elecciones y el conflicto posterior a ellas, cerré mi comentario con la frase -ya veríamos dentro de tres años-. Sin embargo no tuvimos que esperar tres años y aprovecho para compartir con todos algunos hechos del presente gobierno en México, aprovechando los mismos para contrastar con los comentario de Raul Tortolero, en relación con estos mismos temas.

Añoradores de la violencia.
Acuérdense que las marchas bloqueos, mítines y huelgas en general es la forma histórica en como las personas afectadas por las decisiones de una autoridad responden, es decir no son formas de agravio sino de defensa. Personalmente recorrí muchas veces (en diferentes horas del día y la noche), el plantón de zócalo-reforma, nunca vi expresiones de violencia contra los automovilistas o los que cruzaban a pie (porque a diferencia del bloqueo de la PFP al Congreso, en el de reforma la gente podía caminar libremente por ahí además los cruces principales estaban abiertos al paso de los automóviles), en cambio observe un activismo muy creativo, animo de informar a las personas sobre lo que pasaba y porque estaban en ese sitio. Las actividades eran de lo más variadas: juegos de ajedrez, radio comunitaria, proyección de videos, talleres de lectura, conferencias de los mas diversos temas (y con intelectuales de renombre como Lorenzo Meyer), se hacían cortes de pelo por una módica cooperación, había juegos mecánicos, se organizaban relampagueantes torneos de futbol, se hacían los mas variados guisos y se invitaba a la gente a comer ahí. Quienes portaban los estandartes de Lenin y de Stalin solo era una carpa situada en el lado NE de la plancha del zócalo, la cual permaneció ahí hasta hace unos meses (pertenecía a la APO de Oaxaca) y no tenia nada que ver con la protesta de la gente por el fraude del 2 de julio; además las personas que se dicen “leninistas-stalinistas-marxistas”•desprecian y jamás participan en este tipo de movimientos de protesta por considerarlo de “carácter burgués”. Quien si denota una inclinación por políticas de tipo represiva y de control es el actual presidente Calderón, quien siendo un presidente civil (aún en su carácter de general supremo del ejercito mexicano), se vistió parcial y desmañadamente como soldado: con una chaqueta y gorra militar. Todavía me pregunto ¿que mensaje nos dio? Presidentes como De Gaule o Tito en el pasado; o Chávez, Castro, Hussein, incluso el presidente Bush han vestido uniformes de militar, los primeros efectivamente por su formación y el ultimo por ser veterano de la guerra de Vietnam; pero el de México, ¿que pretensiones militaristas nos quiere expresar? Ni siquiera el general Cárdenas volvió a vestir el uniforme militar después de tomar la envestidura de presidente.

López Obrador a pesar de su aparente lenguaje agresivo, desde las concentraciones por su desafuero y durante las posteriores a la elección; mostró la responsabilidad y el respeto por la integridad de la gente que lo acompañaba, por ejemplo, en el discurso previo a su comparecencia ante el congreso, concluyó su discurso con esta frase: -se que quieren acompañarme y se los agradezco, pero les pido que permanezcan en este sitio y sigan los acontecimientos por las pantallas que hemos instalado- Durante el mitin el 1º de septiembre, termino su mensaje diciendo: –nosotros vamos a permanecer aquí, que se queden con sus tanquetas y su ejercito en San Lázaro- El 1º de diciembre cerró su intervención así: -nuestro movimiento es pacifico y de dignidad nacionalista, vamos a marchar rumbo al Auditorio Nacional, pero les pido: ni un solo cristal roto, ni paredes grafiteadas... si sufrimos alguna provocación, nos sentaremos en el suelo y no ofreceremos ninguna resistencia; recuerden que la policía también es integrante del pueblo y no son nuestros enemigos-

Campaña de inestabilidad en México e intervención en política interior mexicana
Seguí muy de cerca la campaña de Marcelo Ebrard en la zona donde vivo, los actos masivos en la ciudad y en las reuniones de organización: efectivamente se organizaron redes ciudadanas pero nunca vi material de nada relacionado con el presidente Chávez o su gobierno. Sin embargo lo que si está documentado hasta en los medios de comunicación más conservadores fue la presencia y conferencias del ex presidente español José Ma Asnar (apenas hace unos días visito de nuevo a Calderón en los Pinos), apoyando abiertamente al candidato del PAN. También el semanario Proceso difundió un articulo sobre la participación del mercadologo estadounidense Dick Morris en la campaña del candidato panista, en el articulo decía: -el éxito de las campañas organizadas por Morris radica en una agresiva campaña en contra del candidato a vencer, a través de los medios de comunicación, como se comprueba en el slogan que diseñó en contra del candidato de la coalición por el bien de todos: López Obrador es un peligro para México-. En el mismo artículo concluía: -pese a que cualquier candidato que contrata a Morris triunfa, el lado negativo de su estrategia es la gran polarización social que provocan este tipo de campañas y el hecho de descalificar al adversario pero nunca dar datos concretos sobre la veracidad de sus afirmaciones-.

En lo referente a los “insultos” del presidente Chávez a “los mexicanos”, el periódico La Jornada hizo un balance al término de la administración foxista y en el tema de política exterior mencionaba: -el sexenio de Fox se distinguió por el nulo crecimiento en relaciones exteriores y por una política exterior torpe que originó sucesivos conflictos con varios gobiernos latinoamericanos... parece que toda su atención se centro en agradar al presidente Bush, el cual, a partir delos sucesos del 11 de septiembre le dio la espalda-. Las expresiones –México necesita- -lo que requiere México-, -ofende a México-, son comentarios tramposos de los medios de comunicación para involucrar en un problema o una acción, a personas o grupos que en realidad no son afectados. Con esto en mente: ¿los comentarios del presidente Chávez se dirigían a los mexicanos o solo a su presidente? Lo que dijo Fox sobre Chávez o la posición que tomo respecto a Cuba ¿eran las pociones y opiniones de el y su gabinete o las de la mayoría de los mexicanos?

Izquierda moderada e ideología
No entiendo de donde surge la fama de socialista de López Obrador? Su discurso es de lo más moderado de América latina, el problema es que esta enmarcado en una ideología republicana nacionalista, ¿donde está lo revolucionario o socialista en dicha postura? Por desgracia la mayoría de las personas no tiene una referencia histórica objetiva y no esta en la capacidad de comparar a los actores políticos modernos con determinada figura histórica. Nadie con “ideología socialista” se vincularía con “el monopolista” y tercer hombre más rico de la tierra, Carlos Slim o con el representante del “opio del pueblo”, el Cardenal Rivera, dos cosas que López Obrador realizó en su época de mayor popularidad como gobernante de la ciudad de México. La táctica seguida por López Obrador después de las elecciones y el hecho ser reconocido a través de una Convención Nacional como presidente legitimo es totalmente legal. En los manuales usados por el Instituto Federal Electoral de 1999 a 2003, se habla que los ciudadanos pueden organizarse en una fuerza opositora (fuera de un partido político), para que sirvan de contrapeso a las políticas publicas del gobierno, que consideren -contrarias al interés público-, en ese mismo manual menciona que además de utilizar las marchas y protestas sociales; -es deseable que envíen propuestas de leyes (o modificaciones a las mismas), a sus respectivos representantes en la cámara de diputados y senadores-. En otro capitulo de los mismos manuales señala la necesidad, de que ese “contrapeso” tenga voz en los medios de comunicación a fin de –generar una opinión pública objetiva y crítica-. Tomando en cuenta lo anterior: ¿qué importa que dicha organización se llame “gobierno legítimo”?, ¿que su líder se le conozca como “presidente legítimo”? o ¿qué el consejo directivo se le llame “gabinete”? De todas formas no interrumpe en nada la marcha normal del país o ejerce ningún presupuesto. Lo que hace es servir de contrapeso al actual gobierno a través de giras informativas, comunicados de prensa, marchas, denuncias e iniciativas de ley alternas. Recuerden que posterior a la elección de 1988 Manuel Cloutier el candidato panista a la presidencia de la república, organizo la marcha nacional por la democracia que concluyó en la creación de un gobierno legitimo, en cuyo gabinete se encontraba como secretario de agricultura al mismísimo ex presidente Fox, dicha acción de resistencia solo duro cerca de dos meses y le mereció el calificativo en la prensa progresista de: -digna y valiente lucha a favor de la democracia-. Precisamente en los tiempos en que el panismo recurría a las mismas tácticas que hoy reprueba, específicamente durante el conflicto posterior a la elección de gobernador en el estado de Guanajuato, una vez mas el ex presidente Fox utilizó las tácticas de la resistencia civil pacífica y una de sus accione más fuertes fue el cierre del aeropuerto de Guanajuato. La inconformidad del entonces candidato Fox se debía al margen cerrado de la elección con el candidato priista (2.6 % en ese entonces mientras que la diferencia del pasado 2 de julio fue aún más cerrada 0.5 %), tomando en cuenta esta información: ¿donde están las acciones de la izquierda trasnochada que busca un sistema amparado en la violencia y la sangre? La gente que acudió a las marchas o que permanecieron en reforma no buscaban la desestabilización del país, reclamaban con sus escasos medios a las instituciones correspondientes, que hicieran su trabajo imparcialmente y aclararan una elección que resulto muy cerrada, es decir exigían con medios democráticos, pacíficos y creativos que se estableciera en la realidad el orden democrático, legal y republicano; no romperlo. ¿Quién es el que ejerce la violencia cuando enfrenta a una marcha pacífica (compuesta en su mayoría de ancianos y mujeres), con un cuerpo de francotiradores, tanquetas y grupos antimotines? ¿por qué se le exige a la izquierda modernidad, cuando el presente gobierno en su “combate al crimen organizado” militariza al país? ¿Por qué los periodistas y analistas políticos claman que la izquierda debe ser moderada y no se escandalizan cuando el presidente Calderón visita algún sitio público y este es prácticamente cercado por decenas de cuerpos militares y cientos de barreras metálicas? ¿no es lo mismo que hacían las dictaduras militares latinoamericanas en los años 70 o de lo que se acusa al presidente Chávez o a Castro? El control de los medios de comunicación es otra prueba de la “modernidad” del presente gobierno, ya que los utiliza para justificar de una forma irreal y simplona la presencia del ejercito en las calles. Pero es inequitativo y no le da la difusión y el seguimiento necesario a la serie de abusos denunciados por las victimas y cometidos por los militares: violación de una anciana en el estado de Veracruz; violación de 5 mujeres menores de edad en el estado de Michoacán y el asesinato de una familia entera en un retén del estado de Sinaloa. A los disidentes al gobierno de Calderón (como se dice que sucede en Cuba o Venezuela), no se les proporciona ningún espacio televisivo, salvo para mofarse de ellos, descalificarlos y descontextualizar sus acciones.

Ultimas precisiones.
Decir que las personas mueren en las ambulancias por el bloqueo en la avenida Reforma o que los empleados de los restaurantes y hoteles se vieron en la necesidad de migrar por perder su trabajo es una exageración. Cualquier taxista o chofer (incluidos los de las ambulancias), tienen años trabajando en la ciudad y saben perfectamente rutas alternas para evitar el sin numero de marchas y plantones, que afectan a la ciudad diariamente. Durante el bloqueo, López Obrador daba conferencias informativas (de lunes a sábado), a las 19 horas y los domingos a las 12 del día; al terminar dichas actividades (durante todo el tiempo en que duro el plantón), la gente abarrotaba los cafés, restaurantes y fondas del las avenidas cercanas al zócalo de la ciudad, incluido el Samborns de Bellas Artes. Si los hoteleros de reforma se vieron afectados, fue por la propaganda negativa de las televisoras hacia los campamentos, la cual inducía a pensar en que al cruzar a pie por Reforma las personas serían atacadas o su auto seria desmantelado si se dejaba en la cercanía de los campamentos. Los posibles estragos ocasionados por una protesta de dos meses, no puede igualar los resultados de la política económica de los dos sexenios anteriores, en materia de desempleo y emigración ilegal; tan solo en el sexenio foxista se triplico la migración hacia Estados Unidos y se perdieron el doble de empleos que en los dos sexenios anteriores juntos.

Nuevamente cierro el espacio con el comentario que hice hace algunos meses: salgan y vean los acontecimientos de primera mano, no confíen en lo que les dice la televisión, platiquen con su gente, convivan con ella.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 22, 2007, 11:16:55 PM
Omar:

Gracias por tu "post"  (?Como se dice "post"?).  Lamento que con nuestro "Gathering" este fin de semana no tendre' tiempo para responder hasta la semana que viene.

CD/Marc
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 27, 2007, 06:00:57 AM
Pues, yo no estaba alli', ni soy Mexicano pero la impresion que yo formaba de LO era precisamente el negativo que menciona el autor de este ensayo.  A mi me parecia que LO buscaba la manera de interumpir los resultados de la elecion fuera del sistema legal, lo cual habia declarado por Calderon.

Con la historia del PRI en Mexico es natural tener sospechos de trampas y manipulaciones del resultados, pero el hecho que el PRI cayo' a tercer lugar habla fuertamente que las cosas ya no son como fueron.

Yo me acuerdo viajando por el campo de Mexico en mi motocicleta en el ano 1976 viendo "Jose Lopez Portillo" por todos lados como el candidato de todos los partidos :roll:.    Para mi es sumamente impresionante que Mexico haya logrado reformas electorales que han permitido que ahora Mexico realmente ahora tiene una democracia.  Mi impresion es que LO ponia todo eso en peligro por razones de ambicion personal.

PA:  Hablando de campanas negativas, el PRD esta' segundo a nadie.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 30, 2007, 04:36:22 AM
Mary Anastasia O'Grady del Wall Street Journal habla en ingles del politica fiscal de Calderon:

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/8_0004.html?bcpid=86195573&bclid=212338097&bctid=1080170472
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 02, 2007, 08:09:18 PM
   
 THE AMERICAS 
 
 
   
     
   
 
 

 
MSN Money Homepage
MSN Money Investing
   
 RECENT COLUMNS
July 2
• Refried Bean Counters
June 25
• Proof of Life

MORE
   SEARCH PAST COLUMNS

Search for these words:
 
 
Display all columns

 
advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR 
 
 
1. How Threat to U.K. Has Changed
2. Popular Advice You Shouldn't Take
3. Roundup: All Eyes on iPhone
4. The Best Barbecue
5. Testing Out the iPhone

MORE
Refried Bean Counters
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
July 2, 2007; Page A14

Americans who travel to Mexico are warned not to drink the water. Too bad Mexicans who spend time in Washington at the International Monetary Fund don't get similar advice about the ideological Kool-Aid served there. It might keep them from ingesting bad attitudes about taxes and growth and transporting them back home.

Such musings are hard to resist when pondering the fiscal reform recently proposed by President Felipe Calderón's Minister of Hacienda (Treasury), Agustin Carstens. Mr. Carstens is an extremely able Chicago-trained economist and a renowned negotiator in Mexican politics. Unfortunately, he also spent three years (2003-2006) at the IMF and if this reform -- long on creative ways to make businesses pay more taxes and short on pro-growth incentives -- is any guide, he has more than sipped from its fountain of economic "wisdom."

 
Americas columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady says Mexico's tax law doesn't stimulate development.
Let's concede that there is a fundamental divide in development economics today between those who believe that a simple, low, flat tax is the best way to promote prosperity and those who think governments can and should engineer fairness through a progressive tax code. The former view focuses on growth, the latter view -- championed by the IMF -- on socializing the fruits of the productive sector of the economy.

A dozen or so countries have chosen the flat tax with stunning economic success. Ireland, once poor and backward, adopted a flat corporate rate and became the Celtic Tiger. Russia triumphed over a seemingly irreversible culture of tax evasion with a single, low corporate rate and has experienced a sharp increase in revenues. Many Eastern European countries, impoverished by decades of communism, have gone one step further to adopt a true flat tax which covers individuals.

But IMF theology still holds most Latin American policy makers in thrall. It preaches that fiscal balance is sacred and if politicians won't cut spending, then they should raise taxes. The productive sector of the economy -- which includes anyone with money -- must cough up the revenue that bureaucrats and politicians need. Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this dogma is its rejection of "dynamic scoring," or in layman's terms, the positive effects on revenues when simplicity and low rates produce higher levels of economic activity, compliance and investment. In clinging to a static analysis, policy makers are forever forced to go after the private sector with increasing zeal. This frightens capital and is no way to promote growth. Regrettably, Mexico's young Calderón government looks like it is about to fall into this trap.

The proposed reform, which will be debated in Congress this summer, includes policy changes in the areas of federalism and public spending. But it is the tax component that is especially troubling. What is toted as a "single corporate rate," will be, in effect, an alternative minimum tax on consumption administered alongside the old corporate income tax.

The Mexican tax system, like the U.S. tax code, is a mess -- complex and unjust and burdensome to comply with. Rates were brought down during the government of Vicente Fox, who was president from 2000-2006, but the code is rife with loopholes and there are high levels of evasion. In a November report, the Economist Intelligence Unit described the system as "convoluted" and said that "large companies regularly complain that they are disproportionately burdened by the tax system because the authorities find it easier to track their activities than those of smaller firms." The report also noted that the "informal sector, which skirts all tax obligations, is massive and grows larger every year."

Mexico says that it collects taxes equivalent to only about 12% of gross domestic product and that with oil revenues dropping in future years, it will need to get more money from the private sector to avoid fiscal imbalances. It is this thinking that has produced the proposal for a new "single rate" AMT, a young Frankenstein to walk alongside the current monster tax system.

Here's how it works: Businesses calculate their taxes under the old system, with its top marginal rate of 28% and the slew of deductions and exemptions that apply under the current tax law. They then calculate their taxes under the "single rate," which is 19% on revenues minus inputs and capital expenses. Labor is not deductible but there is a credit earned for low-wage labor. The tax paid is the higher of the two.

The idea here is that through the subsidizing of low-wage labor, more low-paying jobs will materialize. Meanwhile, businesses won't be able to use an army of accountants to take advantage of exemptions and whittle tax payments down to nothing. They are now going to be hit with a 19% AMT. For those companies, this is a tax increase and the government hopes revenues will rise.

On one level it is hard not to cheer on Mr. Carstens. Closing the loopholes is a noble goal, and there is no doubt that had he tried to eliminate them through a rewrite of the code, Mexico's powerful special interests would have crushed the attempt. To give the minister his due, his is an effort to get around that problem, and there are those who would argue that, given Mexican politics, this is best that can be accomplished at this time.

Yet it is worth asking whether this is what Mexicans are being offered because the IMF's view of the world now prevails inside Hacienda. Though the reform does away with the 2% asset tax, it does nothing to simplify the code so as to encourage compliance. Instead it adds the AMT consumption-tax calculation, further complicating the filing process. There is no rate cut, which is key to both broadening the base and attracting investment to boost growth. It is also biased against skilled labor, which ends up being taxed twice. There will be plenty of jobs for basket weavers in Chiapas but companies that use skilled labor will now have an incentive to replace people with machines, which they can write off. And since businesses often react to tax increases by voting with their feet or making other adjustments, there is a distinct possibility that the tax increase won't even generate the revenue promised.

The bean counters at the IMF are going to love this reform, but coming from a president that promised to unleash the animal spirits of an entrepreneurial nation, it is a colossal disappointment. If this is the best that the self-proclaimed jobs president can do in the early years of his tenure, get ready for six more years of mediocre growth.

• Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 05, 2007, 06:55:52 AM

By James C. McKinley Jr.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007

MEXICO CITY: The Mexican government vigorously denied this week the
accusations of a Chinese-Mexican businessman who is wanted on drug charges
here but who asserts that $150 million found hidden in his mansion came from
members of President Felipe Calderón's party, including the secretary of
labor.

Zhenli Ye Gon, a naturalized Mexican citizen who owns a pharmaceutical
company, rocked the political world here recently by suggesting, through his
lawyer in New York, that the labor secretary, Javier Lozano Alarcón, had
threatened to kill him last year unless he agreed to hide duffel bags
stuffed with tens of millions of dollars in his house.

On Tuesday, Lozano Alarcón issued a statement calling the charges "false,
absurd, untrue, crooked and perverse." A spokesman for Calderón, speaking on
the condition of anonymity because the president had yet to make an official
statement, said Zhenli appeared to be making false charges as part of a
strategy to broker a deal with prosecutors here.

Mexico's attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said in a televised
interview Monday that the idea that someone from Calderón's campaign or
cabinet would force Zhenli to hide money seemed "ridiculous and fantastic."

"Evidently the man dedicated himself to the illicit importation of
pseudoephedrine, and this was sold to drug traffickers," the attorney
general said. "This money was the product of that activity."

He said the government had evidence that Zhenli, 44, had illegally imported
19 tons of pseudoephedrine, a decongestant, and intended to sell it to drug
dealers who use it to manufacture methamphetamine, a synthetic stimulant
known on the street as "ice."

Zhenli denied the charge in an interview with The Associated Press published
Saturday; the news agency said the interview was given in the New York
office of his lawyer, Ning Ye.

Zhenli said that various party officials had delivered money for him to
hide, but he did not provide their names.

The Mexican authorities began investigating Zhenli in December, after
discovering an illicit shipment of pseudoephedrine on a boat in the port of
Lázaro Cárdenas, prosecutors say. The chemical was being shipped to Unimed,
a pharmaceutical company Zhenli started in 1997, they said.

On March 15, federal agents raided his home in an affluent section of the
capital. There they found about $205 million and $22 million in other
currencies and traveler's checks. The money was stuffed in walls, suitcases
and closets. They also seized eight luxury cars and seven high-powered
firearms.

At the time, Karen Tandy, the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, called the raid "the largest single drug-cash seizure the
world has every seen."

Zhenli, who was born in Shanghai and became a Mexican citizen in 2002, had
disappeared before the raid. Eleven other people, among them several of
Zhenli's relatives, have been arrested and charged with drug trafficking in
connection with the seizures.

Over the weekend, the Mexican government said Zhenli's lawyers had sent a
letter to the Mexican Embassy in Washington threatening to expose an alleged
link between the cash found at his house and Calderón's campaign unless
prosecutors made a deal beneficial to the accused businessman.

"These lawyers are unscrupulously and uselessly looking to blackmail the
Mexican government with absurd and untrue statements," the attorney
general's office said Sunday.

In the AP interview, Zhenli said the labor secretary, an important member of
Calderón's campaign last year, gave him about $150 million for safekeeping
in May 2006, during the heat of the electoral battle.

He also denied that the chemical he had imported was pseudoephedrine, saying
it was another chemical used in cough medicines.

Source Drudge
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 06, 2007, 02:13:14 AM
Todos:

Respeto mucho al "Stratfor" pero en asuntos economicos en mi opinion su nivel es menos que en asuntos de geo-politica.  Aqui esta'n en favor en AUMENTANDO ingresos al gobierno Mexicano.  Admito abiertamente que en general mis perjuicios ven aumentando el papel del Estado.  La economia de Mexico ya causa que milliones y milliones de Mexicanos vengan aqui a los EU en violacion de nuestras leyes-- ?como puede ayudar eso dando aun mas dinero y por lo cual, potencia a las burocracias del gobierno?

Marc
================

Mexico: Taxes, Pemex and Calderon's Reforms
Summary

Mexico's Congress has begun reviewing President Felipe Calderon's fiscal reform plan. While Calderon and his allies carry enough political weight to pass his tax legislation despite the opposition's resistance, the president is seeking a consensus that could facilitate his future plans for reforming Mexico's energy sector.

Analysis

Mexico's government finally is tackling the country's troubled tax system. President Felipe Calderon's fiscal reform plan is before Congress, with opposition parties readying their positions regarding the proposal. Tax reform is crucial if Mexico's government is to remain solvent, as oil revenues are projected to fall sharply. In addition, this legislative initiative must succeed for Calderon to gain sufficient momentum to tackle the more controversial challenge of energy reform.

Calderon's chances for success with this initiative are reasonably high, and the president will hope to use this success to generate momentum for his plans to reform state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Reforming Mexico's prized oil giant will be decidedly more difficult, since this will see the opposition's resistance to the tax reform proposal grow into a very public battle against the president's plans for Pemex.

At present, Mexico's tax system is a disaster. The country has one of the lowest tax rates in Latin America, collecting only about 10 percent of its gross domestic product. To put this in perspective, other major Latin American powers such as Chile and Brazil take in about twice that percentage. Rampant tax evasion exacerbates this problem.

Moreover, 40 percent of the government's revenues come directly from state oil company Pemex. But Pemex is declining rapidly. Its onshore fields are maturing, and Pemex lacks the technical capacity to explore its ample offshore reserves. Without major reform, the oil giant will weaken further, effectively bankrupting Mexico.

Calderon's reform proposal targets Mexico's biggest tax evader: the business sector. The plan proposes a 19 percent flat tax on all companies, along with taxes on large cash deposits to prevent smaller cash-based businesses from operating below the tax radar. In addition to closing tax loopholes, a flat tax also simplifies the highly complex tax code, making it harder for companies to avoid taxation.

The government has maintained that the majority of businesses the plan would affect are tax cheats. Since publicly opposing the plan would thus effectively mark a firm as a tax evader, the business community has responded to the plan with a deafening silence. The relative quiet is not surprising given that Latin American countries' tax rates average about 40 percent higher than Mexico's planned flat tax -- meaning Mexico would remain a relatively low-tax option for multinational firms with current or planned Latin American operations.

Though Calderon's plan calls for some serious revisions, it has been criticized by more conservative elements for not going far enough because it does not call for the addition of value-added tax (VAT) on food or medication. Calderon's decision to avoid VAT changes is decidedly pragmatic. Proposed and highly controversial additions to VAT killed the reform plans of former President Vicente Fox because of their effects on Mexico's lower-income population. Calderon's focus on relatively palatable reforms indicates he understands the art of policy compromise essential to actually getting legislation passed.

Approval is, of course, the chief obstacle Calderon faces. While the president's National Action Party (PAN) is poised to support his proposal, Calderon must also contend with Mexico's two other major parties, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). The PAN has enjoyed an alliance with the PRI since the postelection row of 2006, while the PRD has maintained a staunch opposition to the ruling party. The layout of Congress is such that no one party can dominate, but the PAN and PRI's coalition -- collectively holding 66 percent of Senate seats to the PRD's 20 percent and 62 percent of lower house positions to the PRD's 25 percent -- effectively can shut out the PRD.

The PRI, Mexico's traditional ruling party and PAN's recent ally, already has noted that it does not intend to give Calderon carte blanche with the reform plan. There are indications, however, that PRI resistance to the plan is purely a political bargaining tool and that the party recognizes the need for reform and intends to support the plan in exchange for certain concessions. The PRI's primary concern is state-level issues, since it controls 17 state governments, more than the PRD and PAN combined. For the former ruling party, keeping a strong control on state politics -- by increasing budget control at the state level and directly transferring 3 percent of current VAT revenues to states -- is a priority. Calderon's proposal would have to be adjusted through negotiations to meet these demands.

Meanwhile, the PRD has a divided stance on Calderon's proposal. The more radical elements led by former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are demanding zero negotiation with Calderon. While Lopez Obrador lost the vast majority of his political force after his 2006 presidential loss and his so-called shadow government is disregarded by all but his most ardent followers, his opposition could lead more radical PRD legislators to vote against any version of the proposal. PRD moderates have indicated they are open to negotiation and dialogue in Congress, but there is little consensus within the party as to what changes the PRD plans to pursue. The PRD's chief complaint with Calderon's proposal regards the idea of a flat tax. The PRD contends that tax rates should be increased according to earnings in order to hit big business. Since the PRD caters to lower-income constituents, the notion of progressive taxation is far more appealing than a flat tax. Splits within the PRD are good news for Calderon, since a united PRD would provide the most significant opposition to his efforts.

The PRD's limited resistance to Calderon's current proposal is trifling compared to the resistance the president will face when he attempts to undertake an overhaul of Pemex. The PRD can be expected to mount a firm, united opposition to any such proposals. The oil giant is a matter of national pride and an object of sentiment for Mexicans, and even as it struggles, many Mexicans remain highly resistant to the notion of reforming the company by allowing foreign involvement -- regardless of how necessary such reform might be.

Calderon hopes that support for his tax plan will follow him into his Pemex plans. Getting PRD support for his tax plans could thus facilitate his Pemex plans, though he will proceed with his tax plans with or without PRD support. Ultimately, however, Calderon does not need PRD support to pass his legislation, since he can negotiate with the PRI and hammer out a deal that pleases the PRI and the PAN. Regardless of whether PRD supports his current tax proposal, Calderon's fight to change Pemex will be the most controversial and taxing agenda of his presidency.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 09, 2007, 08:45:05 AM
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-towns9jul09,0,400506.story?coll=la-home-center

En ingles:  La policia de los pequenos pueblos cerca de la frontera se huyen de los narcotraficantes.
Title: Amenazas/threats to US Reporters
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 16, 2007, 11:01:41 AM
Mexico's Drug Cartels: The Threat to U.S. Reporters
Editors at the San Antonio Express-News ordered their Laredo, Texas, correspondent to leave the U.S.-Mexico border city July 12 after a source told the reporter he was in danger of being killed. The threat reportedly originated from Los Zetas, enforcers for the Gulf drug cartel. In response to the threat, the Dallas Morning News has instructed its Mexico City-based correspondent to stay away from the border for the time being.

Death threats against journalists are common on the Mexican side of the border -- and it is not uncommon to see them acted on. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based nongovernmental organization that advocates international press freedom, lists Mexico as the most dangerous country in the world -- except for Iraq -- for journalists. The group's 2006 report said nine journalists were killed and three others went missing last year. Journalists from major media outlets, as well as smaller local newspapers, have been killed or have disappeared after reporting on the activities of the drug cartels.

Even journalists working for smaller media outlets closer to the border that cover cartel activities in Mexico have been warned by their sources about their safety. A reporter working for a television station close to the border was threatened after the station aired a story about the Zetas. It is safe to say the killings and the threats against reporters are having a chilling effect on the coverage of drug-trafficking operations in Mexico.

So far, there are no reports that the cartels have carried out targeted killings of American journalists on either side of the border. U.S. authorities, however, believe the Zetas have crossed into the United States and killed other people on the U.S. side. Threats against reporters on the U.S. side, therefore, could easily escalate to an attempt against an American journalist inside the United States. Moreover, there is no reason to believe the enforcers would not strike at American reporters covering drug trafficking on Mexican soil.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza on July 13 publicly condemned threats against U.S. journalists covering the cartels in Mexico. This indicates that the issue is being taken seriously at the higher levels of the U.S government, and will figure into Washington's relations with Mexico City.

The cartels are used to getting their way when it comes to influencing media coverage of their activities. Because of the intimidation and killings, many Mexican editors have been forced to be more selective in their coverage, even closing their papers temporarily until things cool off with the local cartels. The Cambio Sonora newspaper in Sonora state decided to close down temporarily in May following two grenade attacks at the newspaper -- probably from the Comando Negro, enforcers working for the Sinaloa federation of cartels. In February 2006, Nuevo Laredo's El Mañana newspaper ceased its investigative reporting on drug trafficking after an attack with assault rifles and a grenade at the newspaper left one of its reporters paralyzed.

Although some U.S. media outlets appear to be taking action to mitigate the threat against their reporters covering Mexican drug cartels, American journalists continue to follow what has become a major international news story. As the coverage continues, the cartels -- which have not demonstrated any fear of U.S. law enforcement -- could feel compelled to demonstrate their ability to reach across the border.
stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 17, 2007, 11:45:38 AM
Mexico Security Memo: July 16, 2007
July 16, 2007 1945 GMT


Hints of a Broken Cease-fire

Violence in the northern state of Nuevo Leon has erupted once again, starting with the attempted assassination of a police chief in Guadalupe on July 14, followed by the targeted killing on July 15 of a police officer in the wealthy Monterrey suburb of San Nicolas de los Garza. The July 14 attack is significant because it was the first against a police or government official in the state since June 12, when the warring Gulf and Sinaloa cartels apparently declared a cease-fire. Before June 12, such attacks occurred almost daily. Violence also has increased elsewhere in Mexico in recent days, suggesting that the cease-fire has been broken or at least strained. Last week's Mexico Security Memo indicated that any cease-fire would be short-lived, and we expect more killings across the country during the coming week.

Cartels and Kidnapping Rings

Authorities in Nuevo Leon said July 10 they had dismantled a kidnapping gang in Monterrey known as Las Estacas by detaining 14 members of the group in raids at two residences. The raids followed the July 1 arrest of seven members of Los Halcones, a similar kidnapping ring. Police officials said Las Estacas and Los Halcones are both linked to the Gulf cartel.

The deteriorating security situation in Mexico has contributed to a high rate of kidnappings throughout the country, and this has had a significant impact on business. For example, many of the large corporations operating in Baja California state have upgraded security at their facilities in order to mitigate this threat. Even so, abductions are on the rise in Baja California, especially in Tijuana. In most cases involving the kidnapping of high-value targets, the victims are released unharmed after a ransom is paid. These kinds of crimes are examples of the deteriorating security situation.

An Added Security Burden

As Mexico's security forces continue operate against drug cartels, they will have to take on the additional burden of increasing security at energy installations. A group known as the People's Revolutionary Democratic Party (PDPR), a splinter group of the People's Revolutionary Army (EPR), claimed responsibility July 10 for recent pipeline explosions in Guanajuato and Queretaro states.


======

Without mentioning any specific threats, the PDPR said it will continue a vague harassment campaign against "economic interests of the oligarchy" until the government releases two political prisoners allegedly detained May 25 in Oaxaca state. The PDPR is the most active splinter faction of the EPR, though during the last several years its activities have only been writing and posting online anti-government manifestos.

That the group has apparently pulled off a successful bomb attack against multiple energy targets -- the government has yet to confirm the PDPR was behind the bombings -- could indicate a shift in operations. The most likely scenario, however, is that the group acted when it did because it could, out of operational readiness, and that it will be unable to stage another such attack anytime soon. It is worth noting that Mexican security forces are known to be extremely effective against small anti-government groups such as the EPR; while the police might be wary of taking action against the cartels, they have no problem hunting down poorly armed Marxist rebels.

July 9
The body of a man was found wrapped in a blanket with his arms tied behind his back and a single gunshot wound to the neck in Tonala, Jalisco state.
One man died and another was wounded during an attack by six heavily armed men in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacan state.
July 10
Police discovered the body of a man in a shallow grave with his arms tied behind his back and two gunshot wounds to his head in Charapan, Michoacan state.
July 11
Three gunmen died in a firefight with federal police on a highway near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state.

July 12
Mexican soldiers on a routine patrol in Sonora state seized 3.5 tons of marijuana, four vehicles and a number of federal police uniforms.
July 13
Federal police in Tijuana, Baja California state, detained three members of the Gabacho kidnapping gang, which is suspected in the abduction of several local business owners.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza condemned threats to U.S. journalists by cartel hit men.
Police in Veracruz state reported that six people had been kidnapped in separate incidents by heavily armed men wearing uniforms similar to those of the Federal Investigative Agency.
July 14
The body of a man wrapped in a blanket was found along a highway outside Acapulco, Guerrero state. He evidently had been tortured.
July 15
Two men were found shot to death on the side of a highway in Durango state.
Two men were shot to death by several gunmen in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state, in apparently related incidents.


stratfor.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 17, 2007, 06:55:30 PM

Por favor, alguien me puede explicar que son:

1) AFI
2) PFP
3) SEDENA
4) CISEN

Gracias!
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: José Carballo on July 24, 2007, 10:22:06 AM
Hola Marc, estaba de vacaciones y no había tenido oportunidad de revisar el foro, aquí están los significados que buscas:

1) AFI: Afencia Federal de Investigaciones
2) PFP: Policía Federal Preventiva
3) SEDENA: Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional
4) CISEN: Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional

Para mayor claridad, se podría comparar la AFI con el FBI, la PFP actual seguramente tu la conoces como Policía Federal de Caminos, la SEDENA es el mando del ejército y fuerza aérea mexicana y el CISEN se podría decir que equivale a la NSA.

Saludos
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 30, 2007, 01:07:10 PM
Global Market Brief: Mexico Sees a Decline in Remittances
Numerous factors are contributing to a stagnation or slowdown in the growth rate of remittances Mexican migrant workers send back to Mexico from the United States. These remittances will not suddenly evaporate, but the Mexican government cannot count on the continuation of what has until now been a substantial source of income for the Mexican people. The government will therefore need to look inward and consider domestic reforms to begin preparing for the decline in funds from migrants in the United States. Because remittances provide a safety net for many of Mexico's poor communities, the poor states and communities in central and southern Mexico will be much more affected by any decline in remittances than will the wealthier states in the North.

Whether Mexico implements reforms that will begin to reduce the need for massive migrations to the United States depends largely on the will of the Mexican government. However, the current dip in remittances is on the government's radar and could give Mexican President Felipe Calderon ammunition as he takes his case for further economic reforms to the public. The expected decline in remittances could serve as an impetus to make fundamental changes to Mexico's economy that might set all parts of the country on an economic trajectory of job growth.

In 2006, a record-setting $26.1 billion in remittances -- up 20 percent from $18 billion in 2005 -- represented 2.7 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product and was the country's third-largest source of foreign exchange after oil revenues and industrial exports. However, a recent study conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank found that during the first half of 2007, remittances remained relatively flat, at $11.5 billion, compared to $11.4 billion during the same period in 2006; this does not even exceed a 1 percent increase.




The study also found that in the first half of 2007, 64 percent of Mexicans residing in the United States regularly made remittances -- down from 71 percent in 2006. If these trends continue, Mexico could have a serious problem on its hands.

Why are the remittance payments stagnating and the number of remittance payers decreasing? In the short term, there are several reasons. There is the sluggish growth in the U.S. housing sector, which employs roughly 40 percent of all Mexican migrant workers. Then, there are the U.S. government's attempts to clamp down on businesses hiring illegal immigrants, the economic uncertainty surrounding the subprime meltdown and other factors contributing to a general sense of financial insecurity among the migrant population in the United States. This uncertainty is leading to an increased savings rate and fewer remittances sent back home.

One trend that is both independent of short-term fluctuations in economic growth and most telling of the situation to come is the changing demographic of Mexican migrants staying in the United States. Mexican migrants are staying in the United States longer, and as the number of families reuniting on U.S. soil increases, the need to send money back home decreases. As more migrants give birth to children in the United States, they devote more money to domestic needs, such as education for their children and investments in housing. Furthermore, it seems that fewer Mexican workers are entering the United States, likely daunted by the declining job prospects brought about by strengthened immigration laws and increasing border security. U.S. authorities apprehended 24 percent fewer migrants crossing the border in early 2007 than in the same period in 2006, despite increased monitoring -- a fact that suggests a decrease in border crossings.

For Mexico, all of these factors add up to the potential for a continuing decline in remittances. This does not spell economic disaster for Mexico, but it is a warning to the government that it needs to implement economic reforms to compensate for the expected remittance decline in order to avoid uprisings in regions that depend heavily on the payments.

The reduction in remittances will be felt more regionally than nationally and is particularly relevant for Mexico's central and southern states, which receive the majority of remittances. Economic growth in Mexico's North has averaged between 4 percent and 5 percent since 1995, compared to growth of between 1 percent and 2 percent in southern states. This trend is continuing and is largely due to the northern regions' industrial economies that are based on maquiladora exports to the United States. In contrast, the central-southern state of Michoacan, one of Mexico's least-developed, receives more than 10 percent of Mexico's remittances -- about $615 per person, with approximately one out of 10 households receiving payments.

Remittances keep many families in Mexico's less-developed regions afloat. If Calderon does not create jobs for these communities, slowing migration and fewer remittances will tighten family budgets while increasing the number of unemployed, mostly younger males who would otherwise have migrated to the United States. While tightened budgets and rising unemployment might not spur a large social uprising, they could lead to increases in crime and general discontent, not only in poorer states but also in larger cities that might experience population increases if migration to the United States slows.

Calderon recently proposed a sweeping investment and tax reform policy that, if passed, should make some progress toward boosting economic growth and job creation in Mexico. However, to set Mexico on a path toward long-term economic growth, Calderon must encourage economic growth in his country's poorer regions. Simply increasing tax revenues and investments in pre-existing firms, such as Mexican state oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, and then subsidizing poorer areas will not translate into long-term structural changes; it will just help to replace losses in remittances in the short term. Outstanding structural problems in the southern areas include onerous legal and business transaction structures (especially for land sales and purchases) and the lack of a developed financial services sector. For the southern regions to grow in the long term, these issues will need to be addressed.

This short-term dip in remittances and prospects of a likely long-term decline are gaining Mexico City's attention and will help spur reforms. However, the strength of Calderon's ambitions to build up the South -- and, therefore, Mexico overall -- remains to be seen.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: José Carballo on September 19, 2007, 09:09:49 AM
Hola a todos, quisiera que todos pudieran tomar un tiempo y pensar en esta fecha y lo que representa para mucho gente, sobre todo en la Cd. de México. Hemos comentado en SIC y hemos leído mucho en estos foros sobre el estar preparado para defender a nuestras familias ante ataques de "los malos", por eso entrenamos y por eso buscamos mejores técnicas y practiamos a contacto real o con mínima protección, pero han pensado en proteger a su familia ante un desastre de la magnitud del sismo del 85. Incluso en estos momentos Marc ha vivido en carne propia el desastre del Perú, ya que su madre vivie allá. Me permito incluir aquí algunas recomendaciones sobre como se debe actuar en caso de Sismo, antes, durante y después.

¿Qué hacer en caso de Sismo?
ANTES
Recurra a técnicos y especialistas para la construcción o reparación de su vivienda, de este modo tendrá mayor seguridad ante un sismo.
Mantenga siempre en buen estado las instalaciones de gas, agua, y electricidad. En lo posible, use conexiones flexibles.
Junto con su familia, prepare un plan para enfrentar los efectos de un sismo. Esto requiere que organice y ejecute simulacros.
Guarde provisiones (comida enlatada y agua hervida), podrían ser necesarias.
Tenga a la mano: números telefónicos de emergencia, botiquín, de ser posible un radio portátil y una linterna con pilas.
Identifique los lugares más seguros del inmueble, las salidas principales y alternas. Verifique que las salidas y pasillos estén libres de obstáculos.
Fije a la pared: repisas, cuadros, armarios, estantes, espejos y libreros. Evite colocar objetos pesados en la parte superior de éstos.
Asegure firmemente al techo las lámparas y candiles.
Procure que todos, especialmente los niños, tengan consigo una identificación. De ser posible con número telefónico y tipo de sangre.

¿Qué hacer en caso de Sismo?
DURANTE
Conserve la calma, no permita que el pánico se apodere de usted. Tranquilice a las personas que estén alrededor. Ejecute las acciones previstas en su Plan Familiar.
Dirijase a los lugares seguros previamente establecidos; cúbrase la cabeza con ambas manos colocándola junto a las rodillas.
No utilice los elevadores.
Aléjese de los objetos que puedan caer, deslizarse o quebrarse.
No se apresure a salir, el sismo dura solo unos segundos y es posible que termine antes de que usted lo haya logrado.
De ser posible cierre las llaves del gas, baje el switch principal de la alimentación eléctrica y evite prender cerillos o cualquier fuente de incendio.

¿Qué hacer en caso de Sismo?
DESPUÉS
Verifique si hay lesionados, incendios o fugas de cualquier tipo, de ser así, llame a los servicios de auxilio.
Use el teléfono sólo para llamadas de emergencia. Escuche la radio para informarse y colabore con las autoridades.
Sí es necesario evacuar el inmueble, hágalo con calma, cuidado y orden, siga las instrucciones de las autoridades.
Reúnase con su familia en el lugar previamente establecido.
No encienda cerillos ni use aparatos eléctricos hasta asegurarse de que no hay fugas de gas.
Efectúe con cuidado una revisión completa de su casa y mobiliario. No haga uso de ella si presenta daños graves.
Limpie los líquidos derramados o escombros que ofrezcan peligro.
Esté preparado para futuros sismos, llamados réplicas. Generalmente son más débiles, pero pueden ocasionar daños adicionales.
Aléjese de los edificios dañados y evite circular por donde existan deterioros considerables
No consuma alimentos ni bebidas que hayan podido estar en contacto con vidrios rotos o algún contaminante.
En caso de quedar atrapado, conserve la calma y trate de comunicarse al exterior golpeando con algún objeto.
NO PROPAGUE RUMORES.

Además, pueden consultar las páginas del CENAPRED (Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres) en www.cenapred.unam.mx/es o en las páginas de la Dirección de Protección Civil de la Secretaría de Gobernación (federal) en www.proteccioncivil.gob.mx o en la página de protección civil del D.F. en: www.proteccioncivil.df.gob.mx

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 22, 2007, 07:20:45 AM
Jose:

!Buenisima idea!  Pero como se ve en los recientes eventos en Peru, la pregunta que planteas aqui no se limita a Mexico.  Por favor, comienza un nuevo hilo dedicado a esta tema.

Gracias,
Marc
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 17, 2007, 08:49:00 AM
Mexico Security Memo: Oct. 8, 2007
October 08, 2007 18 34  GMT



Hits and Misses

An effort to increase security in Veracruz state got off to a rough start this past week. A day after the state's governor announced the upcoming arrival of 200 federal police as part of "Operation Safe Veracruz," cartel hit men staged a very public killing of a municipal police officer in Veracruz city. The gunmen opened up on the officer's patrol car, firing at least 25 shots in broad daylight just down the street from an army infantry installation. The timing of the attack suggests it was intended to warn federal forces not to interfere with narcotics operations during their deployment, a strategy that has worked well in the past. Several weeks ago, a large security operation in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state -- initiated by a public attack against police -- ended with little to show for it, suggesting that the Veracruz operation will not result in any important arrests or seizures.

Finalized Aid Plan

The Mexican government announced this past week that negotiations over a much-anticipated counternarcotics aid plan with the United States have concluded. Washington reportedly has promised up to $1 billion over two years as part of the program, which also calls for greater information-sharing, technical assistance and legal cooperation. These efforts have actually been under way for some time, which means the aid program is essentially a way to formalize the relationship between the two countries. In any case, the aid money certainly will amount to a significant increase in the U.S. commitment and could well improve Mexico's counternarcotics capabilities. But this assistance plan will not solve all the problems faced by the two countries in trying to counter the drug trade. Both Mexico and the United States have deep-rooted issues that will not be remedied by funding increases. Nevertheless, information released this week by the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy suggests that the two countries have already made important progress in some areas, especially in curbing the flow of drugs into the United States. An increase in the street price of cocaine and methamphetamine in all regions of the United States is the most convincing evidence that tighter border security and Mexican counternarcotics efforts are having a positive impact. It remains to be seen if these achievements can be sustained, especially since any long-term disruptions in cartel operations are likely to be met with greater violence.







Oct. 1

Police in Jesus del Monte, Michoacan state, discovered the body of a man whose head had been nearly severed.


The charred body of an unidentified individual was found inside a burning car along a federal highway just outside Acapulco, Guerrero state.


Oct. 2

The bodies of two men were discovered in Mocorito, Sinaloa state, bound with their hands behind their backs.


A man in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, was shot dead by gunmen. He had arrived from Phoenix several hours before his death.


A former police officer in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, was shot to death by gunmen who entered the house where he was sleeping. Two others were wounded in the attack.


Oct. 3

The body of an unidentified individual was found wrapped in a blanket in a park in Mexico City. The body was bound at the hands and feet; police did not release information about the cause of death.


A man in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, was shot dead by several gunmen as he left his house.


The body of a man with several gunshot wounds was found in Tijuana, Baja California state. The body had been partially burned.


Oct. 4

A police officer in Veracruz, Veracruz state, died when gunmen fired more than 25 shots through the windshield of his patrol car.


Two security chiefs at a federal prison were shot and killed by gunmen as they were driving in Mexico City.


One police officer died and three were wounded during a gunbattle in Miacatlan, Morelos state. At least three of the gunmen also died.


Oct. 5

Authorities in Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes state, reported finding the body of a suspected drug dealer along a busy avenue. He had been suffocated and was bound at the hands and feet.


A firefight between inmates and guards inside a prison in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, left one inmate dead and five wounded. Army troops eventually stormed the prison.


A police commander in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, died after he was repeatedly run over by several vehicles in front of a crowd. Witnesses said the drivers of the vehicles were armed and prevented bystanders from assisting the police officer.


The Mexican army seized more than 11 tons of cocaine from a tractor-trailer near the Gulf Coast city of Tampico, Tamaulipas state. At least seven suspects were detained during the seizure, which was the largest ever in Mexico.


Oct. 6

Gunmen in Juchitan, Oaxaca state, attacked a police station with gunfire and grenades, killing at least one officer.


Oct. 7

At least 11 people were detained following a firefight at a military checkpoint on a highway near Jaumave, Tamaulipas state.
Title: Oil infrastructure bombings
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 17, 2007, 09:04:49 AM
Mexico: Examining Oil Infrastructure Bombings
Since July, several facilities belonging to Mexican state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) have been attacked. A report of a blast Oct. 11 along a Pemex pipeline in Michoacan state immediately gave rise to fears of another attack against Mexico's energy infrastructure, though the company said Oct. 12 that there was no explosion, only a natural gas leak.

The attacks against Pemex facilities are only adding to Mexico's unstable security situation (which currently includes a war against drug cartels). Four groups in Mexico would benefit from either the security or political fallout from attacks against Mexican energy infrastructure: the Gulf drug cartel, oil industry union agitators, political opposition to Mexican President Felipe Calderon's government and the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) leftist rebel group, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks that have occurred since July, saying the bombings are part of an effort to force the release of jailed members.

One theory that U.S. counternarcotics sources have floated is that the Gulf drug cartel is facilitating EPR's bombing campaign, since many of the attacks have occurred in the cartel's territory. This alleged link would explain how EPR operated in the cartel's territory without fear of reprisal, since the Gulf cartel is believed capable of extending its influence over most criminal activities in its territories. The cartel's motive for supporting the bombings would be to shift government security forces toward protecting Mexico's strategic infrastructure and away from counternarcotics operations. However, Mexican investigators believe this is the least likely scenario and have yet to find evidence pointing to the cartel as the instigator.




Some Mexican investigators believe the bombings are the work of saboteurs from petroleum industry labor unions who are unhappy with the Pemex administration, according to a former Mexican law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation. Due to links between labor unions and leftist organizations, overlap between EPR and the unions could have led to the attacks.

The bombings also might have been the work of agitators from the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). Privately, the PRD theory is popular among Mexican officials. PRD's presidential candidate in 2006, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, hotly contested the election, which was marred by allegations of voter fraud and other misconduct. As the only viable leftist party in Mexico, PRD attracts diverse elements from the leftist political spectrum, ranging from the middle-left to radicals.

Of course, the bombings could be attributable solely to EPR, but since the attacks are of a larger scope than -- and would represent a departure from -- EPR's usual tactics, the group likely had input from outside influences while planning and carrying out the bombings.

If the perpetrators are not EPR members, they are almost certainly collaborating with EPR in some way. Regardless of who is actually behind the attacks, having EPR take credit for them serves the agendas of all possible parties: The Gulf cartel does not care who gets credit for the attacks, as long as security forces are diverted from chasing down its drug smugglers; the union agitators and PRD get their desired effects -- either hurting Pemex or making Calderon's government appear incapable of providing security -- without having to be directly associated with the violent acts; and EPR gets credit for the most significant attacks ever attributed to it.

The violence caused by the cartel wars is providing a backdrop for the pipeline attackers to blend into. If there were no cartel wars, Mexican security forces would have an easier time tracking down the perpetrators.

So far, the attacks have been confined to the infrastructure for Mexican domestic consumption, not the export lines carrying oil to the United States. However, if export lines are targeted, the pipeline attacks could easily throw another wrench into Mexico's economy.

stratfor
Title: Armas illegales (en ingles)
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 24, 2007, 01:20:20 PM


Mexico: Dynamics of the Gun Trade
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

The number of drug-related killings in Mexico in 2007 already has surpassed 2,000, an increase of 300 over the same period last year, according to statistics reported by Mexican media outlets. Moreover, sources familiar with the issue say police officials in some jurisdictions have been purposely underreporting drug-related homicides, suggesting that the real body count is even higher.

In addition to the Mexican drug cartels that engage in torture and killings (at times involving beheadings), armed criminal gangs are notorious kidnappers -- prompting some to call Mexico the "kidnapping capital of the world." This has resulted in a boom for armored car manufacturers and security companies, given that most wealthy people living in the country own armored vehicles, and many employ executive protection teams to provide security for themselves, their families and their homes. Additionally, heavily armed criminal gangs regularly commit armed robberies, muggings and express kidnappings.

The one constant in these violent crimes is guns. Mexico's robust gun culture stretches back to revolutions, counterrevolutions and revolutionary bandits such as Pancho Villa. Because of this culture, guns are common in Mexico -- despite strict gun-control laws and licensing procedures. This demand for guns has created an illicit market that not only is intimately related to the U.S. market for illegal narcotics but also, in many ways, mirrors the dynamics of that market. Drugs flow north and guns flow south -- resulting in handsome profits for those willing to run the risks.

Mexican Laws

Similar to the U.S. Constitution, the 1917 Mexican Constitution guarantees Mexico's inhabitants the right to have "arms of any kind in their possession for their protection and legitimate defense." However, the constitution includes many caveats on private citizens' ownership of guns, prohibiting those "expressly forbidden by law" and those "the nation may reserve for the exclusive use of the army, navy or national guard." Furthermore, Mexican law calls for long prison terms for violators.

Mexico, then, has some of the world's strictest gun-control laws -- making guns difficult to obtain legally. Average citizens who want to purchase guns for self-defense or recreational purposes must first get approval from the government. Then, because there are no private-sector gun stores in the country, they must buy weapons through the Defense Department's Arms and Ammunition Marketing Division (UCAM). In accordance with Mexican law, the UCAM carefully limits the calibers of guns it sells. For example, it does not sell handguns larger than a .380 or .38 Special. Also, under Mexican law, popular handguns such as .357 magnum revolvers and 9 mm pistols are exclusively reserved for the armed forces.

Regardless of these efforts, the illicit arms market has been thriving for decades -- not only because firearm laws are not evenly enforced but also because criminals have found a way to circumvent efforts to stem the flow of guns. Moreover, not all illegal guns are in the hands of cartel members and street criminals. A healthy percentage of them are purchased by affluent Mexicans who are not satisfied with the selection of calibers available through the UCAM. Sources say it is not at all unusual to find Mexicans who own prohibited .357 magnum revolvers or .45 caliber pistols for self-defense against kidnappers and armed robbers. In addition to ballistic considerations, Latin machismo is also a factor -- some Mexican men want to own and carry powerful, large-caliber pistols.  (!Que estupido este comentario!  Esta' escrito obviamente por un p---d-jo quien vive en su oficina.  No se le ocurre que pueda haber razones muy logicas p.e. poner un fin a un problema grave de pronto)

The Mechanics of the Gun Trade

This mixture of the historical Mexican gun culture, machismo, strong desire for guns, lax enforcement of gun laws, official corruption and a raging cartel war has created a high demand for illegal guns. Guns sold on the black market in Mexico can fetch as much as 300 percent of their normal market value -- a profit margin similar to that of the cocaine trafficked by the cartels. The laws of economics dictate that where there is a strong demand -- and a considerable profit margin -- entrepreneurs will devise ways to meet that demand. Of course, the illicit markets are no different from the legitimate economy in this respect, and a number of players have emerged to help supply Mexico's appetite for illicit weaponry.

Millions of Mexicans reside (legally and otherwise) in the United States, and the two countries conduct a staggering amount of commerce (legal and otherwise) across the border. In this context, then, when one considers that there are more gun stores in a typical small town in Texas than there are in all of Mexico City, it should come as no surprise that a large number of the weapons found on the illicit arms market in Mexico originated in the United States. In fact, Mexican officials say that as much as 90 percent of the illegal weapons they seize are of U.S. origin.

The most obvious players in the gun trade are the cartels themselves, which not only have the financial resources to buy guns in the United States but also are in a position to receive guns in trade for narcotics from their distribution contacts north of the border. The traditional pattern for cartel operations over the past few decades has been to smuggle drugs north over the border and return with money and guns -- many times over the same routes and by the same conveyances. In addition to the problem of the notoriously corrupt Mexican customs officials, efforts to stem the flow of guns into Mexico also have been hampered by technological limitations. For example, until recently, Mexican authorities lacked X-ray equipment to inspect vehicles entering the country, and this inspection capacity still remains limited.

The cartels also obtain weapons from contacts along their supply networks in South and Central America, where substantial quantities of military ordnance have been shipped over decades to supply insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. Explosives from domestic Mexican sources also are widely available and are generally less expensive than guns.

Aside from the cartels, other criminal syndicates are dedicated to the arms trade. These groups can range from small mom-and-pop operations involving a few individuals who obtain weapons from family members residing in the United States or Central America to large organizations with complex networks that buy dozens or hundreds of weapons at a time.

As in other criminal enterprises in Mexico, such as drug smuggling or kidnapping, it is not unusual to find police officers and military personnel involved in the illegal arms trade. On Sept. 12, three high-ranking police commanders from Baja California and Baja California Sur states were arrested by U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents in Phoenix for illegally purchasing weapons at a gun show. (U.S. law prohibits foreigners from buying weapons.) Over the past few years, several Mexican government officials have been arrested on both sides of the border for participating in the arms trade.

Although it is illegal for Mexican nationals to buy guns in the United States and for Americans to haul guns to Mexico, entrepreneurs have found a variety of ways to skirt such laws. Perhaps one of the least recognized ploys is plain old document fraud. Fake documents -- which are easily obtained along the border -- range in quality (and price) from poorly rendered counterfeits to genuine documents obtained with the assistance of corrupt government officials. Using such documents, a Mexican citizen can pose as a U.S. citizen and pass the required background checks to buy guns -- unless, that is, the prospective gun buyer was foolish enough to assume the identity of an American with a criminal record.

Perhaps the most common way to purchase guns is by using a "straw-man" buyer (sometimes in combination with document fraud). That is, paying a person with a clean record who has legal standing to buy the gun. This also is a tried-and-true tactic used by criminals in the United States who are ineligible to purchase guns due to prior convictions. The "straw man" in these cases often is a girlfriend or other associate who is paid to buy a gun for them. Also, with so many family relations spanning the border, it is easy for a Mexican citizen to ask an American relative to purchase a gun or guns on their behalf.

While document fraud and straw-man purchases can be used to bypass the law and fool respectable gun dealers, not all gun dealers are respectable. Some will falsify their sales records in order to sell guns to people they know are not legally permitted to have them -- especially if the guns are being sold at a premium price. ATF does conduct audits of gun dealers, but even after a steep decline in the number of federal firearms dealers over the past decade, there still are not enough inspectors to regularly audit the records of the more than 50,000 federal firearms license holders. This lack of oversight and the temptation of easy money cause some dealers to break the law knowingly.

Guns also can be obtained for the Mexican black market through theft. The cartels traditionally have tasked groups of young street thugs in the United States with stealing items (such as pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles) for the cartels to use or resell in Mexico. Now, intelligence reports suggest that these thugs have begun to rob gun stores in towns along the border. One such group is the Gulf cartel-related "Zetitas" (little Zetas), which is active in the Texas cities of Houston, Laredo and San Antonio, as well as other places.

A cartel connection is suspected when the weapons and ammunition stolen are popular with the cartels, such as assault rifles and FN Five-Seven pistols. The FN Five-Seven and the FN P-90 personal defense weapon shoot a 5.7 x 28 mm round that has been shown to penetrate body armor, as well as vehicle doors and windows. Because of this, they recently have become very popular with cartel enforcers, who have begun to call the weapons matapolicias -- police killers. Several police officials have been killed with these guns this year -- though officers also have been killed with .357 magnum revolvers, .45-caliber pistols and AK-47- or M-16-style assault rifles. Still, due to the rising popularity of the 5.7 x 28 mm weapons among cartel gunmen, many of these somewhat esoteric (and excellently manufactured) weapons are acquired in the United States and end up south of the border. Any time one of these weapons is connected to a crime on either side of the border, a cartel link should be considered.

The gun problem in Mexico is similar to the drug problem in the United States in that it is extremely difficult to reduce the supply of the illicit items without first reducing the demand. Any small reduction in the supply leads to an increase in price, which further stimulates efforts to provide a supply. Therefore, as long as the demand for such weapons persists, people will continue to find creative ways to meet that demand and make a profit. With that demand being fed, at least in part, by drug cartels that are warring for control of drug trafficking routes into the United States, the two problems of drugs and guns will continue to be deeply intertwined.

stratfor
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on October 25, 2007, 09:39:15 AM

TRÁFICO DE ARMAS, EL SEGUNDO DELITO MÁS IMPORTANTE, INDICA PROCURADURÍA


Activista inglesa afirma que no es fácil atacar el delito por falta de datos precisos 
 
 
Jorge Alejandro Medellín
El Universal
Lunes 31 de octubre de 2005

El tráfico de armas en México se ha convertido en el segundo delito en importancia cometido por el crimen organizado, tan sólo por debajo del tráfico de drogas, asegura el general Jorge Serrano, director de la Unidad Especializada de Lucha contra el Terrorismo y el Tráfico de Armas y Municiones, adscrita a la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR).
Atacar este ilícito no es sencillo ya que, en primer lugar, en regiones como América Latina no hay datos precisos sobre el fenómeno, señala la activista británica Rebecca Peters, directora de la Red Internacional contra el Tráfico de Armas Ligeras (IANSA).

Datos de Amnistía Internacional revelados recientemente señalan que en el mundo hay cerca de 640 millones de armas convencionales (pistolas, granadas, subametralladoras, fusiles, lanzagranadas), cuyo tráfico es incontrolable.

En el caso de México se habla de entre 2 y 15 millones de armas en todo el país, mientras que cifras oficiales de la Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF) aseguran que entre 1972 y 2001 se han otorgado 5 millones 443 mil 547 licencias portación de armas en México.

Los datos no presentan el panorama más reciente, es decir, del año 2001 a la fecha.



De norte a sur

El general Serrano señala en entrevista que el tráfico de armas hacia nuestro país sigue dándose en pequeños cargamentos.

"Es un tráfico hormiga todavía y no hemos detectado hasta el momento a ninguna banda o cartel que se dedique de manera específica a introducir estas piezas".

Lo que sí hay, dice, son grupos dentro de los cárteles de la droga que se dedican a abastecer al narcotráfico de pertrechos.

Se trata de 30 ó 40 personas dentro de las organizaciones encargadas de buscar los contactos para conseguir ciertas armas, como fusiles de asalto, pistolas automáticas, cargadores, granadas y miras telescópicas.

De hecho, el pasado 29 de octubre, la PGR informó en un comunicado sobre el aseguramiento de un embarque de armas hecho en Tijuana.

En un vehículo "se localizaron 15 armas calibre .22 marca Ruger, modelo 10-22 carabina; cinco cajas de cartuchos calibre .45; 36 cargadores calibre .22, dos cargadores calibre .45, dos cinturones portafusil, seis armas de fuego calibre .22, de diversas matrículas; un arma larga AK 47 calibre .22; y una bolsa de plástico que contenía 33 cargadores de material sintético calibre .22", señalaba la dependencia.

En promedio, explica el general Serrano, aseguramos cargamentos de entre 10 y 15 armas de fuego de diversos calibres.

Pero de este universo sobre salen los fusiles de asalto AK-47 (Automatic Kalashnikov), conocidos como cuernos de chivo, y que son las que más emplea criminales junto con el rifle AR-15.

Esto por lo que toca a las armas largas o de alto poder. Sin embargo, el verdadero embate del tráfico de armas es el de las llamadas pequeñas o ligeras, es decir, las pistolas automáticas o semiautomáticas, en calibres .22, .25,.38, .45. y 9 milímetros.

La PGR desconoce el volumen real de armas que pudieran pasar de manera ilegal desde Estados Unidos, pero está segura de que menos de 85 por ciento de estas piezas y de millones de cartuchos provienen del vecino país.



Silencio oficial
Aún así, la especulación sobre la verdadera naturaleza y alcances del fenómeno siguen en el aire.

Rebecca Peters, directora de la organización Red Internacional contra el Tráfico de Armas Ligeras (IANSA), dijo que hay un silencio oficial en Latinoamérica sobre este fenómeno, que puede ser delictivo o no porque estamos hablando de armas legales e ilegales que igual producen miles de muertos al año en el mundo.

En países como Holanda, Inglaterra, España o Sueca, hay datos oficiales sobre el número de armas pequeñas que se fabrican o importan.

"Aquí no. Si uno acude a dependencias oficiales para pedir información, se encuentra con que todo es reservado o sencillamente con que nadie se ha tomado la molestia de investigar y organizar bases de datos al respecto y ese es un gran problema".

Cifras corroboradas por IANSA señalan que el problema derivado del tráfico de armas de fuego ilegales es tal que Brasil ha llegado de registrar más muertes violentas que Colombia como consecuencia de la entrada de este material y su uso callejero.

La Red Internacional que encabeza Peters señala que entre 1978 y el 2000, murieron alrededor de 39 mil personas en Colombia a causa del conflicto armado en ese país.

En el mismo periodo fallecieron, tan sólo en las calles de Río de Janeiro, 49 mi 913 personas por arma de fuego.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on November 05, 2007, 10:20:39 AM

DEJAN INUNDACIONES 400 MIL AFECTADOS EN TABASCO
    Hola A todos  8-)

     La situación en Tabasco, México es terrible por las grandes inindaciones y el desbordamiento de ríos por la copiosas lluvias. Por favor pedimos su apoyo para todos los hermanos mexicanos del estado de Tabasco. Envien su colaboración en la medida de sus posibilidades, cualquier ayuda es importante en estos momentos. Se necesitan víveres, ropa, agua, añales... Y aunado a esta trajedia ahora también los hermanos de Veracruz también padecen el desbrdamiento del  río Panapa. Por su colaboración muchas gracias.

Autoridades esperan esta tarde el arribo del presidente Calderón para realizar recorridos por zonas afectadas y el posible anuncio de apoyos extraordinarios 


     La contingencia que vive Tabasco por el desbordamiento de al menos siete ríos y anegaciones por lluvias afectan ya a 400 mil personas de los 17 municipios del estado, afirmó el gobernador Andrés Granier Melo.

El nivel de las corrientes siguen en ascenso y desbordándose a más zonas habitacionales y en áreas de cultivos y potreros.


Además la presión de los ríos empuja los diques de costales con arena que se pusieron en las orillas para salvaguardar algunas zonas habitadas que aún no son afectadas, pero donde los ciudadanos viven en permanencia de zozobra.


Las autoridades esperan para esta tarde el arribo del presidente Felipe Calderón para realizar recorridos por zonas afectadas y el posible anuncio de apoyos extraordinarios.


Apenas ayer, medio gabinete del gobierno federal encabezados por el secretario de Gobernación, Francisco Ramírez Acuña, realizó una evaluación de la calamidad que sufre el estado de Tabasco.


La masa de aire polar del frente frío número cuatro que interacciona con algunos otros fenómenos climáticos sigue ocasionando lluvias en el territorio tabasqueño al que “le llueve sobre mojado”.


La Comisión Nacional del Agua precisó que para el domingo 4 entra el frente frío número cinco que acarreará más precipitaciones, aunque se desconoce aún a detalle la intensidad que pueda traer.


La presa de “Peñitas” ubicada en el municipio de Ostucán, en el norte de Chiapas, sigue desfogando dos mil metros cúbicos por segundo hacia los ríos de la planicie tabasqueña como el Samaria y Carrizal.


No dejen de apoyar
Saludos

Mauricio
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 05, 2007, 11:56:20 AM
Guau Mauricio:

?Puedes sugerir algun fuente digna de fe por honestidad y eficiencia y darnos un URL?

Gracias,
CD
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on November 06, 2007, 09:23:13 AM

     Hola Marc:  8-)

     En los principales sitios de las instituciones bancarias como Bancomer y Banamex se pueden hacer donaciones económicas. Para donar cobijas alimentos, ropa, etc. pueden hacerlo en el sitio de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, que es:

www.sedena.gob.mx

     La SEDENA tiene dos centos de acopio. Verdaderamente se necesita, ya que hay gentes que perdieron practicamente todos sus bienes y se quedaron en la calle.  :cry:

     Un gran agradecimiento de corazón para todos aquellos que puedan ayudar a Tabasco.  :-)

Saludos
Mauricio
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on November 14, 2007, 03:55:01 PM
Hola a todos, lamento no poder estar en el foro con la frecuencia de antes, espero normalizar mi participación almenos una por mes. Se quedo una respuesta para Marc pendiente, comienzo contestandola y en otras oportunidades me actualizarme en otros temas.

En efecto México hizo grandes esfuerzos para realizar reformas democráticas, de hecho cuando se formo el grupo de consejeros del Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) encargado de la organización de la elección donde Fox resultó ganador, nadie penso que se podia retroceder a las situaciones de farza electoral (como la que mensiona Marc en su viaje en el 76), ni mucho menos al fraude electoral.

El historiador mexicano Enrique Semo hace un extenso y puntual analisis de la contienda electoral en México y a grandes rasgos concluye que la oligarquia que gobierna al país permitio la alternancia (no el cambio como se mensiona en los medios), pero fué reacia en permitir que se concretara la verdadera transcisión democrática y recurrió a la farsa electoral, al fraude elctoral y al voto del miedo; para impedir que un gobierno de izquierda gobernara al país. Mensiona que efectivamente hubo un complot en contra del candidato de izquierda y se movilizaron todos los recursos de esa oligarquia de forma cooordinada y sistematica. Por último habla de como esa oligarquía considera a los méxicanos menores de edad y actuó como un padre que se dice habierto al dialogo con sus hijos pero que se impone autoritariamente cuando estos toman decisiones que en apariencia no les son favorables.

Este comentario es mio: hace mas de seis años la mayoria, racional o irracionalmente optaron por el candidato de opocición Vicente Fox, la minoria que no votamos por él vimos con malos ojos esta decisión pero al ser testigos de la trasparencia en la elección y la indiscutible ventaja sobre el candidato oficial y Cardenas aguantamos y toleramos su permanencia en el gobierno. Hace un año despues de ver la dispareja conformación del IFE, la parcial actuación del gobierno y de la camara de diputados; la ntervensión directa de los medios de comunicación, los empresarios y de presenciar una elección tan participativa, asi como favorable al candidato de izquierda; no es de extrañar el malestar de varios millones de mexicanos que nos sentimos traicionados y el rechazo que profesamos a un presidente que fué impuesto y que se sostiene con el respaldo de las televisoras y cuerpos castrenses disfrazados de policias.

La última de Calderón, en Tabasco cuando se presentó a llenar sacos de arena durante 15 minutos, fué tal la demanda de la gente que buscaba se escuchada que tuvo que ser extraido del sitio y una vez que el estado mayor coloco esa cinta naranja que indica peligro; así como una silla enmedio de la improvisada zona de seguridad, nuestro presidente, a precautoria distancia, se dispuso a escuchar a su pueblo.

Si les interesa que profundice en el analisis de Enrique Semo, tengo mucha información al respecto.

Un saludo

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 16, 2007, 10:22:55 AM
Hola Omar:

Que bueno verte aqui de nuevo.  Tenemos nuestro "DB Gathering of the Pack" este domingo-- por lo cual no tendre tiempo para responder hasta la semana que viene.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on December 18, 2007, 02:15:06 PM
Hola a todos, ahora si cumplo puntual el compromiso, una colaboración por mes :mrgreen:, en esta ocasión quiero enlazar un suceso presente desde la entrada en funciones del nuevo gobierno mexicano y uno que aconteció la última semana del mes de noviembre: la lucha contra el narcotráfico y el dictamen de la corte sobre la acusación de acoso, maltrato, encubrimiento y asociación delictuosa en contra del Gobernador del estado de Puebla Mario Marín.

Estos casos aunque en apariencia distantes tienen un denominador común: la falta de independencia del poder judicial respecto al poder ejecutivo. Esto se deduce después de conocer los comentarios del historiador y profesor de la Universidad de Palermo Carlo Giuseppe Marino, respecto de la estrategia anticrimen del gobierno mexicano.

Este tipo de acciones para combatir el narcotráfico solo favorecen el mantenimiento de las organizaciones delictivas, ya que efectivamente, el ejército golpea a la criminalidad en las calles pero paradójicamente no hace nada en contra de la estructura que se encuentra arriba, el sistema de poder que hará inevitable la reorganización de los criminales.

En América Latina aunque no existe la mafia como en Sicilia, si existe una estructura con características mafiosas, que ustedes llaman estados autoritarios. En estos sistemas políticos donde la magistratura (el poder judicial), depende del poder político (poder ejecutivo y poder legislativo) o existe una división de poderes simulada, es inevitable que haya una estrecha relación entre jueces y centros de poder que tienden a construir relaciones mafiosas de colaboración o compromiso. La mafia no es crimen organizado sino un poder organizado con una estructura que a veces es alternativa al Estado y a veces utiliza al Estado.

Las autoridades italianas comenzaron a luchar contra la mafia solo cuando la sociedad civil movilizada le impuso esa lucha, cuando los jueces (representantes de la sociedad independiente), organizaron la acción concreta de la batalla, así el Estado se vio obligado a emprender acciones serias gracias a la intervención de una sociedad civil fuerte y viva; organizada en partidos políticos auténticos (auténticamente democráticos), además de una magistratura verdaderamente independiente.


El nuevo gobierno mexicano mantiene el combate en contra del crimen organizado como una prioridad e intenta legitimarse con ella, pero tal lucha no producirá los resultados que la propaganda oficial expresa, ya que el episodio de hace tres semanas revela la subordinación, omisiones, complicidades y compromisos que existen entre la Suprema Corte de Justicia (magistratura), el gobernador de Puebla (poder político) e industriales de la rama textil, vinculados con redes de pederastia y pornografía infantil (centros de poder), pues a pesar de las pruebas evidentes en contra del gobernador la máxima corte del país falló a favor de este último :-o; evidenciando las relaciones “paramafiosas” que menciona el profesor Marino

La afectada por esta decisión del tribunal, la periodista de nombre Lidia Cacho comentó al respecto, “el veredicto de la corte evidentemente me afecta, pero lo más grave es el mensaje que el gobierno envía a los pederastas en particular y al crimen organizado en general: en México hay impunidad”

Saludos

Omar


Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: José Carballo on January 15, 2008, 10:20:06 AM
Hola a todos, primero que nada saludos y muchas felicidades a todos los que no he podido ver en persona, les deseo lo mejor para este año que inicia.

Por otro lado, me encontré hace unos momentos un video en internet, quise compartirlo con todos y por eso lo pongo aquí, ya que en el sitio en español no existe como en el de inglés un apartado para comentar sobre crímenes con cuchillo. El link para el video es

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5e1_1199622703


Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 17, 2008, 06:29:32 AM
Guau Jose:

Buenisima idea.  Voy a abrir un hilo para este proposito.

CD

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on January 23, 2008, 12:08:12 PM
Hola a todos, en la revista Proceso del mes de noviembre apareció el artículo titulado Soy un treinta y cinco: revelaciones de un desertor, este es un resumen:

En los últimos días del mes de junio las células de los zetas recibieron la orden de reunirse en Matamoros, con objeto de ser consultados acerca de una tregua con sus enemigos del Cartel de Sinaloa. Pacto que se consumo con el conocimiento y cooperación de las autoridades de la PGR, así como del Ejército Mexicano. Sin embargo a pesar de este acuerdo muchas células de los zetas no estuvieron de conformes con él, debido principalmente a que desde de las captura de Osiel Cardenas en marzo del 2003, la dirigencia del cartel del golfo la asumió un grupo independiente al otro ejercito, nombre con el que también se conoce a los zetas. El entrevistado ex miembro del Ejercito Mexicano y ex policía fiscal, formó parte de esos inconformes y fue capturado por una célula antagónica a la suya, pero logró escapar de la casa de seguridad donde fue recluido.

La organización del Cartel del Golfo se compone de dos estructuras, la dirigencia y los zetas. A su vez los casi 600 zetas cuentan con un grupo de inteligencia y resguardo conocido como La Guardia formado por 600 elementos; así como de una estructura financiera, cuyos elementos son protegidos por un acuerdo con la policía, que los convierte en intocables. La Guardia se encarga de vigilar y comunicar a los comandantes todos los movimientos en sus zonas de influencia de la policía y el ejército. Mientras que los financieros se encargan de la recaudación del dinero de las narcotienditas, del derecho de piso a polleros (se cobran $ 60 USD por cada indocumentado que pasa por sus territorios) y narcotraficantes; así como del dinero obtenido por el tráfico de cocaína y la extorsión (actividades que sostienen económicamente al grupo armado).

Entrar al grupo solo es posible a través de la recomendación de algún miembro del mismo y después de completar La Diestra, el riguroso entrenamiento al que son sometidos los aspirantes. Una vez aceptado se le asigna una plaza de operaciones y una actividad. Como brazo armado del Cartel, los zetas deben defender los territorios conquistados y extender la zona de influencia del mismo, como ocurrió con la Plaza de Torreón, que históricamente había pertenecido al Cartel de Sinaloa. El entrevistado menciona que esa plaza costo la vida de cuatro capitanes del Ejercito Mexicano los cuales una vez que murieron se les corto en pedacitos, se les guardo en bolsas de plástico y sus restos fueron arrojados durante el paso de un convoy militar a manera de advertencia. Cuando es necesario que no quede rastro de algún enemigo, se colocan sus restos en un tambo de metal (perforado a balazos), se bañan con gasolina y se les prende fuego; el cuerpo se cocina hasta reducir todo a cenizas.

Para concluir su entrevista se le pregunto al ex zeta su opinión sobre la operación del cartel luego de la detención de su jefe y después de la operación lanzada por el Presidente Calderón; ante lo cual afirmó que todas las células están activas y se opera casi al 100 %, menciona que cuando un zeta es capturado por entrar al territorio del cartel enemigo sin autorización, solo tiene que identificarse como un 35 y mencionar la plaza a la que pertenece y el nombre de su jefe inmediato, posteriormente la misma policía lo entrega a su célula o a su superior.

Nos vemos el próximo mes.

Omar

PD. Impresionante el video que comparte con nosotros Jose, espero a que Marc cree el hilo, para comentar sobre el.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on February 27, 2008, 01:13:32 PM
Hola a todos, tres meses cumpliendo mi asistencia a este foro, ya es un logro!!!!...en la revista Proceso de la semana pasada encontré el artículo Cuerpo sin Legitimidad, que habla sobre el nuevo grupo militar, aquí esta un resumen:

“El pasado 16 de septiembre, durante el desfile militar, se presentó un contingente ataviado con un uniforme beige y gorra negra, el cual fue presentado con el nombre de Fuerzas Especiales de Apoyo Federal. La creación de esta fuerza militar obedece a un decreto del Presidente de la República fechado el pasado 4 de mayo de 2007, el cual establece que esta unidad estará compuesta de mil 800 efectivos y quedará a las órdenes directas del Presidente de la República; para apoyar a cualquier autoridad civil que lo solicite en el combate a la delincuencia organizada o contra cualquier acto que ponga en riesgo la seguridad nacional. Pero debido a que este decreto provocó suspicacia entre los partidos de izquierda y las organizaciones de derechos humanos fue substituido por otro, donde se especifica que la intervención del nuevo cuerpo obedecerá solo a una circunstancia excepcional y por ordenes conjuntas de la Secretaria de Seguridad Pública Federal, la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (SEDENA) y la Secretaria de Gobernación.

Desde la fecha del decreto presidencial (a pesar de no contar con el marco legal ni con presupuesto propio para el nuevo grupo), la SEDENA ya ha empezado a recabar la información sobre el apoyo que proporciona a la Policía Federal Preventiva desde 1999. Así como los métodos que otros países han desarrollado al emplear a sus ejércitos en labores de seguridad pública. En ese mismo sentido esta secretaria ya inició un inventario de sus unidades operativas, para tener información sobre el personal a reclutar, además de las necesidades de armamento y adiestramiento. Paralelamente la secretaría ya tiene listo el proyecto de la estructura orgánica, las unidades subordinadas y sus funciones; así como el presupuesto de integración y operación. Aunque en este proyecto no se indica quien es el comandante de esta unidad, la revista Armas (editada por la SEDENA), filtra esa información al mencionar en la lista de las personalidades asistentes a la celebración por el 61º Aniversario de las Aerotropas en México, al General de División Jesús Humberto Rodríguez Martínez como Comandante de las Fuerzas Especiales de Apoyo Federal.

Este recién nombrado General de División (fue ascendido a ese grado apenas en noviembre pasado por Calderón), es considerado un héroe de guerra por su participación en el Batallón Olimpia, responsable en 1968 de dirigir la matanza a civiles en Tlatelolco :?. Por estos actos heróicos el Presidente Díaz Ordaz y su Secretario de Defensa, Marcelino García Barragán, en un acuerdo del 23 de octubre del mismo año lo reconocen de esta forma: por el valor, determinación, sentido de responsabilidad y espíritu de sacrificio que demostró el personal militar al repeler la agresión armada durante los hechos acontecidos en la Plaza de las Tres Culturas, el día 2 del actual... por la Ley de Ascensos y Recompensas del Ejercito y Fuerza Aérea Nacionales, gírense instrucciones de ascenso al grado inmediato superior a las personas que continuación se mencionan... Junto con otros siete de sus compañeros Rodríguez Martínez fue ascendido ese mismo año.”

El futuro de las garantías individuales en México esta en riesgo, no solo con la inminente aprobación de la llamada Ley Gestapo *, sino además por la operación de un grupo especial de militares sin tareas, atribuciones ni límites bien definidos y lo más grave dirigido por un personaje con la trayectoria del General Rodríguez Martínez.

Un saludo

Omar

*Nota 1, aquí están las reflexiones sobre la Ley Gestapo, del periodista Julio Hernández publicado en la columna Astillero del periódico La Jornada del lunes pasado:

... autoridades rencorosas podrían dirigir acciones policíacas y militares contra quienes quieran, utilizando módicas coartadas legales. Por las noches como sucedía con las tropas nazis de asalto, cualquier casa podrá ser allanada y sus habitantes arrancados de ella, sin orden judicial ni fundamento mayor que la suposición de los agentes gubernamentales de que en esos lugares pudiera estar en riesgo una vida, una llamada anónima, denunciando atrocidades en un domicilio, podrían servir para justificar irrupciones armadas, esa llamada anónima podría ser calumniosas o certera o inventada o autentica o todo lo contrario...

*Nota 2, por fortuna para la libertad de los ciudadanos del pais y sobre todo de la ciudad, se eliminó de la reforma judicial el apartado de los cateos sin autorización, almenos estamos a salvo por ahora.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on April 04, 2008, 03:43:15 PM

Hola a todos, en la revista Proceso del mes pasado encontré el artículo Protectores del cártel del Golfo, que habla sobre un informe del FBI que destaca la capacidad del grupo armado para corromper autoridades mexicanas de alto nivel y lo más preocupante para Estados Unidos, la facilidad de operar en ambos lados de la frontera, aquí esta un resumen:

El éxito de los zetas radica en ser una organización eficiente y versátil (en una anterior colaboración mencioné la estructura declarada directamente de un desertor del grupo); integrada por ex integrantes de los GAFES (Grupo Aerotransportado de Fuerzas Especiales), dedicada principalmente a la protección del cártel del Golfo, pero diversificada hacia el trafico de drogas, extorsión, secuestros, asesinatos, derecho de piso y protección a bares, table dance, cantinas y casas de juego. En sus operaciones utilizan armamento de alto poder y una capacitación rigurosa que brindan ellos mismo o cuerpos especializados como ex Kaibiles (cuerpo contrainsurgente guatemalteco), quienes últimamente se encuentran entrenando un grupo operativo auxiliar que llaman zetitas, quienes ya no son militares. Otra muestra de su eficiencia es el efecto psicológico que imprimen en sus adversarios durante sus ejecuciones, las cuales van desde decapitar al cadáver, hasta una especie de rito narco satánico conocido como fumarse al muerto (en una pipa mezclan las cenizas del cuerpo que acaban de calcinar, lo combinan con cocaína y mientras lo fuman repiten la letanía tu sigues aquí, tu no te has ido, ahora formas parte de nosotros y nos vas a cuidar para siempre).

El problema principal para Estados Unidos es la vulnerabilidad de su frontera, pues varios integrantes del grupo son residentes en este país o son familiares de residentes; lo que les ha permitido establecer y pocisionar redes de distribución de drogas en los estados fronterizos (sobretodo en el Valle de Texas desde el año 2000) y asociarse con mafias locales como los Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos. La actividad en el territorio norteamericano además del tráfico de drogas se centra en el secuestro individual.

Otro factor de éxito para los zetas es el apoyo que han recibido de diversas jurisdicciones mexicanas de alto nivel, desde autoridades de Tamaulipas hasta el propio Procurador Macedo de la Concha (en el sexenio de Vicente Fox) quien fue un personaje clave para que este grupo consolidara su dominio en la Plaza de Piedras Negras. Del apoyo del procurador al grupo armado estaba al tanto autoridades tan importantes como el Director de la SIEDO (Sub procuraduría de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada) José Luís Santiago Vasconcelos quien actualmente ocupa el cargo de subprocurador de Asuntos Jurídicos e Internacionales de la PGR). El ex Procurador General de la República Daniel Cabeza de Vaca (quien substituyó a Macedo de la Concha), en noviembre de 2006 calificó al grupo armado como un mito y tiempo después se contradijo al afirmar que el líder de esta organización armada se encontraba anulado por su adicción a la cocaína y su grupo al borde de la desintegración. Estas afirmaciones de parte del procurador le merecieron un reclamo de un jefe de contrainteligencia del FBI en una reunión entre los procuradores de ambos países, dada su falta de acción en torno a la información proporcionada que hace referencia de manera específica a los nombres y territorios de los zetas, así como a la participación del ex procurador Macedo de la Concha.

El documento del FBI concluye de esta forma:

este no es un documento de la DEA sino del FBI... Para el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos lo primero es la seguridad nacional, la porosidad de sus fronteras, este tema dejará de ser prioritario para Estados Unidos hasta que existan acciones concretas del gobierno mexicano en torno a los zetra.

Un saludo a todos.

Omar.


Nota: en relación a la falta de acciones concretas del gobierno mexicano en contra de este grupo, recordé una nota en este mismo semanario Proceso, donde un militar relata que cuando observan un convoy de camionetas negras, con los vidrios polarizados rapidamente buscan donde ocultarse o almenos se tiran al piso hasta que las camionetas pasan de largo en medio del "reten". Parece que los retenes son solo funcionan para la población civil..., como la familia que fué asesinada por negarse a detener su automovil durante un operativo de este tipo en el estado de Sinaloa, el auto fué hecho literalmente pedazos por rafagas de ametralladora artillada  :-o
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 07, 2008, 09:25:56 AM
Tremendamente interestsante Omar.  Siempre recibo tus informes aqui con ganas.  Gracias.

Lamentamente, la gran mayoria de mis fuentes de informacion son en ingles.  Aqui hay uno mas, sobre PEMEX.

Playing Monopoly in Mexico
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
April 7, 2008; Page A12

Felipe Calderón won the July 2006 presidential election by convincing Mexicans he was the candidate who could bring about 21st-century living standards. A more robust economy was not just a Calderón campaign promise, it was the campaign promise.

To deliver, Mr. Calderón knew he would have to confront the nation's monster monopolies, which gorge themselves on privilege at consumer expense. The poster child of this practice is the state-owned oil giant, Pemex.

 
Americas Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady comments on why oil-rich Mexico can't maximize its oil production. (April 7)
Now, 16 months into Mr. Calderón's government, the effort toward even limited reform at Pemex is in serious trouble. To understand why, do as Deep Throat famously advised Bob Woodward and "follow the money." Despite the myths, the reason Pemex is considered a sacred cow has much less to do with nationalism than with who benefits from its monopoly power.

Over the past decade, Mexico has wisely diversified away from oil production as the principal source of national income. But oil remains an important source of financing for the government. In 2006, the petroleum contribution to the federal budget was $43.9 billion, or 37%.

That income stream is in no way guaranteed in perpetuity. At the end of last month, Mr. Calderón's government released a 130-page study that found existing wells are drying up faster than new ones are coming on stream. Bottom line: Pemex production, as Energy Minister Georgina Kessel put it, has "fallen constantly" in the past three years. It's not that the oil is not there any longer. Reserves are plentiful. But they are not being exploited. As a result, she said, Mexico has "left on the table income of around $10 billion annually, almost three times the annual budget of 'oportunidades' [the government's social program targeting the poor], the principal tool in combating poverty."

In December 2006, daily output dropped below three million barrels per day for the first time since 2001, and it is expected to continue to shrink. By 2012 the minister says that production is forecast to drop by 800,000 barrels a day at its principal wells. By 2018 daily output will be down 1.5 million barrels.

 THE AMERICAS IN THE NEWS

 
Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.This dismal performance means that, as a global competitor, Pemex is losing out. The company is now the 11th-largest oil company in the world, having fallen from the No. 6 spot in 2004. "While other countries are enriching themselves through deep-water oil wells, our country simply wastes the opportunity and runs the risk of losing it," Ms. Kessel said.

Pemex is also incapable of serving the local market. "Today, four out of every 10 liters of gasoline consumed in the country are imported," Ms. Kessel said. At a Mexico-Norway energy conference last year, the Energy Ministry reported that gasoline demand is expected to grow annually by 3.9% over the next 10 years. Without new refinery capacity, Mexico will need to import 415,000 barrels a day by 2015. This is not good news for Americans facing rising prices. U.S. refining capacity is already overtaxed. The ministry says petrochemical imports are also expected to grow rapidly because the Mexican industry has "a disintegrated production chain, high production costs, low competitiveness and low levels of investment."

How to reverse this and turn Mexico into the booming oil country that it should be? That's easy: Allow private-property rights. Wildcatters would turn the country into a gusher of black gold. Mexican wealth would shoot up.

Such heresies cannot even be whispered in Mexico – though not because the Mexican people can't be convinced that there is a better way to run things. The reason is because the guardians of the status quo – politicians, suppliers and labor – would suffer if competition hit the market. Private Mexican contractors who "supply" Pemex are used to business transactions tied to political connections. If there were multiple buyers in competition with one another, those political profit margins would evaporate. Private-sector oil companies vying for returns would care about how much suppliers were charging. Competition would reduce the incentives for graft, and payrolls would have to be justified so the labor union would also lose power. The last special interest to want any of this change is Congress, where many members act as middlemen between Pemex and the contractor. As a famous member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) once explained it: "A politician who is poor is a poor politician."

Still, without new investment Mexico will bid good-bye to its legacy as a world-class oil producer, and to the income that accompanies that status. So the government is looking for a way to allow the private sector into the oil industry without relinquishing the monopoly. As the Energy Ministry's report noted, all national petroleum companies now collaborate with third parties as a way to boost competitiveness.

Three months ago, congressional support for changes that would have allowed private-sector investment in distribution, refining and deep water exploration seemed within reach, because the PRI appeared ready to side with Mr. Calderón and his PAN party. Then it emerged that Mr. Calderón's interior minister signed Pemex contracts for his family business while working at the Energy Ministry. The interior minister says he did nothing wrong. But PRI leadership now says it will not support reform. What it really means is that now it has leverage to demand some new power in return for helping the Calderón government, caught in a scandal, to achieve a political victory.

Ironically, if the PRI blocks reform, it will preserve the very practices it now feigns outrage about. Considering the party's long history of corruption, it is difficult to see its objections as anything more than contract envy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Calderón warned last week that time is running short and the government must act "before it's too late." On the other hand, if the PRI wants to run Pemex into the ground, maybe Mr. Calderón should stand back and let it happen. It may be the only way to starve the most voracious of Mexican dinosaurs.

WSJ
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 14, 2008, 06:16:13 PM
Quiero mencionar que el hilo
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1079.50
tiene unos posts de interes en ingles sobre Mexico
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on May 16, 2008, 04:03:41 PM
Hola Marc/todos, como siempre un placer comunicarme con ustedes. Aunque mi nive en ingles no es bueno si entendí bastante del articulo de Marc, aprovecho para complementarlo con una composición de vários articulos dela revista Proceso de los meses de marzo y abril:

El diagnóstico efectuado por la Secretaria Kessel es parcial y tendencioso; ya que focaliza como única solución a la crisis de Pemex las alianzas estratégicas con empresas privadas extranjeras, pero oculta otros elementos de carácter reversible que podrían ofrecer alternativas a la paraestatal sin privatizarla. Entre los datos a analizar se oculta la terrible sangría fiscal a la que es expuesta, tan solo en el año pasado esta práctica originó perdidas por 16 mil 127 millones de pesos. La evaluación de la Secretaría de Energía (Sener), también encubre tres factores importantes que propiciaron el estado actual de la empresa. Durante el sexenio de Miguel de la Madrid se disolvió el Instituto Nacional del Petróleo, entidad de investigación científica y tecnológica de la paraestatal. En el sexenio de Salinas de Gortari se desmantelaron varias refinerías del país y se abandonó la petroquímica; derrochando con estas acciones mano de obra especializada, recursos económicos e impidiendo que el mercado interno tuviera combustibles y fertilizantes a bajo costo. El factor resultante de los dos anteriores es el férreo control burocrático a Pemex, situación que merma la capacidad interna para ejecutar planes y proyectos; al depender del presupuesto que le otorgue la federación en vez de administrar sus propios recursos.

Aunque las distintas fracciones del Congreso crearan comisiones para investigar la veracidad de la valoración de la Sener, esto no va a ser posible al menos en un periodo de entre 5 a 12 años, ya que dos meses antes de que esta Secretaría entregara la evaluación de la paraestatal, la Coordinación de Asesores de Pemex-refinación, ordenó que se colocara bajo reserva el expediente Autoevaluación del organismo. Este informe junto a los expedientes relativos a las franquicias, comercialización, cuentas bancarias, deudas, pagos y las decisiones del Consejo de Administración de Pemex y su Dirección General; forman parte de los 5 millones 69 mil 577 archivos restringidos a la investigación, colocados bajo resguardo del Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información (Ifai), desde el sexenio de Vicente Fox. En lo que va del presente sexenio Calderón ha colocado en reserva 3 mil 332 documentos.

El Presidente Calderón explicó que antes de hacer declaraciones sobre la reforma energética era necesario conocer el estado real de Pemex, sin embargo una vez emitida la evaluación, no comentó nada al respecto. Como información oficial del tema, en el mes de marzo se trasmitió por televisión, en horario estelar, el video El tesoro de México. Al siguiente día las dos televisoras iniciaron una campaña mediática en sus programas cómicos, de la farándula y los dirigidos a las amas de casa; empezaron a repetir las frases tesoro de México o  tesoro escondido, pero de forma parcial y totalmente descontextualizada. Sin embargo el video polarizó nuevamente a la sociedad mexicana, ya que desde dos meses antes circulaba en la página de you tube el mismo video (cuya autoría era negada por la Sener y Pemex repetidamente), pero sin editar la palabra Alianza. La opinión pública interpreto esta diferencia de información como una mala señal de las intensiones del gobierno, el cual recibió un exhorto de la Coordinación Política de la Cámara de Diputados de suspender el spot televisivo, ya que confunde al público, al no presentar un diagnóstico claro, ni abordar opciones al problema. Semanas después durante una gira por Estados Unidos, Calderón ya había enviado su propuesta al Congreso, y comentó inflexible que de no aprobarse la reforma había tres opciones, dejar que la empresa se siguiera desgastando :?, subsidiarla con recursos del gasto social o tan sólo incorporar mejoras basadas en la experiencia de otros países.

Resulta lógico el interés del presidente Calderón y de su grupo por imponer la reforma energética al conocer que se ha beneficiado de este sector desde que, como legisladores, formaban parte de la Coordinación del Grupo Parlamentario del PAN (200-2003), en ese tiempo Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo, actual Secretario de Gobernación, ocupando la presidencia de la Comisión de Energía de la Cámara de Diputados, firmó el primero de los contratos denunciados por López Obrador. Los otros los firmaría cuando el grupo saltó a la Sener (en 2004) y Mouriño dirigía la Subsecretaría Energética y de Desarrollo Técnico, siendo su jefe directo Calderón. En otros puestos de dicha dependencia figuraba Cesar Nava como abogado general de Pemex, actual Secretario Particular de la presidencia; Manuel Minjares como Oficial Mayor, actual jefe de la Coordinación de Asesores de la Secretaría de Hacienda; José Antonio Prado Carranza (compañero en la carrera de abogado y amigo de Mouriño), como Gerente Jurídico de Convenios y Contratos en Pemex; labora actualmente en la Unidad de Asuntos Jurídicos de la Compañía de Luz y Fuerza del Centro. Otros personajes ligados a Calderón, con puestos estratégicos en la actual administración, para bloquear acciones legales y políticas en contra de este grupo (*) son Germán Martínez, Secretario de la Función Pública, actual Dirigente Nacional del Pan y Salvador Vega Casillas un ex priista del estado de Campeche (donde los Mouriño tienen sus principales empresas), actualmente en la Secretaría de la Función Pública.

Los contratos firmados por Mouriño en su carácter de funcionario público y al mismo tiempo como representante legal de la empresa contratista, no solamente lo comprometen a él por el delito de tráfico de influencias, sino que además por la estructura, normatividad y funcionamiento de la Sener, estaría implicado el propio Calderón, ya que Mouriño debió de informarle por escrito de contratos efectuados sin licitación. Cesar Nava por ser el encargado de revisar la legalidad de los contratos realizados por Pemex y Manuel MInjares porque debió de supervisar la documentación que recibía la Sener. Calderón por su parte el 14 de noviembre de 2003, incurrió en violaciones al artículo 27 constitucional cuando otorgó el primer contrato de servicios múltiples a la empresa española Repso, por 2 mil 437 millones de dólares, para explotar yacimientos de gas.

La reforma enviada por Calderón al Congreso, según especialistas en derecho constitucional de la Universidad Autónoma de México, contraviene el espíritu y la letra de los artículos 6, 25, 27, 28, 49, 73, 108, 109, 113, 126, 127 y 134 de la Constitución Política mexicana. La reforma pretende entregar a particulares nacionales y extranjeros la exploración, la perforación, la refinación, la petroquímica, el trasporte, los ductos, y el almacenamiento de petrolíferos; deja a Pemex como simple abastecedora de petróleo crudo. Lo mas grave es que esta reforma vulnera la soberanía nacional al conceder derechos a extranjeros y obligar al Gobierno mexicano ante cualquier controversia, a recurrir a tribunales internacionales. La reforma más que energética debe ser de carácter fiscal para evitar la discrecionalidad en los gravámenes impuestos a Pemex y otorgar plena autonomía de gestión a la paraestatal. Para facilitar el funcionamiento de la empresa, debe trabajarse en una coordinación operativa de la Sener, Pemex, Comisión Federal de Electricidad y el Banco de México. Para optimizar los recursos humanos y financieros, deben coordinarse con la paraestatal la Secretaría de la Función Pública, La Auditoria Superior y el Sindicato.

Un saludo a todos.

Omar.



* El artículo dice textualmente: garantizar la impunidad pública y privada del grupo en el poder.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 03, 2008, 07:02:09 PM
Mexico Security Memo: June 2, 2008
Stratfor Today » June 2, 2008 | 2137 GMT
Related Links
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Record Violence, Same Government Response
Last month’s 493 drug-related killings in Mexico made May the deadliest month yet in the government’s fight against drug cartels, according to tallies reported by Mexican media. In addition to increasing overall violence, a closer look at the homicides reveals other disturbing — albeit not too surprising — trends. The 64 police officers killed during May is more than twice the average of 27 killed per month during January through April. The geographic distribution of the violence is a continuation of trends we observed over the past several months. The violence is concentrated primarily in areas controlled by the Juarez cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, and the Beltran Leyva brothers. Chihuahua and Sinaloa states account for more than 50 percent of the killings, followed by Guerrero, Durango, Sonora, and Baja California states. Gulf territory states like Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas accounted for less than 3 percent of the killings.

The passing of yet another record month in Mexico’s struggle against the cartels provides an opportunity to consider the government’s response to the violence. Stratfor has been waiting for decisive action from the Mexican government since the May 8 assassination of the acting head of the country’s federal police. Such action has yet to occur, however, and recent statements by the administration of President Felipe Calderon gave no hint that any change in strategy is forthcoming. This past week, Calderon and several Cabinet secretaries publicly defended the administration’s strategy, citing progress thus far and repeating the oft-heard statement that this would be a long-term struggle requiring cooperation at all levels of government as well as with the military. Other activities such as routine small-scale troop deployments and raids continued as usual.

It is still unclear exactly what options Mexico City has in order to curb the escalating violence. For whatever reason, the government has not mobilized substantially more military forces over the past several months, opting instead to redeploy active forces from one hot spot to another. The government has 27,000 troops deployed to various hot spots of drug-trafficking related violence out of approximately 240,000 total troops. Other options, such as negotiating with cartel leaders, probably would not be practical given the fractured nature of criminal organizations in Mexico and their penchant for breaking their agreements. At this point, however, Calderon may not yet be feeling pressure to consider such options. The violence is still concentrated primarily among those involved in the drug trade and in cities long considered cartel strongholds. This certainly will not always be the case, and Stratfor has observed several ways in which violence is already increasingly affecting the civilian population. That, combined with the increasing threat to police, probably will represent the tipping point after which the government steps up its operations as the war on the cartels continues to escalate.

Border Smuggling Happenings
Two men were shot dead this week at a ranch located near Guadalupe, Chihuahua state, a small town which lies just across the border from Tornillo, Texas, on a remote part of the border. One of the victims was a former mayor of Guadalupe; his daughter was killed three days later on the day of the ex-mayor’s funeral when a man traveling in a vehicle shot her while she was driving. Her seven-year-old daughter was wounded in the attack, which according to many reports occurred as she was driving as part of her father’s funeral procession. Police have not announced a motive for the killings, and there is no known connection between this family and smuggling or drug trafficking organizations. This incident highlights the value to smugglers of private property adjacent to the border, however, and such violence directed against families seems consistent with narcotics activity.

Authorities in the United States believe the majority of illicit drugs entering the United States from Mexico arrive via official ports of entry, either hidden among legitimate goods or in the trunks of cars waved through by corrupt border officials. A smaller portion of drugs are smuggled through tunnels or overland through holes in border fences. Frequently, these smuggling efforts are aided by private property owners along the international border, who own land where drug shipments can be staged before finally being exported to the United States. While these types of smugglings are believed to constitute a minority of drug shipments to the United States, however, continuing security operations and the arrests of corrupt border officials in cartel strongholds like Reynosa and Ciudad Juarez may prompt drug traffickers to rely more heavily on remote locations like Guadalupe to bring drugs across the border.





(click to view map)

May 27
Seven federal agents died during a raid on a safe-house in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, which sparked a four hour firefight. The suspects in the safe-house repelled the raid with automatic weapons and fragmentation grenades. The incident claimed the largest number of federal agents killed in a single action during the fight against the cartels.
Authorities in Mexico City announced the deployment of 200 additional federal agents to Sinaloa state as part of a “complete offensive” against organized crime there.
The body of an unidentified man was found in a vehicle near Mexico City, wrapped in a blanket and with two gunshot wounds.
Soldiers in Suchiate, Chiapas state, reported the seizure of approximately 500 pounds of cocaine from a farm. The drugs were found hidden among a truck full of bananas.
The bodies of three men were found along a road in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. They were bound at the hands and appeared to have been shot execution style.
May 28
Two severed heads were found along a highway in Durango state. A note next to one of the heads read, in part, “We can respond too.”
The body of a state police commander in Sinaloa state was found along a river near Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Authorities believe he had been abducted the day before.
A former federal agent died in Mexico City after being shot nine times outside his home midday. He reportedly had worked at Mexico City’s international airport, and been involved in the seizure of drug and ephedra shipments destined for the Sinaloa cartel. The assassinations of other federal police officers also have been linked to drug shipments at the airport.
The body of a woman was found alongside a highway in Tabasco state along with a note that read, in part, “Keep talking, informant. The army is not going to protect you and yours.”
Motorists in Zapotlan del Rey, Jalisco state, found a suitcase on a roadside that contained the body of an unidentified woman bearing signs of torture.
May 29
Four unidentified men, one of whom may have been a police officer, were shot by gunmen in a vehicle as they stood outside a store in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state.
One man died and another was wounded when they were shot by gunmen as they traveled in a vehicle in Zapopan, Jalisco state.
May 30
Authorities in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, reported discovering the body of a man beside a road along with a note that read, in part, “To those that still don’t believe and work with El Chapo Guzman. Sincerely, La Linea.”
The police chiefs of two towns in Chihuahua state — Nuevo Casas Grandes and Ignacio Zaragoza — resigned from their positions.
June 1
Federal police arrested eight men and one woman in a suspected cartel safe-house in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. During the raid, authorities seized firearms, grenades, eight vehicles, radios, more than 8,000 rounds of ammunition, and 60 pounds of cocaine.
The bodies of two men and one woman with several gunshot wounds were found at an intersection in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on July 07, 2008, 02:42:37 PM

Hola a todos.

Hace algunos meses escuchaba el programa de radio Encuentros y Desencuentros del periodista Carlos Ramírez y se comentaba acerca de la polémica elección del PRD. El titular del programa opinaba sobre el tema en la misma forma que lo hacía la mayoría de los medios de comunicación, sin embargo en esa ocasión estaba como invitado un analista de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas de la UNAM y el comentó que los medios maximizaban el problema, ya que la elección presentaba los problemas lógicos de un instituto político donde hay candidatos reales que representan proyectos diferentes y una militancia activa que apoya una u otra visión. Puntualizaba que el problema real del PRD, es su pésimo manejo de imagen ante los medios, su falta de tacto al resolver sus problemas internos y su negligencia para respetar los liderazgos coyunturales. Este análisis me pareció muy interesante pero no tenía un ejemplo practico de cómo se manejaban las cosas a lo interno del PAN, ya que en el PRI es de dominio público como opera el cambio de su dirigencia.

Cuando preparaba mi colaboración para el foro el mes pasado, en el artículo de la revista Proceso: Chicos Poderosos, encontré un ejemplo reciente y contundente de cómo el PAN maneja la sucesión de su presidencia de forma civilizada, lo que sigue es la introducción integra del artículo y después un resumen de la primera parte del mismo:

La actuación de Juan Camilo Mouriño a lo largo de su corta carrera política acusa un estilo que los panistas consideran ajeno a ellos: la prebenda, el uso del cargo público con fines mercantilistas, la compra de voluntades... se trata de un proceder que por cierto, es ya la marca distintiva del actual secretario de Gobernación, pero también de los chicos poderosos con los que se agrupa.
[/i]

Días antes de la toma de posesión de Felipe Calderón el 1 de diciembre de 2006, Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo, entonces Coordinador del equipo de transición de Calderón y ubicado como el personaje más influyente de la nueva administración, se reunía con Enrique Navarro (secretario de fortalecimiento interior del Comité Ejecutivo Nacional del PAN) y con Manuel Espino (presidente nacional del partido), para negociar la salida de este último a favor de Germán Martínez. Ya que el propósito de Calderón es controlar directamente al PAN y su objetivo es tener al frente a una gente de su confianza, así como mayoría en el Congreso Nacional... a quienes no estén de acuerdo, los vamos a convencer ofreciéndoles puestos en el gobierno... En el caso de Manuel Espino, Mouriño le ofreció una embajada, el resultado fue que ni siquiera presentó una solicitud de reelección para el cargo.

Actuando de forma similar, el 27 de abril de 2007, en su casa de Campeche, Juan Camilo ofreció 40 subdelegaciones con sueldos de entre 20 mil a 45 mil pesos mensuales a cambio de lealtad al candidato de Calderón. Jorge Nordhousen, actual Diputado federal del PAN, fue uno de los asistentes a esa reunión y comenta que Calderón le otorgó a su operador político autoridad discrecional para repartir el poder, sin importar que los beneficiados cubrieran o no, el perfil para el puesto.

Pasando por alto el evidente manejo de información privilegiada y el delito de tráfico de influencias en que Mouriño incurrió cuando firmó los millonarios contratos con Pemex, siendo a la vez servidor público y Director de finanzas, así como Gerente Administrativo de IVANCAR SA de CV (una de las 80 empresas del Grupo Energético del Sureste, emporio familiar de los Mouriño), Germán Martínez, agradecido por el cabildeo que lo llevó en diciembre de 2007 a la presidente del PAN sin elección alguna, declaró:

él es una muestra de la nueva clase política que esta construyendo al país, una buena muestra de profesionalismo, de decencia pública y capacidad... ¡Eso representa Juan Camilo Mouriño!

Nos vemos pronto.

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Bob Burgee on July 22, 2008, 07:37:14 AM
     
Posted on behalf of Crafty Dog.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on September 05, 2008, 01:50:56 PM
Hola a todos.

Ya me atrasé un mes :-D, espero reponerlo con otro resumen este mismo mes, un tanto relacionado con el video que Marc compartiócon nosotros, pero desgraciadamente habla de un encubrimiento de actividades ilicitas en Baja california y Sonora; pero eso será un poco después.

El analista político Lorenzo Meyer ha definido el carácter del presente gobierno como una dictadura de closet, que emplea un lenguaje de medias verdades, en su afán de ocultar, en principio, su ilegitimidad y en general el deterioro de la vida pública y social que ha sufrido el país desde hace dos años. Lo que sigue es un resumen de dos artículos aparecidos entre los meses de junio y julio de este año, uno en el periódico la Jornada (en la columna Desfiladero) y otro en el semanario Proceso titulado Las mentiras de Calderón; ambos artículos ofrecen un ejemplo de lo mencionado por el analista Meyer: las medias verdades. Lo curioso es que la disparidad entre las declaraciones del gobierno y la realidad no es producto de una denuncia de la oposición, sino de la información proporcionada por otros órganos de gobierno o por empresas afines al mismo:

Durante una conferencia de prensa y después de un pacto con industriales del ramo alimenticio, Calderón anunció una lista de 150 productos, los cuales (según él), son alimentos de enorme consumo popular que mantendrán su precio al público hasta enero del año entrante. Posteriormente la oficina de la presidencia, matiza la declaración en un discreto mensaje, los productos son 24 desglosados en 140 presentaciones.

Al siguiente día Banamex, denuncia que los enlatados (atún, sardinas, frijoles, chiles), los jugos (de verdura, fruta, soya) y las salsas (para spaghetti); así como catsup, aceitunas, mermeladas, flanes, sapas instantáneos, pimienta y especias en polvo, que forman la totalidad de la lista, son productos con baja cobertura de mercado y que su efecto es marginal para mitigar el alza generalizada en los precios de los alimentos. Además líderes sindicales y agrarios declaran que alimentos como el aceite, atún, sardina, mayonesas y purés han sido reetiquetados repetidamente desde principios de este año y hasta la fecha han aumentado su precio en porcentajes que van desde el 3.5 al 32.6 % . Lo más grave es que meses antes, la Secretaria de Salud Federal, calificó a 25 bebidas incluidas en la lista mencionada, como riesgosas para el consumo humano, ya que contienen altos porcentajes de sodio, de edulcorantes, carecen de verdura o fruta y son desencadenantes de enfermedades como obesidad y diabetes  :-o.

El 11 de febrero del presente año, durante un discurso en la Universidad de Harvard, el presidente mexicano declaró...empezamos operaciones con la participación del ejercito, la marina, fuerzas policíacas federales y locales. Tomamos control de todos esos territorios... los golpeamos y los golpeamos muy duro... capturamos 22 mil personas vinculadas en actividades criminales, confiscamos 25 toneladas de cocaína y 250 millones de dólares... extraditamos a Estados Unidos a 100 jefes del narco, etc.

Basado en esos datos el Semanario Proceso solicitó a la Oficina de Enlace de la Presidencia, que precisara estos datos en relación al giro de la actividad ilícita, fecha y lugar de captura, sitio de reclusión, numero de detenidos en proceso judicial, condenas, numero de condenados, numero de militares involucrados, etc. La respuesta de la oficina fue clara -le comunicamos la inexistencia de la información solicitada, en los archivos de esta dependencia no existen documentos con esa información... cita además un articulo de la ley que le impide investigar esos datos y remite para su atención a la Secretaria de Seguridad Pública.

A partir de ese momento el semanario fue turnado a distintas dependencias, cada una de las cuales le respondía de forma similar a la citada, pero quien dio la respuesta más original fue la Procuraduría General de Justicia –la Oficina de Enlace de la Presidencia es la dependencia facultada para proporcionar la información solicitada-   :?. En ese gestionar, Proceso solicitó la información con la Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional (Sedena) y sorprendentemente fue la única dependencia que aportó un dato concreto: 4 mil 763 personas en flagrancia de delitos contra la salud (narcotráfico) y violación a la ley federal de armas de fuego y explosivos.; Este dato arroja una diferencia de mas de 18 mil personas con respecto a la cifra de Calderón.

Otra disparidad fue detectada por el periódico Reforma, cuando en una reunión del Gabinete de Seguridad del 31 de agosto de 2007, el procurador Eduardo Medina Mora proporcionó la cifra de 12 mil 344 detenidos en los anteriores 9 meses. Cuando este diario solicitó al Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información (IFAI), que precisara la información, esta institución informó que la cifra más alta de detenidos, 8mil 422 personas, fue durante el año 2005; no coincidiendo con la cifra ni con el periodo mencionado por el funcionario.

El académico del Colegio de México Sergio Aguayo, comentó que la Presidencia, urgida por una legitimidad que no a obtenido en dos años de gobierno, esta más interesada en deslumbrar a la opinión pública y sobretodo a la opinión pública extranjera... aunque sus informes estén faltos de precisión, sustento y coherencia. El académico especifica que las cifras infladas pueden deberse a que incluyen a los consumidores de droga, hecho que solo indicaría una omisión de parte del ejecutivo; sin embargo la disparidad de las cifras entre las dependencias del Gabinete de Seguridad, demuestra su falta absoluta de coordinación y peor la inexistencia de un aparato de inteligencia...varias son las opiniones que ubican a los logros de Calderón respecto a las incautaciones de cocaína y de dinero como resultado de información de las agencias de inteligencia colombiana y estadounidense... concluye.

Nos vemos pronto.

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 10, 2008, 01:35:36 AM
Se me informa que el articulo que hizo el servicio de noticias Reuters sobre nuestro "Dog Brothers Gathering of the Pack" se ha publicado en el periodico "El Universal" de Mexico.  Se lo agradeceria si alguien aqui pudiera localizarlo y "post" (?Como se dice "to post"?) lo aqui.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: xxxaviergs on September 17, 2008, 01:41:42 PM
Estuve rastreando la nota, pero aún no la encuentro para publicar la liga. Sigo trabajndo en ello. Saludos
Title: Ropa contra balas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 05, 2008, 08:13:41 PM
Bullet Proof Clothes In Mexico

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Marc Lacey
Published: October 6, 2008

MEXICO CITY: Exclusive clothing boutiques line Avenida Presidente Masarik here. A Burberry coat? A Corneliani suit? A Gucci scarf? Have enough pesos, and they are yours.

But tucked on a leafy side street in the Polanco neighborhood is a shop unlike the others, one whose bustling business says much about the dire state of security in this country. At Miguel Caballero, named after its Colombian owner, all the garments are bulletproof.

There are bulletproof leather jackets and bulletproof polo shirts. Armored guayabera shirts hang next to protective windbreakers, parkas and even white ruffled tuxedo shirts. Every member of the sales staff has had to take a turn being shot while wearing one of the products, which range from a few hundred dollars to as much as $7,000, so they can attest to the efficacy of the secret fabric.

"If feels like a punch," a salesman said of the shot to the stomach he received.

Just who is willing to fork over thousands of dollars for these chic shields? Customers include Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, not to mention assorted royalty, movie stars and other VIP's.

As Mexico grapples with an increase in drug-related violence, sales are steadily on the rise, the company said, though it declined to provide precise figures.

Those who duck into the private boutique, passing first through a metal detector, run the gamut.

There is the surgeon who finishes work at the hospital late and feels vulnerable while walking through the parking lot to his car. Now, that potential burglar can take a shot at him with a .38-caliber revolver, a 9-millimeter pistol or a submachine gun and still not pierce his lightweight, heat-resistant and quite fashionable coat.

There is the newspaper distributor who has scores of employees who collect papers from him in the wee hours of the morning to drop at doorsteps across the capital. He stopped at the boutique the other day for a jacket that can keep him in business even if someone tried to knock him off and take the rolls of cash he carries around.

There is the bullfighter who is scared not of bulls but of bullets and consequently ordered a matador's suit that can withstand gunfire.

Then there are Mexican politicians and business executives, some who have received threats and others who want to supplement their existing security measures, which in many cases already include bulletproof cars, home alarm systems, round-the-clock bodyguards and panic buttons.

"What we offer is one more chance at life," said Javier Di Carlo, the marketing manager, as he showed off the top-of-the-line Black collection in a private fitting room. "We don't want people to say to the criminal, 'Shoot me.' Nobody should feel like Superman. But if the criminal does shoot, we give our customers a chance to run away."

There is a whole lot of shooting going on in Mexico today. Every day, the papers are full of victims, bodies lying out in grotesque poses with bullet wounds all about. Some are garden-variety crime victims, but the drug cartels that control much of the Mexican countryside are behind the overwhelming majority. They pay off politicians and police officers and act as shadow governments in town after town along their transit routes. Cross them, and they do not hesitate to pull the trigger.

The rash of drug violence, together with a surge in kidnappings for ransom, has shaken everyday Mexicans. Ask a stranger for directions on the street these days, and fear is the first emotion that crosses the person's face. He or she might recover enough to describe how to go this way or that.

Studies have shown that more and more anxious Mexicans are pouring their money into defensive measures. Families and businesses across Mexico invest $18 billion in private security measures, a recent study by the Center for Economic Studies of the Private Sector found. Some people are trying to get their hands on weapons, which are tightly regulated here but widely available on the black market. To some, bulletproof fashion is the logical next step.

Still, not everybody is lining up. Jon French, a former State Department official who now runs a security company in Mexico City, said he considered the bulletproof luxury items more about ego than anything else. Most of the killings that fill the front pages — there have been 3,000 this year alone — are drug traffickers killing rivals, he pointed out.

"Certain members of the well-to-do class here have a tendency to be ostentatious," French said. "You see it in their bodyguards and chase cars. Some of this is so while at the country club they can talk about how protected they are. Now they can say, 'Look, I'm wearing body armor!' "
But Caballero, who opened the Mexico store two years ago and has since expanded with branches in Guatemala City, Johannesburg and London, counters by telling of his loyalty club program for clients. Called the Survivor's Club, it is open to anyone whose life was saved by wearing one of his protective garments. Its rolls, he said in a telephone interview from Bogotá, are on the rise.

To lower the chance that he is outfitting the bad guys, Caballero runs background checks on customers, checking their names against lists of fugitives compiled by the United States and Mexican governments. He points out that the clothing is not designed for the kind of warfare that is breaking out in some parts of Mexico, where drug assassins have used rocket launchers and grenades to wipe out rivals.

A bulletproof polo shirt is meant more to repel random street violence, of the kind that seemed as if it just might break out just around the corner from Caballero's shop the other day.

Fernando Arias Carmona, a salesman, wore one of the protective leather coats while he sat at a café on Masarik being photographed. People looking on inquired into what was the fuss was about. When told that Carmona's fashionable jacket was bulletproof, a man at the next table reached into his own jacket and said, "Let me test it out."

Fortunately, though, the man pulled out only with his fingers in the shape of a pistol.

Then, looking at the coat again, he said, "I want one of those."
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 12, 2008, 10:31:27 PM
Disculpe que lo siguiente sea en ingles.  Si alguien tiene un software para traducirlo, se lo agradeceria:

Worrying Signs from Border Raids
November 12, 2008




By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Last week, the Mexican government carried out a number of operations in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, aimed at Jaime “El Hummer” Gonzalez Duran, one of the original members of the brutal cartel group known as Los Zetas. According to Mexican government officials, Gonzalez Duran controlled the Zetas’ operations in nine Mexican states.

The Nov. 7 arrest of Gonzalez Duran was a major victory for the Mexican government and will undoubtedly be a major blow to the Zetas. Taking Gonzalez Duran off the streets, however, is not the only aspect of these operations with greater implications. The day before Gonzalez Duran’s arrest, Mexican officials searching for him raided a safe house, where they discovered an arms cache that would turn out to be the largest weapons seizure in Mexican history. This is no small feat, as there have been several large hauls of weapons seized from the Zetas and other Mexican cartel groups in recent years.

The weapons seized at the Gonzalez Duran safe house included more than 500 firearms, a half-million rounds of ammunition and 150 grenades. The cache also included a LAW rocket, two grenade launchers and a small amount of explosives. Along with the scores of assorted assault rifles, grenades and a handful of gaudy gold-plated pistols were some weapons that require a bit more examination: namely, the 14 Fabrique Nationale (FN) P90 personal defense weapons and the seven Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifles contained in the seizure.

Matapolicias
As previously noted, the FN Five-Seven pistol and FN P90 personal defense weapon are very popular with the various cartel enforcer groups operating in Mexico. The Five-Seven and the P90 shoot a 5.7 mm-by-28 mm round that has been shown to be effective in penetrating body armor as well as vehicle doors and windows. Because of this ability to punch through body armor, cartel enforcers call the weapons “matapolicias,” Spanish for “cop killers.” Of course, AK-47 and M-16-style assault rifles are also effective at penetrating body armor and vehicles, as are large-caliber hunting rifles such as the 30.06 and the .308. But the advantage of the Five-Seven and the P90 is that they provide this penetration capability in a much smaller — and thus far more concealable — package.

The P90 is a personal defense weapon designed to be carried by tank crew members or combat support personnel who require a compact weapon capable of penetrating body armor. It is considered impractical for such soldiers to be issued full-size infantry rifles or even assault rifles, so traditionally these troops were issued pistols and submachine guns. The proliferation of body armor on the modern battlefield, however, has rendered many pistols and submachine guns that fire pistol ammunition ineffective. Because of this, support troops needed a small weapon that could protect them from armored troops; the P90 fits this bill.

In fact, the P90 lends itself to anyone who needs powerful, concealable weapons. Protective security details, some police officers and some special operations forces operators thus have begun using the P90 and other personal defense weapons. The P90’s power and ability to be concealed also make it an ideal weapon for cartel enforcers intent on conducting assassinations in an urban environment — especially those stalking targets wearing body armor.

The Five-Seven, which is even smaller than the P90, fires the same fast, penetrating cartridge. Indeed, cartel hit men have killed several Mexican police officers with these weapons in recent months. However, guns that fire the 5.7 mm-by-28 mm cartridge are certainly not the only type of weapons used in attacks against police — Mexican cops have been killed by many other types of weapons.

Reach Out and Touch Someone
While the P90 and Five-Seven are small and light, and use a small, fast round to penetrate armor, the .50-caliber cartridge fired by a Barrett sniper rifle is the polar opposite: It fires a huge chunk of lead. By way of comparison, the 5.7 mm-by-28 mm cartridge is just a little more than 1.5 inches long and has a 32-grain bullet. The .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun (BMG) cartridge is actually 12.7 mm by 99 mm, measures nearly 5.5 inches long and fires a 661-grain bullet. The P90 has a maximum effective range of 150 meters (about 165 yards), whereas a Barrett’s listed maximum effective range is 1,850 meters (about 2,020 yards) — and there are reports of coalition forces snipers in Afghanistan scoring kills at more than 2,000 meters (about 2,190 yards).

The .50-BMG round not only will punch through body armor and normal passenger vehicles, it can defeat the steel plate armor and the laminated ballistic glass and polycarbonate windows used in lightly armored vehicles. This is yet another reminder that there is no such thing as a bulletproof car. The round is also capable of penetrating many brick and concrete block walls.

We have heard reports for years of cartels seeking .50-caliber sniper rifles made by Barrett and other U.S. manufacturers. Additionally, we have noted many reports of seizures from arms smugglers in the United States of these weapons bound for Mexico, or of the weapons being found in Mexican cartel safe houses — such as the seven rifles seized in Reynosa. Unlike the P90s, however, we cannot recall even one instance of these powerful weapons being used in an attack against another cartel or against a Mexican government target. This is in marked contrast to Ireland, where the Irish Republican Army used .50-caliber Barrett rifles obtained from the United States in many sniper attacks against British troops and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

That Mexican cartels have not used these devastating weapons is surprising. There are in fact very few weapons in the arsenals of cartel enforcers that we have not seen used, including hand grenades, 40 mm grenades, LAW rockets and rocket-propelled grenades. Even though most intercartel warfare has occurred inside densely populated Mexican cities such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo — places where it would be very difficult to find a place to take a shot longer than a few hundred meters, much less a couple thousand — the power of the Barrett could be very effective for taking out targets wearing body armor, riding in armored vehicles, located inside the safe house of a rival cartel or even inside a government building. Also, unlike improvised explosive devices, which the cartels have avoided using for the most part, the use of .50-caliber rifles would not involve a high probability of collateral damage.

This indicates that the reason the cartels have not used these weapons is to be found in the nature of snipers and sniping.

Snipers
Most military and police snipers are highly trained and very self-disciplined. Being a sniper requires an incredible amount of practice, patience and preparation. Aside from rigorous training in marksmanship, the sniper must also be trained in camouflage, concealment and movement. Snipers are often forced to lie immobile for hours on end. Additional training is required for snipers operating in urban environments, which offer their own set of challenges to the sniper; though historically, as seen in battles like Stalingrad, urban snipers can be incredibly effective.

Snipers commonly deploy as part of a team of two, comprising a shooter and a spotter. This means two very self-disciplined individuals must be located and trained. The team must practice together and learn how to accurately estimate distances, wind speed, terrain elevation and other variables that can affect a bullet’s trajectory. An incredible amount of attention to detail is required for a sniper team to get into position and for their shots to travel several hundred meters and accurately, consistently strike a small target.

In spite of media hype and popular fiction, criminals or terrorists commit very few true sniper attacks. For example, many of our sniper friends were very upset that the media chose to label the string of murders committed by John Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo as the “D.C. Sniper Case.” While Mohammed and Malvo did use concealment, they commonly shot at targets between 50 and 100 meters (about 55 yards to 110 yards) away. Therefore, calling Mohammed and Malvo snipers was a serious insult to the genuine article. The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the killing of Dr. Bernard Slepian, also have been dubbed sniper attacks, but they actually were all shootings committed at distances of less than 100 meters.

Of course, using a Barrett at short ranges (100 meters or less) is still incredibly effective and does not require a highly trained sniper — as a group of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agents found out in 1993 when they attempted to serve search and arrest warrants at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The agents were met with .50-caliber sniper fire that ripped gaping holes through the Chevrolet Suburbans they sought cover behind. Many of the agents wounded in that incident were hit by the shrapnel created as the .50-caliber rounds punched through their vehicles.

While it is extremely powerful, the Barrett is however a long, heavy weapon. If the sniper lacks training in urban warfare, it might prove very difficult to move around with the gun and also to find a concealed place to employ it. This may partially explain why the Mexican cartels have not used the weapons more.

Moreover, while the Zetas originally comprised deserters from the Mexican military and over the years have shown an ability to conduct assaults and ambushes, we have not traditionally seen them deploy as snipers. Today, most of the original Zetas are now in upper management, and no longer serve as foot soldiers.

The newer men brought into the Zetas include some former military and police officers along with some young gangster types; most of them lack the level of training possessed by the original Zetas. While the Zetas have also brought on a number of former Kaibiles, Guatemalan special operations forces personnel, most of them appear to be assigned as bodyguards for senior Zetas. This may mean we are not seeing the cartels employ snipers because their rank-and-file enforcers do not possess the discipline or training to function as snipers.

Potential Problems
Of course, criminal syndicates in possession of these weapons still pose a large potential threat to U.S. law enforcement officers, especially when the weapons are in the hands of people like Gonzalez Duran and his henchmen. According to an FBI intelligence memo dated Oct. 17 and leaked to the media, Gonzalez Duran appeared to have gotten wind of the planned operation against him. He reportedly had authorized those under his command to defend their turf at any cost, to include engagements with U.S. law enforcement agents. It is important to remember that a chunk of that turf was adjacent to the U.S. border and American towns, and that Reynosa — where Gonzalez Duran was arrested and the weapons were seized — is just across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Armed with small, powerful weapons like the P90, cartel gunmen can pose a tremendous threat to any law enforcement officer who encounters them in a traffic stop or drug raid. Over the past several years, we have noted several instances of U.S. Border Patrol agents and other U.S. law enforcement officers being shot at from Mexico. The thought of being targeted by a weapon with the range and power of a .50-caliber sniper rifle would almost certainly send chills up the spine of any Border Patrol agent or sheriff’s deputy working along the border.

Armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and .50-caliber sniper rifles, cartel enforcers have the potential to wreak havoc and outgun U.S. law enforcement officers. The only saving grace for U.S. law enforcement is that many cartel enforcers are often impaired by drugs or alcohol and tend to be impetuous and reckless. While the cartel gunmen are better trained than most Mexican authorities, their training does not stack up to that of most U.S. law enforcement officers. This was illustrated by an incident on Nov. 6 in Austin, Texas, when a police officer used his service pistol to kill a cartel gunman who fired on the officer with an AK-47.

While the arrest of Gonzalez Duran and the seizure of the huge arms cache in Reynosa have taken some killers and weapons off the street, they are only one small drop in the bucket. There are many heavily armed cartel enforcers still at large in Mexico, and the violence is spreading over the border into the United States. Law enforcement officers in the United States therefore need to maintain a keen awareness of the threat.

Tell Stratfor What You Think

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com
 
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Contact Us
© Copyright 2008 Stratfor. All rights reserved. 
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on November 14, 2008, 05:23:47 PM
Hola a todos, me retrase en la colaboración debido a la gran cantidad de información que esta fluyendo en México: crisis económica, reprivatización de recursos naturales y por supuesto la guerra contra el narcotráfico. Espero que haya escogido un tema interesante para compartir con ustedes.

Una de las razones que el presidente de México utiliza para justificar el uso del ejército con fines policíacos es la tradición histórica de incorruptibilidad de esta institución, sin embargo, ¿Qué sucede cuando el mando político, es el que esta aliado con los criminales? ¿Que postura adoptaría un militar patriota y convencido de su misión? En relación con esta reflexión, encontré una nota en el periódico la Jornada del 12 de agosto de 2008, de la columna Dinero, a cargo de Enrique Galván Ochoa, titulada El general que resistió los cañonazos. Para quien desconozca el significado de los cañonazos, se refiere a un soborno, ya que, no recuerdo en este momento al personaje histórico, pero declaró que nadie resistía un cañonazo de 50 mil pesos.

Lo siguiente es la versión integra de la nota:

El general de división Sergio Aponte Polito fue hasta hace unos días comandante de la segunda Región Militar; abarca los estados de Sonora y las dos Baja Californias. Emprendió una batalla muy fuerte contra el hampa, abrió una línea telefónica para que el público hiciera denuncias, asestó varios golpes a la delincuencia y algo importantísimo, se ganó la confianza de las familias y los hombres de negocios. Pronto se dio cuenta de que algunos de los funcionarios de la procuraduría de justicia de Baja California (norte), estaban coludidos con los hampones y los denunció en una comentada carta que publicó en la prensa local. El balconazo (la denuncia), provocó el enojo del gobernador panista José Guadalupe (Lupillo) Osuna Millán, pero el militar le contestó con pruebas contundentes.

No fue la primera fricción. En febrero de 2007, cuando otro panista, Eugenio Elorduy, aún gobernante de la entidad, el jefe militar responsabilizó a su administración de proteger al narcotráfico. Elorduy, multimillonario, temporalmente está en la banca (no tiene cargo público), es del equipo de Santiago Creel  :?(senador panista, antiguo secretario de gobernación). En cambio Lupillo Osuna Millán es de los cercanos de Felipe Calderón :-o.

¿Cuál creen que fue el epílogo de la escaramuza? ¿Abrieron juicio político al gobernador, llamaron a cuentas al ex gobernador, iniciaron un expediente contra los funcionarios a los que denunció? No, nada de eso. Quitaron al general. El día primero de este mes (agosto), recibió la notificación de que debería salir de Baja California –a la voz de ¡rompan filas!- y concéntrense en la ciudad de México... hasta eso que lo removieron con elegancia, fue nombrado presidente del Supremo Tribunal Militar.

Sucesos como este nos muestran la enorme distancia que existe entre las palabras y los hechos. Un general que resistió los cañonazos de la corrupción fue removido porque estorbaba a los funcionarios del gobierno panista bajacaliforniano. Cotejo con la realidad el discurso del secretario de Gobernación, Juan Camilo Mouriño, ayer anunciando nuevas acciones contra la delincuencia, el secuestro en particular, suena hueco. Es más o menos lo que dijo Vicente Fox cuando presentó su programa de 20 puntos después de la marcha ciudadana de junio de 2004: Pasaron cuatro años y la situación está peor :roll:.

Espero participar muy pronto de nuevo :-D.

Saludos

Omar
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: omar on November 14, 2008, 05:36:50 PM
Hola nuevamente, como dije antes, la información fluye y parece que el gobierno en mi país le apuesta a la falta de memoria de la población y no se preocupa de que las declaraciones de sus funcionarios coincidan :|. Desde que inició el conflicto social y político por la propuesta de reforma energética de Calderón, por todo medio posible, él y su gabinete, declaraban que la reforma pretendía modernizar no privatizar, sin embargo el debate que se organizó en el senado (gracias al movimiento nacional en defensa del petróleo organizado por López Obrador, intelectuales, artistas y técnicos), demostró que la intensión de la iniciativa presidencial era privatizar la exploración, la perforación, la refinación, la petroquímica, el trasporte, los ductos, y el almacenamiento de petrolíferos. Este descuido en las declaraciones quedó demostrado el día martes de esta semana, en la editorial del periódico La Jornada, titulada La confesión de Kessel, lo que sigue es el texto integro:

Ayer en el contexto del foro empresarial de México, cumbre de negocios que se realiza en Monterrey, Nuevo León, la titular de la Secretaria de Energía (Sener), Georgina Kesse, dijo: Alrededor del 70% de las actividades de Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) en exploración y producción ya las realizan otras empresas Tal declaración representa una confesión de ilegalidad, un reconocimiento de que la recién aprobada y aun no promulgada reforma petrolera, simplemente busca regularizar una práctica ilícita y una admisión de que el laberíntico proceso que condujo a su aprobación ha sido una simulación y una impostura del gobierno federal y de sus aliados en el Congreso.

Es necesario recordar que la Ley Reglamentaria del artículo 27 constitucional, aún vigente, afirma que solo la nación podrá llevar a cabo las distintas exploraciones de los hidrocarburos, que constituyen la industria petrolera (la cual) abarca (entre otras cosas) la exploración, la explotación, la refinación, el trasporte, el almacenamiento, la distribución y las ventas de primera mano del petróleo y de los productos que se obtengan de su refinación. Es decir, el gobierno actual y los precedentes han venido violando en forma deliberada y reiterada la carta magna y la ley reglamentaria lo que conlleva una gravísima responsabilidad política y las reformas referidas han sido una mera forma de cobertura legal a una situación de facto a todas luces ilícitas.

Por añadidura, la funcionaria dijo que las modificaciones pactadas por los Pinos con las Bancadas de Acción Nacional, el Revolucionario Institucional y un sector del Partido de la Revolución Democrática tienen los mismos objetivos que la iniciativa abiertamente privatizadora que el titular del ejecutivo federal, Felipe Calderón, envió al Senado el 8 de abril. La pregunta obligada es, entonces, ¿para que se incluyeron en esa propuesta párrafos e incisos que entregaban segmentos enteros de la industria petrolera a consorcios particulares, a sabiendas que habría de enfrentar una fuerte oposición política, social, técnica, y porque no se optó desde un principio por enviar una versión menos impresentable, como la que finalmente se aprobó? Sea cual fuere la respuesta, queda en el aire, tras las declaraciones de la titular de la Sener, una sensación de trampa, de simulación, de tomadura de pelo, como lo fue, desde un principio, la versión gubernamental de que las iniciativas inicialmente ensayadas no eran privatizadoras.

Cabe preguntarse, por lo demás, ¿qué explicación darán a sus bases y a sus electores los dirigentes y legisladores perredeistas Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, Graco Ramírez, Carlos Navarrete y otros que se sumaron con entusiasmo y orgullo a una maniobra que, ahora es meridianamente claro, apuntaba a legalizar una privatización que ya se venía dando en los hechos :x.

En cualquier forma, la escandalosa declaración de Kessel plantea una disyuntiva ineludible: o se emprende de inmediato un esclarecimiento de la sostenida ilegalidad en la que ha venido operando la industria petrolera (cuando menos un 70% de ella), o se concede la existencia de un poder público cínico, que solo se compromete a cumplir y hacer cumplir la Constitución y la ley en las ceremonias de toma de protesta. :x

Un gran saludo :-(
Omar

PD. espero poder resumir para el siguiente mes, las conclusiones contundentes e irrefutables, de los tecnicos, juristas y analistas politicos, que participaron en el debate en la camara de diputados y que por cierto, no fueron tomadas en cuenta en absoluto por las bancadas de los otros partidos que, acriticamente, se sumaron por consigna a este robo a mi país.
Title: Barrio Azteca (en ingles)
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 19, 2008, 05:38:49 PM
   
The Barrio Azteca Trial and the Prison Gang-Cartel Interface
November 19, 2008




By Fred Burton and Ben West

Related Links
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
On Nov. 3, a U.S. District Court in El Paso, Texas, began hearing a case concerning members of a criminal enterprise that calls itself Barrio Azteca (BA). The group members face charges including drug trafficking and distribution, extortion, money laundering and murder. The six defendants include the organization’s three bosses, Benjamin Alvarez, Manuel Cardoza and Carlos Perea; a sergeant in the group, Said Francisco Herrera; a lieutenant, Eugene Mona; and an associate, Arturo Enriquez.

The proceedings represent the first major trial involving BA, which operates in El Paso and West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The testimony is revealing much about how this El Paso-based prison gang operates, and how it interfaces with Mexican drug cartel allies that supply its drugs.

Mexico’s cartels are in the business of selling drugs like marijuana, cocaine and heroin in the United States. Large amounts of narcotics flow north while large amounts of cash and weapons flow south. Managing these transactions requires that the cartels have a physical presence in the United States, something a cartel alliance with a U.S. gang can provide.

Of course, BA is not the only prison gang operating in the United States with ties to Mexico. Prison gangs can also be called street gangs — they recruit both in prisons and on the street. Within the United States, there are at least nine well-established prison gangs with connections to Mexican drug cartels; Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos, the Mexican Mafia and the Texas Syndicate are just a few such groups. Prison gangs like BA are very territorial and usually cover only a specific region, so one Mexican cartel might work with three to four prison or street gangs in the United States. Like BA, most of the U.S. gangs allied with Mexican cartels largely are composed of Mexican immigrants or Mexican-Americans. Nevertheless, white supremacist groups, mixed-race motorcycle gangs and African-American street gangs also have formed extensive alliances with Mexican cartels.

Certainly, not all U.S. gangs the Mexican cartels have allied with are the same. But examining how BA operates offers insights into how other gangs — like the Latin Kings, the Texas Syndicate, the Sureños, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and transnational street gangs like MS-13 — operate in alliance with the cartels.

Barrio Azteca Up Close
Spanish for “Aztec Neighborhood,” BA originated in a Texas state penitentiary in 1986, when five inmates from El Paso organized the group as a means of protection in the face of the often-brutal ethnic tensions within prisons. By the 1990s, BA had spread to other prisons and had established a strong presence on the streets of El Paso as its founding members served their terms and were released. Reports indicate that in the late 1990s, BA had begun working with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa Federation drug trafficking organization, which at the time controlled drug shipments to Ciudad Juarez, El Paso’s sister city across the Rio Grande.

According to testimony from several different witnesses on both sides of the current trial, BA now works only with the Juarez cartel of Vicente Carrillo-Fuentes, which has long controlled much of Mexico’s Chihuahua state and Ciudad Juarez, and broke with the Sinaloa Federation earlier in 2008. BA took sides with the Juarez cartel, with which it is jointly running drugs across the border at the Juarez plaza.

BA provides the foot soldiers to carry out hits at the behest of Juarez cartel leaders. On Nov. 3, 10 alleged BA members in Ciudad Juarez were arrested in connection with 12 murders. The suspects were armed with four AK-47s, pistols and radio communication equipment — all hallmarks of a team of hit men ready to carry out a mission.

According to testimony from the ongoing federal case, which is being brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, drugs are taken at discount from the supplier on the Mexico side and then distributed to dealers on the street. These distributors must then pay “taxes” to BA collectors to continue plying their trade. According to testimony from Josue Aguirre, a former BA member turned FBI informant, BA collects taxes from 47 different street-level narcotics operations in El Paso alone. Failure to pay these taxes results in death. One of the murder charges in the current RICO case involves the death of an El Paso dealer who failed to pay up when the collectors arrived to collect on a debt.

Once collected, the money goes in several different directions. First, BA lieutenants and captains, the midlevel members, receive $50 and $200 per month respectively for compensation. The bulk of BA’s profit is then transferred using money orders to accounts belonging to the head bosses (like Alvarez, Cardoza and Perea) in prison. Cash is also brought back to Ciudad Juarez to pay the Juarez cartel, which provided the drugs in the first place.

BA receives discounts on drugs from the Juarez cartel by providing tactical help to its associates south of the border. Leaders of Carrillo Fuentes’ organization in Juarez can go into hiding in El Paso under BA protection if their lives are in danger in Juarez. They can also order BA to track down cartel enemies hiding in El Paso. Former BA member Gustavo Gallardo testified in 2005 that he was sent to pick up a man in downtown El Paso who had cheated the Juarez cartel of money. Once Gallardo dropped him off at a safe house in El Paso, another team took the man — who was bound with rope and duct tape — to Ciudad Juarez, where Gallardo assumes he was killed.

BA and the World of Prison Gangs
Prison gangs are endemic to prison systems, where safety for inmates comes in numbers. Tensions (usually along racial lines) among dangerous individuals regularly erupt into deadly conflict. Prison gang membership affords a certain amount of protection against rival groups and offers fertile recruiting ground.

Once a prison gang grows its membership (along with its prestige) and establishes a clear hierarchy, its leader can wield an impressive amount of power. Some even wind up taking over prisons, like the antecedents of Russian organized crime did.

It might seem strange that members on the outside send money and answer to bosses in prison, since the bosses are locked up. But these bosses wield a great deal of influence over gang members in and out of prison. Disobedience is punishable by death, and regardless of whether a boss is in prison, he can order a hit on a member who has crossed him. Prison gang members also know that if they end up in prison again — a likely outcome — they will once again be dependent on the help of the boss to stay alive, and can perhaps even earn some money while doing time.

BA’s illegal activities mean its members constantly cycle in and out of prison. Many BA members were involved in smaller, local El Paso street gangs before they were imprisoned. Once in prison, they joined BA with the sponsorship of a “godfather” who walks the recruit through the process. BA then performs a kind of background check on new recruits by circulating their name throughout the organization. BA is particularly interested in any evidence that prospective members have cooperated with the police.

Prison authorities are certainly aware of the spread of BA, and they try to keep Mexican nationals separated from known BA members, who are mostly Mexican-American, to prevent the spread of the gang’s influence. BA has organizations in virtually every penitentiary in Texas, meaning that no matter where a BA member is imprisoned, he will have a protection network in place. BA members with truly extensive prison records might personally know the leader of every prison chapter, thus increasing the member’s prestige. Thus, the constant cycling of members from the outside world into prison does not inhibit BA, but makes its members more cohesive, as it allows the prison system to increase bonds among gang members.

Communication challenges certainly arise, as exchanges between prisoners and those on the outside are closely monitored. But BA seems to have overcome this challenge. Former BA member Edward Ruiz testified during the trial that from 2003 to 2007, he acted as a clearinghouse for jailed members’ letters and packages, which he then distributed to members on the outside. This tactic ensured that all prison communications would be traceable to just one address, thus not revealing the location of other members.

BA also allegedly used Sandy Valles New, who worked in the investigations section of the Office of the Federal Public Defender in El Paso from 1996 to 2002, to pass communications between gang members inside and outside prison. She exploited the access to — and the ability to engage in confidential communications with — inmates that attorneys enjoy, transmitting information back and forth between BA members inside and outside prison. Taped conversations reveal New talking to one of the bosses and lead defendants, Carlos Perea, about her fear of losing her job and thus not being able to continue transmitting information in this way. She also talked of crossing over to Ciudad Juarez to communicate with BA members in Mexico.

While BA had inside sources like New assisting it, the FBI was able to infiltrate BA in return. Josue Aguirre and Johnny Michelleti have informed on BA activities to the FBI since 2003 and 2005, respectively. Edward Ruiz, the mailman, also handed over stacks of letters to the FBI.

BA and the Mexican Cartels
As indicated, BA is only one of dozens of prison gangs operating along the U.S.-Mexican border that help Mexican drug trafficking organizations smuggle narcotics across the border and then distribute them for the cartels. Mexican drug trafficking organizations need groups that will do their bidding on the U.S. side of the border, as the border is the tightest choke point in the narcotics supply chain.

Getting large amounts of drugs across the border on a daily basis requires local connections to bribe border guards or border town policemen. Gangs on the U.S. side of the border also have contacts who sell drugs on the retail level, where markups bring in large profits. The current trial has revealed that the partnership goes beyond narcotics to include violence as well. In light of the high levels of violence raging in Mexico related to narcotics trafficking, there is a genuine worry that this violence (and corruption) could spread inside the United States.

One of the roles that BA and other border gangs fill for Mexican drug-trafficking organizations is that of enforcer. Prison gangs wield tight control over illegal activity in a specific territory. They keep tabs on people to make sure they are paying their taxes to the gang and not affiliating with rival gangs. To draw an analogy, they are like the local police who know the situation on the ground and can enforce specific rules handed down by a governmental body — or a Mexican cartel.

Details emerging from the ongoing trial indicate that BA works closely with the Juarez cartel and has contributed to drug-related violence inside the United States. While the killing of a street dealer by a gang for failure to pay up on time is common enough nationwide and hardly unique to Mexican drug traffickers, apprehending offenders in El Paso and driving them to Ciudad Juarez to be held or killed does represent a very clear link between violence in Mexico and the United States.

BA’s ability to strike within the United States has been proven. According to a Stratfor source, BA is connected to Los Zetas — the U.S.-trained Mexican military members who deserted to traffic drugs — through a mutual alliance with the Juarez cartel. The Zetas possess a high level of tactical skill that could be passed along to BA, thus increasing its effectiveness.

The Potential for Cross-Border Violence
The prospect for enhanced cross-border violence is frightening, but the violence itself is not new. So far, Mexican cartels and their U.S. allies have focused on those directly involved in the drug trade. Whether this restraint will continue is unclear. Either way, collateral damage is always a possibility.

Previous incidents, like one that targeted a drug dealer in arrears in Phoenix and others that involved kidnappings and attacks against U.S. Border Patrol agents, indicate that violence has already begun creeping over from Mexico. So far, violence related to drug trafficking has not caused the deaths of U.S. law enforcement officials and/or civilians, though it has come close to doing so.

Another potential incubator of cross-border violence exists in BA’s obligation to offer refuge to Juarez cartel members seeking safety in the United States. Such members most likely would have bounties on their heads. The more violent Mexico (and particularly Ciudad Juarez) becomes, the greater the risk Juarez cartel leaders face — and the more pressure they will feel to seek refuge in the United States. As more Juarez cartel leaders cross over and hide with BA help, the cartel’s enemies will become increasingly tempted to follow them and kill them in the United States. Other border gangs in California, Arizona and New Mexico probably are following this same trajectory.

Two primary reasons explain why Mexican cartel violence for the most part has stopped short of crossing the U.S. border. First, the prospect of provoking U.S. law enforcement does not appeal to Mexican drug-trafficking organizations operating along the border. They do not want to provoke a coordinated response from a highly capable federal U.S. police force like the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or FBI. By keeping violence at relatively low levels and primarily aimed at other gang members and drug dealers, the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations can lessen their profile in the eyes of these U.S. agencies. Conversely, any increase in violence and/or the killing of U.S. police or civilians would dramatically increase federal scrutiny and retaliation.

The second reason violence has not crossed the border wholesale is that gangs like BA are in place to enforce the drug-trafficking organizations’ rules. The need to send cartel members into the United States to kill a disobedient drug dealer is reduced by having a tight alliance with a border gang that keeps drugs and money moving smoothly and carries out the occasional killing to maintain order.

But the continued integrity of BA and its ability to carry out the writ of larger drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico might not be so certain. The Nov. 3 trial will undermine BA activity in the crucial trafficking corridor of El Paso/Ciudad Juarez.

The indictment and possible incarceration of the six alleged BA members would not damage the gang so badly — after all, BA is accustomed to operating out of prison, and there must certainly be members on the outside ready to fill in for their incarcerated comrades. But making BA’s activities and modus operandi public should increase scrutiny on the gang and could very well lead to many more arrests.

In light of the presence of at least two FBI informants in the gang, BA leaders have probably moved into damage control mode, isolating members jeopardized by the informants. This will disrupt BA’s day-to-day operations, making it at least temporarily less effective. Stratfor sources say BA members on both sides of the border have been ordered to lie low until the trial is over and the damage can be fully assessed. This is a dangerous period for gangs like BA, as their influence over their territory and ability to operate is being reduced.

Weakening BA by extension weakens the Juarez cartel’s hand in El Paso. While BA no doubt will survive the investigations the trial probably will spawn, given the high stakes across the border in Mexico, the Juarez cartel might be forced to reduce its reliance on BA. This could prompt the Juarez cartel to rely on its own members in Ciudad Juarez to carry out hits in the United States and to provide its own security to leaders seeking refuge in the United States. It could also prompt it to turn to a new gang facing less police scrutiny. Under either scenario, BA’s territory would be encroached upon. And considering the importance of controlling territory to prison gangs — and the fact that BA probably still will be largely intact — this could lead to increased rivalries and violence.

The Juarez cartel-BA dynamic could well apply to alliances between U.S. gangs and Mexican drug-trafficking organizations, such as Hermanos de Pistoleros Latinos in Houston, the Texas Syndicate and Tango Blast operating in the Rio Grande Valley and their allies in the Gulf cartel; the Mexican Mafia in California and Texas and its allies in the Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels; and other gangs operating in the United States with ties to Mexican cartels like Mexikanemi, Norteños and the Sureños.

Ultimately, just because BA or any other street gang working with Mexican cartels is weakened does not mean that the need to enforce cartel rules and supply chains disappears. This could put Mexican drug-trafficking organizations on a collision course with U.S. law enforcement if they feel they must step in themselves to take up the slack. As their enforcers stateside face more legal pressure, the cartels’ response therefore bears watching.

Tell Stratfor What You Think

 
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 09, 2008, 05:16:22 AM
Comentarios?  En espanol por supuesto  :-)

Part 1: A Critical Confluence of Events
December 9, 2008 | 1213 GMT
Summary
Mexico is facing the perfect storm as the global financial crisis begins to impact the country’s economy and as the government’s campaign against the drug cartels seems to be making the country even less secure. Mexico also faces legislative elections in the coming year, which will involve much jockeying for the 2012 presidential race. The political implications of the financial crisis will be reflected in a decline in employment and overall standard of living. In a country where political expression takes the form of paralyzing protest, the economic downturn could spell near-disaster for the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Analysis
Editor’s Note: This is the first part of a series on Mexico.

Related Special Topic Pages
Countries In Crisis
Political Economy and the Financial Crisis
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Related Links
Countries in Crisis: Mexico
Mexico appears to be a country coming undone. Powerful drug cartels use Mexico for the overland transshipment of illicit drugs — mainly cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine — from producers in South America to consumers in the United States. Violence between competing cartels has grown over the past two years as they have fought over territory and as the Mexican army has tried to secure the embattled areas, mainly on the country’s periphery. It is a tough fight, made even tougher by endemic geographic, institutional and technical problems in Mexico that make a government victory hard to achieve. The military is stretched thin, the cartels are becoming even more aggressive and the people of Mexico are growing tired of the violence.

At the same time, the country is facing a global economic downturn that will slow Mexico’s growth and pose additional challenges to national stability. Although the country appears to be in a comfortable fiscal position for the short term, the outlook for the country’s energy industry is bleak, and a decline in employment could prompt social unrest. Complications also loom in the political sphere as Mexican parties campaign ahead of 2009 legislative elections and jockey for position in preparation for the 2012 presidential election.

Economic Turmoil
As the international financial crisis roils economies around the world, Mexico has been hit hard. Tightly bound to its northern neighbor, Mexico’s economy is set to shrink alongside that of the United States, and it will be an enormous challenge for the Mexican government to face in the midst of a devastating war with the drug cartels.

The key to understanding the Mexican economy is an appreciation of Mexico’s enormous integration with the United States. As a party to the North American Free Trade Agreement and one of the largest U.S. trading partners, Mexico is highly vulnerable to the vagaries of the U.S. economy. The United States is the largest single source of foreign direct investment in Mexico. Even more important, the United States is the destination of more than 80 percent of Mexico’s exports. A slowdown in economic activity and consumer demand in the United States thus translates directly into a slowdown in Mexico.

In addition to the sale of most Mexican goods in the U.S. markets, the United States is a major source of revenue for Mexico though remittances, and together these sources of income provide around a quarter of Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP). When Mexican immigrants send money home from the United States, it makes up a substantial portion of Mexico’s external revenue streams. Remittances to Mexico totaled US$23.9 billion in 2007, according to the Mexican Central Bank. The slowdown in the U.S. housing sector has brought remittances down during the course of 2008 from highs in the middle of 2007. As of the end of September 2008, remittances for the year were down by US$672.6 million from the same period in 2007.

The decline in remittances is being matched by a slowdown in Mexico’s economy across the board. The Mexican government estimates that Mexico’s GDP will slow from 3.2 percent growth in 2007 to 1.8 percent in 2008. Given that the U.S. economy is sliding into recession at the same time, this is likely only the beginning of the Mexican slowdown, and growth is expected to bottom out at 0.9 percent in 2009.

With growing pressure on the rest of the economy, the prospect of rising unemployment is perhaps the most daunting challenge. So far, unemployment and underemployment in Mexico has risen from 9.77 percent in December 2007 to 10.82 percent in October 2008, (some 27 percent of the workforce is employed in the informal sector). But slowed growth and declining demand in the United States is sure to cause further declines in employment in Mexico. As happened in the wake of Mexico’s 1982 debt crisis, Mexicans may seek to return to a certain degree of subsistence farming in order to make it through the tough times, but that is nowhere near an ideal solution. The government has proposed a US$3.4 billion infrastructure buildup plan to be implemented in 2009 that will seek to boost jobs (and demand for industrial goods) throughout Mexico, although it is not clear how quickly this can take effect or how many jobs it might create.

Further compounding the employment issue is the possibility of Mexican immigrants returning from the United States as jobs disappear to the north. Stratfor sources have already reported a slightly higher-than-normal level of immigrants returning to Mexico, and although it is too early to plot the trajectory of this trend, there is little doubt that job opportunities are evaporating in the United States. As migrants return to Mexico, however, there are very few jobs waiting for them there, either. This presents the very real possibility that the available jobs will be in the black markets, and specifically with the drug cartels. Demand for drugs persists despite economic downturns, and the business of the cartels continues unabated. Indeed, for the cartels, the economic downturn could be an excellent recruitment opportunity.

The turmoil in U.S. financial markets has directly damaged the value of the Mexican peso and has caused a loss of wealth among Mexican companies. Mexican businesses have lost billions of dollars (exact figures are not available at this time) to bad currency bets. Mexican companies in search of extra financing have had trouble floating corporate paper, which has forced the government to offer billions of dollars worth of guarantees. The upside to this is that a weaker currency will increase the attractiveness of Mexican exports to the United States vis-à-vis China (for a change), which will boost the export sector to a certain degree.

The fluctuating peso has also forced the Mexican central bank to inject about US$14.8 billion into currency markets to stabilize the peso. Nevertheless, the peso has devalued by approximately 22.6 percent since the beginning of 2008. Partially as a result of the currency devaluation, inflation appears to be rising slightly. The government has reported a 12-month inflation rate of 6.2 percent, through mid-November. This is actually fairly low for a developing nation, but it is the highest inflation has been in Mexico since 2001.

Mexico’s financial sector is highly exposed to the international credit market, with about 80 percent of Mexico’s banks owned by foreign companies, and the banking sector has been unstable in recent months. Foreign capital has, to a certain degree, fled Mexican investments and banks as capital worldwide veered away from developing to developed markets, in response to the global financial crisis. The result is a decline in investments across the board, and there was a sharp decline in the purchase of Mexican government bonds. After a four-week fall in bond purchases, the Mexican government announced a US$1.1 billion bond repurchase package Dec. 2 in an attempt to increase liquidity in the capital markets and lower interest rates. Although investors were not responsive, it is an indication that the government is taking its countercyclical duties seriously.

As the government seeks to counter falling employment and other economic challenges, it will need to lean heavily on its available resources. The central bank holds US$83.4 billion in foreign reserves, as of Nov. 28, and can continue to use the money to implement monetary stabilization. Mexico also maintains oil stabilization funds that total more than US$7.4 billion, which provides a small fiscal cushion. The 2009 Mexican federal budget calls for the first budget deficit in years — amounting to 1.8 percent of GDP — and has increased spending by 13 percent from the previous year’s budget, to US$231 billion.

Some 40 percent of this budget is reliant on oil revenues generated by Mexican state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Despite the fall in oil prices, Mexico has managed to secure its energy income through a series of hedged oil sales contracts. These contracts will sustain the budget through the duration of 2009 with prices set from US$70 to US$100 per barrel. Mexico is a major exporter of oil — ranked the sixth largest producer and the 10th largest exporter. The energy industry is critical for the economy, just as it is for the government.

In the long term, however, Mexico’s energy industry is crippled. Due to a history of restrictive energy regulations, oil production is falling precipitously (primarily at Mexico’s gigantic offshore Cantarell oil field), with government reports indicating that production averaged 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) between January and September, which is far from Mexico’s target production of 3 million bpd. Thus, even if Mexico has secured the price of its oil through 2009, it cannot guarantee its production levels in the short term, and perhaps not in the long term.

To try to boost the industry’s prospects, the Mexican government has passed an energy reform plan that will allow Pemex to issue contract agreements to foreign companies for joint exploration and production projects. The government has also decided to assume some of Pemex’s debt in order to ease the company’s access to international credit in light of the tight international credit market.

These changes could help Mexico pull its oil production rate out of the doldrums. However, most of Mexico’s untapped reserves are located either in deep complex formations or offshore — environments in which Pemex is at best a technical laggard — making extraction projects expensive and technically difficult. With the international investment climate constrained by capital shortages, foreigners barred from sharing ownership of the oil they produce and the price of oil falling, it is not yet clear how interested foreign oil companies will be in such partnerships.

The decline in the energy sector has the potential to produce a sustained fiscal crisis in the two- to three-year timeframe, even assuming that other aspects of the economic environment (nearly all of which are beyond Mexico’s control) rectify themselves. The slack in government revenue will have to be taken up through increased taxes on other industries or on individuals, but it is not yet clear how such a replacement source of revenue might be created.

The overall political implications of the financial crisis will be reflected in a decline in employment and the standard of living of average Mexicans. In a country where political expression takes the form of paralyzing protest, the economic downturn could spell near-disaster for the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

The Shifting Political Landscape
In power since 2000, the ruling National Action Party (PAN) has enjoyed a fairly significant level of support for Calderon both within the legislature — where it lacks a ruling majority — and in the population at large, particularly given the razor-thin margin with which Calderon won his office in 2006. The Calderon administration has launched a number of reform efforts targeting labor, energy and, of course, security.

Although the PAN has maintained an alliance with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for much of Calderon’s administration, this is a unity that that is unlikely to persist, given that both parties have begun to lay out their campaigns for the 2012 presidential election.

For the ruling party, there are a number of looming challenges on the political scene. Mexico has seen a massive spike in crime and drug-related violence coincide with the first eight years of rule by Calderon’s PAN after 71 straight years of rule by the PRI. To make things worse, the global financial crisis has begun to impact Mexico — through no fault of its own — and the impact on employment could be devastating. Given the confluence of events, it is almost guaranteed that Calderon and the PAN will suffer political losses going forward, weakening the party’s ability to move forward with decisive action.

So far, Calderon has been receiving credit for his all-out attack on the drug cartels, and his approval ratings are near 60 percent. As the economy weakens and the death toll mounts, however, this positive outlook could easily falter.

The challenge will not likely come from the PAN’s 2006 rival, the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD). The PRD gained tremendous media attention when party leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lost the presidential election to Calderon and proceeded to stage massive demonstrations protesting his loss. Since then, the PRD has adopted a less-radical stance, and the far-left elements of the party have begun to part ways with the less radical elements. This split within the PRD could weaken the party as it moves forward.

The weakening of the PRD is auspicious for Mexico’s third party, the PRI, which has been playing a very careful game. The PRI has engaged in partnerships with the PAN in opposition (for the most part) to the leftist PRD. In doing so, the PRI has taken a strong role in the formation of legislation. However, the PRI’s prospects for the 2012 presidential election have begun to improve, with the party’s popularity on the rise. As of late October, the PRI was polling extremely well — at the expense of both the PAN and the PRD — with a 32.4 percent approval rating, compared to the PAN’s 24.5 percent and the PRD’s 10.8 percent.

In the short term, the June 2009 legislative elections will be a litmus test for the political gyrations of Mexico, a warm-up for the 2012 elections and the next stage of political challenges for Calderon. As the PRI positions itself in opposition to the PAN — and particularly if the party gains more seats in the Mexican legislature — it will become increasingly difficult for the government to reach compromise solutions to looming challenges. Calderon is somewhat protected by his high approval ratings, which will make overt moves against him politically questionable for the PRI or the PRD.

Although a great deal could change (and quickly), these dynamics highlight the potential changes in political orientation for Mexico over the next three years. In the short term, the political situation remains relatively secure for Calderon, which is critical for a president who is balancing the need for substantial economic resuscitation with an ongoing war on domestic organized crime.

Mexico’s most critical challenge is the convergence of events it now faces. The downturn in the economy, the political dynamics or the deteriorating security situation, each on its own, might not pose an insurmountable problem for Mexico. What could prove insurmountable is the confluence of all three, which appears to be in the making.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 09, 2008, 07:51:03 PM
He aqui la traduccion del Stratfor del post anterior.  !Por favor alguien haz la separacion de parafos!

La parte 1: Una Confluencia Crítica de Acontecimientos el 9 de diciembre de 2008 | 1213 Resumen de GMT México está frente a la tormenta perfecta como la crisis financiera global comienza a impresionar la economía del país y como la campaña del gobierno contra los cárteles de droga parece estar haciendo el país asegura todavía menos. México también encara elecciones legislativas en el año venidero, que implicará mucho manejar para la 2012 carrera presidencial. Las implicaciones políticas de la crisis financiera serán reflejadas en un descenso en el empleo y nivel de vida general. En un país donde expresión política toma la forma de protesta paralizadora, la baja económica podría deletrear cercano-desastre para la administración de Presidente mexicano Felipe Calderon. La Nota de la redacción del análisis: Esto es la primera parte de una serie en México. El Tema Especial relacionado Llama Países En la Crisis Economía Política y la Crisis financiera que Rastrean Cárteles de la Droga de México Relacionados Ligan Países en la Crisis: México México parece ser un país que la venida deshizo. Los cárteles poderosos de la droga utilizan México para el transbordo terrestre de drogas ilícitas — principalmente cocaína, la marihuana y la metanfetamina — De productores en Sudamérica a consumidores en Estados Unidos. La violencia entre competir cárteles han crecido durante los últimos dos años como ellos han luchado sobre el territorio y como el ejército mexicano ha tratado de asegurar las áreas luchadas, principalmente en la periferia del país. Es un combate duro, hecho aún más duro por problemas endémicos, geográficos, institucionales y técnicos en México que hace una victoria del gobierno dura para lograr. El ejército es estirado delgado, los cárteles llegan a ser aún más agresivos y las personas de México se cansan de la violencia. Al mismo tiempo, el país está frente a una baja económica global que ralentizará el crecimiento de México y colocará desafíos adicionales a la estabilidad nacional. Aunque el país parezca estar en una posición fiscal cómoda para el término corto, la vista para la industria de la energía del país es desolado, y un descenso en el empleo podría incitar inquietud social. Las complicaciones también asoman en la esfera política como partidos mexicanos hacen campaña adelante de 2009 elecciones legislativas y manejan para la posición en la preparación para la 2012 elección presidencial. La Confusión económica Como la crisis financiera internacional irrita economías alrededor del mundo, México ha sido golpeado duramente. Salte apretadamente a su el norte de vecino, la economía de México es puesta a encogerse al costado que de Estados Unidos, y ser un enorme desafío para el gobierno mexicano de encarar en el medio de una guerra devastadora con los cárteles de droga. La llave a la comprensión de la economía mexicana es una apreciación de enorme integración de México con Estados Unidos. Cuando un partido al Acuerdo de libre cambio norteamericano y a uno del EEUU más grande que comercia a socios, México es sumamente vulnerable a los caprichos de economía de EEUU. Estados Unidos es la sola fuente más grande de inversión directa extranjera en México. Aún más importante, Estados Unidos es el destino de más que el 80 por ciento de las exportaciones de México. Un retraso en la actividad y la demanda de consumo económicas en Estados Unidos así traduce directamente en un retraso en México. Además de la venta de la mayoría de los bienes mexicanos en mercados de EEUU, Estados Unidos es una fuente mayor de renta para México aunque remesas, y juntos estas fuentes de ingresos proporcionan alrededor de un cuarto del producto interno bruto de México (PIB). Cuándo inmigrantes de mexicano envían dinero en casa de Estados Unidos, hace una porción substancial de corrientes externas de renta de México. Las remesas a México totalizaron los mil millones US$23.9 en 2007, según el Banco Central mexicano. El retraso en el sector de envoltura de EEUU ha bajado remesas durante 2008 de alto en medio de 2007. Al el fin de septiembre 2008, las remesas para el año fueron hacia abajo por US$672.6 millón del mismo período en 2007. El descenso en remesas es emparejado por un retraso en la economía de México general. El gobierno mexicano estima que PIB de México ralentizará del crecimiento del 3,2 por ciento en 2007 1,8 por ciento en 2008. Dado que economía de EEUU desliza en la recesión al mismo tiempo, esto es probable sólo el principio del retraso mexicano, y el crecimiento son esperados profundizar fuera en 0,9 por ciento en 2009. Con presión creciente en el resto de la economía, la perspectiva del desempleo creciente es quizás el desafío más intimidando. Hasta ahora, el desempleo y el subempleo en México han subido del 9,77 por ciento en diciembre 2007 al 10,82 por ciento en octubre 2008, (el unos 27 por ciento de la fuerza de trabajo es empleado en el sector informal). Pero ralentizó el crecimiento y demanda declinante en Estados Unidos están seguro causar descensos adicionales en el empleo en México. Cuando sucedió tras 1982 crisis de deuda de México, mexicanos pueden procurar volver hasta cierto punto de agricultura de subsistencia para hacerlo por los tiempos duros, pero eso está muy lejos de una solución ideal. El gobierno ha propuesto un plan de aumento de infraestructura de mil millones US$3.4 para ser aplicado en 2009 que procurará aumentar trabajos (y la demanda para bienes de producción) a través de México, aunque no sea claro cuán rápidamente esto puede surtir efecto ni cuántos trabajos que lo quizás cree. Aún más componer el asunto de empleo es la posibilidad de inmigrantes mexicanos que vuelven de Estados Unidos como trabajos desaparecen al norte. Las fuentes de Stratfor ya han informado un ligeramente más alto que nivel normal de inmigrantes que vuelven a México, y aunque sea demasiado temprano tramar la trayectoria de esta tendencia, hay duda pequeña que oportunidades de trabajo evaporan en Estados Unidos. Cuando emigrantes vuelven a México, sin embargo, hay muy pocos trabajos que los esperan allí, cualquiera. Esto presenta la posibilidad muy verdadera que los trabajos disponibles estarán en los mercados negros, y específicamente con los cárteles de droga. La demanda para drogas persiste a pesar de bajas económicas, y el negocio de los cárteles continúa constante. Verdaderamente, para los cárteles, la baja económica podría ser una excelente oportunidad de contratación. La confusión en mercados financieros de EEUU ha dañado directamente el valor del peso mexicano y ha causado una pérdida de riqueza entre compañías mexicanas. Los negocios mexicanos han perdido miles de millones de dólares (exige figuras no están disponible en este momento) a apuestas malas de moneda. Las compañías mexicanas en busca del financiamiento de exceso han tenido problema papel corporativo flotante, que ha forzado el gobierno para ofrecer miles de millones de valor de dólares de garantías. La parte superior a esto es que una moneda más débil aumentará la atracción de exportaciones mexicanas a Estados Unidos en relación con China (para un cambio), que aumentará el sector de la exportación hasta cierto punto. El peso que fluctúa también ha forzado el banco central mexicano a inyectar acerca de mil millones US$14.8 en mercados monetarios para estabilizar el peso. No obstante, el peso ha desvalorizado por aproximadamente 22,6 por ciento desde que el principio de 2008. Parcialmente a consecuencia de la devaluación de moneda, la inflación parece estar subiendo ligeramente. El gobierno ha informado una tasa de inflación de 12 meses del 6,2 por ciento, por a mediados de noviembre. Esto es realmente bastante bajo para un país en vías de desarrollo, pero es la inflación más alta ha estado en México desde que 2001. El sector financiero de México es expuesto sumamente al mercado internacional del crédito, con acerca del 80 por ciento de los bancos de México poseídos por compañías extranjeras, y el sector bancario ha sido inestable en los últimos meses. La capital extranjera tiene, hasta cierto punto, inversiones mexicanas huida y deposita como principal en todo el mundo virado lejos de desarrollar a mercados desarrollados, en respuesta a la crisis financiera global. El resultado es un descenso en inversiones generales, y había un descenso agudo en la compra de bonos del estado mexicanos. Después de que una caída de cuatro-semana en compras de bono, el gobierno mexicano anunciara que un mil millones US$1.1 vinculan vuelven a comprar paquete diciembre. 2 en una tentativa para aumentar liquidez en los mercados principales y bajar los tipos de interés. Aunque inversionistas no fueran sensibles, es una indicación que el gobierno toma sus deberes contracíclicos gravemente. Cuando el gobierno procura contradecir empleo que se cae y otros desafíos económicos, necesitarán para inclinarse mucho en sus recursos disponibles. El banco central tiene los mil millones US$83.4 en reservas extranjeras, al noviembre. 28, y puede continuar utilizar el dinero para aplicar estabilización monetaria. México también mantiene fondos de estabilización de petróleo que total más que los mil millones US$7.4, que proporciona un pequeño cojín fiscal. Las 2009 llamadas económicas, federales y mexicanas para el primer déficit presupuestario en años — sumando el 1,8 por ciento de PIB — Y ha aumentado el gasto por el 13 por ciento del presupuesto del año anterior, a EEUU$231 mil millones. El unos 40 por ciento de este presupuesto depende de rentas de petróleo engendradas por compañía petrolera mexicana de estado-poseyó Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). A pesar de la caída en precios del crudo, México ha logrado asegurar sus ingresos de energía por una serie de contratos cubiertos de ventas de petróleo. Estos contratos sostendrán el presupuesto por la duración de 2009 con precios puso de EEUU$70 a EEUU$100 por barril. México es un exportador mayor de petróleo — Situado el sexto productor más grande y el exportador más grande décimo. La industria de la energía es crítica para la economía, así como es para el gobierno. A largo plazo, sin embargo, la industria de la energía de México es paralizada. Debido a una historia de regulaciones restrictivas de energía, la producción de petróleo se cae precipitadamente (principalmente en campo petrolífero offshore gigantesco de Cantarell de México), con informes de gobierno que indican esa producción promedió 2,8 millones de barriles por día (bpd) entre enero y septiembre, que es distantes de la producción del objetivo de México de 3 millones de bpd. Así, incluso si México haya asegurado el precio de su petróleo por 2009, no puede garantizar sus niveles de la producción a corto plazo, y quizás no a largo plazo. Para tratar de aumentar las perspectivas de la industria, el gobierno mexicano ha pasado un plan de reforma de energía que permitirá Pemex para publicar contrato acuerdos a compañías extranjeras para proyectos conjuntos de exploración y producción. El gobierno también ha decidido asumir que algunos de la deuda de Pemex para aliviar el acceso de la compañía crédito internacional a la luz del mercado internacional apretado de crédito. Estos cambios podrían ayudar México saca su tasa de la producción de petróleo del estancamiento. Sin embargo, la mayor parte de reservas sin explotar de México son situadas o en formaciones complejas profundas u offshore — los ambientes en los que Pemex es a lo más un vago técnico — La extracción que hace proyecta caro y técnicamente difícil. Con el clima internacional de inversión forzado por escaseces principales, los extranjeros impidieron de compartir propiedad del petróleo que ellos producen y el precio de caer de petróleo, es todavía no vacía compañías petroleras extranjeras cuán interesadas estarán en tales asociaciones. El descenso en el sector de energía tiene el potencial para producir una crisis fiscal sostenida en el dos- a agenda de tres-año, asumiendo aún que otros aspectos del ambiente económico (casi todos los cuales están más allá del control de México) rectifica a sí mismo. El flojo en la renta del gobierno tendrá que ser tomado por impuestos aumentado en otras industrias o en individuos, pero es todavía no vacía cómo tal fuente de reemplazo de renta quizás sea creada. Las implicaciones políticas generales de la crisis financiera serán reflejadas en un descenso en el empleo y el nivel de vida de mexicanos medios. En un país donde expresión política toma la forma de protesta paralizadora, la baja económica podría deletrear cercano-desastre para la administración de Presidente mexicano Felipe Calderon. El Panorama político que Cambia En el poder desde que 2000, la resolución el Partido Nacional de Acción (CACEROLA) ha disfrutado de un nivel bastante significativo de apoyo para Calderon ambos dentro de la legislatura — dónde falta una mayoría gobernante — Y en la población en grande, especialmente dado el margen delgadísimo con que Calderon ganó su oficina en 2006. La administración de Calderon ha lanzado varios esfuerzos de reforma que concentran en trabajo, la energía y, por supuesto, la seguridad. Aunque la CACEROLA haya mantenido una alianza con el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) para mucha de la administración de Calderon, esto es una unidad que que es improbable persistir, dado que ambos partidos han comenzado a ordenar sus campañas para la 2012 elección presidencial. Para el partido gobernante, hay varios desafíos inminentes en el panorama político. México ha visto un punta masivo en la violencia de crimen y droga-relacionó coincide con los primeros ocho años de regla por la CACEROLA de Calderon después de 71 años rectos de regla por el PRI. Para hacer cosas peores, la crisis financiera global ha comenzado a impresionar México — por ningún defecto de su propio — Y el impacto en el empleo podría estar devastando. Dada la confluencia de acontecimientos, casi es garantizada que Calderon y la CACEROLA sufrirán pérdidas políticas que avanzan, debilitando la capacidad del partido para adelantarse con acción decisiva. Hasta ahora, Calderon ha estado recibiendo crédito para su ataque supremo en los cárteles de droga, y sus calificaciones de aprobación son el 60 por ciento cercano. Cuando la economía debilita y los montes de número de víctimas, sin embargo, esta vista positiva podría vacilar fácilmente. El desafío hace no probable viene de la CACEROLA 2006 rival, el Partido demócrata Revolucionario (PRD). El PRD ganó atención tremenda de medios cuando líder de partido Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador perdió la elección presidencial a Calderon y continuó para preparar demostraciones masivas que protestan su pérdida. Desde entonces, el PRD ha adoptado una postura menos-radical, y los elementos de la extrema izquierda del partido han empezado a maneras de parte con los elementos menos radicales. Esta separación dentro del PRD podría debilitar el partido como se adelanta. La debilitación del PRD es propicia para los terceros de México, el PRI, que ha estado jugando un juego muy cuidadoso. El PRI ha entrado en asociaciones con la CACEROLA en la oposición (en la mayor parte) al PRD izquierdista. A hacer así, el PRI ha tomado un papel fuerte en la formación de legislación. Sin embargo, las perspectivas del PRI para la 2012 elección presidencial han comenzado a mejorar, con la popularidad del partido en la subida. Al tarde octubre, el PRI sondeaba muy bien — a costa de la CACEROLA y el PRD — Con una calificación de aprobación de 32,4 por ciento, comparado al 24,5 por ciento de la CACEROLA y el 10,8 por ciento del PRD. A corto plazo, el junio 2009 elecciones legislativas serán una prueba de tornasol para las rotaciones políticas de México, un calentamiento para las 2012 elecciones y la próxima etapa de desafíos políticos para Calderon. Cuando el PRI se posiciona en la oposición a la CACEROLA — y especialmente si el partido gana más asientos en la legislatura mexicana — Llegará a ser cada vez más difícil para el gobierno alcance soluciones de compromiso a desafíos inminentes. Calderon es protegido algo por sus calificaciones altas de aprobación, que hará movimientos abiertos contra él políticamente dudoso para el PRI o el PRD. Aunque mucho pueda cambiar (y rápidamente), estas dinámica destaca los cambios potenciales en la orientación política para México en los próximos tres años. A corto plazo, la situación política se queda asegura relativamente para Calderon, que es crítico para un presidente que equilibra la necesidad para la resucitación económica substancial con una guerra progresiva en el crimen organizado doméstico. México la mayoría de los desafíos críticos son la convergencia de acontecimientos ahora encara. La baja en la economía, la dinámica política o la situación de la seguridad que empeoran, cada por sí mismo, no quizás coloque un problema insuperable para México. Qué podría demostrar insuperable es la confluencia de todo tres, que parece ser en construcción.
Title: Stratfor: Una Guerra de atricion es estrategia limitada
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 12, 2008, 12:08:48 PM
Part 2: A War of Attrition is a Limited Strategy
El 10 de diciembre de 2008 | 1211 GMT

 Resumen

 Durante los últimos dos años, el gobierno mexicano ha participado en una campaña concertada contra los cárteles de droga, que había operado con la impunidad cercano por décadas en áreas contiguas de México. Mientras ha habido algunos éxitos, factores geográficos, institucionales y técnicos han hecho el gobierno hace campaña una lucha ascendente. Con corrupción desenfrenada que plaga los grados de la aplicación de la ley de México, el Presidente Felipe Calderon utiliza el ejército para imponer la regla de la ley en la periferia del país, donde los cárteles todavía colocan el peligro más grande. Pero la situación recuerda el esfuerzo temprano de EEUU en Iraq, donde una pequeña fuerza extranjera entrenada para la guerra convencional puede no rápidamente transición a un papel del counterinsurgency y donde no había estrategia completa para la reedificación.

Análisis
 La Nota de la redacción: Esto es la segunda parte de una serie en México.

El desafío primario de México en su combate contra los cárteles de droga es su geography. El país el norte de la región contigua es hecho de desierto, separando las redes de transporte y centros de población occidentales y orientales costeras. Gran distancias y terreno inhóspito — mucho de ello árido o montañoso — Haga control de gobierno del país desafiando muy.
El gobierno no controla las cuestas de la Sierra Madre Oriental ni el Occidental de Sierra Madre, que corre al norte-sur arriba cada costa y es las rutas primarias de droga-trafico de drogas. Ni lo hace controla el el norte de desierto que bordea Estados Unidos, que, como el oeste americano fabuloso en Estados Unidos, es en esencia una frontera donde leyes escritas en México D.F. son difíciles de imponer.



El el norte de la región contigua es definido fundamentalmente por su proximidad a Estados Unidos, que es la fuente primaria de renta de comercio, el turismo, las remesas, los trabajos (para los que afrontan la frontera que cruza) e inversión directa extranjera. Por supuesto, Estados Unidos es también el mercado más grande de mundo para drogas ilícitas. México del sudeste es igualmente frontera-como, con selvas densas en la orilla oriental de la frontera de México-Guatemala y en las montañas de las tierras altas de Chiapas. Aunque México D.F. más cerca, el el sur de la región es muy pobre, de diversidad étnica y todavía acoge el Zapatista Ejército Nacional de Liberación, un resto de la Revolución mexicana a principios del siglo XX.

No casualmente, la revolución, que empezó en 1910, implicó un desafío cercano-idéntico para el gobierno central en función de control territorial, con rebeldes de Ejército de la Liberación de Emiliano Zapata del Sur en el sur de México y el ejército de la Casa de campo de Pancho en el norte. Las similitudes geográficas entre las fortalezas de la revolucionario era y ésos de cárteles actuales de droga subrayan cuán históricamente difícil es para el gobierno para controlar su territorio. La ausencia de conexiones como interconectar geográficas naturales los ríos, que proporcionarían fácil y la línea ferroviaria urbana para fuerzas federales de seguridad, significa que el gobierno central mexicano debe vencer montañas, los desiertos y las selvas para afirmar su autoridad en los interiores.
Hoy, los cárteles toman ventaja llena de la falta del gobierno de control en el el norte de y del sur de partes del país. Los traficantes de drogas mueven cocaína en el sur de México después de atravesar América Central, en el norte de manera de los países andinos cacao-crecientes de Sudamérica. Al norte, y por los pasillos de transporte de las dos costas, cárteles mexicanos de droga disfrutaron de limitó el gobierno interferencia durante las décadas del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) regla y estableció de los reinos factos donde su palabra fue la ley y las drogas movieron eficientemente hacia el norte — En Estados Unidos.




En 2006, sin embargo, la marea giró para los traficantes de drogas cuando Presidente mexicano nuevamente elegido Felipe Calderon cabalgó para enchufar en promesas de campaña de aplastar los cárteles. La tarea no sería fácil para Calderon. La corrupción penetra cada nivel de instituciones de la aplicación de la ley de México — cuyos miembros son continuamente bajo la amenaza de la muerte por los cárteles — Y local (e incluso federal) policía puede non mantener la regla de la ley. Esto ha dejado mucha de la región contigua de México totalmente sin ley.

Con aplicación de la ley local y federal cedió — y encarado con un enemigo bien-entrenado rico mucho armado y pernicioso — Calderon concluyó que la única manera de derrotar a mexicano organized crime Fue de desplegar el ejército. Pero a pesar de la potencia de fuego superior del ejército y combate las capacidades (comparó a fuerzas domésticas de seguridad), es ni suficiente grande para cubrir el territorio necesario ni es diseñó para la aplicación de la ley doméstica. Largo, alargó operaciones militares también enfatizan un presupuesto ya molestado del gobierno. Y el ambiente en el que el militar debe operar es un hostil uno. Cuando sigue los cárteles, el ejército mexicano es más como un poder que ocupa que persigue a rebeldes locales que una agencia del gobierno central que impone la regla de la ley. Además, su reputación relativamente sin mancha en un país plagado con corrupción no es garantizada aguantar. El más largo permanece comprometido con los cárteles las más grande sus oportunidades de ser corrompido. La realidad, por supuesto, es que México tiene pocas otras opciones.

Problemas institucionales

Durante los 71 años de regla por el PRI y la presidencia subsiguiente de seis-año de Zorro de Vicente del Nacional Partido de Acción, el gobierno mexicano hizo limitó movimientos contra los cárteles. Para la regla de la mayor parte de PRI, los cárteles estuvieron muy lejos de tan fuerte como ellos ha llegado a ser en la década pasada, así que políticos podrían proporcionar para permitirles ser, en la mayor parte. La presión carente durante esta vez, los cárteles crecieron cada vez más poderoso, estableciendo las redes complejas del negocio a través de sus regiones y en los mercados internacionales de droga. Cuando el negocio comenzó a recoger, así que hizo la influencia de los cárteles. El flujo de caja creciente dio los cárteles operando más alto presupuestos, que hicieron más fácil de comprar cooperación de administración local y también levantó las estacas en la industria de droga-trafico de drogas.

Cuando los cárteles llegaron a ser más poderosos el nivel de violencia también comenzó a subir, y por el gobierno de 2006 Calderon decidido para hacer su movimiento. Por esta vez, sin embargo, los cárteles de droga tan fueron atrincherados que ellos habían llegado a ser la ley vigente en sus respectivos territorios. Las autoridades locales y federales de la aplicación de la ley habían llegado a ser corrompen, y la entrada de tropas militares tuvo el efecto de desestabilizar estas relaciones — cuando los planificadores pensaron — Y estropear el negocio de los cárteles. Con la disolución de sus redes, los cárteles empezaron defender, proveer sus lazos establecidos en el gobierno y defendiendo agresivamente su césped.

El problema de corrupción se reduce al lure of money Y la amenaza de la muerte. Conocido por el plomo de plata O de frase (que traduce literalmente a “la plata o dirige,” con el significado implicado, “toma un soborno o toma una bala”), el selecto dado a la aplicación de la ley y funcionarios del estado los pone bajo la amenaza de la muerte si ellos no permiten (o, como es a menudo el caso, facilita) operaciones de cártel. Con el gobierno históricamente incapaz de proteger todo su personal de estas clases de amenazas — y ciertamente incapaz de emparejar los largos bolsillos de los cárteles — Los funcionarios de la aplicación de la ley de México han llegado a ser casi universalmente informales. Las amenazas de la muerte han aumentado como el gobierno ha intensificado sus operaciones anti cártel, teniendo como resultado movimiento y dificultades altos que alistan nuevo personal — Personal especialmente calificado. (La ciudad de Juarez ha estado sin un jefe de policía desde que pleno verano, después de que jefes anteriores fueran matados o fueron huidos a Estados Unidos. Los destinos semejantes han acontecido agencias locales de aplicación de la ley en casi cada estado mexicano).

En función de dinero a mano, mexicano organizó crimen puede golpear cualquier oferta que el gobierno puede hacer. Los cárteles mexicanos introducen en algún lugar entre $40 mil millones y $100 mil millones por año. El octubre. 27 anuncio eso 35 employees of the anti-organized crime unit (SIEDO) in the Office of the Mexican Attorney General (PGR) Había sido detenido y había sido cargado con corrupción ilustra el hecho que ni los alcances superiores del gobierno están a salvo de infiltración por los cárteles. En este ejemplo, funcionarios primeros fueron pagados hasta $450.000 por mes para pasar información adelante a un cártel implicado en el trafico de drogas de cocaína. Esta clase de dinero es una tentación inmensa en un país donde salarios anuales para funcionarios huyen $10.000 para policías locales a $48.000 para senadores y $220.000 para el presidente. El crimen organizado puede concentrar en individuos clave en el gobierno mexicano y convencerlos a proporcionar información con una combinación de ofertas lucrativas y amenazas físicas si ellos no obedecen.

Cuándo viene a terminar en amenazas de la muerte, los cárteles tienen probado sí mismos ser bastante eficientes. Los asesinatos de Edgar Millan Gomez, Igor Labastida Calderon Y otros funcionarios federales de policía en México D.F. antes este año es ejemplos que hace al caso. Golpear a funcionarios de alto nivel en la capital del país les envían un mensaje bravo a funcionarios del estado. En un nivel local y más pernicioso, los cárteles han montado una ofensiva concertada contra estado y policía municipal. En el año pasado ellos han asesinado un suma de 500 policías, y en algunos pueblos, el jefe de policía y el cuerpo de policía entero ha sido detenido en cargas de corrupción.

Las amenazas de la muerte son un problema grave para autoridades mexicanas porque México simplemente no tiene la capacidad de proteger todo su personal de aplicación de la ley y a funcionarios del estado. Los detalles protectores efectivos requieren niveles altos de habilidad, y deficiencias de la mano de obra de México lo hacen difícil de encontrar que personas para llenar estas posiciones — Especialmente desde que los candidatos serían en gran parte el personal mexicanos de aplicación de la ley que son a sí mismo los objetivos.

Y sin la protección completa, hay muy poco estímulo para el personal de aplicación de la ley de tener fuera contra influencia de cártel. Después de todo, una vez que los cárteles han establecido a sí mismo como la ley vigente, son mucho más fácil para la policía local permitir perros que durmientes están que son de escoger combates con el perro más grande en el bloque — Con ninguna esperanza de respaldo suficiente del gobierno central.

La pérdida coherente del personal por charges of corruption Y la muerte es una debilidad inherente para México. Hace la conservación del conocimiento institucional difícil, erosionándose aún más la eficacia de esfuerzos de la seguridad del gobierno. Adicionalmente, la pérdida de jefes locales de policía, los alcaldes e indica y funcionarios federales de policía a la muerte, la prosecución o la resignación interrumpen continuidad de la autoridad y hacen la estabilidad en el operacional plano imposible. Además, el proceso es que se autoperpetúa. Los que reemplazan muerto o corrompen a funcionarios a menudo son experimentados menos y menos vetted y son más probable de ser perdido a la corrupción o el asesinato.

El movimiento y la corrupción altos también duelen la reunión de la inteligencia y reducen el conocimiento situacional. Mantener fuentes en el campo son una táctica importante en cualquier guerra, pero esas fuentes requieren el manejo coherente por el personal de aplicación de la ley que ellos se fían de — Y cambios rápidos en el personal destruyen esa confianza. Verdaderamente, la corrupción y el movimiento conducen más a menudo las capacidades de la inteligencia hacia atrás, saltando filtraciones y encauzando información del gobierno a los cárteles en vez de al revés.

Aún la constitución es una fuente de la inseguridad institucional, limitando el tiempo en la oficina del presidente y legisladores a un término. Irónicamente, mientras estas provisiones fueron puestas en el lugar para prevenir la trinchera de líderes en posiciones del poder (verdaderamente, esto fue uno de los asuntos que conducen de la Revolución mexicana), ellos contribuyen realmente a la corrupción, desde que líderes no encaran el desafío de buscar reelección y averiguación duradera de votante. Aunque refuerza el aparato del partido poniendo el énfasis en el plan del partido antes que las ambiciones del individuo, el estado de México- y políticos federal-planos son casos perdidos sobre la oficina entrante. Esto los liberta para asentarse favores políticos y asuntos personales sin necesitar para explicárselo a votantes en el día de las elecciones.

Integración federal de Aplicación de la ley

Los desafíos de la guerra de cártel han incitado la administración de Calderon a reorganizar y combinar las dos agencias federales de aplicación de la ley de país, la Policía Impeditiva Federal (PFP) y la Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (AFI), en lo que será simplemente conocido como la Policía Federal. Las dos agencias independientes han tenido tradicionalmente responsabilidades diferentes e informados a dos secretarios diferentes en el Gabinete del presidente.

El PFP ha sido la fuerza más física, en esencia una agencia doméstica grande de policía cargó con proporcionar el gran público seguridad como mantener ordena en protestas y parar disturbios. El AFI, por otro lado, fue modelado después de EEUU Oficina Federal de Investigación — Una agencia que enfoca más a investigar actividad criminal que lo combatiendo en las calles. En muchos despliegues de counternarcotics durante el por delante de dos años, tanto PFP como AFI han sido desplegados, con PFP manejando generalmente puntos de revisión de carretera y búsquedas de vehículo mientras AFI investiga escenas de crimen y sigue plomos. Desde que son agencias federales de aplicación de la ley, sus áreas de la superposición de responsabilidades, pero cada han mantenido su propia estructura separada de la cultura y la orden.

Con la guerra de droga que intensifica sobre los últimos dos años, se hizo patente que amenaza primaria de seguridad de México fue organizada crimen y la violencia que acompañaron lo. Los cárteles de México son muy brutales (y tan requieren la mano pesada del PFP), pero ellos también son organizados muy bien y de complicidad (requiriendo la pericia investigativa del AFI). En el pasado, las dos agencias a menudo trabajarían el mismo caso sin coordinar sus actividades, que tuvieron como resultado una falta de información-compartir e investigaciones prolongadas. La administración de Calderon concluyó que luchando los cárteles requieren un cuerpo de policía federal capaz de proporcionar la seguridad física y realizar el trabajo investigativo continuamente.

Así que el gobierno aplicó un plan para integrar el PFP y AFI — Un plan eso, mientras considerado completo en el papel, es distante de completo en la práctica. Tales transiciones burocráticas toman inevitablemente mucho tiempo y el esfuerzo y tienen como resultado ineficacias a corto plazo (que puede ser un problema con una guerra de cártel que rabía). Para fechar, rivalidades burocráticas parecen haber prevenido unidad verdadera en todo. A pesar del acuerdo de papel, el PFP y AFI se quedan separación en la práctica, haciendo sus propios arrestos y seguir sus propios casos con interacción limitada uno con el otro. En septiembre 2008, AFI agents protested El hecho que ellos fueron hechos para informar a comandantes de PFP en la Seguridad Pública Secretariado. PFP quitó finalmente a los agentes de AFI del caso, demostrando claramente las rivalidades entre organismos.

Además, no es claro cómo la decisión impresionará corrupción en las agencias. Por una parte, habiendo centralizado control sobre una sola institución carena el proceso de corrupción-vigilancia. Por otro lado, con sólo una institución federal de seguridad, no hay segundo partido de proporcionar un cheque independiente de exterior en la corrupción. Además, si hay sólo una agencia y es corrompe o sufrimiento de ataques, entonces toda policía federal de México es debilitada. Adicionalmente, manteniendo que dos agencias también tiene en cuenta cada en ser aislado de la corrupción y debilidades del otro.

Es claro que una unión formal de dos agencias independientes de policía no puede ser institucionalizada de noche. Pero la presión es gran acelerar el proceso. Calderon ha puesto una fecha tope tentativa de integración completa por 2012 (que es también el año de la elección luego presidencial). La idea es para la Policía Federal de últimamente tomar la delantera en la campaña contra los cárteles en vez del ejército.

Más allá de los problemas de reorganización burocrática, agencias federales de aplicación de la ley de México encaran varios desafíos logísticos y técnicos. Las deficiencias técnicas serán dirigidas hasta cierto punto por EEUU Merida Initiative, Que otorgará aproximadamente $900 millones a México en los próximos dos años para el equipo y la instrucción. Esto dará México la oportunidad de recoger las tecnologías como equipo de espectrometría de ion (la tecnología de narcótico-presintiendo) eso tiene probado ser útil en tomas de marihuana. Hay también mucho cuarto de mejorar colección de información, el almacenamiento y el análisis. No hay base de datos centralizada con antecedentes penales para local, el estado ni agencias federales de policía. Las agencias de la aplicación de la ley también faltan las capacidades suficientes de seguro-comunicaciones y droga-descubrimiento, que significa que custodia actividades pueden ser vigiladas por los cárteles y embarques domésticos de droga son más difíciles de discernir.

Pero incluso si México pueda crear la estructura más efectiva y eficiente burocrática y obtener las tecnologías muy últimas para sus fuerzas de la seguridad, no hay manera verdadera de compensar la corrupción que paraliza que penetra aplicación de la ley federal. Y con la ferocidad creciente de los cárteles de droga, no hay fin a la vista a la presión que ellos pueden y colocarán en el personal de la aplicación de la ley de México. Las causas fundamentales de corrupción institucional en México — coerción y soborno — Son entrelazados profundamente en la cultura política de país y tomarán décadas, quizás generaciones, para arrancar. Esto significa que el gobierno no alcanzará su objetivo de transición la guerra de droga en las manos de tiempo de aplicación de la ley pronto, que tendrá en cambio consecuencias para el ejército como luchan contra los cárteles. Fundamentalmente, la seguridad fuerza reforma de necesidad (y rápidamente) antes el ejército sucumbe a las mismas presiones que han paralizado a la policía federal.
Title: Segunda Parte
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 12, 2008, 12:10:53 PM
El Ejército mexicano

Antes Calderon envió al ejército después de los narcos en 2006, contrabando de droga estuvo desenfrenado en México, pero los cárteles controlaron sus respectivos territorios, donde corrupción reinó y la paz prevaleció (más o menos). Había escaramuzas ocasionales de cártel en cártel pero ellos tendieron a ser efímeros. La falta histórica de presión de gobierno creó finalmente más riqueza y el poder para los cárteles para luchar sobre y la violencia comenzó a subir. Cuándo Calderon mandó a tropas federales, ellos revolvieron efectivamente el nido del avispón. Los asesinatos de droga-relacionó a través de skyrocketed de México como cárteles compitieron para el territorio flojamente tenido de sus rivales que vacilan.

Calderon no es el primer presidente mexicano de utilizar el ejército para combatir los cárteles, pero él ha cambiado dramáticamente la manera que el ejército contribuye a la misión del counternarcotics del gobierno. Los antecesores de Calderon confiaron principalmente en el Grupo Especial de Fuerzas Airmobile (GAFE), que fue entrenado especialmente y fue equipado para realizar desafiando extraordinariamente operaciones con poco tiempo de antelación. Estas misiones incluyeron el 2003 arresto de Osiel Cardenas Guillen, líder anterior del cártel de Golfo, y de la 2002 captura de Benjamin Arellano Felix, la cabeza del cártel de Tijuana.

Pero las operaciones que implican GAFE o el alto mando GAFE (las la mayoría de los élite de fuerzas especiales de México) fueron solo-objetivo, misiones aisladas. Desde que 2006, Calderon ha desplegado a tropas — inclusive ambas unidades especiales de fuerzas y batallones regulares de infantería — Por primera vez en misiones a largo plazo diseñadas para imponer la estabilidad y desenredar el sistema entero de cártel. La misión ha llegado a ser, en un sentido, tanto counterinsurgency como counternarcotics, con fuerzas federales que operan distante distante con el conocimiento limitado del paisaje o personas locales. En algunas maneras, esto es muy semejante a las fuerzas de desafíos EEUU encara en Iraq y Afganistán.

La política nacional doméstica de la seguridad de México bajo Calderon ha sido formulada en el nivel de Gabinete, con el Secretariado Interior (SEGOB) tomando la delantera. A pesar de la muerte de Interior Secretario Juan Camilo Mourino en un noviembre. 4 choque del avión en México D.F. (pensó ser causado por error piloto), política de seguridad hace probable continúa proceder de the secretariat. SEGOB trabaja con el Secretariado de Defensa, la Seguridad Pública Secretariado y el PGR a coordinar el despliegue de fuerzas federales (ambos militar y la aplicación de la ley).

Casi todos despliegues a gran escala son operaciones conjuntos con policía y tropas federales que patrullan junto, que combina la fuerza bruta de fuerza militar con las capacidades investigativas de la policía federal. La cooperación no es perfecta, y hay muchos ejemplos de coordinación pobre. Muchas de las correrías y arrestos mayores han sido llevados a cabo por GAFE con exclusión de aplicación de la ley federal. GAFE entonces transfiere a detenidos en la custodia de la oficina del fiscal general para la prosecución. A menudo, aplicación de la ley federal es recortada de operaciones sensibles — Presumiblemente porque el ejército tiene la inteligencia que podría ser cedida si expuso de corromper policía federal.

Primer despliegue militar de Calderon contra los cárteles implicó a 6.500 tropas expedidas a Michoacan (estado de la casa de Calderon) en diciembre 2006. Michoacan fue el centro de una oleada de violencia que había dejado a 500 muertos en incidentes relacionados con la droga ese año (muchas de las muertes fueron aturdirmente horribles, inclusive decapita y los desmembramientos). El mes siguiente, Calderon desplegó a 3.300 tropas al estado de Baja California y 1.000 tropas al estado de Guerrero. Desde entonces, las tropas han sido mandadas a calmar violencia en 14 otros estados, con tener total de despliegues estabiliza para el por delante de seis meses en aproximadamente 35.000. Aunque los números de despliegue son un secreto de cerca tenido, nosotros también estimamos que aproximadamente 10.000 policía federal también ha sido enviada a éstos molesta lugares.

La infantería mexicana del ejército y fuerzas especiales luchan la guerra del suelo del mayoría del ejército contra los cárteles. Las fuerzas especiales participan en correrías de precisión en ubicaciones estratégicas mientras la infantería realiza patrullas (a menudo con policías federales), establece puntos de revisión de camino y entra en la búsqueda y destruye misiones en la marihuana y operaciones de cultivo de amapola de opio. A llegar en un área de operaciones, las tropas empiezan por vetting la policía local. Esto requiere, como mínimo, un desarme temporario de policías, y a veces la corrupción local es tan profunda que los oficiales permanentemente son aliviados de sus armas. La marina mexicana ha sido utilizada asimismo para operaciones offshore como el 2006 cerrar del litoral de Michoacan en conjunción con operaciones simultáneas de suelo. Cuándo unidades necesarias y militares coordinan con policía federal autorizada a realizar investigaciones que el ejército no es permitido ni es preparado para realizar.

La estrategia de Calderon para los primeros 12 meses de operaciones del contrario-cártel del ejército implicó, casi exclusivamente, concentrando en el Gulf cartel En fortalezas en y alrededor de Tamaulipas y Michoacan indica. El objetivo durante este período parece haber sido de desmantelar Golfo centrándose antes en otros cárteles. En el proceso, sin embargo, el cártel de Sinaloa comenzó a hacer movimientos para llenar los vacíos dejaron por Golfo. Aunque violencia girara fuera de control en territorio de Sinaloa, casi ningunas tropas fueron enviadas allí durante el primer año (el territorio de Sinaloa tiene comercio o industria importantes pequeños y fue una prioridad más baja, mientras Golfo opera cerca del pasillo de envío de Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo, por que más que el 60 por ciento de exportaciones mexicanas al paso de Estados Unidos). Durante estos primero 12 a 15 meses, la estrategia de contrario-cártel fue dictada por el territorio controlado por el cártel de Golfo.

Ahora parece que la estrategia es de perseguir múltiples cárteles y para manejar la violencia en centros de población. Después de que 12 a 15 meses de operaciones contra Golfo, el cártel fuera apreciablemente más débil y la violencia comenzaba a estallar en otras áreas, inclusive centros grandes de población como Juarez y Tijuana. En ese punto, el gobierno empezó despliegues extendido más anchamente, expidiendo rápidamente a tropas necesitaron como “apagar fuegos.” Uno de los factores primarios en el cambio en la estrategia fue opinión pública. Los residentes y los alcaldes de ciudades grandes quieren que Tijuana y Juarez llegaba a ser cada vez más harta de la violencia creciente. Ansioso de demostrar a los gobiernos del pueblo y el estado que lo todavía tuvo un asidero en la situación, el gobierno federal comenzó a reaccionar más directamente a éstos concierne, enviando a tropas no contra un cártel particular pero al último lugar de peligro violento. Hasta ahora, mientras el gobierno federal ha conseguido mantener las calificaciones positivas de aprobación, han estirado el ejército muy delgado en el proceso.

En esencia, el ejército movió de utilizar una almádena en un solo objetivo a utilizar una serie de pequeños martillos en muchos objetivos. Los resultados han sido menos que satisfactorio. Más temprano en la campaña, despliegues de ejército tendrían como resultado inicialmente una disminución inmediata y notabla en la violencia. Esto es ya no el caso. Desde marzo, cuando el ejército movió en estabilizar Juarez — donde violencia giraba rápidamente fuera de control — El ejército ha tenido a menos tropas disponibles y ha tenido que depender de la policía local para la ayuda. La violencia continuó aún después de las tropas llegadas.

La operación de Juarez fue un momento decisivo en la estrategia del gobierno federal, y no es un ejemplo bueno de cómo opinión pública condujo el gobierno hacia una respuesta prominente que hace, al fin, mejora apreciablemente la situación de la seguridad. La operación representó el primer despliegue a gran escala en el que un número insuficiente de soldados y policía federal fue forzado a compensar la escasez de mano de obra reclutando la ayuda de aplicación de la ley local. Naturalmente, la situación fue complicada por el hecho ése razón las tropas fueron en primer lugar había de investigar a la policía local para lazos al crimen organizado. Como resultado, muchas policía protestó o fue a la huelga, y a este día situación de la seguridad de la ciudad se queda tenue. Juarez fue el primer signo claro que el gobierno no desplegaba suficientes fuerzas para encontrar la misión expandida del ejército.

Uno de los problemas más grandes que el ejército ha tenido que confrontar es tamaño completo de México. El ejército del país 200,000-strong (todas ramas, con el ejército en acerca de 144.000) — consistir en su mayor parte de reclutas —Simplemente no es suficiente grande para dominar 761.606 millas cuadradas de México del territorio ni seguir un estimó a 500.000 personas implicadas en el comercio ilícito de droga. Unas 35.000 tropas federales son desplegadas en cada ocasión. En el el norte de área contigua, donde 16.000 tropas son desplegadas, los traficantes de drogas tienen una cantidad tremenda de tierra abierta en su disposición, donde ellos han establecido una red vasta de rutas y pisos francos (el el norte de área contigua atraviesa casi 250.000 millas cuadradas y está acerca del tamaño de Tejas). Los esfuerzos de la aplicación de la ley en este ambiente son muy difíciles, desde que los cárteles tienen la capacidad de cambiar rápidamente tránsito rutas y cambiar sus pautas de conducta para evitar descubrimiento (aunque ellos pasarán generalmente por pueblos en los que ellos son capaces de establecer control). Las 16.000 tropas en el el norte de la frontera encaran una situación semejante que Marina de EEUU confrontaron en la provincia de Anbar de Iraq, donde un juego que frustra de “golpea un lunar” llegó a ser la táctica predominante de la coalición. Aún con cooperación de EEUU, hay tropas mexicanas simplemente demasiadas pocas por EEUU-la frontera de México para combatir completamente actividades de cártel México interior.




Un segundo desafío que el ejército mexicano debe tratar con es aún más básico: No fue diseñado para esta clase de misión. Como la mayoría de los ejércitos parados, el ejército de México no es entrenado ni es equipado para imponer las leyes domésticas de país. Falta no sólo la autoridad civil pero también la pericia necesaria para realizar investigaciones e imponer orden. Aunque el ejército despliegue con aplicación de la ley federal, que tiene alguna pericia civil, el grado a que el ejército debe operar sin la ayuda de policía local (es decir, los que saben el territorio) es un estorbo que paraliza.

El ejército así es forzado a adaptar rápidamente a una clase de guerra que puede ser llamada fácilmente asimétrico. Los agresores criminales organizados en México, quieren a rebeldes en Iraq y Afganistán, son difícil de distinguirse de civiles inocentes y puede montar ataques entonces mezclan rápidamente en la población. Y con ninguna manera de depender de pericia local, la inteligencia exacta y oportuna es limitada muy. Visto como una fuerza que ocupa, tropas federales tienen un tiempo difícil que gana la confianza de habitantes y redes locales efectivas reveladoras de humano-inteligencia, que es clave a un counterinsurgency exitoso.

A pesar de estos desafíos, las estrategias y las políticas aplicadas han llevado hasta ahora a éxitos inauditos contra traficantes de drogas. El ejército es responsable de la mayor parte de estos éxitos. Sobre los últimos dos años, la marina mexicana ha reducido el trafico de drogas marítimo de drogas ilícitas por el 65 por ciento. La vigilancia aumentada del ejército de espacio aéreo (junto con nuevos radares y restricciones de donde vuelos son permitidos aterrizar) ha llevado a una reducción del 90 por ciento en el trafico de drogas de antena de cocaína de Colombia. En esencia, el ejército tiene probado así ser lejos la única institución en México que tiene la capacidad de intervenir apreciablemente con crimen organizado en el país.

A pesar de estos éxitos significativos sobre los últimos dos años, el ejército, con su número limitado de tropas, no ha podido prevenir el número de víctimas relacionado con la droga de subir (el peaje se paró en 1.543 en 2005 y superará 5.000 en 2008). Verdaderamente, si cualquier cosa, la situación de la seguridad ha empeorado a través de México, en parte porque el gobierno tan es centrado en los cárteles a costa de criminales ordinarios. Como resultado, crímenes violentos como asesina, armó robo y el asalto está en la subida por todas partes el país.

El Golpetazo Duro Largo

No hay solución sencilla al problema de cárteles de la droga de México. Aún desmantelar el aparato de cártel sería un remedio a corto plazo a un permanente problema. Siempre que hay una demanda para drogas en Estados Unidos, habrá individuos emprendedores que tratarán de negociarlos por el EEUU el sur de vecino.

La artimaña, entonces, es de construir sólido que suficientes instituciones en México para reemplazar — o contrarresta por lo menos — La influencia de los traficantes de drogas. El militar puede desmantelar corrompe las policías, pero el sistema para establecer un efectivo judicial u otra autoridad cívica en su lugar no parecen ser suficiente completo para lograr ninguna última reforma. El militar puede purgar corrompe individuos de los grados de aplicación de la ley local, pero del problema básico de plomo de plata O persiste. Y allí parece ser una capacidad disminuyente de aplicar un programa económico del desarrollo que proporcionaría oportunidades alternativas de empleo para miembros de cártel y haría el comercio de droga menos atractivo. En esencia, no hay estrategia completa de reedificación, y sin un surgir de equilibrio de ser-sosteniendo de operaciones militares, una victoria clara y decisiva es difícil de lograr aún en el mejor de circunstancias.

Mientras ciudadanos mexicanos todavía por y por apoyo grande la misión del gobierno, battle fatigue is beginning to set in, Y su tolerancia para la violencia podría ondear. Calderon todavía mantiene las calificaciones de aprobación de alrededor del 60 por ciento, pero sobre la mitad de mexicanos sondeó cree durante el verano que el gobierno pierde la guerra en cárteles. Si apoyo público se marcha de Calderon, la guerra del gobierno en el crimen organizado ganará a otro enemigo más.
Tell Stratfor What You Think
Title: Los Asesinos de Habilidad Creciente
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 12, 2008, 08:51:57 PM
En México, los Asesinos de Habilidad Creciente
Los Hits bien-coordinados del Cártel Muestran Sofisticación más grande
 
Un equipo forense examina la escena del asesinato de Huerta. Los asesinos despidieron 85 series en SUV de Huerta, lo golpeando 40 veces. No cerca vehículos fueron golpeados por balas perdidas.

Por Puesto de William
El Poste de Washington Servicio Extranjero
El viernes, el 12 de diciembre de 2008; Llame A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121103540.html

CIUDAD JUAREZ, México -- El hit fue rápido, bravo, mortal. Jesús Huerta Yedra, un acusador federal primero aquí, fue gunned hacia abajo la semana pasada en un cruce ocupado 100 yardas de la frontera de EEUU en un asesinato de la coreografía precisa.

En la guerra caótica de droga de México, los ataques son ya no el trabajo de aficionados desesperados con objetivo malo. Cada vez más, las matanzas son llevadas a cabo por profesionales, a menudo encapuchado y enguantado, que atrapa sus objetivos en emboscadas coordinada, la huelga con potencia de fuego arrolladuro, y entonces se desaparece en la hora punta de tarde -- así como ellos hicieron en la matanza de Huerta.

Los asesinos pagados, conocido como sicarios, son prendidos raramente. Los funcionarios mexicanos dicen que las escuadras del comando probablemente viajan del estado para indicar, a través de un país donde el gobierno y sus fuerzas de seguridad dibujan alarmando conclusiones acerca del alcance y la habilidad de un enemigo apoyado por miles de millones de dólares en ganancias de droga.

"Ellos consiguen muy bueno en sus trabajos," dijo Hector Hawley Morelos, el coordinador del estado forense y el laboratorio de crimen aquí, donde criminólogos y pesquisidores han sido agobiados por más de 1.600 homicidios en Juarez este año. "Los asesinos muestran un nivel alto de sofisticación. Ellos han tenido la instrucción -- en algún lugar. Ellos parecen tener el conocimiento de policía procedimientos investigativos. Por ejemplo ellos no dejan huellas dactilares. Eso perturba muy".

Alejandro Pariente, el portavoz para el fiscal general en el estado de chihuahua, dijo, "Ellos son llamados crimen organizado para una razón muy buena. Porque ellos son organizados muy".

En Ciudad Juarez, una ciudad industrial dura a través del río del Paso de El, donde 42 personas han sido matadas en el la semana pasada, el depósito de cadáveres sirve como un aula cruel para el estudio de violencia de droga por la frontera.

En una entrevista la semana pasada, un pesquisidor ocupado en el laboratorio forense habló al realizar una autopsia. Una docena de muertos aguardaron exámenes finales, extendieron en mesas metálicas, su pebbled de cuerpos con hoyos gordos de bala, abre ojos que miran fijamente en bombillas fluorescentes. Los hombres todo fue clasificado finalmente como "organizó crimen" homicidios, que justifican la mayoría de muertes en Ciudad Juarez, la ciudad más violenta en México.


El lunes, Fiscal general federal Eduardo Medina Mora dijo que ha habido 5.376 matanzas relacionadas con la droga este año en México, el doble dura el número de año. Luego esa noche, Victor Hugo Moneda, que dirigió agencia investigativa de policía de México D.F., fue matado en una emboscada como él salía su coche en su casa en la capital. Los agresores, utilizando un coche y la motocicleta, despidieron 22 disparos, según custodiar.

En el depósito de cadáveres de Juarez, los tres congeladores con acceso directo son llenados a la capacidad de más de 90 cadáveres, amontonó piso al techo, a salir bolsas blancas con cremalleras. Después de que unos pocos meses, los que no sean identificados son enterrados en un campo en el cementerio de la ciudad en la orilla del desierto.

"Las pautas que nosotros a menudo vemos con homicidios organizados de crimen son armas de alto nivel, heridas de múltiplo, trauma extremo," dijo el Alma Rosa Padilla, un médico encargado de las análisis principal, que completa tantas como cinco autopsias llenas cada día. "Ellos no van al hospital".

Un EEUU policía anti droga, que habló en la condición del anonimato porque él trabaja en México, dijo, "El ejército mexicano ha tenido un problema con desertores. Así que tiene a la policía, inclusive unidades anti crimen especiales. Ellos ahora trabajan para el otro lado".

Más que una docena funcionarios mexicanos primeros de aplicación de la ley han sido retenidos recientemente para trabajar supuestamente para los cárteles de droga, inclusive Noé Ramírez Mandujano, el acusador anti droga, primero y anterior de la nación. El fue detenido el mes pasado en la sospecha de aceptar $450.000 a cambio de compartir la inteligencia con negociantes.
===============

En México, los Asesinos de Habilidad Creciente
 


Según información soltó el jueves por el Congreso mexicano, más de 18.000 soldados han desertado al ejército mexicano este año. En los últimos tres años, 177 miembros de unidades de especial-fuerzas han abandonado sus postes, y muchos fueron a trabajar para el crimen organizado.

Recientemente, chihuahua Gov. José Reyes Baeza dijo que pistoleros empleados que han sido detenidos confesaron que ellos llevaron a cabo ejecuciones para 1.000 pesos por la matanza, acerca de $75.

Las armas vierten sobre la frontera aquí de Tejas, comprado ilegalmente de pandillas de calle o legalmente en tiendas deportivas de bienes en Estados Unidos. Dure mes, el ejército mexicano hizo la toma más grande de armas ilegales de fusiles y militar-tipo en más de dos décadas, destapando una reserva de 540 rifles, 165 granadas y 500.000 cartuchos en una casa en Reynosa, justo a través de la frontera de McAllen, Tex.

Según funcionarios mexicanos, los rifles robados de la Beatitud de Fuerte, un poste de Ejército de EEUU en el Paso de El, acaba por en las calles de Juarez. En el laboratorio forense, el equipo de la balística sacó una docena de armas, inclusive AK-47s, AR-15s, M 16s y otros armamentos de militar-grado.

"Pienso que el gobierno es agobiado simplemente. Los casos entran cincos y decenas ahora, y son probablemente muy duro mantenerse al ritmo de," dijo Tony Payan, un experto en el comercio de droga y profesor en la Universidad de Tejas en el Paso de El. "El gobierno está en el defensivo. Los maleantes tienen la ventaja aquí. Ellos probablemente perfeccionan sus técnicas más rápido que el gobierno puede encontrar que los expertos o los recursos para combatirlos".

El asesinato de Huerta fue una huelga brava. El fue el acusador federal segundo-más alto en el estado. Recientemente, el abogado de 40 años de edad fue entregado el caso de mató a periodista Armando Rodríguez, un periodista de policía de veterano en periódico de El Diario que fue matado por un pistolero delante de su casa dura mes en Ciudad Juarez. Las razones detrás de la matanza de Huerta se quedan desconocido.

Cuándo investigador forense David García y su socio llegaron en su camioneta blanca 15 minutos después del disparar en la tarde de diciembre. 3, la policía municipal marcaba el perímetro de la escena de crimen con cinta amarilla y los primeros soldados llegaban a montar guardia.


La Sunny, cruce ancho de la Calle de Arizona y el Bulevar que Papa John Paul II linda con el Grande de Rio y es un camino de cinco-minuto de un principal puente en el Paso de El. Fácilmente visible a través del río fue una línea de piquete de vehículos de Patrulla de fronteras de EEUU.

Huerta cabalgaba en el asiento de pasajero de un nuevo Viaje de Regate de plata-coloró SUV con platos de Tejas, que había parado en una luz roja. El coche fue pasado a un secretario en la oficina del acusador, Marisela Esparza Granados. Cuándo García llegó, el astilló limpiaparabrisas en el vehículo todavía luchaban por operar.

El cruce alrededor del Regate fue ensuciado con esqueletos gastados. García y su socio, que llevan tablillas con sujetapapeles pero ningunas armas, fotografiaron metódicamente la escena y reunieron 85 cubiertas, todo en el calibre coherente con la cuenta algunos testigos policía dicha -- que dos hombres encapuchados de dos camionetas recogieron frente del Regate y fuego abierto con AK-47s.

Los criminólogos en el laboratorio forense fueron golpeados por varios detalles. Primero, ellos sospecharon que Huerta fue seguido por por lo menos uno, y quizás varios, persiguen vehículos, que habrían ayudado a los pistoleros se ponen en posición de tender una emboscada Huerta. Ellos supieron que el coche Huerta utilizaría y su ruta, los investigadores dijeron.

Segundo, los criminólogos fueron impresionados con la precisión, la velocidad y la audacia del ataque.

Cuándo se paró en el semáforo, el vehículo de Huerta fue rodeado por otros coches en un cruce llenado. Pero ningunos otros vehículos fueron golpeados por balas perdidas. Más tarde, Hawley, el coordinador de laboratorio, indicó la pauta apretada de pocking de disparo de fusil la parabrisas del SUV.

"Usted ve ellos golpean donde ellos apuntan. El fue el objetivo. No ella," Hawley dijo. Los asesinos concentraron su fuego directamente en Huerta, que no llevaba una chaleca antibalas. "Si ellos saben que ellos llevan una chaleca antibalas, ellos ignoran el pecho y disparan la cabeza," él agregó.

La autopsia reveló que Huerta había sido golpeado por lo menos 40 veces, la mayoría del en el pecho. El asiento del pasajero del SUV fue empapado con sangre. El secretario, Esparza, fue golpeado sólo tres veces, aunque una herida de cuello fue fatal.

En el laboratorio de crimen, las cubiertas de esqueleto fueron examinadas por el equipo de la balística y registrados. Las balas son casi siempre de Estados Unidos. Los asesinos no se fían de balas hechas en México, Hawley dijo, agregar, "Las balas norteamericanas son mejores".
Title: Extradiciones
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 01, 2009, 03:02:00 AM
México ha extraditado a 10 miembros pretendidos de cártel de droga a Estados Unidos a fines de un año ya sin precedentes para extradiciones entre Estados Unidos y México, The Associated Press diciembre informado. 31. La oficina del Fiscal general mexicana dice que los sospechosos son miembros de alto rango de las tres la mayoría de los cárteles poderosos en México: el Golfo, Sinaloa y los grupos de Arellano-Felix. Con estas 10 extradiciones, el número total de extradiciones entre México y Estados Unidos es 95, arriba de 12 en 2007.
===============
Cuarenta y uno individuos han sido detenidos como parte de Considerar “de Proyecto Sincroniza 2,” una operación de aplicación de la ley de multiagency dirigida por Aplicación de Droga de EEUU Agencia que concentró en Cártel del Golfo de México, el Departamento de EEUU de la Justicia anunció diciembre. 31. Los agentes que toman parte en la operación descubrieron un grupo de traficantes de drogas que corren una operación grande que apuesta en Tennessee inclusive una empresa de peleas de gallos que un funcionario federal dijo fue el más grande que él había visto en Estados Unidos. Once individuos fueron detenidos en Tennessee; 30 otros fueron cargados en Tejas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Nevada, Kentucky y Carolina del norte. Esos detenido en Tennessee encaran una variedad de cargas relacionadas para endrogar trafico de drogas y apostar federal infracciones.

==========================


El 22 de diciembre de 2008 | 2053 GMT

Página Especial relacionada de Tema
•   Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Endroge violencia en Guerrero
La actividad criminal organizada continuó a través de México esto semana pasada. En el estado de Tamaulipas, tentativas de amenazas y extorsión contra la industria que apuesta han dirigido por lo menos 12 tales negocios a cerrar sus puertas. Por lo menos dos muertes en el área son consideradas relacionadas a negocios que fallaron de pagar la protección honorarios a grupos criminales. En Tijuana, estado de Baja California, un grupo de pistoleros abrió fuego sobre la oficina del fiscal general de estado en qué autoridades cree fue una tentativa fallada de rescatar a miembros de una pandilla de secuestro que había sido detenida.

Y en Chilpancingo, estado de Guerrero, las autoridades descubrieron que las cabezas cortadas de ocho soldados y un estado anterior custodia a director en mucho luego a una tienda al por menor grande. Junto a las cabezas fue una nota que leyó, “Para cada un mío que usted mata, mataré a diez soldados.” Los cuerpos fueron encontrados en dos ubicaciones por cerca carreteras.

Las autoridades creen que los soldados fueron matados en la venganza para un tiroteo de ejército con una pandilla de droga en el pueblo de Teloloapan, que dejó por lo menos tres traficantes de drogas muertos. Los funcionarios creen que los soldados decapitados en este caso habían sido raptados al azar como ellos salían cerca ejército abuchea. El director anterior de la policía fue secuestrado supuestamente fuera de un toro que lucha arena.

Mientras violencia horrible de droga en México ha pasado a ser lo normal durante los años últimos, esta última masa que decapita incidente es ciertamente digna de mención y destaca la vulnerabilidad de fuerzas de la seguridad del país a este tipo de ataque. Desde que aplicando aún un basic protective intelligence program Parece improbable en el futuro próximo, la amenaza inevitable a fuerzas de seguridad tiene el potencial para bajar aún más su moral. Una combinación de la moral más baja y un sentido de gran vulnerabilidad podría disminuir la eficacia del ejército; mucho que quiere la violencia contra policías ha llevado a resignaciones de policía de masa, las protestas y las huelgas. Tal situación entre el ejército podría paralizar la capacidad del gobierno para seguir su estrategia de cártel, especialmente dada la tasa históricamente alta de deserción para las fuerzas armadas.

El fiscal general Dirige la Guerra de Droga

En una rueda de prensa publicó esto semana pasada, Fiscal general mexicano Eduardo Medina Mora proporcionó una cuenta oficial de la guerra del cártel del año pasada. Entre las declaraciones Medina hizo fue que según registros mantenido por su oficina, el número total de homicidios organizados de crimen-relacionó hasta ahora en 2008 soportes en bien encima de 5.700, más que doble el registro anterior de acerca de 2.700 fijo en 2007. El 2008 total incluye a 944 personas matadas en noviembre solo, el mes más mortal en la historia del México en función de violencia de droga. Además, él afirmó que casi 15 por ciento de las víctimas de crimen organizado pertenecido a la aplicación de la ley o el ejército, más alto que el 10 por ciento que estimamos anteriormente. El también proyectó que violencia de la droga del país tiene todavía no de pico, y que la tendencia en 2008 es esperada continuar durante los primeros pocos meses de 2009.

Medina también indicó que cárteles de la droga del país ahora han entrado una nueva fase de violencia. Mientras que anteriormente matanzas y secuestros fueron motivados principalmente por disputas sobre el territorio, violencia de cártel ahora es motivada más por vendettas y quejas personales entre traficantes de drogas, una situación que ocurrió como las operaciones del gobierno interrumpieron el equílibrio político entre los cárteles.

Muchas de las observaciones de Medina resuenan las evaluaciones hechas por Stratfor in our 2008 report on Mexico’s drug cartels. Mientras nosotros lo encontramos difícil de creer que insultos personales ahora justifican violencia del skyroketing de la mayor parte de México, la declaración de Medina arroja luz en algunos de los desafíos asociados con rastrear y analizar las actividades de droga-traficar con drogas organizaciones. Por una parte, los cárteles son generalmente negocio-orientados, y sus acciones a menudo tienen objetivos estratégicos diseñaron para aumentar ganancias. Por otro lado, la cultura de trafico de drogas de droga y crimen organizado en México es a menudo un negocio familiar. Un ataque en un miembro de la familia, por ejemplo, puede ser percibido como un desafío para honorar y causar que una organización para atacar otro constante cuando esto podría ser mala para el negocio. Desde que esta forma de violencia a menudo ocurre sin advertencia o motivo estratégico, subraya el enorme potencial para la violencia en México para agravarse aun más. Cuando control de trafico de drogas de droga en México llega a ser cada vez más fragmentado, cualquiera de las muchas organizaciones criminales que rivalizan para el poder pronto podría decidir que nuevas formas de violencia son justificadas.



Diciembre. 15
•   Un informe soltado por derechos humanos nacionales de México comisionar estimaciones que aproximadamente 99 por ciento de crímenes en el país va impune.
•   
•   Authorities En Ciudad Juarez, estado de chihuahua, encontró los cuerpos de cuatro personas delante de una bandera que denomina a 28 policías en lo que es presumiblemente una lista negra. Tres de las víctimas habían sido disparos a la muerte, mientras el otro había sido decapitado. Una quinta víctima fue encontrada vivo, pero signos de cojinete de tormento.
•   
•   Authorities En Ciudad Juarez, estado de chihuahua, encontró que los cuerpos de cinco hombres disparaban muerto por una carretera.
•   
Diciembre. 16
•   La policía en Tijuana, estado de Baja California, encontró los cuerpos de dos hombres con múltiples escopetazos en un patio en una residencia privada.
•   
Diciembre. 17
•   Por lo menos dos pistoleros dispararon un director de policía en Acolman, estado de México, varias veces, lo hiriendo.
•   
•   One El hombre se murió después de que un pistolero que coloque como un policía entró su casa y lo disparó de cerca en Tijuana, estado de Baja California.
•   
•   Police En Ecatepec, estado de México, encontró los cuerpos de dos personas no identificadas envueltas en mantas en el tronco de un coche.
•   
•   A El director anterior de la policía del estado de Nayarit se murió cuando un grupo de hombres armados lo disparó nueve veces como él condujo por la capital de estado de Tepic.
•   
•   Authorities En Reynosa, estado de Tamaulipas, encontró el cuerpo de un líder del sindicato que había organizado a trabajadores para el maquiladoras de área.
•   
Diciembre. 18
•   El alcalde anterior de San Juan, estado de Michoacan, se murió después de que sea muchas veces de disparo al conducir un vehículo personal.
•   
•   Authorities En Ciudad Altamirano, estado de Guerrero, encontró el cuerpo decapitado de un hombre con una lectura de nota, “Ve lo que sucede cuando usted recibe órdenes de la familia. Usted pierde la cabeza.”
•   
•   Two Los hombres se murieron después de que sea muchas veces de disparo en un parking de supermercado en Culiacan, estado de Sinaloa.
•   
•   One El hombre se murió después de que varios hombres armaran con rifles de asalto lo disparó varias veces en parking de restaurante en Nogales, estado de Sonora.
•   
•   The El cuerpo de un comandante de policía fue encontrado en Ciudad Juarez, estado de chihuahua, con por lo menos un escopetazo. El había sido secuestrado poco antes su cuerpo fue descubierto.
•   
Diciembre. 19
•   Las autoridades en Cali, Colombia, anunció que el arresto de siete traficantes de drogas creídos haber suministrado cocaína al cártel de Sinaloa de México.
•   
Diciembre. 20
•   Seis hombres se murieron y uno fue herido en una tienda de mecánico en Ciudad Juarez, estado de chihuahua, cuando un grupo de pistoleros entró el edificio y fuego abierto.
•   
•   A El policía en Mazatlan, estado de Sinaloa, se murió desp
===============
México: Fuentes de cártel importantes
El 29 de diciembre de 2008 | 1834 GMT

ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP/Getty Imagina

 
Resumen
 
Un mayor mexicano del ejército ha sido detenido para pasar supuestamente información a la organización del droga-trafico de drogas de Beltran Leyva. El arresto representa un doble golpe al gobierno mexicano y demuestra el alcance de los cárteles del país.

 Ejército mexicano Maj. Arturo Gonzalez Rodriguez fue detenido la semana de diciembre. 21 para ayudar supuestamente droga mexicana que trafica con drogas organizaciones para $100.000 por mes, la oficina del fiscal general mexicana diciembre anunciado. 26. Gonzalez fue asignado al Cuerpo Presidencial del Guardia, la unidad responsable de proteger el presidente de México. Basado en declaraciones de un miembro anterior de cártel giró a testigo dio nombre en clavo “Jennifer,” la oficina del fiscal general ha acusado Gonzalez de información pasajera relacionada a las actividades y viaja planes de Presidente mexicano Felipe Calderon al Beltran Leyva organization (BLO). Gonzalez también se para acusado de salir la inteligencia militar, entrenando a hombres de hit de BLO por una compañía privada de la seguridad y suministrando armas militares a varias organizaciones del droga-trafico de drogas, inclusive Zetas de Los.

A la luz de otra corrupción mexicana de alto nivel del gobierno carga sobre los meses pasados, este caso perturba pero ciertamente no viene como una sorpresa.

La revelación que Gonzalez proporcionaba la inteligencia y las materias para endrogar cárteles representan un doble golpe al gobierno mexicano. Primero, el hecho que un miembro de una unidad de ejército responsable de proteger al presidente pasaba información sobre movimientos presidenciales a los cárteles expone un vacío potencialmente fatal en el detalle protector de Calderon. Mientras no es sabido qué información específica Gonzalez tuvo acceso a, o lo que exige detalles que él pasaba a los cárteles, esto es una infracción de la seguridad en el nivel más alto. Según la oficina del fiscal general, el informante Jennifer ha dicho que los cárteles rastreaban los movimientos del presidente con la intención de evitar el nivel alto de la seguridad del gobierno que lo rodea, pero no tuvo plan específico para concentrar en Calderon. Pero la capacidad es más importante que atento, como atento puede cambiar rápidamente. Los movimientos de Calderon que rastrean para evitarlo pudiera haber sido alterado fácilmente a concentrar en Calderon si la necesidad surgió.

Es Gonzalez exactamente cómo implicado poco claro estuvo en los movimientos diarios de Calderon. Porque él estuvo en el personal, está a asumir salvo que él fue implicado por lo menos en reuniones preparatorias y los movimientos generales del presidente, pero de esta información no sería necesariamente suficiente para el cártel para haber podido asesinar Calderon. Más valioso a tal complot habría sido información relacionada a la estrategia presidencial del transporte, a saber, cómo el guardia trabajó para proteger Calderon, cómo arregló transporte, y cómo reunió la inteligencia en amenazas específicas. Las penetraciones en cómo el guardia operado habría dado los cárteles una vislumbre en vulnerabilidades de la seguridad de Calderon — Algo mucho más peligroso a Calderon que simplemente el conocimiento de donde el presidente estaría en algún tiempo dado.

El segundo aspecto del golpe es que Gonzalez había estado aparentemente en la nómina de cártel desde que 2005, durante cuál tiempo él tuvo posiciones diferentes en el gobierno. Cuando él cambió tareas, él fue mantenido en como una ventaja de cártel, y la naturaleza de su participación con los cárteles cambiados. Es enteramente posible que él alimentó información en otros departamentos del ejército (no justo el Cuerpo Presidencial de Guardia) sobre su relación de tres-año con los cárteles.

Una razón primaria para el gobierno mexicano depender del ejército para luchar los cárteles son porque indican y aplicación de la ley local es considerada lejos corrompe también ser fiado de. Uno del military’s strengths was its perceived lower level of corruption Debido a su participación de bajo nivel con los cárteles, pero con este caso (junto con otra corrupción militar detiene este año) confirma que miembros del ejército mexicano también son propenso a corrupción.

Más detalles deben surgir acerca de papel exacto de Gonzalez en el Cuerpo Presidencial de Guardia y la naturaleza de la inteligencia que él pasó al BLO para más valorar exactamente la amenaza que él colocó al presidente. Aún así, el hecho se queda que las capacidades de la inteligencia de los cárteles han extendido a esos cargado con proteger el presidente de México — y de ahí a Mexico’s political stability.

Title: Re: Extradiciones
Post by: omar on January 05, 2009, 10:00:57 AM
Hola a todos

Antes que nada, un gran deseo de éxito en todos los proyectos de los amigos concurrentes al foro, en este 2009  :-D

En el último programa radiofónico del 2008 de Encuentros, que dirige el periodista Ricardo Rocha, él y sus invitados dieron un balance de los sucesos políticos más relevantes de ese año; todos coincidieron que después del movimiento en defensa del petróleo, encabezado por Andrés Manuel López Obrador, el tema de la seguridad fue uno de los más importantes. El analista político Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, integrante del equipo de comentaristas del programa, comentó al respecto que la guerra en contra del crimen organizado del gobierno federal, no cuenta con estrategia alguna, ya que apenas iniciada su administración, Calderón movilizó a los efectivos del ejercito por todo el país; meses después, tras sufrir innumerables bajas, complementa la acción inicial con otra, totalmente a destiempo, en contra de la infiltración en los órganos de seguridad del gobierno. El analista puntualiza además, la evidente rivalidad entre los jefes de las dos más importantes secretarias de estado encargadas de la seguridad nacional (dado que se les ubica como protectores de carteles antagonistas), todo esto lo lleva a concluir que la acción más importante con la que esta administración pretende legitimar su polémico triunfo electoral, es una farsa.

Un reportaje en el semanario Proceso de la última semana de diciembre refuerza esta hipótesis, aquí un resumen del artículo de Cynthia Rodríguez titulado La alianza zetas- Ndrangheta:

La justicia italiana confirmó que según la agencia antidrogas norteamericana DEA e investigaciones de los carabineri, que el cartel del Golfo, específicamente los zetas, se han aliado con diversas organizaciones mafiosas italianas, en especial con la Ndrangheta (hombres valientes), que opera en la región sud italiana de Reggio Calabria.

Desde enero del año pasado se interceptaron mensajes de los introductores de droga a Europa, desde México, vía Estados Unidos. Esta vigilancia produjo el pasado 7 de agosto, la captura de uno de los encargados de la introducción de cocaína a Italia, Giussepe Collusio, el cual mantenía relación directa con los carteles colombianos y a raíz de su captura provocó que la dirigencia de la Ndrangheta, cambiara de aliados en Sudamérica. El trato se cerró entre ambas organizaciones en una reunión en el barrio neoyorkino de Corona, situando a México como el mayor punto de distribución de cocaína; según confirmó posteriormente el procurador nacional antidrogas italiano Piero Grasso el 17 de septiembre pasado. En esta misma fecha, el secretario de Justicia estadounidense Michael B. Mucasey, expuso el plan Reckoning u operativo Cálculo -conocido como operativo Solare en Italia- acción conjunta antidrogas iniciada 15 mese antes de esa fecha, que involucró la participación de 200 agencias internacionales, produjo 175 personas capturadas (entre ellas a 14 miembros de la mafia calebresa), la incautación de 16 toneladas de cocaína y 57 millones de dólares en efectivo. Además la operación permitió conocer en detalle la forma en como opera el cartel del golfo y sus aliados europeos.

Meses antes de estos hechos, durante la gira europea en 2007, el presidente mexicano, así como los secretarios de estado Genaro García Luna y Eduardo Medina Mora, titulares de la secretaria de seguridad pública y la procuraduría general de la republica respectivamente, visitaron Italia y se reunieron con el propio procurador Grasso; quien les informó como la justicia italiana a enfrentado a las mafias locales y los resultados obtenidos. Resaltó la importancia de la promulgación de leyes específicas, como la Ley antimafia, que castiga la asociación mafiosa e incauta los bienes de los miembros de estas organizaciones. Explicó como funcionan los sistemas de protección, asistencia y beneficios penales a los testigos; así como la coordinación necesaria entre las áreas de seguridad, para que la acción de los jueces se adapte a las evasivas actividades mafiosas. Por último el procurador ofreció a las autoridades mexicanas intercambio de información, adiestramiento policiaco (y de prevención), así como colaboración operativa con la estructura antinarcóticos de la Unión Europea.

Pese al silencio de las autoridades mexicanas  :roll: en torno a este ofrecimiento, el 29 de noviembre de 2008, el ministro del exterior Franco Fratini declaró durante una gira por México –su país debe aprovechar esta oportunidad, se trata de una ayuda operativa importante, que podría dotar de las herramientas a las autoridades para mejorar sus aparatos de investigación- Todavía el pasado martes 9 de diciembre, el procurador antimafia Nicola Gratteri insistió –buscamos una colaboración directa con los mexicanos. La hemos pedido y estamos en espera de una respuesta-  :?

Nos vemos pronto.


      Omar
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 06, 2009, 10:33:46 AM
Gracias por eso Omar.

He aqui el nuevo de Stratfor:
=====================
El Memorándum de la Seguridadde México: Enero. 5, 2008
 STRATFOR TODAY » El 5 de enero de 2009 | 2344 GMT


Fin del año de cierre

El año 2008 acabaron por ser un año sin precedentes en el combate de México contra cárteles de droga. Desafortunadamente para el gobierno, la mayor parte de estos registros son relacionados a la situación de la seguridad del país que empeora, no a ganancias de gobierno contra organizaciones criminales. La mayoría del en particular, 2008 fijo un nuevo registro para homicidios organizados de crimen-relacionó con unos 5.700 matanzas, más que doble el registro anterior de 2.700 alcanzado en 2007. El hecho que 2008 muertes cuenta sola para casi mitad el número total matado sobre los últimos cuatro años es un testamento a la violencia justo cuánta en México ha aumentado sobre el por delante de 12 meses.

Cambiar pautas geográficas de violencia en el último año también parte de punto culminante de los desafíos del gobierno mexicanos. En 2007, por ejemplo, mucha de la violencia ocurrida en los estados de Michoacan, Guerrero y Sinaloa, estados del sudoeste con poblaciones escasas, áreas y montañas rurales vastas que demostraron el territorio ideal almacenar y negociar embarques de droga recibidos en puertos costeros. Durante 2008, sin embargo, mucha de la violencia cambiada al norte: El unos 48 por ciento de todas matanzas durante los últimos 12 meses sucedió en chihuahua y estados de Baja California. Además, mucho de este el norte de violencia fue concentrado en ciudades urbanas grandes como Ciudad Juarez y Tijuana, que presenta operar extraordinariamente diferente ambientes para el ejército mexicano.

Mientras parte del fracaso del ejército mexicano controlar violencia en estas ciudades es relacionada para ser estirada delgado, también es relacionado a una falta relativa de operar de experiencia en ambientes urbanos, que requiere habilidades como asuntos civiles y cooperando más de cerca con aplicación de la ley local. Las tensiones crecientes entre el ejército y los gobiernos civiles han mostrado que el ejército todavía tiene mejoras para hacer — Las mejoras que son difíciles aún para el más profesional y fuerzas de mejor-financió EEUU en Iraq y Afganistán quite.

La perspectiva de estas tendencias que continúan en 2009 hace no esperó el momento oportuno bien para el gobierno mexicano. Mientras no hay indicación que la violencia pronto se estrechará lejos, será también clara que la violencia no puede continuar aumentar indefinidamente. Verdaderamente, el punta en la violencia en noviembre que dejó casi 1.000 muertos no se repitieron en diciembre, que registró 650 matanzas relacionadas al crimen organizado, un nivel más normal comparó a meses anteriores. No obstante, debido a la inestabilidad continua de la situación, está casi inevitable que el problema de crimen continuará representar una seguridad nacional primera concierne para el gobierno a través del año venidero, especialmente como el gobierno encara presiones de ciudadanos y negocios que son afectados.

Una Infracción Presidencial de Seguridad y el Ejército

Pocos detalles adicionales han surgido en las últimas dos semanas con respecto al diciembre. 26 revelación de un cartel penetration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s security team. La revelación vino como autoridades anunciaron el arresto de un mayor de ejército asignado al Cuerpo Presidencial del Guardia, uno de varias unidades militares responsables de la seguridad presidencial. La corrupción desenfrenada dada de México y el mucho personal que contribuyen a la seguridad presidencial, no son sorpresa que por lo menos uno de ellos quizás sea manchado. Una fuente mexicana del gobierno dijo Stratfor que el mayor no tuvo acceso a la información más de alto nivel con respecto a Calderon, aunque horario del viaje del presidente ha sido modificado como una precaución.

El arresto del mayor es un recordatorio de los muchos papeles de la seguridad que el ejército mexicano realiza hoy. Stratfor ha observado con frecuencia las limitaciones de las fuerzas armadas mexicanas, que fueron destacadas por la respuesta del ejército al December beheading of eight soldiers in Chilpancingo, Guerrero state. Mientras el incidente ha chispeado atrocidad entre muchos soldados, hay relativamente poco el ejército es capaz de hacer o dispuesto a hacer.

Inmediatamente después del incidente, los soldados en el estado de Guerrero sellaron carreteras y vehículos inspeccionados como ellos buscaron para esos responsable. Las tropas en Michoacan y estados de Morelos realizaron operaciones semejantes. A pesar del perfil alto del incidente, la respuesta del ejército ha sido limitada hasta ahora a desplegar a tropas de guarniciones locales, en comparación con algún cambio de frente a gran escala de fuerzas de en otra parte en el país. Una fuente de Stratfor aconsejó que la Defensa mexicana Secretariado está en el mirador para represalias no autorizadas por soldados contrariados. Mientras hace sentido estratégico para no cambiar de frente muchos a soldados a Guerrero simplemente a causa de soldados de ocho muertos, una respuesta percibida como débil por riesgos de la gente común del ejército que bajan la moral aun más. También demuestra parte de los muchos desafíos asociados con dependiendo del ejército a largo plazo.


Diciembre. 22
•   Un grupo de hombres armados abrió fuego en un partido en Turicato, estado de Michoacan, matando a un hombre y herir a dos mujeres.
•   The El cuerpo de un hombre no identificado con varios escopetazos fue encontrado con los ojos vendados y atado en las muñecas en Acolman, estado de México.
•   The El ejército mexicano anunció el arresto de Javier “El Java” Diaz Ramon en Cancun, estado de Quintana Roo. Diaz es un miembro pretendido del cártel de Golfo que está supuestamente encargado de operaciones de cártel en Quintana Roo y estados de Veracruz.
Diciembre. 23
•   Las fuerzas mexicanas del ejército retuvieron siete hombres y a una mujer en la posesión de rifles de asalto, las pistolas, la munición y más de $50.000 Guadalajara en efectivo cercano, estado de Jalisco. La mujer había ganado recientemente un desfile de la belleza de estado de Sinaloa.
•   A El grupo de personas en un camión despidió más de 100 series en Chalco, estado de México, matando a una persona e hiriendo otro.
Diciembre. 24
•   El subdirector de la seguridad pública en Zihuatanejo, estado de Guerrero, fue detenido junto con siete policías para proporcionar supuestamente la protección para un miembro de un grupo de pistoleros implicados en un tiroteo con el ejército mexicano fuerza el día antes.
•   The Los cuerpos de ocho personas no identificadas fueron encontrados en bolsas plásticas por una carretera rural Tuxtla Gutierrez cercano, estado de Chiapas. Por lo menos uno de los cuerpos mostró signos de tormento.
Diciembre. 25
•   La cabeza y el cuerpo carbonizada atado y con los ojos vendados de un hombre fueron encontrados fuera de una escuela en Acapulco, Guerrero.
•   Authorities En el estado de Guerrero encontró el cuerpo del coordinador público de la seguridad y el transporte de del de Coatlan Rio, estado de Morelos, que es pensado haber sido raptado diciembre. 17.
Diciembre. 26
•   Arturo Gonzalez Rodriguez, un mayor en el ejército mexicano y un miembro del Cuerpo Presidencial de Guardia, fue informado detenido para vender la inteligencia en los movimientos y la ubicación de Presidente mexicano Felipe Calderon a la organización del droga-trafico de drogas de Beltran Leyva.
Diciembre. 27
•   Un policía en Acapulco, estado de Guerrero, se murió después de que por lo menos un disparo armado de hombre él como él pasara por la calle.
•   Several Los hombres armados utilizaron camiones para bloquear una Ciudad de Kansas el sur de viajes de tren del puerto de Lazaro Cardenas México D.F. Los hombres continuaron para forzar su manera en varios de los coches de contenedor y quitar los bienes antes de huir la escena.
Diciembre. 28
•   Dos policías del estado en Aguascalientes, estado de Aguascalientes, se murió cuando un grupo de hombres armados en varios vehículos los disparó muchas veces. Un tercer agente fue disparo a la muerte en un ataque semejante en otra parte de la ciudad.
Diciembre. 30
•   Los residentes en Ixmiquilpan, estado de Hidalgo, retuvo a dos agentes federales por 17 horas para arrancar supuestamente dinero de emigrantes.
Diciembre. 31
•   Las fuerzas mexicanas del ejército informaron la captura de Alberto “La Fresa” Espinoza Barron, pensó ser un teniente de alto rango en la organización de crimen de La Familia.
•   More Que 40 miembros y los socios sospechados del cártel de Golfo fueron detenidos como parte de Considerar “del Proyecto de EEUU Administración Droga Aplicación, la Fase II.”
•   Authorities En el Ideal de Nuevo, estado de Durango, encontró los cuerpos de dos hombres que fueron secuestrados supuestamente por varios hombres armados.
Enero. 1
•   Los agentes federales que sirven una orden de registro en Torreon, estado de Coahuila, llegó a ser entró en un tiroteo de cuatro-hora con holed de pistoleros arriba en un piso franco. Cuatro agentes fueron heridos durante el incidente.
Enero. 2
•   Un convoy militar fue atacado en un área rural de estado de chihuahua, dejando a tres soldados heridos. Tres pistoleros se murieron cuando los soldados volvieron fuego.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 14, 2009, 08:41:29 AM
EEUU informe militar advierte "desplome repentino" de México es posible
By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Anunciado: El 03:49:34 del 01/13/2009 P.M. MST
 
El presidente electo Barack Obama escucha como el Presidente de México Felipe Calderon hace una declaración a periodistas en Washington, el lunes, enero. 12, 2009. México es uno de dos países eso "consideración de oso para un desplome rápido y repentino," según un informe por EEUU Fuerzas que Conjuntas Ordenan en amenazas mundiales de seguridad. (Foto de AP)

El PASO de EL - México es uno de dos países eso "consideración de oso para un desplome rápido y repentino," según un informe por EEUU Fuerzas que Conjuntas Ordenan en amenazas mundiales de seguridad.

La orden "Coyuntura que Opera Ambiente (JOE 2008)" informe, que contiene proyecciones de amenazas y potencial globales próximas guerras, ponen Pakistán en el mismo nivel como México. "En función de guiones de peor-caso para la Fuerza Conjunta y verdaderamente el mundo, dos estados grandes e importantes soportan consideración para un desplome rápido y repentino: Pakistán y México.

"La posibilidad mexicana puede parecer menos probable, pero el gobierno, sus políticos, la policía e infraestructura judicial son todo bajo asalto y prensa sostenidos por pandillas criminales y endrogan cárteles. Cómo

Esta imagen proporcionada por Aplicación de Droga de EEUU Administración muestra un cartel de 10 personas identificadas como traficantes de drogas que rivales encerraron una batalla violenta para el control de Tijuana, México. Ellos incluyen Fernando Sanchez Arellano, descrito por el DEA como líder del cártel de Arellano Felix, y de su competidor, Eduardo Teodoro Garcia Simental. México es uno de dos países eso "consideración de oso para un desplome rápido y repentino," según un informe por EEUU Fuerzas que Conjuntas Ordenan en amenazas mundiales de seguridad. El informe es uno en un grave centrándose en problemas internos de seguridad de México, proviniendo de en su mayor parte violencia de droga y corrupción de droga. (Foto/DEA de AP)

Esas vueltas internas del conflicto fuera en los próximos varios años tendrán un impacto mayor en la estabilidad del estado mexicano. Cualquier bajada por México en el caos demandaría una respuesta norteamericana basada en las implicaciones graves para la seguridad de la patria sola".

Las Fuerzas de la Coyuntura de EEUU Ordenan, basado en Norfolk, Va., es uno de los Ministerios de Defensa combate órdenes que incluye a miembros de las ramas militares diferentes de servicio, activo y las reservas, así como empleados de civil y contrato. Uno de sus papeles clave es de ayudar a transformarse las capacidades del ejército de EEUU.

En el prefacio, Gen Marino. J.N. Mattis, el comandante de USJFC, dijo "Predicciones acerca del futuro son siempre arriesgado ... a pesar de todo, si nosotros no tratamos de pronosticar el futuro, no quepa duda que seremos agarrados de protege como nosotros nos esforzamos por proteger este experimento en la democracia que llamamos América".

El informe es uno en un grave centrándose en problemas internos de seguridad de México, proviniendo de en su mayor parte violencia de droga y corrupción de droga. En semanas recientes, el Departamento de la Seguridad de la Patria y zar anterior de droga de EEUU Barry McCaffrey publicó alarmas semejantes acerca de México.

A pesar de tales informes, El Pasoan Veronica Callaghan, un dirigente empresarial contiguo, dijo que ella mantiene chocando con personas en la región que "están en la negación acerca de lo que sucede en México".
La semana pasada, Presidente mexicano Felipe Calderon instruyó su embajada y a funcionarios consulares para promover una imagen positiva de México.

EEUU informe militar, que también analizó situaciones económicas en otros países, también notó que China ha aumentado su influencia en lugares donde campos petrolíferos son presentes.

Diana Washington Valdez puede ser alcanzado en dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.   

Title: Stratfor: Desafio
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 15, 2009, 09:22:56 AM
La Agendageopolítica: Desafío de México de Obama

El Secretario Interior mexicano Fernando Gomez Mont el miércoles criticó un informe reciente de Orden de Fuerzas de Coyuntura de EEUU que advierte del potencial para el estado mexicano desplomar y decir que una descentralización de control en México requeriría intervención de EEUU. La declaración de Gomez Mont, junto con preocupación creciente a través de Estados Unidos sobre la estabilidad de México, es otro recordatorio más de los desafíos frente al gobierno mexicano -— Y la administración presidencial entrante de Barack Obama.

Cuando violencia en México se eleva para registrar niveles —- más de 5.700 personas se murieron en la violencia crimen-relacionado organizada en 2008 — El gobierno de EEUU ha comenzado gradualmente a notar la severidad de la situación. Aunque Washington ciertamente ha estado esperando la transición a una nueva administración, ha habido un cambio en la manera México es discutido en círculos de política -– Cuando visto con la Coyuntura que Opera Ambiente 2008 informa. El Departamento de EEUU de la Seguridad de la Patria, el Departamento de la Justicia y el Consejo Nacional de Seguridad tiene todo, en de un solo sentido u otro, expresado semejante concierne que México quizás desplome bajo el esfuerzo de la violencia de cártel de droga, o eso podría haber derrame significativo de violencia en Estados Unidos.

Hasta cierto punto, el equipo de Obama ha señalado que hace caso de estas advertencias de la situación que hace al sur de la frontera. El Presidente mexicano Felipe Calderon es el único jefe de estado extranjero de encontrar hasta ahora con Obama, cuya inauguración es la semana próxima, y las dos esperanzas expresadas para la cooperación mutua en años venideros. Y Ministro-Designa Hillary Clinton dijo durante su audición de confirmación que la nueva administración buscará participación más grande con México y el resto de Iberoamérica.

Hacer a mano una política de Iberoamérica de la tela entera será un desafío para la administración de Obama, como la relación de la región con Estados Unidos se cayó en un estado de descuido bajo la administración de Bush. Clinton prometió que la administración de Obama utilizaría las asociaciones de energía para asegurar una relación cercana con Iberoamérica —- Un objetivo especialmente importante de política, dado que Venezuela y México están entre los primeros cinco suministradores de petróleo a Estados Unidos. La administración de Obama también planea eliminarse restricciones de viaje y remesa Bush ha recaudado contra Cuba.

Pero situación volátil de seguridad de México se queda entre el potencial más significativo desafía la nueva administración encarará, y no es claro si hay mucho más que puede ser hecho en el asunto. Con conexiones que refuerzan entre pandillas de calle de EEUU y cárteles mexicanos, el problema de violencia mexicana es de ninguna manera limitados al lado mexicano de la frontera.

Esto no quiere decir que el gobierno de EEUU no haya hecho nada; la Iniciativa de Merida asignó cientos de millones de dólares para mejorar la instrucción y el equipo para la aplicación de la ley mexicana. Pero Merida es justo el más prominente de una serie de iniciativas la administración de Bush ha estado aplicando calladamente con México sobre los últimos pocos años. También ha habido aumentos sin precedentes en extradiciones, las expansiones de Aplicación de Droga de EEUU Agencia (DEA) presencia administrativa en México y compartir aumentado de inteligencia. La financiación más grande para oficiales locales de aplicación de la ley y Patrulla de fronteras de EEUU ha facilitado operaciones por lado de EEUU de la frontera y ayudado a reducir parte del flujo de armas en México, y ha impresionado apreciablemente pautas contiguas de tráfico. Esto significa que las opciones bajo-colgantes de política disponibles a un presidente de EEUU ya han sido aplicadas. Qué se queda son las decisiones más difíciles.

Por ejemplo, uno de las quejas primeras mexicanas de gobierno concierne el flujo de armas ilegales: Estados Unidos es la No. 1 fuente de armas ilegales en México (aunque hay un flujo significativo por América Central). Muchas de esas armas son compradas legalmente e imposible de encontrar en ferias de armas Estados Unidos interior. Las fuentes dentro del gobierno mexicano consideran la financiación más grande para programas como Traficante de armas de Operación, que financia interdicto de armamentos en el lado de EEUU de la frontera, para ser uno de las principales áreas en los que la administración de Obama podría tener un impacto significativo. Sin embargo, la oportunidad que cambios substanciales al enfoque de EEUU en regulaciones de fusil y armas serán hechos en el nombre de una asociación con México parece bajo.

Pero la inflexibilidad no es limitada a Estados Unidos. La desgana de México para permitir que libertad de aplicación de la ley de EEUU en operaciones o para permitir la presencia de EEUU agencias militares de tendones de la corva de consejeros, como el DEA, que tiene probado sumamente efectivo en combatir organizó crimen en países como Colombia. Mexicanos recuerdan invasiones de EEUU de su país en 1914 y 1916, durante la Revolución mexicana. Muchas culpa Estados Unidos para romper la espalda del gobierno mexicano forzando el ejército para partir su despliegue en rebeldes luchadores de Zapatista en el sur y Casa de campo de Pancho al norte. México, en total, es por lo tanto reacio permitir a tropas de EEUU para pisar su tierra en el nuevo siglo.

La posibilidad de verdadero EEUU-cooperación mexicana a combatir la violencia que plaga México levanta más preguntas que contesta. Pero sin un cambio notable en las pautas de violencia que haría un cambio de política más urgente — por ejemplo un cambio a concentrar en civiles a ambos lados de la frontera, o del asesinato de líderes clave en México — Allí parezca ser pequeño que puede ser prescindido de gastar mucha capital política. Y con los otros desafíos, inclusive una Rusia resurgente y Pakistán caótico, frente a la presidencia de Obama, cambios significativos en la política de México no parecen probables en el futuro próximo.

Title: Ataque a Televisa
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 15, 2009, 10:10:52 PM
?Alguien puede compartir noticias sobre el ataque al Televisa?
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 16, 2009, 01:39:39 PM
?Nadie?

?O eso?

El Paso Times
Jan 15, 2009
Daniel Borunda
http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11463340

A group calling itself the Comando Ciudadano por Juárez, or the Juárez Citizens Command, is claiming it will kill a criminal every 24 hours to bring order to the violent crime-plagued city.  The announcement of the supposed group was the first known case of possible organized vigilantism in Juárez as police and the military have been apparently unable to stop a plague of killings and other crimes.

"Better the death of a bad person than that they continue to contaminating our region," the news release stated in Spanish.

The supposed group issued a news release via e-mail stating it is nonpartisan and funded by businessmen fed up with crime.  The group, also calling itself the CCJ, said it would issue a manifesto in the coming days and would set up a system where residents can electronically send information about criminals.

"Our mission is to terminate the life of a criminal every 24 hours ... The hour has come to stop this disorder in Juárez," the CCJ stated.

The announcement comes as Juárez struggles with a wave of homicides, extortions, carjackings, robberies and other crimes that began last year. Business people, teachers, medical professionals and others were targeted by extortionists in the last year as crime surged due in a part to a war between drug cartels. There were more than 1,600 homicides in Juárez last year. There have been more than 40 homicides already this year, including 10 on Wednesday.
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 20, 2009, 08:30:26 AM
El Vigilante potencial Violencia en el Estado de chihuahua

Un email empezó circular alrededor de estado de chihuahua esto semana pasada escribió supuestamente por un grupo que llama a los Ciudadanos de Juarez Ordena (CCJ). El grupo, cuál reclamos para ser apoyados por negocios locales afectados por la subida aguda en la violencia en Ciudad Juarez, prometieron matar un criminal para terminar cada 24 horas la anarquía en la ciudad. El email también indicó que dentro de varios días el CCJ distribuiría un manifiesto que visita a todos ciudadanos hartos de la violencia para unir la causa. Una fuente de Stratfor en el gobierno mexicano las autoridades que informado que mexicanas tienen razón para creer que el email no es una trampa, y que ellos exploran dos teorías con respecto a que lo enviaron. Uno mantiene que un pequeño grupo de propietarios de ciudadanos y negocio enviaron el mensaje, mientras la teoría más creíble mantiene que un grupo criminal que proponiéndose utilizar el email como cobertura para la acción envió el mensaje.

De un solo sentido para medir si el CCJ representa un grupo verdadero de vigilante será de examinar las asociaciones criminales de sus víctimas, asumir, por supuesto, ellos atacan realmente a criminales. Si las víctimas del CCJ todo es asociado con un sindicado criminal, será difícil de creer que no es simplemente un existir el grupo criminal que utiliza el CCJ como cobertura. Pero si el CCJ está en tomar medidas de hecho será extraordinariamente difícil de determinar en una ciudad como Ciudad Juarez, donde más de 1.700 personas se murieron en 2008. Dada la violencia regular de criminales que matan a criminales en la ciudad, el significado del CCJ tiene mas ser determinado.

Si el email marca realmente el fundador de un nuevo grupo de vigilante en Juarez, esto no sería primer cepillo de México con la vigilancia callejera de endrogar violencia. La organización de La Familia en el estado de Michoacan empezó como una respuesta local de vigilante para endrogar trafico de drogas en el estado. Varios años después de su fundador, sin embargo, el grupo ha evolucionado en uno del estado la mayoría del notorio grupos de secuestro y droga-traficando con drogas, y de uno de sus facciones fue implicado aún en el septiembre. 15 ataque de la granada contra civiles en Morelia. El ejemplo de La Familia destaca las implicaciones de la seguridad de violencia de vigilante, donde organizó como violencia criminal continúa girar fuera de control, un grupo de ciudadanos armados que une el combate sólo complicará asuntos.

El Robo aumentado, el Robo De Negocios de Acapulco

El líder de una organización del negocio en Acapulco, estado de Guerrero, soltó una declaración esto semana pasada que describe un aumento en robos y robos en el último año. Según los registros de la organización, cierre al 100 por ciento de negocios locales había sufrido pérdidas de grupos criminales. El agregó que tres distribuidores locales de productos lácteos habían experimentado sólo 2.000 tales incidentes en la ciudad durante 2008, ascendiendo a una pérdida colectiva de fin a $1 millón. La mayoría de robos parece estar ocurriendo en áreas suburbanas de la ciudad, donde armó las pandillas asaltan camiones de distribución como ellos hacen entregas, aunque robos desarmados en almacenes y oficinas también parecen haber ocurrido.

Este informe es el último ejemplo de cómo situación de seguridad de México que empeora afecta operaciones de negocio. Cuando Stratfor ha observado en el último año, el desplome en el orden público en mucho del país ha significado que otro criminal agrupa no implicado en el comercio de droga pueden operar con la impunidad. Verdaderamente, la organización del negocio de Acapulco observó que la mayoría de los crímenes contra negocios van impune, y eso cuando sus conclusiones fueron informadas a los funcionarios de la policía, ellos fueron desconcertados por el número asombrosamente alto de crímenes contra negocios. Los costos crecientes de la seguridad y pérdidas más altas debido a actividad criminal exacerban un ya empeorando situación económica en México, y lo hará más difícil para negocios para recuperar una vez la situación económica general comienza a mejorar.

Mientras las instalaciónes portuarias de Acapulco han hecho históricamente la ciudad un punto importante de toma para embarques sudamericano-Producidos de droga, la ciudad ha experimentado niveles relativamente bajos de actividad cártel-relacionado sobre el por delante de seis meses. Y los negocios en una ciudad relativamente tranquila como Acapulco que experimentan tales índices de criminalidad altos hacen no esperó el momento oportuno bien para negocios en situaciones críticas de cártel como Tijuana y en Ciudad Juarez.

La Infracción de la seguridad en un Ambiente Objetivo-Rico

La policía en Morelia, estado de Michoacan, detuvo a un hombre armado con una pistola esto semana pasada dentro del edificio legislativo de estado durante un acontecimiento donde indica Gov. Leonel Godoy hablaba. El hombre fue detenido después de que alguien en la multitud accidentalmente lo chocara contra, sentía el fusil ocultado bajo su ropa, y bajo el personal puesto sobre aviso de la seguridad, que retuvo al hombre sin incidente. Junto con Godoy, el presidente de la corte suprema del estado, la cabeza del poder legislativo del estado y 40 legisladores también fue presente. El hombre armado fue identificado teniendo como un antecedentes penales, y es acusado de asesinar a un abogado en Monterrey en 1986.

Las autoridades soltaron finalmente al hombre después de que encontrar no evidencia que él pensara atacar nadie en el acontecimiento. Incluso si este incidente no fuera una tentativa de asesinato, una infracción de la seguridad como esto destacan la vulnerabilidad de muchos funcionarios en México. Que un hombre armado fue permitido entrar un acontecimiento con Godoy — quién ha sido amenazado supuestamente antes — En un ambiente controlado subraya los problemas con la seguridad ejecutiva en México. Mientras Presidente mexicano Felipe Calderon y algunos funcionarios federales de alto rango ciertamente tienen programas protectores más robustos de seguridad, los niveles relativamente bajos de la seguridad alrededor, por ejemplo, los congresistas del país y gobernadores, no son mucho de un freno a un ataque en ellos ni en sus familias. Así que debe organizaciones criminales en México escogen agravarse su combate contra el gobierno, ellos encontrarán a sí mismo en un ambiente objetivo-rico.




Enero. 12
•   El estado de Hidalgo la oficina que pública de la seguridad anunció que planes para empezar equipando sus policías con armas de grande-calibre y posiblemente aún granadas para ayudarlos confrontan los grupos criminales.
•   Authorities En Torreon, estado de Coahuila, encontró el cuerpo de un hombre con los ojos vendados no identificado con un escopetazo a la cabeza y otro al cuello.
•   Officials En La Huerta, estado de Jalisco, informó la muerte de jefe de la policía del pueblo. Tres hombres tuvieron disparo él como él se fue de casa la noche antes.
•   The El cuerpo de un hombre no identificado fue encontrado en un terreno vacío en Los Mochis, estado de Sinaloa, soportando signos de tormento en su cuerpo. La policía cree que él había sido estrangulado.
•   Mexican El ejército fuerza invadió una casa en Tijuana, estado de Baja California, agarrando más de $1 millón, así como unas 100 libras de metanfetaminas, la cocaína y la heroína.


Enero. 13
•   La policía federal en Acapulco, estado de Guerrero, estableció una serie de puntos de revisión de carretera en varias partes de la ciudad. Los funcionarios dijeron que los puntos de revisión fueron diseñados para buscar vehículos robados, pero que inspecciones que buscan drogas y armas también serían realizadas.
•   Police En Tijuana, estado de Baja California, encontró el cuerpo que arde de una mujer quemó más allá de reconocimiento. En otra parte en la ciudad, la policía encontró el cuerpo de un hombre no identificado envuelto en una manta.


Enero. 15
•   La policía federal en Veracruz, estado de Veracruz, informó descubriendo el cuerpo de un hombre no identificado con por lo menos un escopetazo a la cabeza.
•   Armed Los hombres que viajan en un disparo de vehículo y mataron a un hombre no identificado después de que primero lo persiguiendo por las calles de Ciudad Juarez, estado de chihuahua. Los pistoleros lo dispararon muchas veces después de que él perdiera control de su coche y chocara.
•   Mexican La marina fuerza captó un pequeño barco en el Mar de Cortez a varios millas la costa de estado de Sinaloa con huellas de marihuana a bordo.

Enero. 16
•   Las autoridades en Oaxaca, estado de Oaxaca, anunció que la captura de tres miembros de una pandilla asociada con Zetas de Los acusadas de habiendo tomado parte en por lo menos cinco secuestros en el estado.
•   A El policía anterior del estado de chihuahua se murió después de que sea muchas veces de disparo al conducir por Ciudad Juarez.
•   Some 100 policías federales llegaron en Matamoros, estado de Coahuila, para apoyar los esfuerzos progresivos contra grupos organizados de criminal en el estado.
•   Authorities En el del de Playa Carmen, estado de Quintana Roo, encontró seis granadas de fragmentación dentro de una furgoneta abandonada por una carretera.
•   A Custodie a comandante en Pihuamo, estado de Jalisco, se murió cuando él fue muchas veces de disparo al conducir. Su hijo fue herido en el ataque.

Enero. 18
•   Un policía en Sonoyta, estado de Sonora, se murió después de que un hombre armado lo se acercara y lo disparara dos veces en la cabeza de cerca antes de huir en un vehículo que espera.
•   Five Las personas se murieron durante un tiroteo que arrojó durante una celebración de la boda Acapulco cercano, estado de Guerrero. Las autoridades dijeron que el motivo se queda poco claro.
Tell Stratfor What You Think

Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 22, 2009, 05:05:03 PM
Resumen

 La salida en compañía petrolera del estado de México Petroleos Mexicanos se cayó el 9 por ciento en 2008, su más rápida gota desde que la Segunda Guerra Mundial. La compañía es improbable invertir ese descenso en cualquier momento pronto, cualquiera.

Análisis

 Engrase salida en compañía petrolera del estado de México, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), dejó caer el 9 por ciento en 2008 acerca de 2,8 millones de barriles por día (bpd). Esto es hacia abajo de 3,08 millones de bpd en 2007, y del punto alto nunca igualado de Pemex de acerca de 3,8 millones de bpd en 2004.

La gota es en gran parte debido a producción declinante en campo masivo de Cantarell de México, que en acerca de 900.000 bpd es responsable de acerca de la tercera parte de salida total de Pemex. Y con la capacidad limitada a realizar perforación offshore profunda, un clima inestable de inversión y una industria de energía sujetos a restricciones legales pesadas, Pemex es improbable invertir su descenso de la producción a corto plazo.

El 2008 descenso en la producción en Pemex traduce a una pérdida de renta estimada por Bloomberg de $20 mil millones para la empresa de estado-poseyó. Y Pemex ha estacado efectivamente su capacidad de ganancia en el campo de Cantarell — Cuando tiene el gobierno mexicano: México D.F. financia alrededor del 40 por ciento de su presupuesto de rentas de Pemex.

La producción en Cantarell, el campo más tercer-grande de mundo, empezó en 1979. Su ubicación en aguas 100-130 pies hondo lejos costa del sudeste de México significó que Pemex no necesitaba para desarrollar capacidad de agua profunda significativa de perforación. Cuándo comenzó a encarar el asunto de la producción declinante en los años ochenta, Pemex emprendió medidas a corto plazo inyectando nitrógeno en los depósitos del campo a mantener presión. Pero Pemex nunca desarrolló una capacidad de agua profunda de perforación que habría permitido lo explotar nuevos campos adicionales offshore (donde mitad de reservas crudas de México es encontrada).

Compensando la producción declinante en Cantarell será casi imposible en el corto al término medio, aunque. Pemex simply lacks the money or indigenous technical capability Para utilizar campos offshore de agua profundas que permitirían lo invertir apreciablemente un descenso de la producción. Y encara una barra constitucional a formar las asociaciones con compañías petroleras extranjeras que permitirían las empresas extranjeras poseer parte de su salida de petróleo. Esto excluye acuerdos de empresa conjunta o producción-compartiendo, que son los métodos comunes de atraer inversión en el extranjero. Aunque attempts to enact constitutional changes to allow these agreements have failed, El gobierno mexicano pasó un paquete de reforma de energía en octubre 2008 que cambiará la organización Pemex para aumentar eficiencia y permitirlo emplear compañías petroleras internacionales para aumentar el acceso del país a la pericia tecnológica.

Sin embargo, hay desafíos que encaran este proceso de reforma. En primer lugar, la implementación de estas reformas va lentamente, y algunas reformas dependerán de un consenso entre tres partidos de México, que es casi siempre un proceso difícil. Además, el clima internacional de inversión es muy inestable tras crisis financiera de EEUU y la baja económica, global y progresiva. Esto significa que podría ser difícil para Pemex asegure el financiamiento que lo necesita para emplear pericia exterior, y lucha interna política emparejada con niveles altos de corrupción persistente no hará a inversionistas más cómodos. Dados estos desafíos, nueva producción bajo el plan de reforma de energía será lenta en la venida.

La producción en Cantarell es esperada disminuir por un adicional 500.000 bpd en los próximos varios años. Para compensar el descenso de Cantarell, Pemex quiere tratar de apretar salida adicional de campos existentes (tiene aparejos de producción en campos cerca y en profundidades de agua semejantes a Cantarell, así como aparejos en más pequeño, tierra adentro campos).

Pero para aumentar apreciablemente salida, en el nivel de 500.000 bpd o más, objetivos de Pemex para abrir nuevo tierra adentro y campos offshore. Tierra adentro desarrollo ocurre en Veracruz de México y estados de Puebla. La producción allí, mientras proyectado en 500.000 bpd, no es esperado venir en línea antes de 2021, sin embargo. La exploración offshore más promete en función de utilizar las reservas crudas (estimó en 24 mil millones de barriles), pero Pemex falta una capacidad a gran escala para levantar crudo de niveles de agua profundas. Aunque Pemex ha taladrado a profundidades de 3.000 pies, su dos existir plataformas de agua profundas — más tres en la orden esperada llegar en 2010 — No son esperados traer la producción de campos de agua profundas en línea antes de 2015. Aún entonces, la producción es esperada rendir menos de 100.000 bpd.

Estos descensos en la producción cruda llevarán a rentas reducidas no sólo para la compañía, pero más críticamente, para el gobierno mexicano, y para el desafío no podría venir en un tiempo más peligroso. México es enredado en un war against drug cartels. La situación de la seguridad del país empeoró enormemente sobre el curso de 2008, y no muestra signos de dejar para levantar. Al mismo tiempo, la baja económica global ha creado el desempleo creciente en México, una vista pesimista del crecimiento y llamadas de mexicanos para el gobierno para encontrar soluciones, y encontrarlos rápidamente. Debe el descenso en la producción no es counterbalanced por la producción aumentada en campos existentes, ni debe el descenso acelera, México se encontrará en una posición fiscal cada vez más inestable como desafíos montan y los recursos menguan.

Title: WSJ
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 26, 2009, 05:56:32 AM
Por Joel Kurtzman

México actualmente está en medio de una salvaje guerra del narcotráfico. Policías están siendo sobornados y, especialmente cerca de la frontera con Estados Unidos, asesinados a tiros. Los secuestros y la extorsión son habituales. Y, lo más alarmante de todo, un nuevo estudio del Pentágono concluye que México está en riesgo de convertirse en un estado fallido. Planificadores del Departamento de Defensa de EE.UU. comparan la situación a la de Pakistán, donde es posible un colapso total del gobierno civil.

Uno de los epicentros de la violencia es Tijuana, donde el año pasado murieron 600 personas a causa de violencia relacionada al narcotráfico. A muchos les dispararon con rifles de asalto en las calles y los dejaron morir allí. A algunos los mataron en discotecas frente a testigos demasiado atemorizados para hablar.

Puede ser sólo cuestión de tiempo antes de que la guerra de las drogas se extienda al otro lado de la frontera e ingrese a EE.UU. Para enfrentar esa amenaza, Michael Chertoff, el saliente secretario de Seguridad Nacional, hace poco anunció que EE.UU. tiene un plan de "aumentar" las fuerzas del orden civiles y posiblemente militares en la frontera en caso de que sea necesario.

El problema es que en la más reciente erupción de violencia en México, es difícil distinguir a los buenos de los malos. El zar antidroga de México, Noé Ramírez Mandujano, fue acusado hace poco de aceptar US$450.000 de capos narco a quienes se suponía que estaba persiguiendo. Esta fue la segunda vez en los últimos años que uno de los jefes antidrogas fue arrestado por aceptar presuntas coimas de líderes narco. Existen muchas sospechas de que jefes policiales, alcaldes y militares también reciben sobornos.

En el pasado, la forma en que México se ocupaba de la corrupción era con los ojos completamente cerrados. Todos sabían que una gran cantidad de funcionarios del gobierno estaban aceptando sobornos, pero nadie hizo nada al respecto. Se establecieron comisionados de transparencia, pero sin capacidad de acción.

Y los narcotraficantes de México usaban el laxo orden público que conseguían con sus coimas para convertirse en grupos altamente organizados. Una vez organizados, han podido llenar el vacío de poder en el mundo criminal que dejó la exitosa ofensiva del presidente colombiano, Álvaro Uribe, contra los carteles de la droga de su país.

El resultado es que los narcotraficantes se están volviendo ricos, mientras que México paga un alto precio en vidas humanas perdidas y en actividad económica que, de lo contrario, podrían traer una pizca de prosperidad al país.

En 2008, México se ubicó en el puesto número 31 entre 60 países en el índice de opacidad del Instituto Milken/Kurtzman Group. El costo de tener instituciones de pobre funcionamiento ha sido enorme para los mexicanos comunes. Mi colega Glenn Yago y yo calculamos que si México redujera la corrupción y elevara sus estándares legales, económicos, contables y de regulación a los niveles de los de EE.UU. (EE.UU. se encuentra en el puesto número 13 y Finlandia está primero), el PIB per cápita nominal aumentaría en aproximadamente US$18.000 a cerca de US$28.000 al año. También recibiría mucha más inversión extranjera directa que crearía puestos de trabajo.

Y esto impacta a EE.UU. Gracias al retrasado crecimiento económico, millones de mexicanos han cruzado ilegalmente a EE.UU. para buscar trabajo. A menos que la violencia pueda ser detenida, EE.UU. puede anticipar que el flujo a través de la frontera continuará.

Hay que darle crédito al presidente de México, Felipe Calderón, por desplegar 45.000 miembros del ejército y 5.000 policías federales para enfrentar a los narcotraficantes. Esto sugiere que está tomando seriamente la violencia y la amenaza al gobierno civil.

Sin embargo, el camino por adelante será arduo. México no sólo debe luchar contra sus capos narco, sino que tiene que hacerlo mientras pone su casa institucional en orden. Eso significa despedir empleados estatales que son corruptos o que no estén dispuestos a hacer el trabajo necesario para eliminar la corrupción. Probablemente también requerirá meter a cientos, o incluso miles, de oficiales de policía en la cárcel.

Por más de un siglo, México y EE.UU. han tenido relaciones amistosas y cierto grado de integración económica. Pero si la epidemia de violencia continúa en México, esa relación podría terminar si EE.UU. se ve forzada a aumentar su personal en la frontera.

Joel Kurtzman, un miembro senior del Instituto Milken, es coautor de Global Edge: Using the Opacity Index to Manage the Risk of Cross-Border Business (algo así como "Ventaja Global: usando el índice de opacidad para gestionar el riesgo de los negocios internacionales") (Harvard Business School Press, 2007).

Title: New York Times: Frontera no es obstaculo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 02, 2009, 03:03:49 AM
TUCSON — Los narcotraficantes aparcaron un remolque de transporte de coche contra el lado mexicano de la frontera un día en diciembre, dejaron caer una rampa sobre la valla de la seguridad, y condujo dos furgonetas llenaron de marihuana en tierra de Arizona.
Los narcotraficantes de México quemaron su camión y la marihuana que lo llevó antes de huir de agentes contiguos en Arizona.
Como Border Patrol Los agentes persiguieron, un tercer camión pareció en el lado y los pistoleros mexicano rociados ametrallan fuego por encima de la cerca en los agentes. Los contrabandistas en los primeros vehículos incendiaron un camión y abandonaron el otro, con $1 millón de valor de marihuana todavía en la cama de camión. Entonces ellos saltaron atrás sobre la barrera en Mexico’Estado de s Sonora.

A pesar de acciones inmensas de aplicación en ambos lados del el sudoeste de la frontera, el comercio mexicano de marihuana es más robusto — y bronceado — Que nunca, funcionarios de aplicación de la ley dicen. Mexican drug cartels Las cargas rutinariamente transportadas del industrial-tamaño de marihuana en 2008, excavando nuevos túneles y adoptar que tácticas quieren contrabando que rampa-ayudado para conseguir sus cargas a través de sin ser visto.

Pero éstos no son las único nuevas tácticas: los cárteles también plantan cada vez más cosechas de marihuana Estados Unidos que interior en un cambio mayor de estrategia para evitar la frontera enteramente, los funcionarios dijeron. El año pasado, las autoridades de aplicación de droga confiscaron cantidades sin precedentes de plantas altas de potencia de Miami a San Diego, e incluso de viñas arrendadas por cárteles en el Estado de Washington. Los traficantes de drogas mexicanos también se han cambiado a la producción hidropónica de marihuana — el cannabis crecido dentro sin tierra y alimentado con lámparas solares — Asiático desafiante hacer contactos y cultivadores más pequeños e individuales aquí.

Un informe del Ministerio de la justicia publicado concluyó el año pasado que droga mexicana que trafica con drogas organizaciones ahora operado en 195 ciudades, arriba de acerca de 50 ciudades en 2006.

Los cuatro cárteles más grandes con filiales en ciudades de EEUU fueron la Federación, el Cártel de Tijuana, el Cártel de Juarez y el Cártel de Golfo.

“Hay evidencia que cárteles mexicanos también aumentan sus relaciones con pandillas de prisión y calle en Estados Unidos para facilitar trafico de drogas de droga,” un informe Congresional de 2008 de febrero indicado. Los analistas de la inteligencia discernían droga mexicana aumentada actividad cártel-relacionado en Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle y Yakima, el Lavado. — Las áreas que fueron controladas por otras redes étnicas.

El contrabando es todavía más visible en el Suroeste, que ha estado en casa a negociantes mexicanos para más de dos décadas. De Nogales, Ariz., recientemente, un periodista miró como contrabandistas a través de la frontera, en estaciones de cumbre, miraron por binocular en los movimientos de agentes norteamericanos de Patrulla de fronteras. El gunned de agentes sus camiones por la barrera que busca cruces ilegales.

Acerca del mediodía, agentes contiguos vieron una bala de 60 libras de gota de marihuana por encima de la cerca.

“Ese tipo de cosas sucede cada día aquí,” dijo Agente Michael A. Scioli, un portavoz para Customs and Border Protection.
Para los cárteles, “la marihuana es la cosecha” de rey, dijo Agente Especial Rafael Reyes, el jefe del México y Sección de América Central del Drug Enforcement Administration. Sostiene“coherentemente su comerciabilidad y la capacidad de ganancia.”

El trafico de drogas de la marihuana continúa virtualmente constante en Estados Unidos, aún como informes de inteligencia sugieren la disponibilidad declinante de heroína, de la cocaína y de otro endroga duramente eso requiere contrabando extenso operaciones.
Combinando contrabando con producción interior, los cárteles han sostenido el comercio de marihuana a pesar del ataque violento de acciones de aplicación en ambos lados de la frontera. De 2000 por 2007, las autoridades mexicanas detuvieron acerca de 90.000 traficantes de drogas, más de 400 hombres de hit y una docena de líderes de cártel, según un 2008 informe Congresional. Estados Unidos extraditó 95 mexicano nacional el año pasado. Las tomas en la primera mitad de 2008 dejaron atrás la tasa media de toma de 2002 a 2006.

Pero el precio ha sido alto. Las tensiones han aumentado entre los cárteles, que guerrea sobre rutas lucrativas de droga por pueblos fronterizos mexicanos como Juarez, Tijuana y Nogales, Sonora. Más de 6.000 personas, inclusive cientos de policías, fueron matadas por violencia relacionada con la droga en México en 2008. Los agentes de la Patrulla de fronteras de EEUU también informan enfrentamientos más violentos con negociantes.

Cuando el gobierno y las autoridades estadounidenses mexicanos han endurecido la frontera, cárteles de droga aumentan la producción justo del norte de ello para evitar recurrir a contrabando.

Muchas de las plantaciones más grandes de la marihuana son ocultadas en federal y jardines de estado, las autoridades federales dicen. La cuenta Sherman, un agente de Aplicación de Droga Administración basado en San Diego, dijo que las autoridades también encontraban un número creciente de granjas en Imperial y Condados de San Diego, un negociantes de área tradicionalmente evitados a causa de la presencia de guardias contiguos, varias agencias de policía y Acampan Pendleton, una base Marina.
“Vemos mucho más crece hacia abajo aquí ahora,” el Sr. Sherman dijo. “Eso es un cambio.”
===========
 
 Llame 2 de 2)

Los agentes de la aplicación de la droga desarraigaron acerca de 6,6 millones de cannabis plantas crecidas en su mayor parte por cárteles en 2007, la tercera parte más que las plantas destruyeron en 2006. En California, el productor doméstico más grande de marihuana de nación, las autoridades erradicaron un sin precedentes 2,9 millones de plantas por el fin de la cosecha de marihuana en diciembre.

Mas funcionarios de aplicación dicen que ellos no ven reducción discernible en el suministro doméstico. Los precios se han quedado relativamente constante aún como la potencia de marihuana aumentada para registrar niveles en 2007, según el Centro Nacional de la Inteligencia de Droga, una agencia de análisis de Ministerio de la justicia.

El Sr. Reyes también notó que negociantes mexicanos en Estados Unidos escogían marihuana hidropónica, que es más poderosa, provechoso y más fácil de ocultar porque puede ser crecido año alrededor con lámparas solares. (Una libra de marihuana de midgrade vende para acerca de $750 en Los Angeles, comparado con $2.500 a $6.000 para una libra de marihuana hidropónica). El notó un caso el año pasado en Florida en Las que cultivadores cubanos utilizaron varias casas en un solo desarrollo de tracto de Miami para suministrar marihuana hidropónica a negociantes mexicanos.

Kathyrn McCarthy, un abogado ayudante de EEUU en Detroit, dijo negociantes que mexicanos en Michigan comerciaban cocaína colombiana para la marihuana hidropónica de la Colombie-Britannique para vender en Estados Unidos. En el Estado de Washington, ahora el segundo productor doméstico más grande de marihuana, cárteles mexicanos crecen variedades mejoradas de marihuana al aire libre para competir con AC Brote y otras plantas interiores poderosas.

El año pasado, oficiales de narcóticos descubrieron 200.000 plantas de gran calidad de marihuana que crecen entre viñas arrendadas en el Valle de Yakima. El Noroeste ha sido tradicionalmente la provincia de redes hidropónicas asiáticas.

A pesar de plantar aumentado, los cárteles todavía dependen de contrabando. Nogales cercano, Ariz., el Sr. Scioli indicó varios túneles transfronterizos, uno de que extendió del traspatio de una casa, bajo la valla y en México 40 yardas lejos. Otra serie de túneles transfronterizos utilizó líneas existentes de alcantarilla o tubos de desagüe. Ellos estuvieron entre los nueve túneles de contrabando endroga a agentes de aplicación han descubierto allí desde que 2003.

A pesar de que las autoridades descubran más producción de marihuana Estados Unidos interior, el liderazgo de la mayor parte de los cárteles se queda en México y, para ahora, así que hace la mayor parte de la violencia. Todavía, fotografías recientes de México de las cabezas decapitadas de policías mexicanos juegan en las mentes de funcionarios de aplicación de la ley en este lado de la frontera, que está atento para signos de derrame.

La policía mexicana en Sonora “es atascada entre dos cárteles opuestos,” dijo Anthony J. Coulson, un agente federal de aplicación de droga. “Las policías son matadas como peones. Ellos son utilizados para mostrar cuánto poder y controlar los cárteles tienen.”
El Sr. Reyes, el agente especial, dijo, “La violencia sucede a causa de la presión que hemos exigido, pero no abastecemos de combustible ningún aumento ni la disminución en la marihuana.”

Nadie ve un fin rápido de la violencia en Nogales, Sonora.

El alguacil Tony Estrada de Condado de Santa Cruz dijo que había tanta violencia en el otro lado de la frontera que muchos policías y políticos mexicanos habían llegado a ser los refugiados virtuales en Nogales, Ariz.

“La violencia ha dejado un contingente grande de policía en este lado de la frontera,” el Alguacil Estrada dijo. “La matanza parará cuando alguien domina. Cuándo alguien toma control.”
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 02, 2009, 09:22:36 AM
México: ¿La diplomacia Entre los Cárteles de Sinaloa?
Stratfor Hoy » el 30 de enero de 2009 | 2218 GMT

Resumen

Los Tiempos de Los Angeles informaron enero. 29 eses asesinatos de droga-relacionó en el estado de Sinaloa, México, dejó caer de 120 en diciembre 2008 a 40 de enero. 1-29. Supuestamente, la disminución en la violencia ocurrida a consecuencia de una tregua entre cárteles rivales en Sinaloa. Las fuentes de Stratfor han confirmado que varios cárteles mexicanos tuvieron dos conversaciones servidas en la mesa, pero no son claro que una tregua fue alcanzada. Sin embargo, la disminución en la violencia sugiere que algún nivel de diplomacia ocurre.

Análisis

Los Tiempos de Los Angeles informaron enero. 29 esas matanzas de droga-relacionó en el estado de Sinaloa de México dejaron caer de 120 en diciembre 2008 a 40 dentro de los primeros 29 días de enero. La causa informada para esta gota en muertes de droga-relacionó fue una tregua entre cárteles rivales el Cártel de Sinaloa y la organización de Beltran Leyva. Las fuentes de Stratfor han confirmado que varios cárteles mexicanos tuvieron verdaderamente dos reuniones servidas en la mesa, pero eso (contradiciendo informes de prensa) ellos no alcanzaron ninguna tregua esparcida. La disminución en la violencia, sin embargo, sugiere que un nivel bajo de diplomacia puede estar sucediendo.

El informe de violencia disminuida en el estado de Sinaloa vino tres días después de que El Siglo de Durango, un periódico regional en el estado de Durango de México, informara que representantes de la Mayonesa de El y grupos de Sinaloa se sentaron en diciembre con representantes del Beltran Leyva, Arellano Felix y los grupos de Carillo Fuentes para discutir un alto de fuego, como el nivel inaudito de violencia de entierra-cártel en 2008 fue malo para el negocio. Los hermanos de Beltran Leyva fueron aliados una vez con Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman y su Cártel de Sinaloa, pero ellos operaron separadamente en 2008. Los dos grupos que luchan sobre rutas de traficar con drogas de droga en México occidental tuvieron como resultado luchas continuas que justificaron muchos de los 5.376 asesinatos relacionados con la droga en México en 2008. Por el 2008 de mayo, el ejército mexicano fue llamado en el estado de Sinaloa a ayudar a calmar la violencia.

Por todo el país, la violencia dejó caer de histórico alto en noviembre a niveles más normales en diciembre 2008 y subió otra vez en enero, pero ciertos estados vieron el número de muertes informadas disminuye en el mismo período de tiempo. Así como el número de matanzas de droga-relacionó dejó caer de diciembre 2008 al fin de enero en el estado de Sinaloa, en Juarez que ellos dejaron caer de 150 en diciembre 2008 a 80 durante los primeros 25 días de enero. Estas dos áreas, las situaciones críticas en la batalla del Cártel de Sinaloa con Beltran Leyva (en el estado de Sinaloa) y Carillo-Fuentes (en Juarez), puede ser visto como dos frentes primarias en conflictos del cártel de México. El hecho que la tasa de matanzas allí dejaron caer en enero (aunque las tasas nacionales estuvieran arriba) ofertas apoyan para los reclamos que los cárteles han alcanzado un alto de fuego limitado.

Los rumores acerca de cooperación de cártel han surgido ha disipado rápidamente y antes. Ocasionalmente varios grupos criminales de México han alcanzado aún treguas y alianzas anchas, aunque las más veces estos acuerdos rápidamente roto. La competición violenta sobre puertas de territorio y droga-traficando con drogas por EEUU-la frontera mexicana ofrece motivo fuerte seguir luchando antes que coopera. Incluso si los grupos alcanzaran acuerdo de algún tipo, un arreglo duradero es improbable.

Sin embargo, tal tregua tendría gran significado en la guerra del gobierno mexicana contra los cárteles. En 2008, varias facciones de cártel luchaban uno al otro y el ejército mexicano —Una situación que creó las guerras sangrientas de multi-frente en las que cárteles tuvieron que dividir sus recursos. Si los cárteles trabajan fuera un trato para reducir el luchar entre sí (incluso si el motivo sea de sólo mejorar el negocio), significaría que ellos podrían cambiar itinerario recursos que de otro modo serían utilizados para luchar uno al otro. Esto significa que ellos tendrían más dinero para utilizar para sobornar funcionarios, más recursos para centrarse en inteligencia-reunir operaciones y bajar los precios para los narcóticos que ellos negocian. Una tregua entre los cárteles haría una situación ya desafiante para el ejército mexicano complicó aún más, como el ejército hace ya no puede utilizar el “divide y conquista” táctica en su guerra contra los cárteles. Mientras una gota en la violencia general sería dada la bienvenida por el gobierno mexicano, una paz duradero de cártel llevaría sus propios riesgos para el gobierno.

Ultimamente, la cooperación también podría llegar a ser una estrategia para los cárteles para combatir el gobierno. Si los cárteles podrían mover de no luchar uno al otro a colaborar activamente a socavar el gobierno, ellos podrían colocar una amenaza grave al estado mexicano. Cuando mencionado arriba, muchos factores hacen este tipo de cooperación ancha bastante improbable — el honor entre ladrones es una cosa inconstante — Pero hay estímulos para la cooperación también.
Title: Stratfor: La Tercera Guerra
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 21, 2009, 06:23:09 AM
Por Fred Burton y Scott Stewart

México tiene bastante mucho siempre fue un áspero y lugar de caída. En los últimos años, sin embargo, el ambiente de la seguridad ha empeorado rápidamente, y las partes del país han llegado a ser increíblemente violentas. Es ahora común ver granadas militares de armas como fragmentación y asaltar rifles utilizados casi diario en ataques.

De hecho, justo la semana pasada nosotros notamos two separate strings of grenade attacks Dirigido contra policía en Durango y Michoacan indica. En el incidente de Michoacan, la policía en Uruapan y Lazaro Cardenas fue concentrada en por tres ataques de granada durante un período de 12 horas. Entonces en febrero. 17, un tiroteo mayor ocurrió justo a través de la frontera de Estados Unidos en Reynosa, Cuando las autoridades mexicanas procuraron prender varios hombres armados cabalgar visto en un vehículo. Los hombres huyeron a una cerca residencia y comprometieron a la policía que sigue con disparo de fusil, las granadas y granadas propulsadas por un cohete (RPGs). Después de que el incidente, en cuál cinco pistoleros de cártel fuera matado y varios pistoleros, las policías, los soldados y los civiles fueron heridos, las autoridades recuperaron un 60 mortero de Mm, cinco series de RPG y dos granadas de fragmentación.

No haga error, teniendo en cuenta las armas militares ahora ser utilizado en México y el número de muertes implicadas, el país está en medio de una guerra. De hecho, hay realmente tres guerras concurrentes ser emprendidas en México que implica el Mexican drug cartels. El primer es la batalla para ser emprendida entre los varios cárteles mexicanos de droga que buscan control sobre contrabando lucrativo pasillos, llamadas plazas. Uno tal campo de batalla es Ciudad Juarez, que proporciona acceso al Interestatal 10, Interestatal 20 e Interestatales 25 pasillos Estados Unidos interior. La segunda batalla es luchada entre los varios cárteles y las fuerzas mexicanas del gobierno que procuran interrumpir operaciones de contrabando, limitar violencia y traer a los miembros de cártel a la justicia.

Entonces hay una tercera guerra para ser emprendida en México, aunque a causa de su naturaleza es dominada un poco más. No consigue el mismo grado de atención internacional de medios engendrada por los tiroteos y la granada corrientes y ataques de RPG. Sin embargo, es no menos verdadero, y en muchos sentidos es más peligroso a civiles inocentes (así como turistas y viajeros de negocios extranjeros) que las batallas campales entre los cárteles y el gobierno mexicano. Esta tercera guerra es la guerra para ser emprendida en la población mexicana por criminales que pueden o no pueden ser implicado con los cárteles. A diferencia de las otras batallas, donde miembros de cártel o fuerzas de gobierno son los objetivos y los civiles primarios sólo son matados como daño colateral, en este frente de batalla, los civiles son directamente en los retículos.

La Frente Criminal

Hay muchas formas y los tamaño diferentes de pandillas criminales en México. Mientras muchos de ellos están en alguna manera relacionada a los cárteles de la droga, otros tienen varios tipos de aplicación de la ley de conexiones — Verdaderamente, algunos grupos criminales son compuestos de policías activas y jubiladas. Estos varios tipos de pandillas criminales concentran en civiles en varias maneras, incluyendo, el robo, el robo con fractura, asaltar en automóvil, la extorsión, el fraude y falsificando. Pero de todos los crímenes cometidos por estas pandillas, quizás el que crea el daño más esparcido, psicológico y emocional rapta, que también es uno de los más underreported crímenes. No hay figura exacta para el número de secuestros que ocurre en México cada año. Todos los datos con respecto al secuestro son basados en la estadística parcial de crimen y cuentas anecdóticas y, al fin, puede producir sólo estimaciones de mejor-adivinación. A pesar de esta falta de datos duros, sin embargo, hay duda pequeña — basado aún en el fin bajo de estas estimaciones — Que México ha llegado a ser la capital de secuestro del mundo.

Uno de las cosas difíciles acerca de estudiar el secuestro en México es que el crimen no sólo es esparcido, afectando casi cada rincón del país, pero también es ejecutado por una gran variedad de actores que poseen niveles que varían del profesionalismo — Y motivos muy diferentes. En un fin del espectro son el alto-fin que rapta las pandillas que secuestra a individuos de red de valor alta y demanda rescates en el millones de dólares. Tales grupos emplean los equipos de operativo que lleva a cabo tareas especializada como reunir la inteligencia, realizando vigilancia, arrebatando el objetivo, negociando con la familia de la víctima y estableciendo y para proteger los pisos francos.

En el otro fin del espectro son las pandillas que vagan las calles y raptan al azar objetivos de oportunidad. Estas pandillas son generalmente menos profesionales que las pandillas alto-finales y a menudo tendrá a una víctima para sólo un tiempo corto. En muchos casos, estos grupos tienen a la víctima justo utilizar lo suficiente tarjeta de ATM de la víctima para desaguar su cuenta corriente bancaria, o para recibir un pequeño rescate de quizás cientos de o de unos pocos mil dólares de la familia. Este tipo del secuestro oportunista a menudo es referido a como un “express kidnapping”. Exprese a veces raptando víctimas son contenidas el tronco de un coche durante su prueba dura, que puede durar a veces por días si la víctima tiene una cantidad grande en una cuenta corriente bancaria y un pequeño límite diario de retirada de ATM. Otros tiempos, si una pandilla de secuestro de expreso descubre que ha asido un objetivo de alto-valor por casualidad, la pandilla tendrá a la víctima más larga y demandará un rescate mucho más más alto. Ocasionalmente, éstos expresan raptando los grupos aún le “venderán” a una víctima de alto-valor a una más pandilla del secuestro del profesional.

Entre estos extremos hay una gran variedad de los grupos que se caen en algún lugar en el centro. Estos son los grupos que quizás concentren en un vicepresidente o el director de sucursal bancarios antes que el director general del banco, o eso quizás rapten al propietario de un restaurante u otro pequeña empresa antes que un industrial rico. La presencia de un espectro tan ancho del secuestro los grupos aseguran que casi ningún segmento de la población sea inmune de la amenaza de secuestro. En los últimos años, la magnitud completa de la amenaza en México y el temor que lo engendra ha llevado a un crimen llamado virtual kidnapping. En un secuestro virtual, la víctima no es raptada realmente. En vez de eso, los criminales procuran convencer la familia de un objetivo que un secuestro ha ocurrido, y entonces amenazas de uso y presión psicológica forzar la familia a pagar un rescate rápido. Aunque el secuestro virtual haya sido alrededor durante varios años, las familias involuntarias continúan caerse para la estafa, que es una fuente de dinero abundante a bajo tipo de interés. Algunos secuestros virtuales han sido realizados aún por criminales que utilizan teléfonos las prisiones interiores.

Cuando notado arriba, los motivos para raptar varía. Muchos de los secuestros que ocurren en México no son realizados para el rescate. A menudo los cárteles de droga raptarán a miembros de pandillas rivales o government officials Para atormentar y ejecutarlos. Este tormento es realizado para extraer información, intimide a rivales y, aparentemente a veces, para tener justo una diversión pequeña. Los cuerpos de tales víctimas son encontrados con frecuencia beheaded O de otro modo mutilado. Otros tiempos, pistoleros de cártel raptarán a narcotraficantes que son atrasados en pagos o que se niega a pagar el “impuesto” requirió a operar en el área del cártel de control.

Por supuesto, pistoleros de cártel no raptan sólo sus rivales ni policías. Cuando las guerras de cártel han calentado, y cuando rentas de droga han dejado caer debido a interferencia de cárteles rivales o el gobierno, muchos cárteles han recurrido al secuestro para el rescate a suplementar su flujo de caja. Quizás el grupo más extensamente conocido que entra en esto es el Arellano Felix Organization (AFO), También conocido como el Cártel de Tijuana. El AFO ha sido reducido a una sombra de su ser anterior, sus operaciones de contrabando dramáticamente impactado por los esfuerzos de EEUU y gobiernos mexicanos, así como por ataques de otros cárteles y de una lucha por el poder interna. A causa de una disminución escarpada en contrabando rentas, el grupo ha girado al secuestro y la extorsión para levantar los fondos necesarios para mantenerse vivo y para volver a la prominencia como una organización de contrabando.

En la Línea de tiro

Hay muy poco oportunidad que el gobierno mexicano podrá establecer integridad en sus agencias de aplicación de la ley, o traer orden público a porciones grandes del país, el tiempo pronto. La corrupción y la incapacidad oficiales son endémicas en México, que significa que ciudadanos mexicanos y extranjeros visitantes tendrán que encarar la amenaza del secuestro para el futuro previsible. Creemos que para civiles y extranjeros visitantes, la amenaza del secuestro excede la amenaza de ser golpeado por una bala perdida de un tiroteo de cártel. Verdaderamente, las cosas empeoran tan mal eso aún professional kidnapping negotiators, Una vez que visto como la llave a un pago garantizado, ahora son raptadas a sí mismo. En una torsión aún más increíble de ironía, el anti secuestro las autoridades son secuestradas y son ejecutadas.

Este ambiente — y el lo concierne ha chispeado — Ha proporcionado oportunidades financieras inmensas para la industria privada de la seguridad en México. Las ventas blindadas del coche han atravesado el techo, como tiene el número de guardias uniformados y personal ejecutivo de protección. De hecho, la demanda para el personal es tan aguda que esas compañías de la seguridad trepan para encontrar a candidatos. Tal camino difícil presenta a un anfitrión de problemas obvios, recorriendo de la falta de requisitos al vetting insuficiente. Los servicios además pasados de moda de la seguridad, nuevas compañías de la seguridad-tecnología también sacan partido del ambiente de temor, pero de rastrear aún de alta tecnología dispositivos pueden tener significant drawbacks and shortcomings.

Para muchas personas, armored cars y guardaespaldas armados pueden proporcionar un sentido falso de la seguridad, y la tecnología puede llegar a ser un mortal crutch that promotes complacency Y aumenta realmente la vulnerabilidad. Las medidas de seguridad físicas no son suficiente. La presencia de guardaespaldas armados — o guardias armados combinaron con vehículos blindados — No proporcione la seguridad absoluta. Esto es especialmente verdad en México, donde equipos grandes de pistoleros realizan regularmente crímenes que utilizan artillería militar. Francamente, hay muy pocos detalles ejecutivos de protección en el mundo que tiene la instrucción y el armamento para resistir a un asalto por docenas de atacadores armados con rifles de asalto y RPGs. Los guardas de seguridad privados son agobiados con frecuencia por criminales mexicanos y o matados o forzado a huir para su propia seguridad. Cuando notamos en el 2008 de mayo después del asesinato de Edgar Millan Gomez, actuando cabeza de la Policía Federal mexicana y la alto-clasificación policía federal en México, medidas de seguridad físicas deben ser suplementadas por situational awareness, Countersurveillance e inteligencia protectora.

Los criminales buscan y explotan las vulnerabilidades. Sus oportunidades para el aumento de éxito mucho si ellos son permitidos realizar vigilancia en hace y es dados la oportunidad de valorar completamente el programa protector de la seguridad. Hemos visto varios casos en México en El que los criminales escogieron aún atacar a pesar de medidas de seguridad. En tales casos, los criminales atacan con recursos adecuados para vencer la seguridad existente. Por ejemplo, si hay agentes protectores, los atacadores planearán neutralizarlos primero. Si hay un vehículo blindado, ellos encontrarán que maneras de derrotar el blindaje o asir el objetivo cuando él o ella están fuera del vehículo. A causa de esto, los criminales no deben ser permitidos realizar vigilancia en hace.

Como muchos crímenes, secuestro es un proceso. Hay ciertos pasos que debe ser tomado para realizar un secuestro y ciertos tiempos durante el proceso cuando esos ejecutarlo es vulnerable al descubrimiento. Mientras estos pasos pueden ser condensados y pueden ser logrados bastante rápidamente en un anuncio éste expresa raptando, ellos sin embargo son seguidos. De hecho, a causa de los pasos particulares implicados en realizar un secuestro, el proceso no está a diferencia de que siguió para ejecutar un terrorist attack. Los pasos comunes son selecciones de objetivo, la planificación, el despliegue, el ataque, el escape y la explotación.

Como los perpetradores de un ataque terrorista, esos realizar que un secuestro es la mayoría del vulnerable to detection cuándo ellos realizan vigilancia — Antes ellos están listos para desplegar y realizar su ataque. Cuando hemos notado varias veces en por delante de analiza, uno del secrets of countersurveillance Es que la mayoría de los criminales no son muy buenas en realizar vigilancia. La razón primaria que ellos tienen éxito es que nadie los busca.

Por supuesto, los secuestradores son también muy obvios una vez ellos lanzan su ataque, tiran sus armas y quizás comienzan aún a disparar. Por esta vez, sin embargo, quizás sea muy bien escapar demasiado tarde su ataque. Ellos habrán seleccionado su sitio de ataque y empleado las fuerzas que ellos creen que ellos necesitan para completar la operación. Mientras los secuestradores podrían fastidiar su operación y el objetivo podría escapar ileso, simplemente no es práctico sujetar uno espera en esa posibilidad. Es claramente mejor marcar a los secuestradores tempranos y evitar su trampa antes es saltada y los fusiles salen.

Hemos visto muchos casos de people in Mexico with armed security being kidnapped, Y creemos que hacemos probable ve más casos de esto en los meses venideros. Esta tendencia es debida no sólo a la presencia de criminales sumamente armados y agresivos y la calidad baja de algún personal de la seguridad, pero también a personas que colocan su confianza únicamente en seguridad física reactiva. Ignorando el valor muy verdadero de medidas críticas y proactivas como conocimiento situacional, countersurveillance e inteligencia protectora pueden ser un error fatal
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on February 21, 2009, 07:59:55 AM

     Chequen esta forma de transportar la droga:

http://videos.eluniversal.com.mx/n_videos/showVideo.php?id=10844

Saludos
Mauricio
Title: Batallas entre narcos y ejercito
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 22, 2009, 05:42:57 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jag1RMi2E4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz2YzLL-0vc&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sNLieyWwrA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIf80MWzNW4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnYbA4cDqLM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSkK6JbFx6k

!Hijo de muchos padres!  ?Comentarios?!?
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 25, 2009, 09:39:14 AM
?Se puede entender esas traducciones de computadora?
=============================================


El Memorándum de la Seguridadde México: Febrero. 23, 2009
El 23 de febrero de 2009 | 2248 GMT

•   Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
El convoy del gobernador de chihuahua atacó

Cuando violencia organizada de crimen-relacionó continuó a través de México esto semana pasada, el número de víctimas del país para los primeros 51 días de 2009 subió arriba 1.000, según marcas mantenidas por salidas mexicanas de noticias. Mientras esto es el más temprano en un año común que la 1.000 marca ha sido alcanzada, representa un ligeramente más despacio ritmo que los meses finales de 2008, cuando el número de homicidios subió de 3.000 a 4.000 en 48 días y de 4.000 a 5.000 en 42 días.

La violencia continuó en ciudades mexicanas por la frontera de EEUU y en otra parte; un incidente especialmente digno de mención ocurrió en chihuahua, estado de chihuahua, cuando varios hombres armados cambiaron disparo de fusil con guardaespaldas que protegen al gobernador de estado de chihuahua. El incidente ocurrió la tarde de febrero. 22 como el gobernador conducía a su casa después de hacer una visita personal, que él fue descrito haciendo como todos los domingos nocturno. El gobernador conducía supuestamente su propio vehículo blindado y fue acompañado por un viajes de detalle de seguridad en dos otros vehículos.

Según información soltada por el gobernador, como su convoy se acercó una luz de detención, uno de los guardas de seguridad del gobernador parados aproximadamente cinco hombres armados que viajan en dos vehículos cerca. Los funcionarios dijeron que después de los guardaespaldas paraban los dos vehículos sospechosos e identificaban a sí mismo como policías — los agentes no como protectores asignaron al gobernador — Los hombres en los vehículos sospechosos abrieron fuego sobre ellos. Durante el tiroteo el gobernador logró marcharse ileso, pero el cambio de disparo de fusil dejó por lo menos un agente protector muerto y dos herido. Varios informes indican que todos los pistoleros lograron escapar, aunque por lo menos uno fue creído haber sido herido durante el tiroteo.

Basado en la información disponible, es difícil de concluir que esto fue de hecho un ataque en el gobernador. Verdaderamente, el gobernador acentúa que sus agentes protectores identificaron a sí mismo como policías parecidos pensaron implicar que los pistoleros pensaron que ellos atacaban simplemente a policías — apenas excepcional en chihuahua — Y fueron ignorante que el gobernador estuvo cerca. Que el vehículo del gobernador aparentemente no fue atacado presta creencia a esta teoría, aunque soporta mencionar que en muchos asesinato anterior procura en México que detalles de la seguridad del objetivo fueron neutralizados antes los objetivos fueron atacados.

A pesar de estos detalles, varios aspectos de este caso sugieren que fue mucho más que coincidencia. Que el gobernador pareció haber seguido una pauta rutinaria de viaje lo habría hecho vulnerable atacar en aquel momento. Además, el gobernador había recibido varias amenazas en el pasado, inclusive banderas que parecieron fuera de su residencia el año pasado lo denominando y el fiscal general apoyando como a rivales del cártel de Sinaloa. Los incidentes como este oso vigilancia cuidadosa, especialmente en el contexto de ataques de cártel contra funcionarios del estado de alto rango en México, que ha dejado muchos federal, el estado y funcionarios locales muertos pero tiene mas reclamar la vida de un gobernador.

Trafico de drogas marítimo de droga

La marina mexicana soltó nueva información esto semana pasada con respecto al febrero. 12 toma de un barco pesquero de mexicano Señaló cargado con unos 7 toneladas de cocaína. Según funcionarios, el barco fue discernido inicialmente y fue parado por el Servicio de guardacostas de EEUU a más de 700 millas la costa mexicana. Las autoridades del Servicio de guardacostas de EEUU abordar el buque sospechoso, lo inspeccionó, descubrió la cocaína y custodia transferida del barco y cuatro miembros de tripulación mexicanos a la marina mexicana en aguas territoriales mexicanas. Los funcionarios indicaron aún más que cuatro miembros de tripulación fueron del estado de Sinaloa, y que el barco fue registrado en el puerto de Mazatlan, estado de Sinaloa. Los funcionarios dijeron el barco navegado de Mazatlan durante los primeros pocos días de febrero.

Este incidente soporta varias similitudes a la última toma marítima a gran escala de cocaína de la costa de México. Durante el incidente anterior, en septiembre 2008, la marina mexicana prohibió un barco pesquero de Mazatlan-Registró tripulado por mexicano nacional y cargó con unos 4 toneladas de cocaína de la costa de estado de Oaxaca. Cuando en el incidente más reciente, el barco fue captado dentro de semanas de la vela de Mazatlan.

En ambos casos es poco claro donde los barcos habían viajado, aunque la cantidad de cocaína a bordo de sugiere que ellos recibieron sus cargas en un país de fuente — como Perú o Colombia — Y no un pasillo de tránsito como América Central. Otra posibilidad probable no es que los barcos habían recibido sus embarques en la tierra pero en el mar, habiendo transferido la cocaína de otro barco — Quizás un buque media sumergible colombiano. Varios tales barcos han sido sabidos entregar embarques directamente a puertos mexicanos, mientras otros hacen con frecuencia entregas en aguas internacionales. Es difícil de dibujar ninguna conclusión sin más información en la gama de los buques y capacidades de velocidad, pero en el tiempo corto entre la salida de los barcos de México y su captura sugiere que ellos no habrían tenido suficiente tiempo de viajar completamente a Sudamérica.

Asumir que el mismo cártel mexicano de droga participó en ambos casos, parece que a pesar de la pérdida del embarque de septiembre, los negociantes lograron poseer los recursos, las conexiones y el consentimiento para continuar utilizar los métodos semejantes de contrabando y rutas. Además, estos incidentes subrayan el enfoque diversificado que negociantes mexicanos toman a contrabando cocaína de Sudamérica a México; envío aún como terrestre por América Central ha aumentado durante los últimos 18 meses, estos incidentes lo hacen vacía ese trafico de drogas marítimo de droga se queda vivo y bien.



Febrero. 16
•   Un funcionario del estado de Guadalupe, estado de chihuahua, se murió cuando ella fue muchas veces de disparo en una tienda.

Febrero. 17
•   Un tiroteo en Reynosa, estado de Tamaulipas, Reynosa, Tamaulipas state, Dejó por lo menos siete personas muertas. Varios informes sugieren que miembro de cártel de Golfo Hector Manuel Sauceda Gamboa se murió durante el incidente. El tiroteo ocurrió el mismo día esas protestas anti militar — supuestamente organizado droga-traficar con drogas organizaciones — Sucedió en Tamaulipas y dos otros estados.
•   A El jefe de la policía del diputado en Ciudad Juarez, estado de chihuahua, se murió cuando él fue muchas veces de disparo. Dos de sus guardaespaldas también se murieron durante el ataque.
•   A Custodie a comandante en Cardenas, estado de Tabasco, se murió cuando él fue disparo varias veces por hombres armados en dos vehículos como él llegó en su casa.
•   A La serie de tiroteos en Torreon, estado de Coahuila, dejó a unos seis personas muertas. La policía dijo que los varios incidentes parecen implicar el mismo grupo de criminales que viajan en un vehículo.

Febrero. 18
•   Varios hombres armaron con rifles de asalto disparó y mató a un hombre no identificado en Reynosa, estado de Tamaulipas, como él salió su vehículo.
•   Authorities En Zihuatanejo, estado de Guerrero, encontró los cuerpos de dos hombres no identificados envueltos en mantas dentro de un coche.
•   Police Culiacan cercano, estado de Sinaloa, encontró el cuerpo de un hombre no identificado con varios escopetazos que están luego a dos vehículos abandonados del lujo.

Febrero. 19
•   Por lo menos siete personas fueron informadas matado en el estado de chihuahua, inclusive cuatro en Ciudad Juarez. Las matanzas traen el suma del estado para febrero a 160, superando el suma de enero de 159.

Febrero. 20
•   Dos hombres fueron detenidos Tuxtla Gutierrez cercano, estado de Chiapas, en la posesión de 66 granadas de fragmentación, que ellos dijeron que ellos planeaban transportar a Morelia, estado de Michoacan. Las granadas parecidas haber sido fabricadas por Israel y vendidos al gobierno guatemalteco.
•   Two Los hombres abrieron fuego sobre un vehículo que pertenece al comité eléctrico federal en Comitan, estado de Chiapas.
•   At Menos cuatro hombres fueron informados matado en incidentes separados en Tijuana, estado de Baja California. En un caso, el cuerpo de un hombre con varios escopetazos fue encontrado dentro de un vehículo.
•   The Custodie a jefe en Ciudad Juarez, estado de chihuahua, dimitió de su posición entre amenazas que más policías serían matados si él se quedó en su posición.

Febrero. 21
•   Un grupo de hombres mucho armados tiró dos granadas en un edificio de policía en Zihuatanejo, estado de Guerrero, hiriendo por lo menos cinco personas.
•   A El tiroteo entre dos grupos criminales en Nuevo pueblo, estado de Durango, dejó a unos 10 personas muertas.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Blanca on March 03, 2009, 02:42:09 PM
Hola a todos y principalmente a Guro Marc.

Para su análisis.
      MÉXICO TENIA UNA ISLA,  ¿DONDE ESTAAAAA?

 1) ¿Puede desaparecer una Isla?
                R: En México sí. Han desaparecido a la Isla Bermeja ,ubicada a 100 millas al Norte de Yucatán y Campeche,

2) ¿Y quienes la desaparecieron?

                 R: En México los legisladores tienen este poder, y en el caso de la Isla Bermeja , aquellos que participaron en la elaboración del Tratado Clinton-Zedillo, en el cual México y USA pactaron sus fronteras marítimas en el Golfo de México, en ceremonia celebrada en Washington el 09-06-2000; en complicidad con el contralmirante Néstor E.  Yee Amador, director general de Oceanografía Naval; y desde  luego, hubo mucho mas cómplices en nuestro país.

3) ¿Y para que 'desaparecieron' la Isla Bermeja ?

                  R: Para que México pierda los derechos de explotar los yacimientos petrolíferos inmensos que alojan aproximadamente 22,600 millones de barriles de petróleo.

4) ¿Y cómo sabemos que la Isla Bermeja existió, o existe?

                   R: Porque su existencia está debidamente registrada desde el año 1864 en la Carta Etnográfica de México, también en el libro 'Islas mexicanas' editado por la SEP , que en su página 110 la ubica a 22º 33' latitud Norte, y a 91º 22' del Oeste; también algunas agencias federales de USA, entre ellas la CIA reportan su existencia, e incluso una Agencia de Viajes de USA ofrece viajes a nuestra Isla Bermeja.

5) ¿Y no hubo legisladores mexicanos que se opusieran a esta 'desaparición'?

                     R: Sí, el finado Senador José Ángel Conchello, se opuso con todas sus fuerzas a este despojo a la Nación Mexicana , pero murió en un extraño accidente carretero, nunca investigado, en el año 1998.

6) ¿Y que pasó con las minutas del Congreso, en donde consta el debate sobre este tratado?

                      R: Desaparecieron también, aunque esto es un acto  ilícito mas, incluso, desaparecieron los nombres de los legisladores mexicanos que participaron en este asunto.

7) ¿Y en que me afecta a mi, como individuo, que esta Isla esté desaparecida?

                       R: Actualmente en México el 40% del presupuesto del gobierno se compone de ingresos derivados del Petróleo y
que Hacienda le quita a PEMEX; entonces tu pierdes todo lo que nuestro país, a través de PEMEX, obtendría de ganancias por la explotación de esa inmensa 'Dona petrolífera'; pero no solo tu pierdes esto, sino tus hijos, nietos, familiares, y toda tu descendencia.

8) ¿Y este despojo a todos los mexicanos es un hecho consumado e irreversible?

                     R: No, porque la Isla Bermeja allí está, y puedes contratar un viaje a ella en la mencionada Agencia de Viajes que está en USA, por lo que, el tratado Clinton-Zedillo debe anularse para hacer uno nuevo, corregido, y midiendo nuestros derechos en un radio de 200 millas alrededor de NUESTRA ISLA BERMEJA.

9) ¿Y donde puedo saber mas sobre este tema?

                     R: En cualquie buscador, teclea... Isla Bermeja ... y vas a encontrar cosas impresionantes!!

10) ¿Y que puedo hacer?

                       R:> Mucho, empieza por divulgar este despojo, continúa informándote al respecto, y únete a todos los que amamos a
nuestra Patria Mexicana, y no nos dejamos engañar por el poder mediático.

Agradesco sus opiniones y ojala y no ofenda a nadie

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 06, 2009, 11:01:32 AM
Busco entrar a la platica la semana que viene , , ,
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 11, 2009, 07:56:22 PM
Acabo de re-leer ese post.

La verdad es que no tengo ni el menor idea.  No he visto hamas otro referencia al caso, el post no tiene URL ni otra referencia que me permite saber si es digna de fe o si vale el tiempo de investigar.

Si' se que a veces hay desacuerdo sobre si algo se define segun le internacional como "isla" o "small rock that sticks out of water at low tide" la cual no rinde derechos del usufructo del territoria maritima etc.    Supongo que como parte del proceso de llegar a un acuerdo, que se hablaba de eso-- si la piedra/isla todavia existiera.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Blanca on March 13, 2009, 04:02:01 PM
Hola a todos,

Esto es una noticia, una investigación, estos unos links donde se puede leer un poco mas de esto:

http://www.informatepr.com/isla_bermeja.html

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_Bermeja

http://www.voltairenet.org/article158739.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jod2XNRH0SAQTp-FUlNmplKGnS4w
http://www.unidad.org.mx/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=797&Itemid=52

de antemano le agradesco a Marc que haya tenido el tiempo para responderme.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 15, 2009, 10:09:52 PM
Ah ya veo.  Mas o menos come yo ya habia imaginado.  Interesante la pregunta, y la verdad es que no tengo base para opinar.    ?Aun mas teoria de conspiracia en Mexico entre miles de otras mas?  No se'.  ?Otra perfidia gringa?  No se'.

Title: "Swine Flu"-- cuantos muertos en Mexico?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 24, 2009, 10:54:09 PM
?Que honda con el "swine flu"?!?

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/24443479.htm


http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/investigation.htm the mexican counts are
different than what we are seeing in the news but it has other good info.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 25, 2009, 05:21:37 AM
Por favor comparta articulos aqui sobre la situacion.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: pau on April 26, 2009, 06:25:02 PM
Pues como yo veo lo del "swine flu" y las mortandades en mexico a comparacion de el USA es que aca es MUY rarro el "FLU" 

Al haber vivido en Chicago un buen rato cuando me enfermaba de catarro, NO era catarro era el CUMON FLU pero como aca no es muy conosido pues seguia como si nada con mi rutina diaria (como buen mexicano me aguanto al final) hasta que caia en una fuerte fievre y dolores etc etc y claro mis amigos me regañaban y es cuando empesaba a tomar medicina.

esto biena a reiterar lo que digo antes El MEXICANO siempre se espera al final para ir al doctor  :oops:  y claro ahora con esta nueva mutacion del virus pues la gente piensa que es catarro comun pero NO, es el "swine flu" y como no tenemos mucho conocimiento nisiquiera del COMON FLU pues lo dejamos pasar como un catarro cualquiera hasta que ha sido muy tarde para muchos tristemente.

Se puede ver que las recomendaciones el todos lados son las mas comunes para no contagearse

1 Labarse las manos seguido

2 Taparse la voca al estornudar o toser y tirar el pañuelo a la basura

3 Reposo si se siente enfermo

4 Tomar liquidos

5 Si tiene fiebre alta ira al medico


Solo espero que se contenga de manera rapida para poder seguir con nuestra vida >_<  por que con eso de escuelas cerradas y paruqes y cines y ect etc pos esta dificil y mas por que la gente se paniquea  :cry:

I como siempre perdon por las faltas de gramatica :P pero  mi dislexia no de me deja nunca haha

saludos
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 27, 2009, 04:27:09 PM
Oraciones por la gente de Mexico en su momentos dificiles.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: pau on April 30, 2009, 10:00:23 PM
Gracias por los buenos deseos  :-D

solo algo mas

mis familiares en chicago hablan seguiod preguntando que como estamos, al pareser en las noticias en US estamos muriendo como moscas lo que es mentira SI hay gente muriendo (por desgracia) pero mucha mas que esta infectada se esta salbando por su pronta accion a esto  8-)

ahora mexioc esta cerrado (por lo menos donde yo estoy) no escuelas, no cines, no restaurantes, no MUCHAS cosas, la gente se queja pero esperemos que estas ecciones sean para un mejoramiento de la situacion que ya est mundial.

y viendo las noticias que en israel un loco quiso (propuso) ponerle al virus " Virus Mexicano" pues a mi me da lastima ya que como pudo salir da Mexico pudo salir en quelquier otro lado.

y para Mark

pienso que el seminario esta pospuesto pr el momento????  :? 

saludos y espero que esto se resuelba sin mas fatalidades

Pau
Title: Los mexicanos regresan a la actividad bajo reglas sanitarias
Post by: Dog Mauricio on May 05, 2009, 08:21:12 AM

    LOS MEXICANOS REGRESAN GRADUALMENTE A LA ACTIVIDAD BAJO REGLAS SANITARIAS  :lol:


     México, 4 may (EFE).- Los mexicanos, entre ellos 35 millones de estudiantes y profesores, regresarán a partir de este jueves poco a poco a las actividades cotidianas, pero bajo reglas sanitarias para impedir un rebrote del virus AH1N1, que ha provocado la muerte de 26 personas y otros 776 contagiados.

     El presidente de México, Felipe Calderón, quien la semana pasada pidió a sus compatriotas permanecer del 1 al 5 de mayo en sus casas para atajar el mal, afirmó hoy que el país está "en condiciones de reiniciar el camino hacia la normalidad".


     "Nos encontramos en una etapa de estabilización de la propagación del virus de la influenza humana y conocemos sus características básicas", explicó el mandatario.


     No obstante, pidió que en el regreso a la normalidad los mexicanos no bajen la guardia y continúen con las medidas "preventivas de mayor higiene".


     Por su parte, el ministro de Salud, José Ángel Córdova, comentó que se observa una "tendencia descendente de casos sospechosos y confirmados (del virus)" y que las medidas de la alerta sanitaria "han sido efectivas".


     "Contamos con medicamentos suficientes, más de 1.466 millones (...), la experiencia de México será crucial en otros países para el control de la epidemia", apuntó.


      Mientras, el ministro de Educación, Alonso Lujambio, confirmó que el regreso a clases de los más de 33 millones de alumnos y dos millones de profesores será gradual.


      El día 7 de mayo se producirá el regreso a clases en las escuelas superiores y universidades, mientras que primaria, secundaria y guarderías volverán a las actividades el 11 de mayo.


     Además, el 6 de mayo regresarán a las actividades el sector público y privado, incluidos los más de 35.000 restaurantes que cerraron en la capital mexicana desde el pasado 29 de abril.


     Más tarde, en un mensaje a la nación, Calderón expresó su "más enérgico rechazo" a actitudes "vejatorias" de otros países contra los mexicanos por miedo a contraer la gripe A.


     A raíz del brote, Perú, Argentina, Cuba y Ecuador suspendieron unilateralmente vuelos hacia México.


      Además, Colombia se negó a que equipos mexicanos de fútbol disputen sus partidos de la Copa Libertadores en Bogotá por temor a la gripe A.


      Mientras, autoridades en China aislaron a varios turistas mexicanos.


      El presidente dijo que la contención del brote es un desafío global que requiere de la participación de todos los países y afirmó que la estrategia seguida por su Gobierno no solo defiende la vida de los mexicanos, sino la de todos los humanos que en el mundo pueden contagiarse.


     El ministro de Economía, Gerardo Ruiz Mateos, dijo que se protestará contra las medidas adoptadas por algunos países de imponer barreras a las exportaciones mexicanas de productos porcinos, que consideró injustificadas.


      México envió hoy un avión a China para repatriar a sus ciudadanos aislados por las autoridades chinas, que con esta medida buscan frenar el brote del virus AH1N1.


     El embajador de Argentina en México, Jorge Yoma, explicó hoy que se suspendieron los vuelos comerciales entre ambas naciones por una falta de preparación sanitaria adecuada en los aeropuertos internacionales del país.


     "De ninguna manera la suspensión de los vuelos tiene que ver con una actitud contra México, al contrario, nosotros por México tenemos un agradecimiento enorme", porque "salvó miles de vidas" en la época de las dictaduras militares, añadió el diplomático.

"México es un país muy fuerte que está capacitado para enfrentar esto y peores situaciones, y resolverlas bien. De esta crisis vamos a salir muy fortalecidos", afirmó el ministro Córdova en una entrevista con Efe.

     Lo sucedido "le pudo haber pasado a cualquier otro país y hay muchos países que ni siquiera tendrían la capacidad de respuesta que hemos tenido nosotros", agregó.
Title: Las eleciones de ayer
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 06, 2009, 06:16:44 AM
?Comentarios sobre las eleciones de ayer?
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 29, 2009, 02:15:46 PM
The Role of the Mexican Military in the Cartel War
July 29, 2009




By Stephen Meiners and Fred Burton

Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske is in the middle of a four-day visit this week to Mexico, where he is meeting with Mexican government officials to discuss the two countries’ joint approach to Mexico’s ongoing cartel war. In prepared remarks at a July 27 press conference with Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, Kerlikowske said Washington is focused on reducing drug use in the United States, supporting domestic law enforcement efforts against drug traffickers and working with other countries that serve as production areas or transshipment points for U.S.-bound drugs.

Absent from his remarks was any mention of the U.S. position on the role of the Mexican military in the country’s battle against the drug cartels. Kerlikowske’s visit comes amid a growing debate in Mexico over the role that the country’s armed forces should play in the cartel war. The debate has intensified in recent weeks, as human rights organizations in Mexico and the United States have expressed concern over civil rights abuses by Mexican troops assigned to counternarcotics missions in various parts of the country.

The director of Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission, for example, has encouraged the new legislature to re-examine the role of the Mexican military in the country’s cartel war, saying that the current approach is clearly not working. The number of citizen complaints against soldiers has increased over the last few years as the troops have become actively engaged in counternarcotics operations, and the commission director has expressed hope for greater accountability on the part of the armed forces.

Citing similar concerns, and the fact that such citizen complaints are handled by the military justice system — which has reportedly not successfully prosecuted a case in years — the independent U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her not to certify Mexico’s human rights record to Congress, which would freeze the disbursement of a portion of the funds for the Merida Initiative, a U.S. counternarcotics aid package for Mexico.

More important than any possible funding freeze from Washington, though, is the potential response from the Mexican government. President Felipe Calderon has emphasized that the use of the military is a temporary move and is necessary until the country’s federal police reforms can be completed in 2012. Legislative leaders from both main opposition parties complained last week that Calderon’s approach has unnecessarily weakened the armed forces, while the leader of the Mexican senate — a member of Calderon’s National Action Party — said the legislature will examine the role of the military and seek to balance the needs of the cartel war with the civil rights of the Mexican people. In addition, the president of Mexico’s supreme court has said the court plans to review the appropriateness of military jurisdiction in cases involving citizen complaints against soldiers.

Domestic debate and international criticism of Calderon’s use of the military are not necessarily new. Indeed, Calderon was defending his approach to representatives of the United Nations back in early 2008. However, the renewed debate, combined with recent changes in the Mexican legislature, have set the stage for a general re-examination of the Mexican military’s role in the cartel war. And while it is still unclear exactly where the re-examination will end up, the eventual outcome could drastically change the way the Mexican government fights the cartels.

More than Just Law Enforcement
Since taking office in December 2006, Calderon’s decision to deploy more than 35,000 federal troops in security operations around the country has grabbed headlines. While previous presidents have used the armed forces for counternarcotics operations in isolated cases, the scope and scale of the military’s involvement under Calderon has reached new heights. This approach is due in no small part to the staggering level of corruption among federal police. But primarily, the use of the military is a reflection of the many tasks that must be performed under Calderon’s strategy, which is far more complex than simply putting boots on the ground and requires more than what traditional law enforcement agencies can provide.

This broad range of tasks can be grouped into three categories:

The first involves duties traditionally carried out by the armed forces in Mexico, such as technical intelligence collection and maritime and aerial monitoring and interdiction. These tasks are well-suited to the armed forces, which have the equipment, training and experience to perform them. These are also key requirements in the country’s counternarcotics strategy, considering that Mexico is the primary transshipment point for South American-produced cocaine bound for the United States, the world’s largest market for the drug.
The second category includes traditional civilian law enforcement and judicial duties. Specifically, this includes actions such as making arrests, prosecuting and convicting defendants and imposing punishment. With the exception of the military routinely detaining suspects and then turning them over to law enforcement authorities, the tasks in this second category have remained mainly in the hands of civilian authorities.
The final category is more of a gray area. It involves tasks that overlap between Mexico’s armed forces and law enforcement agencies, and it is the area over the last few years in which the Mexican military has become increasingly involved. It is also the area that has caused the most controversy, primarily due to the fact that it has brought the troops into closer contact with the civilian population.
Some of the most noteworthy tasks in this final “gray” category include:

Drug-crop eradication and meth-lab seizures. In addition to being the main transit point for U.S.-bound cocaine, Mexico is also estimated to be the largest producer of marijuana and methamphetamines consumed in the United States. The U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that more than 17,000 tons of marijuana were produced in Mexico during 2007, most of which was smuggled into the United States. Similarly, seizures of so-called meth superlabs in Mexico over the last few years — some capable of producing hundreds of tons annually — underscore the scale of meth production in Mexico. The destruction of marijuana crops and meth production facilities is a task that has been shared by both the military and law enforcement under Calderon.
Immigration and customs inspections at points of entry and exit. Thorough inspections of inbound and outbound cargo and people at Mexico’s borders have played a key role in some of the more noteworthy drug seizures during the last few years, including the country’s largest cocaine seizure at the Pacific port of Manzanillo in November 2007. Similar inspections elsewhere have led to significant seizures of weapons and precursor chemicals used in the production of meth. In many cases, the Mexican armed forces have played a role in either stopping or inspecting suspect cargo.
Raids and arrests of high-value cartel targets. Beyond simply stopping the flow of drugs and weapons into and out of Mexico, the federal government has also sought to disrupt the powerful organizations that control the drug trade by arresting drug cartel members. Given the federal police’s reputation for corruption, highly sensitive and risky operations such as the arrest of high-ranking cartel leaders have more often than not been carried out by the military’s elite Special Forces Airmobile Group (GAFE). In most cases, the suspects detained by GAFE units have been quickly handed over to the attorney general’s office, though in some cases military personnel have been accused of holding suspects for longer than necessary in order to extract information themselves.
General public safety and law enforcement. The rise in organized crime-related violence across Mexico over the last few years has been a cause for great concern both within the government and among the population. A central part of the federal government’s effort to curb the violence has been the deployment of military forces to many areas, where the troops conduct such actions as security patrols, traffic stops and raids as well as man highway checkpoints. In some cities, the military has been called upon to assume all public-safety and law-enforcement responsibilities, disarming the local police force while looking for police links to organized crime. Another part of this militarization of law enforcement has involved the appointment of military officers — many of whom resign their commission a day before their appointment — to law enforcement posts such as police chief or public safety consultant.
It is this final trend that has led to most of the concerns and complaints regarding the military’s role in the cartel war. The federal government has been mindful of these concerns from the beginning and has tried to minimize the criticism by involving the federal police as much as possible. But it has been the armed forces that have provided the bulk of the manpower and coordination that federal police agencies — hampered by rampant corruption and a tumultuous reform process — have not been able to muster.

A Victim of its Own Success
The armed forces’ greater effectiveness, rapid deployment capability and early successes in some public security tasks made it inevitable that its role would evolve and expand. The result has been a classic case of mission creep. By the time additional duties were being assigned to the military, its resources had become stretched too thin to be as effective as before. This reality became apparent by early 2008 in public-safety roles, especially when the military was tasked with security operations in cities as large and as violent as Ciudad Juarez.

Even though the Mexican military was not designed or trained for law-enforcement duties or securing urban areas, it had been generally successful in improving the security situation of the smaller cities to which it had been deployed throughout 2007. But by early 2008, when soldiers were first deployed to Ciudad Juarez en masse, it became clear that they simply had too much on their plate. As the city’s security environment deteriorated disastrously during the second half of 2008, the military presence there proved incapable of controlling it, an outcome that has continued even today, despite the unprecedented concentration of forces that are currently in the city.

In addition to the military’s mission failures, it has also struggled with increasing civil rights complaints from citizens. In particular, soldiers have been accused of unauthorized searches and seizures, rough treatment and torture of suspects (which in some cases have included police officers), and improper rules of engagement, which have led several times to civilian deaths when soldiers mistook them for hostile shooters. In many cities, particularly in northern and western Mexico, exasperated residents have staged rallies and marches to protest the military presence in their towns.

While the military has certainly not acted flawlessly in its operations and undoubtedly bears guilt for some offenses, these complaints are not completely reliable records of the military’s performance. For one thing, many cartel enforcers routinely dress in military-style clothing and travel in vehicles painted to resemble military trucks, while many also have military backgrounds and operate using the tactics they were taught. This makes it difficult for residents, during the chaos of a raid, to distinguish between legitimate soldiers and cartel members. More important, however, is the fact that the Mexican drug cartels have been keenly aware of the threat posed to them by the military and of the controversy associated with the military’s involvement in the cartel war. For this reason, the cartels have been eager to exploit this vulnerability by paying residents to protest the military presence and spread reports of military abuses.

Outlook
As the Mexican congress and supreme court continue the debate over the appropriateness of the military in various roles in the cartel war, it is important to recall what the armed forces have done well. For all its faults and failures, the military remains the most reliable security tool available to the Mexican government. And continued problems with the federal police reforms mean that the military will remain the most reliable and versatile option for the foreseeable future.

Any legislative or judicial effort to withdraw the armed forces from certain tasks will leave the government with fewer options in battling the cartels and, ultimately, in an even more precarious position than it is in now. The loss of such a valuable tool in some areas of the cartel war would force the government to fundamentally alter its strategy in the cartel war, most likely requiring it to scale back its objectives.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 08, 2010, 02:03:05 PM
Mexico and the Failed State Revisited
April 6, 2010




By George Friedman

STRATFOR argued March 13, 2008, that Mexico was nearing the status of a failed state. A failed state is one in which the central government has lost control over significant areas of the country and the state is unable to function. In revisiting this issue, it seems to us that the Mexican government has lost control of the northern tier of Mexico to drug-smuggling organizations, which have significantly greater power in that region than government forces. Moreover, the ability of the central government to assert its will against these organizations has weakened to the point that decisions made by the state against the cartels are not being implemented or are being implemented in a way that would guarantee failure.

Despite these facts, it is not clear to STRATFOR that Mexico is becoming a failed state. Instead, it appears the Mexican state has accommodated itself to the situation. Rather than failing, it has developed strategies designed both to ride out the storm and to maximize the benefits of that storm for Mexico.

First, while the Mexican government has lost control over matters having to do with drugs and with the borderlands of the United States, Mexico City’s control over other regions — and over areas other than drug enforcement — has not collapsed (though its lack of control over drugs could well extend to other areas eventually). Second, while drugs reshape Mexican institutions dramatically, they also, paradoxically, stabilize Mexico. We need to examine these crosscurrents to understand the status of Mexico.

Mexico’s Core Problem
Let’s begin by understanding the core problem. The United States consumes vast amounts of narcotics, which, while illegal there, make their way in abundance. Narcotics derive from low-cost agricultural products that become consumable with minimal processing. With its long, shared border with the United States, Mexico has become a major grower, processor and exporter of narcotics. Because the drugs are illegal and thus outside normal market processes, their price is determined by their illegality rather than by the cost of production. This means extraordinary profits can be made by moving narcotics from the Mexican side of the border to markets on the other side.

Whoever controls the supply chain from the fields to the processing facilities and, above all, across the border, will make enormous amounts of money. Various Mexican organizations — labeled cartels, although they do not truly function as such, since real cartels involve at least a degree of cooperation among producers, not open warfare — vie for this business. These are competing businesses, each with its own competing supply chain.

Typically, competition among businesses involves lowering prices and increasing quality. This would produce small, incremental shifts in profits on the whole while dramatically reducing prices. An increased market share would compensate for lower prices. Similarly, lawsuits are the normal solution to unfair competition. But neither is the case with regard to illegal goods.

The surest way to increase smuggling profits is not through market mechanisms but by taking over competitors’ supply chains. Given the profit margins involved, persons wanting to control drug supply chains would be irrational to buy, since the lower-cost solution would be to take control of these supply chains by force. Thus, each smuggling organization has an attached paramilitary organization designed to protect its own supply chain and to seize its competitors’ supply chains.

The result is ongoing warfare between competing organizations. Given the amount of money being made in delivering their product to American cities, these paramilitary organizations are well-armed, well-led and well-motivated. Membership in such paramilitary groups offers impoverished young men extraordinary opportunities for making money, far greater than would be available to them in legitimate activities.

The raging war in Mexico derives logically from the existence of markets for narcotics in the United States; the low cost of the materials and processes required to produce these products; and the extraordinarily favorable economics of moving narcotics across the border. This warfare is concentrated on the Mexican side of the border. But from the Mexican point of view, this warfare does not fundamentally threaten Mexico’s interests.

A Struggle Far From the Mexican Heartland
The heartland of Mexico is to the south, far from the country’s northern tier. The north is largely a sparsely populated highland desert region seen from Mexico City as an alien borderland intertwined with the United States as much as it is part of Mexico. Accordingly, the war raging there doesn’t represent a direct threat to the survival of the Mexican regime.





(click here to enlarge image)
Indeed, what the wars are being fought over in some ways benefits Mexico. The amount of money pouring into Mexico annually is stunning. It is estimated to be about $35 billion to $40 billion each year. The massive profit margins involved make these sums even more significant. Assume that the manufacturing sector produces revenues of $40 billion a year through exports. Assuming a generous 10 percent profit margin, actual profits would be $4 billion a year. In the case of narcotics, however, profit margins are conservatively estimated to stand at around 80 percent. The net from $40 billion would be $32 billion; to produce equivalent income in manufacturing, exports would have to total $320 billion.

In estimating the impact of drug money on Mexico, it must therefore be borne in mind that drugs cannot be compared to any conventional export. The drug trade’s tremendously high profit margins mean its total impact on Mexico vastly outstrips even the estimated total sales, even if the margins shifted substantially.

On the whole, Mexico is a tremendous beneficiary of the drug trade. Even if some of the profits are invested overseas, the pool of remaining money flowing into Mexico creates tremendous liquidity in the Mexican economy at a time of global recession. It is difficult to trace where the drug money is going, which follows from its illegality. Certainly, drug dealers would want their money in a jurisdiction where it could not be easily seized even if tracked. U.S. asset seizure laws for drug trafficking make the United States an unlikely haven. Though money clearly flows out of Mexico, the ability of the smugglers to influence the behavior of the Mexican government by investing some of it makes Mexico a likely destination for a substantial portion of such funds.

The money does not, however, flow back into the hands of the gunmen shooting it out on the border; even their bosses couldn’t manage funds of that magnitude. And while money can be — and often is — baled up and hidden, the value of money is in its use. As with illegal money everywhere, the goal is to wash it and invest it in legitimate enterprises where it can produce more money. That means it has to enter the economy through legitimate institutions — banks and other financial entities — and then be redeployed into the economy. This is no different from the American Mafia’s practice during and after Prohibition.

The Drug War and Mexican National Interests
From Mexico’s point of view, interrupting the flow of drugs to the United States is not clearly in the national interest or in that of the economic elite. Observers often dwell on the warfare between smuggling organizations in the northern borderland but rarely on the flow of American money into Mexico. Certainly, that money could corrupt the Mexican state, but it also behaves as money does. It is accumulated and invested, where it generates wealth and jobs.

For the Mexican government to become willing to shut off this flow of money, the violence would have to become far more geographically widespread. And given the difficulty of ending the traffic anyway — and that many in the state security and military apparatus benefit from it — an obvious conclusion can be drawn: Namely, it is difficult to foresee scenarios in which the Mexican government could or would stop the drug trade. Instead, Mexico will accept both the pain and the benefits of the drug trade.

Mexico’s policy is consistent: It makes every effort to appear to be stopping the drug trade so that it will not be accused of supporting it. The government does not object to disrupting one or more of the smuggling groups, so long as the aggregate inflow of cash does not materially decline. It demonstrates to the United States efforts (albeit inadequate) to tackle the trade, while pointing out very real problems with its military and security apparatus and with its officials in Mexico City. It simultaneously points to the United States as the cause of the problem, given Washington’s failure to control demand or to reduce prices by legalization. And if massive amounts of money pour into Mexico as a result of this U.S. failure, Mexico is not going to refuse it.

The problem with the Mexican military or police is not lack of training or equipment. It is not a lack of leadership. These may be problems, but they are only problems if they interfere with implementing Mexican national policy. The problem is that these forces are personally unmotivated to take the risks needed to be effective because they benefit more from being ineffective. This isn’t incompetence but a rational national policy.

Moreover, Mexico has deep historic grievances toward the United States dating back to the Mexican-American War. These have been exacerbated by U.S. immigration policy that the Mexicans see both as insulting and as a threat to their policy of exporting surplus labor north. There is thus no desire to solve the Americans’ problem. Certainly, there are individuals in the Mexican government who wish to stop the smuggling and the inflow of billions of dollars. They will try. But they will not succeed, as too much is at stake. One must ignore public statements and earnest private assurances and instead observe the facts on the ground to understand what’s really going on.

The U.S. Strategic Problem
And this leaves the United States with a strategic problem. There is some talk in Mexico City and Washington of the Americans becoming involved in suppression of the smuggling within Mexico (even though the cartels, to use that strange name, make certain not to engage in significant violence north of the border and mask it when they do to reduce U.S. pressure on Mexico). This is certainly something the Mexicans would be attracted to. But it is unclear that the Americans would be any more successful than the Mexicans. What is clear is that any U.S. intervention would turn Mexican drug traffickers into patriots fighting yet another Yankee incursion. Recall that Pershing never caught Pancho Villa, but he did help turn Villa into a national hero in Mexico.

The United States has a number of choices. It could accept the status quo. It could figure out how to reduce drug demand in the United States while keeping drugs illegal. It could legalize drugs, thereby driving their price down and ending the motivation for smuggling. And it could move into Mexico in a bid to impose its will against a government, banking system and police and military force that benefit from the drug trade.

The United States does not know how to reduce demand for drugs. The United States is not prepared to legalize drugs. This means the choice lies between the status quo and a complex and uncertain (to say the least) intervention. We suspect the United States will attempt some limited variety of the latter, while in effect following the current strategy and living with the problem.

Ultimately, Mexico is a failed state only if you accept the idea that its goal is to crush the smugglers. If, on the other hand, one accepts the idea that all of Mexican society benefits from the inflow of billions of American dollars (even though it also pays a price), then the Mexican state has not failed — it is following a rational strategy to turn a national problem into a national benefit.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Blanca on June 02, 2010, 02:26:24 PM
Hola, es un gusto saludarles.

Todas las noticias son de interes, nos ponen a pensar y a reflexionar, ¿Que podemos hacer con estas situaciones?, ¿como podemos defendernos? les agradesco de antemano sus opiniones.

Patrulla Fronteriza agrede a inmigrante, le causa daño cerebral

Anastasio Hernández Rojas fue golpeado por al menos 20 agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza de EU por su presunta resistencia a ser repatriado, está internado con daño cerebral en Chula Vista, California

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO, México, mayo 30, 2010.- La Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos mexicana (CNDH) condenó la agresión de la Patrulla Fronteriza estadounidense a un inmigrante indocumentado al que le causó daño cerebral.

El organismo, que cita a medios de comunicación como fuente del suceso, apunta que Anastasio Hernández Rojas fue golpeado por al menos 20 agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza, aduanales y de inmigración "presuntamente por resistirse a su repatriación".

El hecho ocurrió, supuestamente, el viernes a las 21.00 hora local (01.00 GMT) en el cruce fronterizo de San Ysidro (California) y Tijuana, en el área de entrada peatonal del lado estadounidense.

"Le golpearon repetidamente y le aplicaron descargas eléctricas aun cuando ya no ofrecía resistencia", indicó la CNDH, que añadió que como consecuencia, Hernández Rojas sufre daño cerebral y se halla hospitalizado en Chula Vista, California.

Algunos medios mexicanos apuntan a que el inmigrante está en estado de muerte cerebral.

El organismo consideró "necesaria y urgente" la intervención de las autoridades diplomáticas de México en defensa de los derechos del inmigrante golpeado, sin embargo, hasta el momento, la cancillería mexicana no se ha pronunciado al respecto.

La CNDH subrayó además que "las autoridades encargadas de aplicar las leyes y políticas en materia de seguridad fronteriza" de ambos países deben de respetar "los derechos fundamentales de la vida y la integridad física de todas las personas.

El organismo queda pendiente de la evolución del suceso, concluye el comunicado.

Se estima que en EU hay cerca de 12 millones de mexicanos, la mitad de ellos indocumentados.

La migración ilegal es uno de los asuntos más problemáticos entre las dos naciones, y las deportaciones y repatriaciones voluntarias de mexicanos desde EU se cuentan anualmente por cientos de miles.


Noticieros televisa » Patrulla Fronteriza agrede a inmigrante, le causa daño cerebral Añadir a favoritos

Por: Agencia | Fuente: EFE | 2010-05-30    Comentarios:28  TEXTO   
Foto: AP
Fuente: EFE
Anastasio Hernández Rojas fue golpeado por al menos 20
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on June 10, 2010, 09:10:28 AM

     Es increible como sigue existiendo ese tipo de agresión por parte de las autoridades de la frontera de USA. Deberíamos estudiar a que se debe esta actitud y que existe en la mente de estos tipos para asesinar a alguien de esta manera.

Saludos
Dog Mauricio
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 23, 2010, 10:49:49 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3bnf8B-DMw
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: pau on August 23, 2010, 03:15:27 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3bnf8B-DMw

Por desgracia hasta que se termine la corrupcion interna de la policia y demas no se puede hacer mucho  :cry: y no va a ser nada facil solo espero que el proximo presidente siga con la limpiesa de las instituciones y no lo dejen en el olvido por que sino tantas muertes en estos ultimos anios seran en vano.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on August 23, 2010, 03:27:41 PM

     Fue un video muy comentado, pero como dice Pau en verdad la corrupción esta tan fuerte que se le ha perdido el respeto y el miedo a la autoridad.

      Cuando la mafia esta coludida con la autoridad es mucho más difícil hacer algo... así que yo me pregunto ¿Qué garantias de seguridad tenemos los civiles que transitamos por las calles de México?

Saludos
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 24, 2010, 05:28:36 AM
Una pregunta muy profunda.

Las soluciones personales son un aspecto a la pregunta.  ?Mauricio, te parece buena idea comenzar un hilo al respeto?

Otro aspecto a la pregunta son las soluciones a nivel social. Por ejemplo las dos que se me occuren son:

a) Legalizar las drogas, con reglamentos razonables.

La corrupcion esta' basada en las tremendas utilidades creadas por "La guerra a las drogas".  Si las drogas fueren legal, las utilidades serian mucho menor y la necesidad de controlar/intimdar las autoridades nulo.

b) Reconocer el derecho humano que nos brinda Dios que cada persona tiene la derecha de defensa propia.  Por lo cual, cada persona tiene derecho a armas.

No es mi pais, ?Que opinan Uds?
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on August 24, 2010, 08:34:50 AM

    Sobre el asunto de la seguridad al transitar por las calles en México, es un fenómeno complejo. Todo apunta a que la corrupción y la impunidad son el principal problema por resolver. La gente no se siente proegida cuando va a la policia por la calle, al contrario temen que puedan ser victimas. El crimen organizado goza de impunidad ya que todo viene de arriba, en cambio hay personalidades, los mentados luchadores sociales que por defender sus tierras o reclamar algun derecho ahora estan tras las rejas acusados de delitos graves sacados quien sabe de donde.

     Les dejo este video para reflexionar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIsYfLgULGU

Saludos
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 25, 2010, 07:31:53 PM
Muy interesante.

Me parece que el cuidadano Mexicano se encuentra con una pregunta profunda.  ?Como debe responder como un hombre libre hecho por Dios?  Los derechos humanos son la herencia de cada persona por el hecho de ser creado por dios.  (Hablo correctamentamenete si digo "Son su indole"?)

Tipicamente, cuando un pueblo libre presta parte de sus derechos/potencias para crear un estado, se incluye el derecho protegerlos.  Por su parte el pueblo recibe la responsibilidad de respetar a las leyes.

?Esta' Mexico hoy en dia en una situacion cuando el derecho humano de defenderse, brindado por Dios, supera la obligacion moral y spiritual de respetar a la autoridad?   ?Ya es tiempo irse armado a persar de lo que diga la le? 

Espero que Uds puedan entender mi espanol.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Héctor on August 31, 2010, 08:17:40 PM
hola

nuevo usuario aki, de Baja

muy interesante tópico. la mayoría de estas noticias no las encuentro en mi canal nacional.

es desesperante ver como el gobierno les sigue dando armas y capacitación a personal en el que nunca debería confiar y luego simplemente los destituyen asegurando que no vuelvan a poder entrar en alguna institución policiaca o militar, pero lo peor es que no dicen si les kitaron las armas, los registraron y los mantuvieron dentro del "radar" para seguir rastreando sus actividades. lo más seguro, como ha sido en el pasado es que se unan a las filas del bando contrario (zetas?). no creo que les hayan hecho una lobotomia para que olviden el entrenamiento que obtuvieron verdad?

luego los hipócritas dicen que el problema es de EEUU (USA) por que nuestros vecinos si permiten a sus ciudadanos legales ejercer su derecho de posesión de armas. los malos siempre van a tener la posibilidad de obtener armas en donde sea necesario obtenerlas. Tienen el dinero y la logística.

me parece que en México nos tienen programados para ser sus ovejas explotables y matables.

En fin, no se ve un buen panórama para los mexicanos, especialmente para la gente trabajadora y honesta.

saludos

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 05, 2010, 04:37:52 AM
Yo tambien me preocupo mucho por el pano'rama por Mexico. 

Aqui' siempre ha habido un gran respeto por el deseo de trabajar honestamente de la gente de Mexico, aun cuando vengan aqui illegalmente.  Eso respeto sigue en pie, pero los numeros crecieron a un nivel asombrante, a ahora con lo que podemose llamar un estado casi de guerra, la gente quieren que nuestro gobierno controla y defiende la frontera para que las guerras narcos y su corrupcion de las instuciones de la sociedad civil no lleguen aqui.  Tengo entendido que los intereses potentes, hablando a traves del canal nacional de Mexico traten de pintar lo que esta' pasando en nuestro politica, por ejemplo en Arizona, como odio a los Mexicanos, pero no es asi.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Héctor on September 05, 2010, 03:00:50 PM
si guro

la situación se esta tornando difícil. como pedirle a tu vecino que no se defienda cuando pasan bandas armadas a su territorio??!!??  Es terrible. No justifico violencia contra personas desarmadas pero si es correcto que se tomen medidas acordes a la gravedad de la situación.  E.E.U.U. esta en todo su derecho de militarizar su frontera, el acceso a su territorio, y eso lo tenemos que por fin entender de este lado de la frontera.

a veces parece que nuestro gobierno aprueba la emigración. No se que va a pasar. Creo que una solución mas efectiva y menos violenta se  lograría si nuestros gobernantes tomaran las medidas necesarias, en vez de reclamar a EEUU las medidas que ha tomado.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 05, 2010, 06:36:20 PM
Gracias por tus palabras Hector.

"A veces parece que nuestro gobierno aprueba la emigración."

En mi opinion es asi', hasta que Presidente Calderon tuvo el _________ para dar un discurso en nuestro Congreso criticando a la gente y el estado de Arizona por haber tenido la voluntad de insistir en respeto por sus leyes (!y nuestro @$%*! de un Presidente y los Democratas lo aplaudieron por haberlo dicho!) y entidades federales del gobierno mexicano publican lirbritos sobre como cruzar la frontera.

Hace muchos anos desde que yo estudiaba los numeros al fondo, pero en los anos 70s (!hijole 30 anos!  :-o ) 700,000 nuevas personas entraban al mercado de mano de obra en Mexico cada ano, pero aun cuando la economia crecia en 7% al ano (un numero poco visto hoy en dia si no me equivoco) solo aumentaba trabajos en la mitad de eso, osea cada ano habian 350,000 miles nuevas personas, jovenes principlamente, sin trabajo.  Sin la valvula de escape de ir a los EEUU no hubiera existado eso se lleva a la conclusion que graves problemas sociales en Mexico se hubiera occurido mucho antes.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on September 06, 2010, 07:48:57 AM

     Apoyo lo que dice Guro Crafty sobre que es momento de armarse. Muchos piensan que habría muertos por todos ladas pero pienso que si los bandidos saben que un civil puede estar armado pues como que la piensa mejor. Por supuesto que esto se debe hacer bajo una serie de requisitos para el portador del arma.

     Parece mentira que a la gente no se le permita cargar ni un cuchillo cuando en la fayuca se venden a plena luz del día, exhibiendolas en puestos hambulantes por las calles de la ciudad. Después de una experiencia que tuve con un familiar hace poco, me doy cuenta que no tenemos garantia de protección los civiles que transitamos por las calles. Uno puede ser blanco de crimen organizado o de autoridades corruptas y entonces a quien recurrir. Por eso es mejor alejarse de lo malo pero siempre contar con un plan de acción que nos permita salir airosos de eventos peligrosas cuando transitamos por la jungla de asfalto. El sunto no es vivir cada día con tensión, eso es malísimo... pero siempre estar alerta a lo que ocurre. Disfrutemos cada día como si fuera el último y abramos los ojos a las medidas necesarias. Organicense con sus familias y vecinos en planes donde nos podemos hechar la mano para prevenir al crimen.

Saludos
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Héctor on September 06, 2010, 10:08:58 AM
hola Mauricio

un gustazo de haberme unido a este foro.

Tienes la razón en tus comentarios.

En mi caso muy personal debo de aprender un muchatatal de ustedes porque no estoy preparado. no es que quiera ir a buscar problemas, pero viendo todo lo que esta pasando uno debe de estar al menos preparado para dar respuesta como último recurso.

hace unos días pusieron en tv azteca lo de un asalto armado en un restaurante, pero esta vez les fue mal, uno de los clientes tenía arma y creo que sabía como usarla, mato al primer asaltante y los demás huyeron tirando todo lo que habían robado.

lo que me pareció aberrante es que las noticias dijeron que la policia iba a investigar tanto a los asaltantes como a rastrear a la persona que mató al asaltante por homicidio.

eso es ridículo verdad? increible, solo aki pasa esto.

no le den medalla si no kieren pero déjenlo en paz. o tal vez no vi algo que justifique esta acción?
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on September 06, 2010, 01:12:16 PM

     Hola Héctor, un gusto tenerte en nuestro foro. ¿De dónde eres y qué sistema entrenas?  :-)

     Oye, tienes el video, esta en You Tube? Seria bueno verlo. Estoy de acuerdo contigo, pinches rateros los encierran y posteriormente quedan libres, no hay derecho, solo queda matar a estos cabrones.

 Un abrazo
Dog Mauricio
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Héctor on September 06, 2010, 04:54:30 PM
hola Mauricio

salió en TV Azteca como el Jueves. no lo encuentro en youtube.

estoy en Mexicali. err..  :oops: aún no estoy en ningún sistema. solo tengo los primeros dvds de top dog knaus. power y footwork. me llegó el de footwork la semana pasada, apenas corté unas escobas viejas para hacer los triángulos. Apenas ando de caveman, jejeje. digamos que antes no sabía absolutamente nada y ahora aunque sea me se unos golpes. me urge aprender algún sistema, y seguirle dando a la eskrima. creo que hay un grupo de ji jitsu, voy a ver que tal. algo de consejos me caería muy bien.

que debo investigar, para saber si la escuela es seria? o si debo buscar otro sistema?

estoy consiguiendo los dvds poco a poco, eventualmente voy a conseguir todos los de la serie uno, pero quisiera saber si me recomiendas primero conseguir kali tudo, o DLO 2, ya vi dlo 1. o debo de seguirle con el tercer dvd.

saludos




Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Dog Mauricio on September 09, 2010, 09:21:55 AM

     Hola Héctor

     Me da gusto que tengas interes en nuestro sistema. Soy Instructor certificado en DBMA y estudiante directo de Guro Marc Denny, Represento DBMA en México.

     Lo primero y muy importante es que entrenes las bases del sistema y en ese sentido me refiero al footwork y el dominio de los golpes (4 power trokes) y defensas básicos con un solo palo. A la par puedes entrenar ejercicios de sinawalli (doble palo) para desarrollo de la coordinación. Los dos prmeros videos de Top Dog son buenísimos para esto y te recomiendo que adquieras el No. 4 que es el que tata sobre las defensas básicas.

     Es muy importante que adquieras las bases con muy buena técnica desde el inicio, inicia con el entrenamiento del Snaggle tooth, roof and umbrella.

     Cuando quieras venir a entrenar al D.F. ponte en contacto conmigo. Tambien te invito a nuestro seminario de DBMA con Guro Crafty en México el próximo año. Los datos estan en mi website, te dejo la liga:

http://www.sic-kali.com.mx/seminarios.html


    ¿Tienes algún e-mail donde pueda enviarte mas información sobre los servicios que ofrecemos para entrenar DBMA?

Saludos

Guro Mauricio Sánchez
Sistemas Integrados de Combate
DBMA México
sicdbma@yahoo.com
www.sic-kali.com.mx
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Héctor on September 09, 2010, 05:20:52 PM
Hola Mauricio

si, ya me había enterado que eres nuestro guro mexicano. Explorando el dbma site, vi unos videos cortos que sales con Mark, entrenando y dando pláticas.

como te comentaba en el post anterior ya tengo los dos primeros y estoy adquiriendo cada vez mas fuerza en los 4 golpes básicos. Estoy entrenando con las dos manos, es decir estoy practicando los 4 golpes con cada mano, 50 repiticiones cada golpe, cada mano. cuando uso la izquierda tengo que cambiar la postura y colocar el pie izquiero hacia enfrente, para duplicar el golpe como lo hago con la derecha

tengo dificultad para hacer los giros que hace Knaus en que gira un palo en una dirección y el otro en la contraria, espero con el tiempo finalmente poder hacerlo.

gracias por la sugerencia, en cuanto pueda voy a ordenar los dvds que mencionas. También estoy haciendo otras cosas para convertirme en guerrero y ocupo a su vez dvds y accesorios para entrenar, asi que va lento el asunto.

pero me interesa mucho aprender las artes filipinas y estoy muy impresionado con el sistema que tu y Mark promueven.

creo que me sali del tema de este tópico, voy a iniciar otro para poder conversar de este asunto

te mando mi email por mensaje privado

saludos
Title: Dennis Prager
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 05, 2010, 11:18:53 AM
Traducido del ingles por un programa software:

==============

Una Carta de un republicano a hispanos
El martes, el 05 de octubre de 2010
ShareThis
Le escribo como un norteamericano preocupado y simpático que es un republicano. Mis sentimientos no representan a cada norteamericano -- que sería imposible. Pero creo que el siguiente representa a la mayoría de LOS norteamericanos.
Primero, un mensaje a ésos de usted aquí ilegalmente:
Puede ser sorprendido muy oír esto, pero en su posición, millones de norteamericanos, inclusive mí, habrían hecho lo que usted hizo.
Si viví en un país pobre con un corrompe en gran parte el gobierno, un país en el que tuve pequeño o ninguna perspectiva de esperanza para una vida mejorada para mí o para mis niños, y yo no podría entrar en legalmente el mundo más libre, la mayoría de los países opulentos, el país con las la mayoría de las oportunidades para personas de cualquier y cada fondo, yo haría lo que yo podría hacer para entrar en ese país Ilegalmente.
México y muchos otros países Centrales y sudamericanos están lugares en gran parte desesperados para la mayor parte de sus personas. América les ofrece esperanza a todos dispuesto a trabajar duramente. ¿Quién no podría comprender por qué ningún individuo, permitió sólo un padre ni madre de una familia, trataría de entrar en Estados Unidos -- legalmente preferiblemente, ilegalmente si necesario?
Ahora que lo he hecho vacía que millones de nosotros comprenden lo que le motiva y no le condena moralmente para entrar América ilegalmente, yo tengo que pedir que tratar de comprender lo que nos motiva.
Ningún país en el mundo puede permitir inmigración ilimitada. Si América abrió sus fronteras a todo los que desean vivir aquí, cientos de millones de personas vendrían aquí. Eso hace, por supuesto, significa el fin de Estados Unidos económicamente y culturalmente.
Si es de México, sabe que el tratamiento de México de inmigrantes ilegales del sur de su frontera es mucho más duro que mi país es de inmigrantes ilegales. Todo toma es sentido común de comprender que nosotros simplemente no podemos proporcionar para cuidar de todos ustedes en nuestro médico, educativo, penal y otras instituciones. Por mucho que pueda pagar en ventas tasa, la mayoría de los inmigrantes ilegales son un carga financiero y social en esos estados a que más ellos mueven.
Sí, muchos de ustedes es también una bendición. Muchos de ustedes cuida de nuestros niños y nuestras casas. Otros de usted preparan nuestro alimento y hacen otro trabajo que es esencial a nuestra sociedad. Sabemos eso. Como individuos, la mayor parte de usted es personas trabajadoras, responsables y decentes.
Pero ninguno de que contesta la pregunta: ¿Cuántas personas pueden este país permite en ello?
El momento usted tiene que contestar que esa pregunta es el momento que usted se da cuenta de que las preocupaciones de norteamericanos acerca de inmigración ilegal no tienen nada que ver con "racismo" o cualquier sentimiento de negativo hacia hispanos.
Los que le dicen que es el racismo o la xenofobia está acerca de sus norteamericanos prójimos para razones políticas o ideológicas. Sabe de sus interacciones diarias con norteamericanos que la inmensa mayoría de nosotros le trata con la dignidad que cada ser prójimo de humano merece. Sus vidas diarias son la refutación más elocuente de las cargas del racismo y el fanatismo. La carga es una mentira terrible. Por favor no lo crea. Sabe que no es verdad.
Demócratas actuarán como a sus defensores diciéndole que oposición a su presencia aquí está carrera-basado. No hay verdad a eso. Como usted probablemente sabe en los corazones, ha venido al lugar menos racista en la tierra. La inmensa mayoría de nosotros no podría cuidar menos si su nombre es Gonzalez ni Jones. Por eso las oportunidades son 50-50 que el niño de inmigrantes hispanos acabará por casarse un no-hispano norteamericano.
Una más cosa: Muchos de ustedes desea de volver a sus patrias. Esto es entendible, como muchos de ustedes no vino a aquí llegar a ser norteamericano pero para ganar el dinero que permitiría usted proporcionar para volver en casa y dirigir una mejor vida allí. Pero tan entendible como eso está en un nivel individual, debe comprender que eso teniendo millones de personas entre nosotros que no se siente bono a nuestro país y que no quiere llegar a ser uno de nosotros es un problema grave. Usted se sentiría el mismo acerca de personas que vino a sus países para ganar dinero y utilizar su país médico, social, educativo y otros servicios pagaron por por las personas de su país.
Es también un problema moral. Hay personas innumerables alrededor del mundo que desea venir a América para llegar a ser norteamericanos, no ganar sólo dinero aquí. Muchos de ustedes toma sus lugares. Eso no es justo a ellos ni a América.
Así, la verdad es, de hecho, sencillo: Si fue un norteamericano, querría parar inmigración ilegal, y si la mayor parte de nosotros fuimos usted, nosotros haríamos lo que usted hizo para entrar en América. Ninguno de nosotros es malo. Tiene interés en su familia. Tenemos interés en nuestro país.
Ahora, una nota a los que está aquí legalmente y a los que son ciudadanos norteamericanos.
Primero, mientras muchos de ustedes se compadece de manera comprensible con el apuro de latinoamericanos prójimos que están aquí ilegalmente, debe comprender sin duda que América no puede proporcionar inmigración ilegal ilimitada. Esto puede crear bien una tensión entre su mente y el corazón, y entre su herencia étnica y su lealtad a América.
Si hace, sus norteamericanos prójimos preguntan que es indicado por su mente (y nosotros, creemos, la conciencia) y por su preocupación para América. Si cualquiera sabe cuán dando la bienvenida extraordinariamente América ha estado a latinoamericanos -- de México a Cuba a Sudamérica -- es usted. Para su consideración así como América, por favor no sucumbe a la política de trato injusto que son utilizados para conseguir cínicamente y únicamente su apoyo para el demócrata Partido.
Por último, y más importante, votando para candidatos demócratas de Partido, vota para un tipo del gobierno más similar los la mayoría de LOS latinoamericanos huyeron. Tome el ejemplo mexicano. El Partido demócrata es, en la mayoría de las maneras importantes, una versión norteamericana del PRI. Durante 70 años, el PRI gobernó México y trajo su economía a sus rodillas a causa del gasto público vasto, el aplastar de iniciativa individual, una burocracia hinchada, deuda insostenible y el desvalorizar subsiguiente del peso mexicano.
¿Por qué, para la consideración de Dios, querría usted ver que replicó en América? La muy razón América ha sido tan próspera y tan libre -- el muy le razona o sus antepasados, como casi los antepasados de cada otro norteamericano, vinieron aquí -- es que América ha tenido el gobierno más limitado y por lo tanto más libertad que cualquier otro país en el mundo. El Partido republicano representa todo que usted o sus padres vino a América para -- y por qué usted dejó México y otros países: oportunidad individual y responsabilidad individual. Es también el partido que representa sus valores sociales.
Es verdad, el Partido demócrata apela a sus emociones. Pero un voto para el Partido demócrata es un voto de hacer América como el México del PRI. Y un voto para el Partido demócrata es un voto de deshacer el gran logro norteamericano de unir a los niños de inmigrantes de todo el mundo como norteamericanos.
============
A Letter from a Republican to Hispanics
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
ShareThis
I am writing to you as a concerned and sympathetic American who is a Republican. My sentiments do not represent every American -- that would be impossible. But I believe the following represent most Americans.

First, a message to those of you here illegally:

You may be very surprised to hear this, but in your position, millions of Americans, including me, would have done what you did.

If I lived in a poor country with a largely corrupt government, a country in which I had little or no prospect of hope for an improved life for me or my children, and I could not legally get into the world's freest, most affluent country, the country with the most opportunities for people of any and every background, I would do whatever I could do to get into that country illegally.

Mexico and many other Central and South American countries are largely hopeless places for most of their people. America offers hope to everyone willing to work hard. Who could not understand why any individual, let alone a father or mother of a family, would try to get into the United States -- legally preferably, illegally if necessary?

Now that I have made it clear that millions of us understand what motivates you and do not morally condemn you for entering America illegally, I have to ask you to try to understand what motivates us.

No country in the world can allow unlimited immigration. If America opened its borders to all those who wish to live here, hundreds of millions of people would come here. That would, of course, mean the end of the United States economically and culturally.

If you are from Mexico, you know that Mexico's treatment of illegal immigrants from south of its border is far harsher than my country's is of illegal immigrants. All it takes is common sense to understand that we simply cannot afford to take care of all of you in our medical, educational, penal and other institutions. However much you may pay in sales tax, most illegal immigrants are a financial and social burden in those states to which most them move.

Yes, many of you are also a blessing. Many of you take care of our children and our homes. Others of you prepare our food and do other work that is essential to our society. We know that. As individuals, the great majority of you are hardworking, responsible, decent people.

But none of that answers the question: How many people can this country allow into it?

The moment you have to answer that question is the moment you realize that Americans' worries about illegal immigration have nothing to do with "racism" or any negative feeling toward Hispanics.

Those who tell you it is racism or xenophobia are lying about their fellow Americans for political or ideological reasons. You know from your daily interactions with Americans that the vast majority of us treat you with the dignity that every fellow human being deserves. Your daily lives are the most eloquent refutation of the charges of racism and bigotry. The charge is a terrible lie. Please don't believe it. You know it is not true.

Democrats will act as your defenders by telling you that opposition to your presence here is race-based. There is no truth to that. As you probably know in your hearts, you have come to the least racist place on earth. The vast majority of us could not care less if your name is Gonzalez or Jones. That's why the chances are 50-50 that the child of Hispanic immigrants will end up marrying a non-Hispanic American.

One more thing: Many of you desire to return to your homelands. This is understandable, as many of you did not come here in order to become American but in order to earn the money that would allow you to afford to return home and lead a better life there. But as understandable as that is on an individual level, you must understand that that having millions of people in our midst who feel no bond to our country and who do not want to become one of us is a serious problem. You would feel the same about people who came to your countries to make money and use your country's medical, social, educational and other services paid for by the people of your country.

It is also a moral problem. There are countless people around the world who wish to come to America in order to become Americans, not just to earn money here. Many of you are taking their places. That is not fair to them or to America.

So, the truth is, in fact, simple: If you were an American, you would want to stop illegal immigration, and if most of us were you, we would do what you did to get into America. Neither of us is bad. You care about your family. We care about our country.

Now, a note to those of you who are here legally and to those of you who are American citizens.

First, while many of you understandably sympathize with the plight of fellow Latinos who are here illegally, you surely must understand that America cannot afford unlimited illegal immigration. This may well create a tension between your mind and your heart, and between your ethnic heritage and your allegiance to America.

If it does, your fellow Americans ask that you be guided by your mind (and we, believe, conscience) and by your concern for America. If anyone knows how extraordinarily welcoming America has been to Latinos -- from Mexico to Cuba to South America -- it is you. For your sake as well as America's, please do not succumb to the politics of victimization that are used solely and cynically to get your support for the Democrat Party.

Finally, and most important, by voting for Democratic Party candidates, you are voting for a type of government more like the ones most Latinos fled. Take the Mexican example. The Democratic Party is, in most important ways, an American version of the PRI. For 70 years, the PRI governed Mexico and brought its economy to its knees because of vast government spending, the squashing of individual initiative, a bloated bureaucracy, unsustainable debt and the subsequent devaluing of the Mexican peso.

Why, for God's sake, would you want to see that replicated in America? The very reason America has been so prosperous and so free -- the very reasons you or your ancestors, like almost every other American's ancestors, came here -- is that America has had more limited government and therefore more liberty than any other country in the world. The Republican Party represents all that you or your parents came to America for -- and why you left Mexico and other countries: individual opportunity and individual responsibility. It is also the party that represents your social values.

Admittedly, the Democratic Party appeals to your emotions. But a vote for the Democratic Party is a vote to make America like the Mexico of the PRI. And a vote for the Democratic Party is a vote to undo the great American achievement of uniting the children of immigrants from all over the world as Americans.



Title: Strat
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 12, 2010, 09:27:00 AM

Los Zetas Guatemala Confrontation

Members of the Guatemalan military clashed with suspected members of the Mexican drug trafficking organization Los Zetas in the jungles of Guatemala’s Peten department near the village of El Remate, leaving two Zetas dead, another two captured and a Guatemalan soldier injured the night of Oct. 5. Official reports indicate that a convoy of 10 vehicles (some of them armored) carrying eight to 10 Zetas each was traveling down a jungle road when it encountered a Guatemalan military patrol, at which point the Zetas opened fire on the soldiers. The Zeta convoy reportedly was based out of the village of El Chal (a significant distance away) and allegedly was searching for those responsible for stealing a cocaine shipment a few weeks ago. The group got lost on the jungle roads, however, before it stumbled upon the military patrol. As of Oct. 6, Guatemalan National Police had confiscated nine of the 10 vehicles, and were continuing to search from remnants of the Zetas with the help of the Guatemalan special operations forces unit known as Los Kaibiles.

While confrontations between Mexican drug trafficking organizations and foreign militaries are fairly rare, it is not surprising that they occur. STRATFOR has tracked the southward push of Mexican drug trafficking organizations into Central America and South America for some time, with an emphasis on the Zetas’ and Sinaloa Federation’s push into the Central American trafficking scene. Los Zetas operate almost exclusively throughout the vast swaths of jungle from western to northeastern Guatemala, where they receive shipments of cocaine from South America on hundreds of clandestine airstrips throughout the region. Los Zetas also have established several training camps in the area where both Mexican and Central American recruits receive varying degrees of tactical training on drug trafficking.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the incident was its proximity to the Mayan ruins of Tikal, a popular tourist destination. Several thousand people visit the ruins every year, with the vast majority of these tourists flying into nearby Flores and then traveling on the road from Flores to Tikal National Park. Tourist buses have been hijacked and the passengers robbed before, but the large amounts of cash the tourists brought to the local economy and the resulting pressure against this kind of banditry minimized such incidents. Increased confrontations in the region between cartel elements and Guatemalan security forces would likely cause a decline in tourism not unlike the blow to Mexico’s tourism industry dealt by the widespread violence in that country — and many tourists already were avoiding Guatemala due to fears of violence.


Hidalgo State Heating Up?

Hidalgo state police discovered a narcomanta (a banner with a message from a drug cartel) signed by Los Zetas hanging from a pedestrian bridge between two prominent state government buildings early Oct. 5. In it, the Zetas declared their rivalry with the Gulf cartel and La Familia Michoacana, adding that they do not to kill or extort the people of Hidalgo. Later, at around 5 a.m. Oct. 7, the decapitated and quartered bodies of two men believed associated with the Zetas were found near Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo state, near a narcomanta signed by the Gulf cartel and La Familia Michoacana reading “Welcome to Hidalgo.”

Hidalgo traditionally has been one of Mexico’s quieter regions, though it has experienced fleeting bouts of cartel violence. The region serves as a popular trans-shipment location for narcotics and alien smuggling as part of the Gulf route from Central America to the Texas-Mexico border and traditionally was Gulf cartel territory. After Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel split earlier this year, their conflict slowly has spread in regions where their operations overlap. These types of tit-for-tat assassinations and public displays of mutilated bodies often signify a declaration of war. Similar narcomantas from both Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel appeared in Reynosa and other parts of Tamaulipas before violence significantly escalated between the two groups in February and March. The events in Hidalgo could thus foreshadow a new wave of violence in the coming weeks as a new front in the Los Zetas-Gulf cartel conflict.





(click here to view interactive map)

Oct. 4

The Mexican navy announced the seizure of 5,683 kilograms (about 12,500 lbs.) of marijuana from several abandoned vessels in Talchichilte Island, Sinaloa state.
Authorities announced the seizure of 77.5 kilograms of marijuana from a vehicle in the municipality of Silao, Leon state. Three people were arrested during the incident.
Naval security forces and customs agents seized approximately 100 kilograms of cocaine at the port of Manzanillo, Colima state. The shipment was discovered in a container that arrived from Callao, Peru.

Oct. 5

Police discovered the body of an unidentified man wrapped in plastic bags in the municipality of Tezoyuca, Mexico state.
Unidentified gunmen killed a man inside his home in the Tlalpan neighborhood of Mexico City and kidnapped four members of his family who were later found inside an abandoned car shot dead.
Soldiers freed 14 kidnapping victims from a vehicle at a roadblock near the San Miguel Bridge in Coahuila state. The driver of the vehicle was arrested.

Oct. 6

Soldiers arrested two people in the Valle del Sur neighborhood of the municipality of Juarez, Nuevo Leon state. The suspects were interrogated and subsequently led the troops to a safe-house where authorities freed a kidnapping victim.
Unidentified gunmen killed two men traveling in a car on Madero Avenue in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state. A group of unidentified armed men later arrived at the scene to recover the bodies, causing police to retreat temporarily.
Unidentified gunmen killed one policeman and injured seven in an ambush in Coyuca de Catalan, Guerrero state.
Unidentified gunmen attacked an armored vehicle belonging to a restaurant owner in Leon, Guanajuato state, slightly injuring the owner. Police later arrested two suspected members of the Sinaloa cartel in connection with the attack.

Oct. 7

Soldiers killed two gunmen during a firefight in a rural area of the municipality of Paras, Nuevo Leon state.
Authorities discovered a dismembered body near the settlement of Tres Palos in Acapulco, Guerrero state, along with a message warning “those who back the Beltran Leyva cartel and Daniel Encinas.”
Two dismembered bodies were found in the municipality of Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo state. A message attributing the crime to the Gulf Cartel and La Familia Michoacan was found nearby.
Police found the severed head of a kidnapped man in the El Troncal de Villa Union neighborhood of Mazatlan, Sinaloa state.

Oct. 8

Unidentified gunmen attacked a house in the Unidad Nacional neighborhood of Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas state with grenades, destroying a vehicle in the garage.
Six suspected cartel gunmen were killed and one soldier was injured during a firefight in Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas state.
A vehicle accidentally triggered an improvised explosive device in Chilpancingo, Guerrero state, injuring one person and damaging several buildings.
Unidentified gunmen killed the mayor of Martires de Tacubaya, Oaxaca state.

Oct. 9

Soldiers in Salvatierra, Guanajuato state, arrested two suspected cartel members after discovering three bodies in their vehicle during a traffic stop.
Police discovered the bodies of two men the Los Puestos neighborhood of Tlaquepaque, Jalisco state. The two victims had been shot to death.
One policeman was injured during a grenade attack on the Public Security Secretariat headquarters in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.

Oct. 10

Two suspected cartel gunmen were killed during a firefight with soldiers in the municipality of General Teran, Nuevo Leon state.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Oct. 11, 2010 | STRATFOR
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 28, 2010, 09:58:05 PM
Entire police force in Los Ramones, Mexico quits after gunmen attack headquarters

BY PHILIP CAULFIELD
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, October 27th 2010, 8:27 AM



Bravo/Reuters
A policeman walks among bullet-riddled patrol trucks after an attack at a police station in the town of Los Ramones. Gunmen shot more than 1,000 rounds and launched six grenades at the building.

The entire police force in a small Mexican town abruptly resigned Tuesday after its new headquarters was viciously attacked by suspected drug cartel gunmen.

All 14 police officers in Los Ramones, a rural town in northern Mexico, fled the force in terror after gunmen fired more than 1,000 bullets and flung six grenades at their headquarters on Monday night.

No one was injured in the attack. Mayor Santos Salinas Garza told local media that the officers resigned because of the incident.

The gunmen’s 20-minute shooting spree destroyed six police vehicles and left the white and orange police station pocked with bullet holes, the Financial Times reported.

The station had been inaugurated just three days earlier.

The attack was the second in less than a week against police forces in Nuevo Leon. Last week, thugs threw two grenades at police in Sabinas Hidalgo, according to newspaper Noroeste.

Los Ramones is in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, which has been a war zone of turf violence between two of the country’s fiercest drug gangs, the Zetas and the Gulf cartel.

Police have blamed members of both cartels for attacks on several police stations throughout the area. Several mayors in the region have been assassinated.

Mexico’s municipal police forces often quit out of fear after being attacked by cartels.

About 90% of forces have less than 100 officers, and 61% of cops earn less than $322 a month, according to the Finanical Times.

Mexico’s intelligence chief said this summer that nearly 30,000 people have died in drug related crimes since 2006.

With Wire News Services
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 03, 2010, 04:49:29 AM

LFM Connection to 20 ‘Tourists’ Kidnapped in Acapulco

A group of 20 tourists from Morelia, Michoacan state, reportedly kidnapped Oct. 1 in the Costa Azul neighborhood of Acapulco, Guerrero state, was sent on orders from La Familia Michoacana (LFM), Reforma reported Oct. 26, citing Mexican federal security sources. According to the report, LFM sent 22 men to Acapulco (two of the men eluded capture) to “heat up” the region as part of its struggle with its rivals from the Cartel de la Sierra, headed by Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal. Some of their objectives reportedly included assassinating the mayors of Acapulco and nearby San Marco and attacking area schools. Mexican authorities learned that Valdez Villareal had ordered the kidnapping of the 20 during the interrogation of Isidro “El Quirri” Juarez Solis, allegedly the plaza boss for the Acapulco region for the Cartel de la Sierra, whom they detained several days after the 20 were kidnapped.

As STRATFOR noted when reports of the kidnapping emerged Oct. 1, inconsistencies in the initial reports made it seem dubious that those kidnapped were merely tourists, and the Michoacan origins of this group along with the current violence in Acapulco gave the incident the hallmarks of cartel conflict.

The Cartel de la Sierra is the name used by the Valdez Villarreal faction of the former Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), which has operated throughout the region for several years now first for the Sinaloa federation, then for the BLO and now independently. LFM has operated in the Acapulco region for several years, too, but has never had the level of influence that the Valdez Villarreal organization has had. LFM has attempted to wrest control of Acapulco several times, causing periodic spikes of violence and spectacular firefights with rival organizations and Mexican security forces.

There have been at least 21 deaths in the Acapulco region in the wake of the disappearance of the LFM-linked group, and likely more that have gone unreported. The deployment of these 22 LFM operatives, with ambitious objectives even by Mexican standards, reveals another push by LFM in the Acapulco region, with the 21 reported deaths likely the beginning of a new wave of violence between Valdez Villarreal’s organization and LFM. This new LFM offensive could see the Valdez Villarreal organization lose its status as the dominant organization in the region, especially given the recent arrests of senior Valdez Villarreal leadership, especially that of La Barbie himself in August.


October was Juarez’s Deadliest Month of 2010

A total of 350 people were killed in the Ciudad Juarez metro area during October, according to the Chihuahua State Attorney General’s Office, making it the deadliest month of 2010 to date. According to the Attorney General’s Office, Juarez has seen some 2,387 drug trafficking-related deaths in 2010 against 2,666 for the entire state of Chihuahua — and those are only the ones reported. To give some perspective, 2009 was believed to have been the deadliest year on record for the state of Chihuahua, with 2,754 drug trafficking-related deaths. Now, 2010 — which has yet to have a month with fewer than 100 deaths — is on pace to break that record.

No part of the Juarez metro area has been left untouched by the seemingly endless violence despite hosting the largest deployments of Mexican federal security forces, including both Federal Police and members of the military. The violence stems from a three-front war involving the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization (VCF), aka the Juarez cartel, and the Sinaloa Federation headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera. U.S. and Mexican law enforcement have both indicated that the Sinaloa Federation appears to have gained a tactical advantage in the Juarez region and is now the region’s primary trafficker. This appears to have provoked the VCF to employ more extreme tactics, such as deploying vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices against Mexican security forces.

Nothing suggests the violence in Juarez will slow soon, as the three-way war dynamic is not likely to change in the near term. With the Sinaloa Federation appearing to be the dominant cartel in the region, however, the VCF simply cannot maintain the pace at which it is currently operating indefinitely given its current resources. It may take several months or even years for the Sinaloa federation to either co-opt or eliminate the VCF, but it appears that one of those outcomes will be inevitable.



(click here to view interactive map)

Oct. 25

Soldiers arrested four police officers in two separate incidents in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, for allegedly spying on military operations for criminal organizations.
Police arrested eight suspected kidnappers linked to approximately a dozen kidnappings in Mexico City. The suspects were arrested in the municipalities of Ecatepec and Tecamac.

Oct. 26

The bodies of five men were found in the municipality of Temixco, Morelos state. The victims were allegedly associates of Edgar Valdez Villarreal; police found a message at the scene attributing the crime to Cartel Pacifico Sur.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized 57 kilograms of heroin from a bus driven by a U.S. citizen at the Laredo border crossing.
The unidentified bodies of three men and a woman were found in the municipality of San Andres Huayapam, Oaxaca state. The victims bore signs of torture and were partially buried.
Several armed men broke into a morgue in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, to steal the body of a man who died in a firefight earlier in the day.

Oct. 27

Six police officers were injured in a grenade attack against the police headquarters in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas state.
The bodies of three men and a woman were discovered in Acapulco, Guerrero state. The four victims had been blindfolded and bore signs of torture.
Unidentified gunmen killed 15 people at a carwash in Tepic, Nayarit state. The private secretary for the Nayarit state attorney general was reportedly injured during the attack.
Police in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Tijuana, Baja California state, seized approximately 1.5 tons of marijuana and arrested three suspects. The seizure reportedly occurred after soldiers checked two suspicious vehicles during a routine patrol.

Oct. 28

Unidentified gunmen killed five people during an attack on buses carrying factory workers in Caseta, Chihuahua state.
Soldiers in Xalisco, Nayarit state, killed one suspected cartel gunman and arrested 17 others allegedly linked to the murders of 15 carwash employees in Tepic, Nayarit state.
Nine policemen were killed during an ambush in Jilotlan, Jalisco state. One officer was reported missing after the incident.

Oct. 29

Six suspected gunmen allegedly working for an unidentified criminal organization were arrested at an unidentified location along the Monterrey-Saltillo highway. Police seized several automatic rifles, a grenade launcher, several bulletproof vests and 11 communication radios.
Soldiers arrested six suspected CPS gunmen at a safe house in Tejalpa, Morelos state.
Police arrested Francisco Javier Gomez Meza, director of the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco state, for alleged links to organized crime.

Oct. 30

Two suspected cartel gunmen died in Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon state, after several grenades in their vehicle reportedly exploded after their vehicle crashed during a firefight with soldiers.
Unidentified gunmen killed four people at a bar in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state.
Farmers in Ixtlan de los Hervores municipality, Michoacan state, discovered three bodies in an abandoned vehicle.
Police discovered the burned body of Canadian citizen Daniel Allan Dion in the municipality of Eduardo Neri, Guerrero state.

Oct. 31

Unidentified gunmen injured three people in the 15 de Septiembre neighborhood in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.
Unidentified gunmen killed the deputy police commander of Ometepec, Guerrero state.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Nov. 1, 2010 | STRATFOR
Title: Comentarios por favor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 08, 2010, 10:05:03 AM
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/01/10/20100110mex-drugs.html

Drug law changes little for life in Mexico

by Dennis Wagner - Jan. 10, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

AGUA PRIETA, Sonora - A few blocks from the municipal police station, on the morning after a cartel gunfight took four more lives in Sonora, drug dealers cruise the streets of La Zona Roja with cellphones in their hands.

Addicts in a local treatment center say these "carros alegres," or happy cars, bring crack cocaine to consumers with all the speed and reliability of a pizza delivery.

The happy cars are one more sign of Mexico's growing drug-abuse problem and serve as a backdrop to the government's decision in August to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of narcotics. When the measure was adopted, President Felipe Calderón and Mexico's Congress said they wanted to concentrate law-enforcement efforts on the ruthless cartels that are blamed for an estimated 13,000 deaths since Calderón declared a war on drugs in December 2006. Calderón also said decriminalization of personal-use quantities would thwart corrupt Mexican cops who sometimes shake down drug users for bribes.

The measure incited controversy from Mexico City to Washington, D.C. Legalization advocates suggested that America's closest neighbor and ally in the drug war had finally recognized the waste of filling prisons with non-violent addicts who need treatment rather than punishment. Drug-enforcement hard-liners warned that eliminating criminal charges for drug abuse would lead to increased public consumption and addiction, perhaps even spawning narco-tourism by Americans looking to get high legally in Mexico.

That the happy cars still cruise about Agua Prieta suggests that critics and supporters overestimated the law's possible effects, both on drug violence and the scourge of addiction.

The reform seems to have had more impact in the rhetorical war over drug decriminalization than it has on Mexican streets. Rather than claiming victory, legalization advocates say the new law may even make things worse because of the way it's written. Conversely, anti-legalization groups condemn the measure because it appears to legitimize drug abuse.

Beneath the lofty debate, cops, treatment counselors, government officials, researchers and addicts interviewed last month said there have been no discernible changes related to the new law.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 10, 2010, 06:58:41 PM
10
NOV

The BBC has an article up on the gun-smuggling from the US to Mexico.  In typically one-sided fashion, it mentions that guns seized from narcos in Mexico are often traced back to the United States, and that the ATF isn’t effectively fighting this problem.

For those without much knowledge on the subject, it gives the impression that there’s a flood of illegal guns being bought in the US across the counter legally, and then shipped into Mexico to fuel the gun crime there–blaming our “lax gun laws” for Mexico’s narco turf war violence.

First of all, let’s point out that Mexico has a narco problem because the US has a hard-on for drug prohibition, not because Americans can buy guns legally.  I’ve often read that canard about drug buyers financing drug crime with their purchases, but the simple twofold truth is that a.) people will always desire and buy mind-altering substances, no matter what the law says, and b.) the War on Drugs serves as a price control mechanism and profit guarantee for dealers and traffickers.

Second, let’s look at that article a little more closely.  The picture that accompanies it shows a bunch of 40mm grenade launchers along with ammunition.  Looking at that, your average BBC reader could be lead to believe that those things are legal to buy and own freely in the US, and that they originated at a US gun show or gun store.  Grenade launchers are, of course, illegal to own, purchase, or sell in the United States without a special registration and tax stamp.  Grenade launchers are tightly controlled “destructive devices”, as is their ammunition.  (Every single 40mm grenade is also classified as a DD, and subject to a $200 transfer tax per round.  Each grenade must be individually registered with the BATFE, which makes them super-expensive and very rare to find in civilian hands.)  Considering the difficulty and expense of obtaining a launcher and the ammo for it, never mind the fact that every single launcher and round is registered to an owner with the ATF, I guarantee that the 40mm launchers in that picture came not from the US, but from Mexican military armories.

Third, the language in the article isn’t quite misleading, but it omits a few facts.  We are told that “the majority of guns confiscated by Mexico and submitted to the ATF for tracing do originate in the US <emphasis mine>.”  What it doesn’t mention is that the majority of guns seized from Mexican narcos do not originate in the US.  The Mexican Federales do not submit most of their seized guns to the ATF for tracing because they know their provenance already.  Mexico uses a licensed version of the H&K G36 assault rifle, for example, and whenever one of those shows up, they know it didn’t walk out of a gun store in San Antonio.  (They also use the licensed version of the H&K 40mm grenade launcher, which happens to look exactly like the weapon in the center of the picture.)  So they only send the serial numbers of the non-domestic guns to the ATF, which is the minority of seized weapons.  Reading the article over a quick latte, one could however get the impression that most of the crime guns in Mexico are traced back to the US, because they omit that information.

Lastly, even those guns that were bought in the US and then smuggled into Mexico for use by narcos didn’t get sold to Mexican nationals legally.  Gun shops have to run federal background checks on every single gun purchase, and foreign nationals, with few exceptions, are not eligible to buy firearms in the United States.  If a rifle made it from a legal buyer into the hands of a Mexican criminal, the person buying the rifle and then handing it to said criminal broke federal law.  (Buying a gun for a non-eligible person is called a “straw sale”, and will get you ten years in Club Fed.)

Mexico has plenty of problems, but corruption (where and how do you think the narcos get Mexican military hardware?) and the economic incentives created by drug prohibition make up the lion’s share of those, not legal gun sales in the United States.  You want to curb the flow of guns and stop the violence in Mexico, you stop guaranteeing those dealers and traffickers a 10,000% profit margin on some powdered plant product.  Drug dealers don’t care about cocaine or “poisoning America’s children”, they care about profit.  If you held a voter referendum on keeping or tossing drug prohibition, all the drug dealers in the country would vote to keep them illegal.  Take away their price control system, and they’ll go the way of the booze runners of the Prohibition era.

But nobody’s going to do that, of course.  Between asset forfeiture, inability to learn from the Prohibition, the suitability of drug laws to curb inconvenient liberties, and the millions on the payroll of drug task forces and agencies nationwide, that wouldn’t be good business.  And civil liberties continue to take it in the pants.

Remember: a vote for drug prohibition is a vote for gun control.  Without illicit substance turf wars, we wouldn’t even have NFA ’34, GCA ’68, or the 1994 Crime Bill.  We wouldn’t have asset forfeiture, RICO, or any of the many other onerous laws that shackle our movements and make a mockery of the Bill of Rights.  But point that out to a self-righteous dope prohibitionist, and you get the old saw about the damage drugs can do, and do you want to see schoolchildren legally light up crack pipes in front of the CVS at eight in the morning?  It’s the same kind of arrogant paternalism that the gun banners display when they talk about how blood would flow in the streets if we removed all the restrictions on gun ownership and carry.  “Well, I know that I wouldn’t abuse them, but I’m damned sure those peasants all around me couldn’t handle the liberty…”

http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/lies-half-truths-and-omissions/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 16, 2010, 08:18:19 AM
Federal Deployment to Tamaulipas

The Mexican government is reported to have significantly augmented federal security forces in the northern Tamaulipas border region with a deployment of both Mexican army troops and Federal Police agents, bringing the number of federal security forces in the region to nearly 3,000. These forces, which have been arriving since Nov. 13, will be primarily deployed to the areas around Ciudad Mier, Camargo, Nuevo Guerrero, Miguel Aleman and Diaz Ordaz, or more generally in the rural stretch between the major metropolitan areas of Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo along the Tamaulipas-South Texas border. This deployment will be in addition to the Mexican Marine forces already deployed to the region, as well as the Mexican army operating in the military’s 7th and 8th zones, which are headquartered in Escobedo, Nuevo Leon and Reynosa, respectively. Additionally, there are reports that a Mexican special operations unit will be deployed from Mexico City to the Tamaulipas border region as well to conduct high-risk operations, possibly targeting high-value cartel targets. Military officials also have indicated that they will be establishing checkpoints in the region and will be inspecting 100 percent of both passenger and cargo vehicles.

Though the new deployment of federal forces to the area is sizable, the total number of federal forces in the region pales in comparison to other federal security operations, such as Coordinated Operation Chihuahua, which boasts close to 10,000 forces deployed primarily in northern Chihuahua. The Tamaulipas deployment also will allow particular branches of the military and Federal Police to have more specified roles in the operations. According to Mexican military officials, Mexican Marines will primarily be tasked with intelligence operations and to a lesser extent will conduct joint patrols with the army and Federal Police. The Federal Police will base the majority of their operations in more urban areas, including Reynosa, Matamoros and to a lesser extent Nuevo Laredo. Mexican army personnel will primarily be tasked with operations in the more rural areas, including checkpoints outside urban centers.

This deployment comes at a time when tensions between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas are high in large part due to the Nov. 5 death of Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta” Cardenas Guillen. Tony Tormenta’s death set in motion a likely offensive on the part of Los Zetas to retake control of the Tamaulipas-South Texas border region lost earlier in the year to the Gulf cartel and their allies in the New Federation.

Los Zetas have made bold moves in battleground like Ciudad Mier, Camargo and Miguel Aleman. The group has all but taken over portions of these towns, forcing residents to flee in the wake of Tony Tormenta’s death. One such brazen takeover reportedly occurred Nov. 5 in Ciudad Mier, where alleged members of Los Zetas were reported to be running through the streets screaming that all the residents in the area must vacate the city or be killed. More than 300 people are estimated to have left the city reportedly seeking shelter in nearby Miguel Aleman, where at least two temporary housing settlements have been set up. It appears that Los Zetas are using both of these small towns as a staging area for a possible assault on the much larger Reynosa metropolitan area some 65-80 kilometers (40-50 miles) to the southeast.

The death of Tony Tormenta could not have come at a worse time for the Gulf cartel. The Gulf cartel was part of the New Federation alliance which included La Familia Michoacana (LFM) and the Sinaloa Federation, but developments in the past three months have strained the relationship between the three, with the once-powerful alliance reduced to a non-aggression agreement between the Gulf cartel and its two former allies. LFM fell out of the Sinaloa Federation’s favor after attempting to move in on the methamphetamine production and trafficking market in Jalisco and Colima states after the death of Sinaloa No. 3 Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel Villarreal in July. LFM’s defense of its territory in its home state of Michoacan also has drawn Sinaloa’s ire. The Sinaloa Federation has been of little help to the Gulf cartel in recent months as Sinaloa has been dedicating large amounts of its resources and focus to the conflict in Juarez. The group traditionally has held very little influence in the Tamaulipas region.

Further leaving the Gulf cartel exposed, in the months leading up to the death of Tony Tormenta, Mexican federal security forces dealt a serious blow to cells associated with the Gulf cartel leader, arresting more than 50 operatives and making numerous weapons and cash seizures. This leaves the remaining Gulf cartel leader, Eduardo “El Coss” Costilla Sanchez, and the cells associated with him extremely vulnerable to any Los Zetas offensive.

With the increase in tensions and posturing between Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel along with the influx of Mexican federal security forces in the region, violence in the Tamaulipas border area is likely to escalate in the weeks to come. The deployment of more federal security forces increases the likelihood that they will come in contact with one of the two criminal groups operating in the region, resulting in firefights between criminals and security forces. Additionally, aside from the obvious risk of bodily harm from being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, this likely increase in fighting and along with the expanded presence of security forces will present significant disruptions to businesses and visitors in the region. Narco-blockades, a tactic both Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel use, create an elevated degree of risk of carjacking (especially for high-profile vehicles such as SUVs, trucks and tractor trailers) as well as logistical complications from the resulting traffic jams. Logistical issues also will arise from the 100 percent inspection rate at the military checkpoints that have been and will be established in the region and from the military personnel manning the checkpoints’ lack of training in interacting with civilians.



(click here to view interactive map)

Nov. 8

Soldiers in Zapopan, Jalisco state, killed two men and arrested another during a firefight at a suspected methamphetamine lab. A passerby was injured during the incident.
Unidentified gunmen killed the police commander of the municipality of Pabellon de Arteaga, Aguascalientes state, as he drove near his home.

Nov. 9

Police seized 531 kilograms (about 1,170 pounds) of marijuana from a steel shipment in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. Authorities said the drugs arrived from Leon, Guanajuato state. No arrests were made during the incident.
Security forces in Acapulco, Guerrero state, discovered the decapitated bodies of two police officers near the settlement of La Venta. The victims’ tongues had been removed and both bodies bore signs of torture.
Police discovered several body parts in a plastic bag floating in a sewage ditch in Ecatepec, Mexico state. Local residents called the police after spotting a dog carrying a human hand in its mouth.
Soldiers in Piedras Negras, Coahuila state, freed 10 kidnapped migrants and arrested six suspected kidnappers during a raid on a house.
Police in Puente de Ixtla, Morelos state, arrested a suspected associate of Edgar Valdez Villarreal. The suspect allegedly controlled drug trafficking routes through central Mexico.

Nov. 10

Suspected LFM members hung banners in Zitacuaro, Maravatio and Ciudad Hidalgo, Michoacan state, stating the cartel’s alleged intent to disband and seek a truce with the government.
Officers from the state attorney general’s office discovered the bodies of two men in a house allegedly owned by the Beltran Leyva Organization in Bosques de Las Lomas neighborhood of Mexico City.
Soldiers arrested two municipal policemen in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state, for allegedly surveilling a security forces raid on a motel.
Unidentified gunmen fired at the offices of the El Sur newspaper in Acapulco, Guerrero state. No injuries were reported.

Nov. 11

Unidentified attackers threw two grenades at the state security and roads offices in Gomez Palacio, Durango state. No injuries were reported in the attack.
Police found the body of a man in the trunk of an abandoned car in the Coyoacan neighborhood of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state. The victim had been shot in the head.
Police in Santa Rosa, Morelos state, arrested three suspected high-ranking associates of Edgar Valdez Villarreal after a car chase that began in Oaxtepec, Morelos state, after the three suspects failed to stop at a police roadblock.

Nov. 12

One suspected cartel gunman was killed in a firefight with soldiers in the Terminal neighborhood in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state. The shooting began when a convoy of suspected gunmen did not heed the soldiers’ order to stop.
Three severed heads were discovered outside a municipal government office in Chalchihuites, Zacatecas state. A message claiming the crime was revenge for a previous homicide in Chalchihuites was left near the heads.
Police arrested seven people suspected of working as lookouts for Los Zetas in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.

Nov. 13

Police discovered the bodies of two men and a woman hanging from a bridge in Tepic, Nayarit state. A message was discovered near the bodies.
The bodies of two unidentified men were found in the trunk of an abandoned car in the municipality of Cuautla, Morelos state.
Unidentified gunmen killed a Chihuahua state prison official as he drove with his son in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. The child was injured during the attack.

Nov. 14

Police discovered five bodies in an orchard in the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood of Acapulco, Guerrero state.
Five people were killed and eight were injured when a group of unidentified gunmen opened fire on patrons at a bar in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 09, 2010, 08:49:12 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/08/AR2010120806379.html

Posiblemente si Uds no fueron desarmados eso habira ocurido antes ahora , , ,
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 16, 2010, 06:51:03 AM
Mexico and the Cartel Wars in 2010
December 16, 2010


Editor’s Note: This week’s Security Weekly is a heavily abridged version of STRATFOR’s annual report on Mexico’s drug cartels. The full report, which includes far more detail and diagrams depicting the leadership of each cartel along with our updated cartel map, will be available to our members on Dec. 20.

By Scott Stewart

Related Link
Mexican Drug Cartels: Two Wars and a Look Southward
Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
In our 2010 annual report on Mexico’s drug cartels, we assess the most significant developments of the past year and provide an updated description of the dynamics among the country’s powerful drug-trafficking organizations, along with an account of the government’s effort to combat the cartels and a forecast of the battle in 2011. The annual cartel report is a product of the coverage STRATFOR maintains on a weekly basis through our Mexico Security Memo as well as other analyses we produce throughout the year. In response to customer requests for more and deeper coverage of Mexico, STRATFOR will also introduce a new product in 2011 designed to provide an enhanced level of reporting and analysis.

In 2010, the cartel wars in Mexico have produced unprecedented levels of violence throughout the country. No longer concentrated in just a few states, the violence has spread all across the northern tier of border states and along much of both the east and west coasts of Mexico. This year’s drug-related homicides have surpassed 11,000, an increase of more than 4,400 deaths from 2009 and more than double the death toll in 2008.


Cartel Dynamics

The high levels of violence seen in 2010 have been caused not only by long-term struggles such as the fight between the Sinaloa Federation and the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization (also known as the Juarez cartel) for control of the Juarez smuggling corridor but also from the outbreak of new conflicts among various players in the cartel landscape. For example, simmering tensions between Los Zetas and their former partners in the Gulf cartel finally boiled over and quickly escalated into a bloody turf war along the U.S.-Tamaulipas state border. The conflict has even spread to states like Nuevo Leon, Hidalgo and Tabasco and has given birth to an alliance between the Sinaloa Federation, the Gulf cartel and La Familia Michoacana (LFM) called the New Federation.

Last December, it appeared that Los Zetas were poised to make a move to assume control over much, if not all, of the Gulf cartel’s territory. The Gulf cartel knew it could not take on Los Zetas alone with its current capabilities so in desperation it reached out to its main rivals in Mexico — the Sinaloa Federation and LFM — for help, thus forming the New Federation. With the added resources from the New Federation, the Gulf cartel was able to take the fight to Los Zetas and actually forced its former partners out of one of their traditional strongholds in Reynosa. The New Federation also expanded its offensive operations to other regions traditionally held by Los Zetas, namely the city of Monterrey and the states of Nuevo Leon, Hidalgo and Veracruz.

This resulted in Los Zetas being pushed back on their heels throughout the country, and by June it looked as if Los Zetas’ days might be numbered. However, a chain of events that began with the July 28 death of Sinaloa Federation No. 3 Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel served to weaken the alliance and forced the Sinaloa and LFM to direct attention and resources to other parts of the country, thus giving Los Zetas some room to regroup. The situation along the border in eastern Mexico is still very fluid and the contest between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas for control of the region will continue in 2011.



(click here to enlarge image)
The death of Arturo Beltran Leyva in December 2009 in a Mexican marine raid led to a vicious battle between factions of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) for control of the group, pitting Arturo’s brother, Hector Beltran Leyva, against Arturo’s right-hand man, Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal. The war between the two BLO factions ended with the arrests of the leadership of the Valdez Villarreal faction, including La Barbie himself on Aug. 30, and this faction has been heavily damaged if not completely dissolved. Hector’s BLO faction adopted the name Cartel Pacifico Sur (CPS), or the South Pacific Cartel, to distance itself from the elements associated with Valdez that still clung to the BLO moniker. The CPS has aligned itself with Los Zetas against Sinaloa and LFM and has actively fought to stake a claim to the Colima and Manzanillo regions in addition to making inroads in Michoacan.

After being named the most violent organized-crime group in Mexico by former Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora in 2009, LFM has been largely a background player in 2010 and was active on two main fronts: the offensive against Los Zetas as part of the New Federation in northeastern Mexico and the fight against elements of the CPS and Los Zetas in southern Michoacan and Guerrero states, particularly around the resort area of Acapulco. LFM and CPS have been locked in a heated battle for supremacy in the Acapulco region for the past two years and this conflict shows no signs of stopping, especially since the CPS appears to have recently launched a new offensive against LFM in the southern regions of Michoacan. Additionally, after the death of Sinaloa leader El Nacho Coronel in July and the subsequent dismantlement of his network, LFM attempted to take over the Jalisco and Colima trafficking corridors, reportedly straining relations between the Sinaloa Federation and LFM.

LFM has been hard hit in the latter months of 2010, its losses on the battlefield amplified by the arrest of several senior operatives in early December. The Dec. 10 death of LFM spiritual leader Nazario “El Mas Loco” Moreno Gonzalez will further challenge the organization, and STRATFOR will be carefully watching LFM over the next several weeks for additional signs that it is collapsing.

Two former heavyweights on the Mexican drug-trafficking scene have continued a declining trajectory in 2010: the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization/Juarez cartel (VCF) and the Arellano Felix Organization/Tijuana cartel (AFO). The VCF continues to lose ground to the Sinaloa Federation throughout Chihuahua state, most notably in the Ciudad Juarez area. The VCF’s influence has largely been confined to the urban areas of the state, Juarez and Chihuahua, though it appears that its influence is waning even in its traditional strongholds (Sinaloa now appears to be moving narcotics through the Juarez smuggling corridor). Following a bitter war between two factions of the AFO, the organization is a shell of its former self. While the AFO faction under the leadership of Fernando “El Ingeniero” Sanchez Arellano emerged victorious over the faction led by Eduardo “El Teo” Garcia Simental, who was a Sinaloa Federation proxy, it appears that Sanchez Arellano has reached an agreement with Sinaloa and is allowing it to move narcotics through Tijuana.

In the past, these sorts of agreements have proved to be temporary — one need only look at recent history in Juarez and the cooperation between Sinaloa and the VCF. Because of this, it is likely at some point that the Sinaloa Federation will begin to refuse to pay taxes to the AFO. When that happens, it will be important to see if the AFO has the capability to do anything about it.

The death of El Nacho Coronel and the damage-control efforts associated with the dismantlement of his network, along with the continued focus on the conflict in Juarez, forced the Sinaloa Federation to pull back from other commitments, such as its operations against Los Zetas as part of the New Federation. On the business-operations side, Sinaloa has made inroads in other regions and other continents. As noted above, the organization also has reportedly made progress in extending its control over the lucrative Tijuana smuggling corridor and is making significant progress in asserting control over the Juarez corridor.

Over the past few years, Sinaloa has gained control of, or access to, smuggling corridors all along Mexico’s northern border from Tijuana to Juarez. This means that Sinaloa appears to be the group that has fared the best over the past few years amid the intensifying violence. This would apply more specifically to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera and his faction of the Sinaloa Federation, which has benefited greatly by events since 2006. In addition to the fall of external foes like the AFO and Juarez cartels, he has seen the downfall of strong Sinaloa personalities who could have risen up to contest his leadership, men like Alfredo Beltran Leyva and El Nacho Coronel. Sinaloa members who attract a lot of adverse publicity for the federation, such as Enrique “El Cumbais” Lopez Acosta also seem to run into bad luck with some frequency. Additionally, STRATFOR sources continue to report a sustained effort by the Sinaloa Federation to expand its logistical network farther into Europe and its influence deeper into Central America and South America.


Escalation

Some of the groups that have borne the brunt of the cartel wars, such as Los Zetas, the AFO and the VCF, have seen a decrease in their ability to move narcotics. This has forced them to look for other sources of income, which typically means diversifying into other criminal enterprises. A steady stream of income is important for the cartels because it takes a lot of money to hire and equip armed enforcer units required to guard against incursions from rival cartels and the Mexican government. It also takes money to purchase narcotics and to maintain the networks required to smuggle them from South America into the United States. This reliance on other criminal enterprises to generate income is not a new development for cartel groups. Los Zetas have long been active in human smuggling, oil theft, extortion and contract enforcement, while the VCF and AFO have traditionally been involved in extortion and kidnap-for-ransom operations. However, as these groups found themselves with their backs against the wall in 2010, they began to escalate their criminal fundraising operations. This increase in extortion and kidnapping has had a noticeable effect on businesses and wealthy families in several cities, including Monterrey, Mexico’s industrial capital. The wave of kidnapping in Monterrey even led to the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey ordering the departure of all minor dependents of U.S. government personnel beginning in September.

Some of the more desperate cartel groups also began to employ improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in 2010. The VCF has made no secret about its belief that the Federal Police are working for and protecting the Sinaloa Federation in Juarez. Following the July 15 arrest of a high-ranking VCF lieutenant, VCF enforcers from La Linea conducted a fairly sophisticated ambush directed against the Federal Police using a small IED hidden inside a car containing a cadaver that the attackers called in to police. The blast killed two Federal Police agents and injured several more at the scene. La Linea attempted to deploy another IED under similar circumstances Sept. 10 in Juarez, but Federal Police agents were able to identify the IED and call in the Mexican military to defuse the device. La Linea has threatened to use more and larger IEDs but has yet to follow through on those threats.

There were also three small IEDs deployed in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state, in August. On Aug. 5, a substation housing the rural patrol element of the Municipal Transit Police was attacked with a small IED concealed inside a vehicle. Then on Aug. 27, two other IEDs placed in cars successfully detonated outside Televisa studios and a Municipal Transit Police station in Ciudad Victoria. The Ciudad Victoria IED attacks were never claimed, but Los Zetas are thought to be the culprits. The geographic and cartel-territorial disparity between Ciudad Victoria and Juarez makes it unlikely that the same bombmaker is responsible for all the devices encountered in Mexico this year.

To date, the explosive devices deployed by cartel groups in Mexico have been small, and La Linea and the Ciudad Victoria bomber did show some discretion by not intentionally targeting large groups of civilians in their attacks. However, should cartel groups continue to deploy IEDs, the imprecise nature of such devices will increase the risk of innocent civilians becoming collateral damage. This will be especially true if the size of the devices is increased, as La Linea has threatened to do. The cartels clearly have the skills required to build and deploy larger devices should they so choose, and explosives are plentiful and easy to obtain in Mexico.


Outlook

The administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderon has dismantled several cartel networks and captured or killed their leaders in 2010, most notably Sinaloa No. 3 Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel Villarreal and Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal. While such operations have succeeded in eliminating several very dangerous people and disrupting their organizations, however, they have also served to further upset the balance of power among Mexico’s criminal organizations. This imbalance has increased the volatility of the country’s security environment by creating a sort of vicious feeding frenzy among the various organizations as they seek to preserve their own turf or seize territory from rival organizations.

Calderon has also taken steps to shift the focus from the controversial strategy of using the Mexican military as the primary tool to wage war against the cartels to using the newly reformed Federal Police. While the military still remains the most reliable security tool available to the Mexican government, the Federal Police have been given more responsibility in Juarez and northeast Mexico, the nation’s most contentious hot spots. Calderon has also planted the seeds to reform the states’ security organizations with a unified command in hopes of professionalizing each state’s security force to the point where the states do not have to rely on the federal government to combat organized crime. Meanwhile, the Mexican Congress has take steps to curb the ability of the president to deploy the military domestically by proposing a National Security Act that would require a state governor or legislature to first request the deployment of the military rather than permitting the federal government to act unilaterally.

The successes that the Calderon administration has scored against some major cartel figures such as La Barbie and El Nacho in 2010 have helped foster some public confidence in the war against the cartels, but disruptions to the balance of power among the cartels have added to the violence, which is clearly evidenced by the steep climb in the death toll. As long as the cartel landscape remains fluid, with the balance of power between the cartels and the government in a constant state of flux, the violence is unlikely to end or even recede.

This means that Calderon is at a crossroads. The increasing level of violence is seen as unacceptable by the public and the government’s resources are stretched to the limit. Unless all the cartel groups can be decapitated and brought under control — something that is highly unlikely given the government’s limitations — the only way to reduce the violence is to restore the balance of power among the cartels. This balance can be achieved if a small number of cartels come to dominate the cartel landscape and are able to conduct business as usual rather than fight continually for turf and survival. Calderon must take steps to restore this balance in the next year if he hopes to quell the violence and give his National Action Party a chance to maintain power in the 2012 Mexican presidential elections. In Mexico, 2011 promises to be an interesting year indeed.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 21, 2010, 09:46:43 AM
IED attack on Police in Nuevo Leon

A small improvised explosive device (IED) detonated around 1 p.m. Dec. 17 inside a sport-utility vehicle outside the Zuazua Public Security Secretariat offices (the equivalent of a municipal police station) in Zuazua, Nuevo Leon state. In addition to destroying the vehicle, the blast injured at least three people and damaged several surrounding vehicles. A message attributed to the Sinaloa Federation and Gulf cartel addressed to “Zeta Police” was found shortly thereafter near the site of the explosion that read, “The state of Nuevo Leon does not guarantee the security of its citizens in the state, and more than a thousand kidnappings are not reported for fear of the authorities. Eleven more car bombs are waiting to be detonated to bring justice for the kidnapped, for the police and corrupt officials are aware.” Nuevo Leon authorities have been quick to say the claim of 11 more IEDs is false, but have offered little in the way of proof. Additionally, authorities have not officially said whether they believe area drug-trafficking organizations were involved in the attack, despite the very public message.

This attack is the year’s fifth successful deployment of an IED against a specified target in Mexico; one occurred in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, and three occurred near Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state. While there has not been any indication as to the composition or exact size of the device, photographic evidence of the blast scene indicates that the device was relatively small and on the scale seen with other devices deployed in the country this year.

The enforcement arm of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes (VCF) organization, La Linea, was responsible for the Juarez IED on July 15, and the group indicated after the attack that it would continue its “car bomb” campaign as long as the Federal Police continued to support the Sinaloa Federation, which the VCF accuses the police of doing. Despite these warnings, only one other IED was deployed in Juarez, a few weeks later, and the Mexican military was able to render it safe before it detonated. However, it appears from the message left near the scene and the geographic disparity between Juarez and Nuevo Leon that entirely different actors were responsible for the Dec. 17 incident.

The message falls in line with the strategy pursued by the New Federation alliance. In the spring, elements of the New Federation began taking the fight against Los Zetas to their stronghold in the Monterrey metro region, targeting not only Los Zetas members and operatives but also their support network in the region, including local politicians and local and regional police.

It remains to be seen whether the Sinaloa Federation and the Gulf cartel will actually follow through with a sustained bombing campaign against law enforcement believed to be associated with Los Zetas. If the groups do follow through with their pledge to deploy 11 more IEDs, it would be a significant escalation in the tempo of these types of attacks. While IED attacks in the country thus far have been discriminating in their targeting, the imprecise nature of IEDs greatly increases the risk of civilian casualties.


Nuevo Laredo Prison Break

A prison break the morning of Dec. 17 at the Center for Social Readaptation (CERESO) in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, led to the escape of between 141 and 192 prisoners (the latest figure reported was 151). This is merely the latest in a string of prison breaks in Tamaulipas since January; the total number of prisoners having escaped in the state this year is more than 300.

In the Dec. 17 escape, the prisoners (reportedly both federal and local), working with complicit guards, were able to exit the prison facilities through a service entrance into waiting vehicles. Additionally, the prison director was reported missing the morning of Dec. 17. Multiple source reports indicate Los Zetas were the primary orchestrators of the escape, with some STRATFOR sources saying Los Zetas’ motivation was to augment their forces in the region. The prisoners were reportedly told that once released, they either must work for Los Zetas or be killed. Additionally, STRATFOR sources said the nephew of Los Zetas No. 2 Miguel “Z-40” Trevino Morales was one of the escapees from the CERESO unit.

Los Zetas have experienced several setbacks throughout much of 2010, with several regional plaza bosses and numerous operatives being killed or apprehended. However, developments in the last few months have weakened the Gulf cartel and the New Federation’s grip on Tamaulipas border region, and Los Zetas appear to be poised to regain some of their lost ground, particularly in the Reynosa and Matamoros regions. If the reported ultimatum for the freed prisoners is correct, this influx of forces for Los Zetas could provide the necessary resources to begin a campaign to retake these lost areas. However, the true number of prisoners that will actually go to work for Los Zetas remains to be seen; some likely will renege on their promise and slip back into Mexican society — only now with a bounty on their heads.



(click here to view interactive map)

Dec. 13

Unidentified gunmen shot a man to death during a suspected kidnapping in the Jardines Universidad neighborhood of Guadalajara, Jalisco state.
The body of an unidentified person was discovered near Tlajomulco, Jalisco state. The body was wrapped in a blanket tied together with a string and had a bag over its head.

Dec. 14

Four police officers were reportedly shot to death by a fellow police officer in Cancun, Quintana Roo state. The attacker later committed suicide.
Police found a decapitated body in the trunk of a car in the Ejidos de San Agustin neighborhood of Chimalhuacan, Mexico state. The victim’s head had been placed on the trunk lid.
Two decapitated bodies were found on a soccer field in Huixquilucan, Mexico state.

Dec. 15

In a recorded message released to a TV station, La Familia Michoacana (LFM) leader Servando Gomez Martinez called on his followers to continue fighting and called for more marches against the federal government. Gomez Martinez also confirmed the death of Nazario Gomez in Michoacan state during the week of Dec. 13.
The dismembered body of a man was found in several bags in Guadalajara, Jalisco state. A handwritten sign near the victim attributed the crime to the Jalisco Cartel, New Generation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the arrests of eight suspected members of LFM in Georgia and North Carolina. One of those arrested is believed to be the primary supplier of illegal drugs for LFM in Washington.
Unidentified gunmen shot and injured two police officers in Allende, Nuevo Leon state.
Authorities were alerted through an anonymous call about three boxes allegedly containing explosives that were placed near separate hospitals in Cuernavaca, Morelos state. The boxes contained clocks inside and were designed to give the appearance of being explosive devices.

Dec. 16

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police guard post in the Roma neighborhood of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, but did not cause any injuries.
One suspected cartel gunman was killed and two bystanders were injured during a firefight between soldiers and gunmen in the La Estanzuela neighborhood of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.

Dec. 17

Unidentified gunmen kidnapped two employees from the nightclub where they worked in Acapulco, Guerrero state. The victims were later discovered shot to death.
A decapitated head was discovered wrapped in cloth inside a bag outside a bar near Texcoco, Mexico state.
A car with explosives inside was detonated outside a police station in Zuazua, Nuevo Leon state. Approximately 151 inmates escaped from a prison in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. The director of the prison was reported missing after the escape.

Dec. 18

Federal security forces arrested four police officers suspected of participating in an attack on other police forces in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state on Dec. 16. Ten other officers had been arrested Dec. 17 for their alleged participation in the attack.
An e-mail sent to news outlets by a group calling itself the “Ex-Mysterious Disappearers” announced that former legislator Diego Fernandez de Cevallos will be freed soon by his kidnappers.

Dec. 19

Unidentified gunmen forced security personnel to pull back from a crime scene where a decapitated body was present in Juarez, Nuevo Leon state. The gunmen reportedly arrived to recover the body.
Military authorities announced the seizure of a suspected methamphetamine lab in the municipality of Tuxpan, Jalisco state.
Authorities announced the arrest of suspected Colombian drug trafficker Jerson Enrique Camacho Cedeno in an unspecified part of Mexico. Camacho Cedeno is allegedly linked to Los Zetas.
Title: Blog del narco
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 11, 2011, 08:49:19 AM
http://www.blogdelnarco.com/2011/01/confesiones-de-un-zeta.html#more
Title: ?Son de Mexico?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 13, 2011, 02:41:26 PM
?Son estos soldados del ejercito mexicano?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fuerzas_Especiales_Michoac%C3%A1n.jpg
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: jcordova on January 14, 2011, 10:46:31 PM
Si, son de los GAFES : Grupo Aeromovil de Fuerzas Especiales (Air, Movil Special Forces)
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 17, 2011, 12:58:21 PM
Gracias, jcordova. 

He aqui un analysis sobre la situacion en Tiajuana:

Summary
Baja California state, with its lucrative port of entry into the United States in Tijuana, is among the most sought-after territory for Mexico’s drug cartels. For years the state was controlled by the Arellano Felix Organization until that group’s disintegration and the rise of perhaps Mexico’s most powerful cartel, the Sinaloa Federation. Learning from its past experience, the Sinaloa Federation has moved over the past year to decentralize control among autonomous cells in order to prevent any single faction from becoming too dominant, and breaking off to form its own rival cartel, which has already led to a more stable security environment in the region.

Analysis
The criminal landscape in Mexico’s Baja California state has changed dramatically over the past year, and so have the internal workings of arguably the most powerful cartel in Mexico, the Sinaloa Federation. Dominated by the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) in the 1990s and early 2000s, crackdowns by the Mexican government and internal divisions in the AFO led to the eventual rise of the Sinaloa Federation in Baja California in late 2010.

Taking its own experience with internal divisions into account, the Sinaloa Federation has adjusted its approach, decentralizing control and ensuring that no one faction becomes powerful enough to split from its parent organization and hold the lucrative Tijuana port of entry into the United States and its surroundings for itself. Despite the increase in organized criminal activity in the region over the past few months, this move has led to a more predictable security environment in the greater Baja California region — a drastic change from only a year ago.

Throughout the 1990s, Tijuana was controlled by the AFO, but a string of arrests and deaths of senior leaders of the groups — namely the Arellano Felix brothers, who made up the core leadership of the AFO beginning in the late 1990s and into the early 2000s — left the group’s operational capability severely diminished. Internal fighting between the faction loyal to the Arellano Felix brothers’ successor, Fernando “El Ingeniero” Sanchez Arellano, and those loyal to the group’s top enforcer, Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, led to a further degradation of the organization in the beginning of 2008. This conflict sparked incredible levels of violence in the region, until the Garcia Simental faction was dismantled by the Mexican Federal Police in January 2010. Out of desperation, Garcia Simental attempted to win back power by reaching out to the Sinaloa Federation for backing against Sanchez Arellano, knowing that the Sinaloa Federation had been trying to move into the lucrative Tijuana region for several years.

The strategy failed and the Garcia Simental faction was marginalized by Mexican security forces, but this left the AFO under Sanchez Arellano extremely weak, with only a few remaining cells still operating in the region. In the latter half of 2010, the Sinaloa Federation used the opening Garcia Simental had given it to solidify control over parts of western Baja California state, namely the Tecate and Mexicali regions, putting Sinaloa in prime position to seize Tijuana. The AFO knew it could not withstand another lengthy battle to retain control of its home territory against a much larger force with vast resources, and a deal was struck between the two organizations. The deal allows both organizations to operate independently and includes a nonaggression pact, securing for the Sinaloa Federation its long-awaited access to the lucrative port of entry into the United States.

As the Sinaloa Federation prepared to send its assets into the region in early 2010, it implemented a business plan for Tijuana that differed from its previous approach. Rather than have a traditional plaza boss who heads several cells and coordinates shipments of illicit goods across the border, the Sinaloa Federation sent numerous autonomous cells to work in the same area under the direction of Sinaloa No. 2 Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia. This information was finally made public by the Tijuana publication Zeta Tijuana (no association with the criminal organization Los Zetas) after it was able to obtain information from the interrogation of an aspiring Sinaloa cell leader in Tijuana, Jesus “El Tomate” Israel de La Cruz, who was arrested Jan. 4.

According to Israel de La Cruz, this new business structure with multiple autonomous cells working together was adopted after the Beltran Leyva brothers, who formed an important faction within Sinaloa, became too powerful and split from the Sinaloa Federation in 2008. A similar instance occurred with the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization in Juarez. This strategy is intended to prevent one cell leader from becoming too powerful, and therefore to keep them dependent on the parent organization, the Sinaloa Federation.

While this approach has generally stabilized the Tijuana region compared to the situation from 2008 to 2010, there is still some dissonance among the cells. A record 134-ton marijuana seizure in October 2010 resulted from a dispute between cell leaders over who was to smuggle which portion into the United States. Somehow, word of the massive shipment made its way to the Mexican military and law enforcement, resulting in the multimillion dollar seizure. After an enforcement sweep left numerous associates dead, business was back to normal.

Undoubtedly, there will be brief flare-ups of violence anywhere organized criminal activity is present — it simply comes with the territory of any illicit business — and there will be spikes in violence again in Tijuana. These two factors — Sinaloa’s decentralized approach, which prevents new rivals from springing up from within a cartel, and the agreement in place in Tijuana between the Sinaloa Federation and the AFO — have led to a more predictable operating environment not only for the cartels, but for the people and businesses of Tijuana, and have given the organizations operating in the area a set of rules to play by. That being said, historically, these types of agreements have been fleeting in nature, as they are often only followed as long as they are convenient to all parties involved. The question is not if the agreement will stay in place but how long it will prevail.

Title: La Mentira de 90%
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 10, 2011, 08:18:12 AM
By Scott Stewart

For several years now, STRATFOR has been closely watching developments in Mexico that relate to what we consider the three wars being waged there. Those three wars are the war between the various drug cartels, the war between the government and the cartels and the war being waged against citizens and businesses by criminals.

In addition to watching tactical developments of the cartel wars on the ground and studying the dynamics of the conflict among the various warring factions, we have also been paying close attention to the ways that both the Mexican and U.S. governments have reacted to these developments. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects to watch has been the way in which the Mexican government has tried to deflect responsibility for the cartel wars away from itself and onto the United States. According to the Mexican government, the cartel wars are not a result of corruption in Mexico or of economic and societal dynamics that leave many Mexicans marginalized and desperate to find a way to make a living. Instead, the cartel wars are due to the insatiable American appetite for narcotics and the endless stream of guns that flows from the United States into Mexico and that results in Mexican violence.

Interestingly, the part of this argument pertaining to guns has been adopted by many politicians and government officials in the United States in recent years. It has now become quite common to hear U.S. officials confidently assert that 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels come from the United States. However, a close examination of the dynamics of the cartel wars in Mexico — and of how the oft-echoed 90 percent number was reached — clearly demonstrates that the number is more political rhetoric than empirical fact.


By the Numbers

As we discussed in a previous analysis, the 90 percent number was derived from a June 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress on U.S. efforts to combat arms trafficking to Mexico (see external link).

According to the GAO report, some 30,000 firearms were seized from criminals by Mexican authorities in 2008. Of these 30,000 firearms, information pertaining to 7,200 of them (24 percent) was submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for tracing. Of these 7,200 guns, only about 4,000 could be traced by the ATF, and of these 4,000, some 3,480 (87 percent) were shown to have come from the United States.

This means that the 87 percent figure relates to the number of weapons submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF that could be successfully traced and not from the total number of weapons seized by Mexican authorities or even from the total number of weapons submitted to the ATF for tracing. In fact, the 3,480 guns positively traced to the United States equals less than 12 percent of the total arms seized in Mexico in 2008 and less than 48 percent of all those submitted by the Mexican government to the ATF for tracing. This means that almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States.

The remaining 22,800 firearms seized by Mexican authorities in 2008 were not traced for a variety of reasons. In addition to factors such as bureaucratic barriers and negligence, many of the weapons seized by Mexican authorities either do not bear serial numbers or have had their serial numbers altered or obliterated. It is also important to understand that the Mexican authorities simply don’t bother to submit some classes of weapons to the ATF for tracing. Such weapons include firearms they identify as coming from their own military or police forces, or guns that they can trace back themselves as being sold through the Mexican Defense Department’s Arms and Ammunition Marketing Division (UCAM). Likewise, they do not ask ATF to trace military ordnance from third countries like the South Korean fragmentation grenades commonly used in cartel attacks.

Of course, some or even many of the 22,800 firearms the Mexicans did not submit to ATF for tracing may have originated in the United States. But according to the figures presented by the GAO, there is no evidence to support the assertion that 90 percent of the guns used by the Mexican cartels come from the United States — especially when not even 50 percent of those that were submitted for tracing were ultimately found to be of U.S. origin.

This point leads us to consider the types of weapons being used by the Mexican cartels and where they come from.


Types and Sources of Guns

To gain an understanding of the dynamics of the gun flow inside Mexico, it helps if one divides the guns seized by Mexican authorities from criminals into three broad categories — which, incidentally, just happen to represent three different sources.


Type 1: Guns Legally Available in Mexico

The first category of weapons encountered in Mexico is weapons available legally for sale in Mexico through UCAM. These include handguns smaller than a .357 magnum such as .380, .38 Super and .38 Special.

A large portion of this first type of guns used by criminals is purchased in Mexico, or stolen from their legitimate owners. While UCAM does have very strict regulations for civilians to purchase guns, criminals will use straw purchasers to obtain firearms from UCAM or obtain them from corrupt officials. It is not uncommon to see .38 Super pistols seized from cartel figures (a caliber that is not popular in the United States), and many of these pistols are of Mexican origin. Likewise, cartel hit men in Mexico commonly use .380 pistols equipped with sound suppressors in their assassinations. In many cases, these pistols are purchased in Mexico, the suppressors are locally manufactured and the guns are adapted to receive the suppressors by Mexican gunsmiths.

It must be noted, though, that because of the cost and hassle of purchasing guns in Mexico, many of the guns in this category are purchased in the United States and smuggled into the country. There are a lot of cheap guns available on the U.S. market, and they can be sold at a premium in Mexico. Indeed, guns in this category, such as .380 pistols and .22-caliber rifles and pistols, are among the guns most commonly traced back to the United States. Still, the numbers do not indicate that 90 percent of guns in this category come from the United States.

Additionally, most of the explosives the cartels have been using in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Mexico over the past year have used commercially available Tovex, so we consider these explosives to fall in this first category. Mexican IEDs are another area where the rhetoric has been interesting to analyze, but we will explore this topic another time.


Type 2: Guns Legally Available in the U.S. but Not in Mexico

Many popular handgun calibers, such as 9 mm, .45 and .40, are reserved for the military and police and are not available for sale to civilians in Mexico. These guns, which are legally sold and very popular in the United States, comprise our second category, which also includes .50-caliber rifles, semiautomatic versions of assault rifles like the AK-47 and M16 and the FN Five-Seven pistol.

When we consider this second type of guns, a large number of them encountered in Mexico are likely purchased in the United States. Indeed, the GAO report notes that many of the guns most commonly traced back to the United States fall into this category. There are also many .45-caliber and 9 mm semiautomatic pistols and .357 revolvers obtained from deserters from the Mexican military and police, purchased from corrupt Mexican authorities or even brought in from South America (guns made by manufacturers such as Taurus and Bersa). This category also includes semiautomatic variants of assault rifles and main battle rifles, which are often converted by Mexican gunsmiths to be capable of fully automatic fire.

One can buy these types of weapons on the international arms market, but one pays a premium for such guns and it is cheaper and easier to simply buy them in the United States or South America and smuggle them into Mexico. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry that has developed to smuggle such weapons, and not all the customers are cartel hit men. There are many Mexican citizens who own guns in calibers such as .45, 9 mm, .40 and .44 magnum for self-defense — even though such guns are illegal in Mexico.


Type 3: Guns Not Available for Civilian Purchase in Mexico or the U.S.

The third category of weapons encountered in Mexico is military grade ordnance not generally available for sale in the United States or Mexico. This category includes hand grenades, 40 mm grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic assault rifles and main battle rifles and light machine guns.

This third type of weapon is fairly difficult and very expensive to obtain in the United States (especially in the large numbers in which the cartels are employing them). They are also dangerous to obtain in the United States due to heavy law-enforcement scrutiny. Therefore, most of the military ordnance used by the Mexican cartels comes from other sources, such as the international arms market (increasingly from China via the same networks that furnish precursor chemicals for narcotics manufacturing), or from corrupt elements in the Mexican military or even deserters who take their weapons with them. Besides, items such as South Korean fragmentation grenades and RPG-7s, often used by the cartels, simply are not in the U.S. arsenal. This means that very few of the weapons in this category come from the United States.

In recent years the cartels (especially their enforcer groups such as Los Zetas, Gente Nueva and La Linea) have been increasingly using military weaponry instead of sporting arms. A close examination of the arms seized from the enforcer groups and their training camps clearly demonstrates this trend toward military ordnance, including many weapons not readily available in the United States. Some of these seizures have included M60 machine guns and hundreds of 40 mm grenades obtained from the military arsenals of countries like Guatemala.

But Guatemala is not the only source of such weapons. Latin America is awash in weapons that were shipped there over the past several decades to supply the various insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in the region. When these military-grade weapons are combined with the rampant corruption in the region, they quickly find their way into the black arms market. The Mexican cartels have supply-chain contacts that help move narcotics to Mexico from South America and they are able to use this same network to obtain guns from the black market in South and Central America and then smuggle them into Mexico. While there are many weapons in this category that were manufactured in the United States, the overwhelming majority of the U.S.-manufactured weapons of this third type encountered in Mexico — like LAW rockets and M60 machine guns — come into Mexico from third countries and not directly from the United States.

There are also some cases of overlap between classes of weapons. For example, the FN Five-Seven pistol is available for commercial purchase in the United States, but the 5.7x28 armor-piercing ammunition for the pistol favored by the cartels is not — it is a restricted item. However, some of the special operations forces units in the Mexican military are issued the Five-Seven as well as the FN P90 personal defense weapon, which also shoots the 5.7x28 round, and the cartels are obtaining some of these weapons and the armor-piercing ammunition from them and not from the United States. Conversely, we see bulk 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition bought in the United States and smuggled into Mexico, where it is used in fully-automatic AK-47s and M16s purchased elsewhere. As noted above, China has become an increasingly common source for military weapons like grenades and fully automatic assault rifles in recent years.

To really understand Mexico’s gun problem, however, it is necessary to recognize that the same economic law of supply and demand that fuels drug smuggling into the United States also fuels gun smuggling into Mexico. Black-market guns in Mexico can fetch up to 300 percent of their normal purchase price — a profit margin rivaling the narcotics the cartels sell. Even if it were somehow possible to hermetically seal the U.S.-Mexico border and shut off all the guns coming from the United States, the cartels would still be able to obtain weapons elsewhere — just as narcotics would continue to flow into the United States from other places. The United States does provide cheap and easy access to certain types of weapons and ammunition, but as demonstrated by groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, weapons can be easily obtained from other sources via the black arms market — albeit at a higher price.

There has clearly been a long and well-documented history of arms smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is important to recognize that, while the United States is a significant source of certain classes of weapons and ammunition, it is by no means the source of 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican cartels, as is commonly asserted.

Title: Stratfor: Calderon Security
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 02, 2011, 09:01:08 AM
Mexican President Felipe Calderon is visiting the United States March 2 and March 3. We thought it would be a good time to discuss the unique threat assessment that will be written pertaining to President Calderon’s visit.

Calderon’s visit comes at a very critical time with the confluence of issues that are taking place not only inside of Mexico, but in the United States, which makes this threat assessment much more difficult than any current head of state visiting. We’ve had the recent high-profile killings of Americans in Mexico such as David Hartley on Falcon Lake, the missionary killing and the recent Zeta killing of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent. You have the politics of the immigration issue, as well as the politics of guns, meaning the guns flowing into Mexico from the United States and the domestic politics of that issue in general. Another element that will be factored into the threat assessment, regardless of the likelihood of this occurring, would be the cartels’ ability to pay for high-priced mercenaries or assassins to carry out some sort of attack.

One other aspect that is also factored into the threat assessment is the radical fringe link to domestic groups of concern. Specifically the Secret Service will be calling their database looking for adverse intelligence on individuals that have surfaced in connection to the immigration or gun issue that may have made threats against public officials. This issue is a significant one on the heels of the shooting of the congresswoman in Tucson, Arizona. Another element that would be factored into the threat assessment would be president Calderon’s statements as recent as last week, where he raised the issue of drug consumption in the United States fueling cartel violence, as well as the United States government not doing enough to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico.

Given all the concern surrounding Calderon’s visit to the United States, there will be an effort to minimize public exposure and at any kind of event that is open, you will find enhanced screening for firearms specifically to mitigate the risk from these unknown variables — such as another John Hinckley surfacing — that may not have raised the awareness of the secret service in Washington.

The “Above the Tearline” aspect is the politics of Calderon’s visit at this moment in time due to the confluence of events that have taken place, make this threat assessment much more complex, and also raises the risks to President Calderon.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 04, 2011, 08:01:38 PM


http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7357550n&tag=related;photovideo

:-o
Title: Re: Stratfor: Calderon Security
Post by: The Tao on March 09, 2011, 11:49:14 AM
. We’ve had the recent high-profile killings of Americans in Mexico such as David Hartley on Falcon Lake, the missionary killing and the recent Zeta killing of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110309/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico
Title: ?Como se ve las acciones del BATF en Mexico?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 11, 2011, 10:57:14 AM


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-naw-mexico-guns-20110311,0,2534184.story
Title: Re: ?Como se ve las acciones del BATF en Mexico?
Post by: The Tao on March 11, 2011, 11:56:55 AM


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-naw-mexico-guns-20110311,0,2534184.story

Esto reflexiona mal sobre los Estados Unidos. Como están los agentes aqui algo diferentes de la corrupcion vista en Mexico cuando las cosas como este pasan?
Hay algunas de ellos (BATF) que estan corruptos tambien por supuesto y por eso, es muy importante que cada uno de nosotros, somos incorruptos.
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 20, 2011, 08:17:05 AM
Agenda: Mexican Drug Cartels
April 15, 2011 | 2156 GMT
Click on image below to watch video:



Vice President of Tactical Intelligence Scott Stewart looks at the potential for an escalation of violence as Mexican drug cartels fight for power and control.


Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Colin: More than 230 American cities have now been affected by the presence of Mexican drug cartels. This weekend, Australia’s Crime Commission reported that the cartels have taken ahold of organized crime syndicates in cities like Sydney and Melbourne. In Mexico, the seemingly unstoppable violence continues. A few days ago we had the gruesome discovery of at least 116 bodies in mass graves near the city of San Fernando, just 100 miles away from the Texan border. And, perhaps as evidence of more violence to come, we have the erection of concrete car-bomb barriers outside the busy United States consulate in Monterrey.

Welcome to Agenda. Joining me this week to discuss Mexican security is Scott Stewart. Scott, let’s start with this latest security measure. Has this building been targeted before, and is there intelligence that it’s about to be hit by a large car bomb?

Scott: Well first of all yes, the U.S. consulate general in Monterrey has been targeted before by attacks but these have been attacks using hand grenades and small arms, and that’s something different from a large car bomb attack. At this point we don’t believe there is any imminent car bomb threat to that facility, or any other U.S. facilities in Mexico for that matter.

Colin: Why would a cartel want to escalate the battle and invite the further wrath of the United States?

Scott: The Mexican cartels certainly don’t shy away from violence. We see them regularly beheading and dismembering people. However they tend to try to target most of their violence against opponents of the fellow cartels or against government employees, and a lot of times the government employees that they target are actually working for opposition cartels. So there’s really a relation there between the targeting. We have not seen the Mexican cartels really get into widespread attacks against the public at large. They have really tried to target their violence. And in times where we have seen them have incidents where there’s been indiscriminate violence, or violence that has impacted negatively on their public image - things like the Falcon Lake shooting - we have seen the cartels come down hard on operatives that made those mistakes and that brought the heat down upon the cartel.

One thing to remember is that these cartels are not terrorist groups. They are really businesses, and they’re organized crime organizations. So their end is making money. That is their objective. And anything that gets in the way of that objective, bringing down massive heat upon them, is bad for business, and they try to shy away from that sort of activity.

Colin: Are the authorities making any progress in their fight against the cartels?

Scott: Well, I think it depends on how one defines progress. Certainly, they have been arresting the heads of certain cartels and they have been disrupting the operations of some of these cartels. For example, over the last five or six years, organizations such as the Arellano-Felix organization, which is also known as the Tijuana cartel; another organization, the Juarez Cartel or the VCF, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization; they’ve both been decimated. Likewise, we’ve seen the Beltran Leyva organization decapitated and split up. So, they’re making headway against certain organizations, but at the same time, the largest cartel, Sinaloa cartel, that is headed up by a gentleman by the name of El Chapo, “the short one,” Sinaloa has been getting stronger and stronger. And they are really becoming more of a regional hegemon in the cartel landscape. And right now, they control the border from Tijuana all the way over to Juarez, for the most part. And they are acting to increase their control over that area. So while certain cartels have been weakened, other cartels, like Sinaloa, have become stronger.

Of course, one other measure of progress against the cartels would be violence. And indeed, we have not seen violence come down at all. This fracturing, this splintering of these cartel organizations, has really led to more fighting. What happens is, when a cartel organization has very good control of an area - or what we call a plaza, a smuggling corridor - there’s generally peace in that area. But when they become weakened and another organization comes in and tries to take over there territory, that’s when you see the violence, that’s when you see the fighting. And of course the death toll then will increase. So as some of these organizations have been weakened, others have tried to move in. And that has escalated the violence.

Colin: How safe is it for a businessperson to go to Mexico now, and where should they avoid?

Scott: There are certain hotspots right now. Indeed, in Acapulco at this present time we have a three-way struggle for control of that city between three factions of the former Beltran Leyva organization. One that now calls itself the Cartel del Pacifico Sur, the South Pacific Cartel; another faction has gone on to form this independent cartel of Acapulco; and still another little faction has gone and they’re working with Sinaloa. And so you have these three organizations fighting each other for control of Acapulco, which generally in the past had been a very popular tourist resort.

Likewise, in the Northeast we see a lot of violence right now in places like Monterrey. And one of the reasons that Monterrey is so concerning is because it is really the industrial heart of Mexico. You have not only large Mexican corporations that are headquartered there, but also U.S. companies have gone down into Monterrey in order to manufacture. The things that make Monterrey attractive to businesses, the fact that they have good lines of communication and roads, and then of course lines of communication to the U.S. border to ship stuff, also makes it an ideal place to control as a drug organization. If you can control Monterrey, you can control the flow of a lot of goods and a lot of contraband to the border. So we really expect to see a lot of continued violence in the Northeast in the coming months.

Colin: Scott, thank you. Scott Stewart there, ending Agenda for this week.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 29, 2011, 02:53:00 PM
Mexican drug cartels continue to war with one another and with the government. While the situation has long been fluid, the past 18 months have seen the Sinaloa Federation rapidly expand at the expense of other groups. The following are key events in the evolution of Mexico’s cartel landscape over the last four and a half years:



(click here to view interactive slideshow)
December 2006: Mexican President Felipe Calderon takes office, promising to fight back against drug cartels. His first two years in office show strong successes against the cartels, with large drug seizures and the capture of several organizations’ leaders. The government’s chief target is the Gulf cartel, the most powerful in Mexico.


December 2008: A two-yearlong campaign by the Calderon government against the Gulf cartel has left it crippled. The cartel’s enforcement arm, Los Zetas, splintered off in spring 2008 and now controls much of what used to be Gulf territory. The government’s success is a double-edged sword, however: The decline of the Gulf cartel has left a large power vacuum, encouraging other organizations — and factions within those organizations — to fight to increase their influence.


December 2009: As the government pressures powerful cartels, the situation in Mexico becomes more volatile and two distinct but interconnected wars begin to emerge: the government’s fight against the cartels, and the cartels’ fights between and among themselves. The geography of cartel influence does not change significantly, though one notable exception to this is the rise of the infamous La Familia Michoacana (LFM), which has captured media attention by marrying drug-trafficking activities to a pseudo-religious ideology.


May 2010: A major rift emerges in the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) after the death of leader Arturo “El Jefe de Jefes” Beltran Leyva. Two factions emerge, one under Arturo’s brother, Hector, and the other made up of elements of the BLO’s brutal enforcement wing and run by Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal.


December 2010: Tensions between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas also have boiled over into open war in the country’s east, with the Gulf cartel reaching out to its former rivals in Sinaloa as well as LFM to align under the name “New Federation” and pushing Los Zetas from one of their traditional strongholds, Reynosa, though not out of Nuevo Laredo or Monterrey. In its weakened state, Los Zetas began increasing operations outside the normal scope of drug trafficking, such as kidnapping for ransom, and giving rise to a trend that STRATFOR eventually would dub Mexico’s third war: that of the cartels on the Mexican public. Cartel-related violence in the country reaches new heights, with more than 11,000 deaths on record.


April 2011: Violence continues to rise in all parts of the country. The Sinaloa Federation continues to expand its territory north and east, taking over areas formerly under the influence of the Carrillo Fuentes Organization and the Arellano Felix Organization. With the help of Sinaloa, the Gulf cartel has been able to repel offenses from Los Zetas in Reynosa and Matamoros, though the Zetas are proving resilient. LFM appeared to implode in January, but now a large subset of the former LFM seems to have simply rebranded itself as the “Knights Templar.” Its size and capabilities remain unclear.
Title: Stratfor: Texas is not Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 19, 2011, 10:37:59 AM

By Scott Stewart

As one studies Mexico’s cartel war, it is not uncommon to hear Mexican politicians — and some people in the United States — claim that Mexico’s problems of violence and corruption stem largely from the country’s proximity to the United States. According to this narrative, the United States is the world’s largest illicit narcotics market, and the inexorable force of economic demand means that the countries supplying the demand, and those that are positioned between the source countries and the huge U.S. market, are trapped in a very bad position. Because of this market and the illicit trade it creates, billions of dollars worth of drugs flow northward through Mexico (or are produced there) and billions of dollars in cash flow back southward into Mexico. The guns that flow southward along with the cash, according to the narrative, are largely responsible for Mexico’s violence. As one looks at other countries lying to the south of Mexico along the smuggling routes from South America to the United States, they too seem to suffer from the same maladies.

However, when we look at the dynamics of the narcotics trade, there are other political entities, ones located to Mexico’s north, that find themselves caught in the same geographic and economic position as Mexico and points south. As borderlands, these entities — referred to as states in the U.S. political system — find themselves caught between the supply of drugs flowing from the south and the large narcotics markets to their north. The geographic location of these states results in large quantities of narcotics flowing northward through their territory and large amounts of cash likewise flowing southward. Indeed, this illicit flow has brought with it corruption and violence, but when we look at these U.S. states, their security environments are starkly different from those of Mexican states on the other side of the border.

One implicit reality that flows from the geopolitical concept of borderlands is that while political borders are clearly delineated, the cultural and economic borders surrounding them are frequently less clear and more dynamic. The borderlands on each side of the thin, artificially imposed line we call a border are remarkably similar in geographic and demographic terms (indeed, inhabitants of such areas are often related). In the larger picture, both sides of the border often face the same set of geopolitical realities and challenges. Certainly the border between the United States and Mexico was artificially imposed by the annexation of Texas following its anti-Mexico revolution as well as the U.S. annexation of what is now much of the U.S. West, including the border states of Arizona, California and New Mexico, following the Mexican-American War. While the desert regions along the border do provide a bit of a buffer between the two countries — and between the Mexican core and its northern territories — there is no geological obstacle separating the two countries. Even the Rio Grande is not so grand, as the constant flow of illicit goods over it testifies. In many places, like Juarez and El Paso, the U.S.-Mexico border serves to cut cities in half, much like the Berlin Wall used to do.

Yet as one crosses over that artificial line one senses huge differences between the cultural, economic and security environments north and south. In spite of the geopolitical and economic realities confronting both sides of this borderland, Texas is not Mexico. The differences run deep, and we thought it worthwhile this week to examine how and why.


Same Problems, Different Scope

First, it must be understood that this examination does not mean to assert that the illicit narcotics market in the United States has no effect on Mexico (or Central America, for that matter). The flow of narcotics, money and guns, and the organizations that participate in this illicit trade, does have a clear and demonstrable impact on Mexico. But — and this very significant — that impact does not stop at the border. This illicit commerce also impacts the U.S. states north of the border.

Certainly the U.S. side of the border has seen corruption of public officials, cartel-related violence and, of course, drug trafficking. But these phenomena have manifested themselves differently on the U.S. side of the border.

In the United States there have been local cops, sheriffs, customs inspectors and even FBI agents arrested and convicted for corruption. However, the problem is far worse on the Mexican side, where entire police forces have been relieved of their duties due to their cooperation with the drug cartels and where systematic corruption has been traced all the way from the municipal mayoral level to the Presidential Guard, and even to the country’s drug czar. There have even been groups of police officers and military units arrested while actively protecting shipments of drugs in Mexico — something that simply does not occur in the United States. And while Mexican officials are frequently forced to choose between “plata o plomo” (Spanish for “silver or lead,” a direct threat of violence meaning “take the bribe or we will kill you”), that type of threat is extremely rare in the United States. It is also very rare to see politicians, police chiefs and judges killed in the United States — a common occurrence in Mexico.

That said, there certainly has been cartel-related violence on the U.S. side of the border with organizations such as Los Zetas conducting assassinations in places like Houston and Dallas. The claim by some U.S. politicians that there is no spillover violence is patently false. However, the use of violence on the U.S. side has tended to be far more discreet on the part of the cartels (and the U.S. street gangs they are allied with) than in Mexico, where the cartels are frequently quite flagrant. The cartels kill people in the United States but they tend to avoid the gruesome theatrics associated with many drug-related murders in Mexico, where it has become commonplace to see victims beheaded, dismembered or hung from pedestrian walkways over major thoroughfares.

Likewise, the large firefights frequently observed in Mexico involving dozens of armed men on each side using military weapons, grenades and rocket-propelled grenades have come within feet of the border (sometimes with stray rounds crossing over onto the U.S. side), but these types of events have remained on the south side of that invisible line. Mexican cartel gunmen have used dozens of trucks and other large vehicles to set up roadblocks in Matamoros, but they have not followed suit in Brownsville. Cities on the U.S. side of the border are seen as markets, logistics hubs and places of refuge for cartel figures, not battlefields.

Even when we consider drug production, it is important to recognize that the first “super labs” for methamphetamine production were developed in California’s Central Valley, not in Mexico. It was only pressure from U.S. law enforcement agencies that forced the relocation of these laboratories south of the border. Certainly, meth production is still going on in many parts of the United States, but the production is being conducted in mom-and-pop operations that can produce only relatively small amounts of the drug, usually of varying quality. By contrast, Mexican super labs can produce tons of meth that is of very high (almost pharmacological) quality. Additionally, while Mexican cartels (and other producers) have long grown marijuana inside the United States in clandestine plots of land, the quantity of marijuana the cartels grow inside the United States is far eclipsed by the industrial marijuana production operations conducted in Mexico.

Even the size of narcotics shipments changes at the border. The huge shipments of drugs that are shipped within Mexico are broken down into smaller lots at stash houses on the Mexican side of the border to be smuggled into the United States. Then they are frequently broken down again in stash houses on the U.S. side of the border. The trafficking of drugs in the United States tends to be far more decentralized and diffuse than it is on the Mexican side, again in response to U.S. law enforcement pressure. Smaller shipments allow drug traffickers to limit their losses if a shipment is seized, and using a decentralized distribution network allows them to be less dependent on any one link in the chain. If one distribution channel is rolled up by the authorities, traffickers can shift their product into another sales channel.


Not Just an Institutional Problem

Above we noted that the same dynamics exist on both sides of the border, and the same cartel groups also operate on both sides. However, we also noted the consistent theme of the Mexican cartels being forced to behave differently on the U.S. side. The organizations are no different, but the environment in which they operate is very different. The corruption, poverty, diminished rule of law and lack of territorial control (particularly in the border-adjacent hinterlands) that is endemic to the Mexican system greatly empowers and emboldens the cartels in Mexico. The operating environment inside the United States is quite different, forcing the cartels to behave differently. Mexican cartels and drug trafficking are problems in the United States, but they are problems that can be controlled by U.S. law enforcement. The environment does not permit the cartels to threaten the U.S. government’s ability to govern.

A geopolitical monograph explaining the forces that have shaped Mexico can be found here. Understanding the geopolitics of Mexico is very helpful to understanding the challenges Mexico faces and why it has become what it is today. This broader understanding is also the key to understanding why the Mexican police simply can’t be reformed to solve the problems of violence and corruption. Certainly, the Mexican government has aggressively pursued police reform for many years now, with very little success. Indeed, it was the lack of a trustworthy law enforcement apparatus that led the Calderon government to turn to the military to counter the power of the Mexican cartels. This lack of reliable law enforcement has also led Calderon to aggressively pursue police reform. This reform effort has included unifying the federal police agencies and consolidating municipal police departments (which have arguably been the most corrupt institutions in Mexico) into unified state police commands, under which officers are subjected to better screening, oversight and accountability. Already, however, there have been numerous instances of these “new and improved” federal- and state-level police officers being arrested for corruption.

This illustrates the fact that Mexico’s ills go far deeper than just corrupt institutions. Because of this, revamping the institutions will not result in any meaningful change, and the revamped institutions will soon be corrupted like the ones they replaced. This fact should have been readily apparent; the institutional approach has been tried in the region before and has failed.

Perhaps the best example of this failure was the “untouchable and incorruptible” Department of Anti-Narcotics Operations, known by its Spanish acronym DOAN, which was created in Guatemala in the mid-1990s. The DOAN was almost purely a creation of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The concept behind the creation of the DOAN was that corruption existed within the Guatemalan police institutions because the police were undertrained, underpaid and underequipped. It was believed that if police recruits were carefully screened, properly trained, well paid and adequately equipped, they would not be susceptible to the corruption that plagued the other police institutions in the country. So the U.S. government hand-picked the recruits, thoroughly trained them, paid them generously and provided them with brand-new uniforms and equipment. However, the result was not what the U.S. government expected. By 2002, the “untouchable” DOAN had to be disbanded because it had essentially become a drug trafficking organization itself and was involved in torturing and killing competitors and stealing their shipments of narcotics.

The example of the Guatemalan DOAN (and of more recent Mexican police reform efforts) demonstrates that even a competent, well-paid and well-equipped police institution cannot stand alone within a culture that is not prepared to support it and keep it clean. In other words, over time, an institution will take on the characteristics of, and essentially reflect, the environment surrounding it. Therefore, significant reform in Mexico requires a holistic approach that reaches far beyond the institutions to address the profound economic, sociological and cultural problems that are affecting the country today. Indeed, given how deeply rooted and pervasive these problems are and the geopolitical hand the country was dealt, Mexico has done quite well. But holistic change will not be easy to accomplish. It will require a great deal of time, treasure, leadership and effort. In view of this reality, we can see why it would be more politically expedient simply to blame the Americans.



Read more: Corruption: Why Texas is Not Mexico | STRATFOR
Title: WSJ: Mexican Paradox
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 30, 2011, 04:53:28 PM
Last week, gun battles between warring drug cartels in the central Mexican state of Michoacán lasted three days, brought down a police helicopter, caused a small flood of refugees, and took an as-yet undetermined toll in lives.

It's almost a surprise the story made the news at all. "The conflict was slow to get out because local media in states like Michoacán have largely stopped covering the carnage on orders from drug gangs," reported The Journal's David Luhnow and José de Córdoba on Friday. More than 20 reporters have been killed in Mexico since the drug wars began in earnest in 2006. Last year, Mexico tied Iraq, and was second only to Pakistan, in journalist fatalities.

Then there is the numbing regularity with which news of drug-related atrocities dominates the international media's coverage of Mexico. The decapitation of 27 Guatemalan farm hands by the Zetas gang two weeks ago. The 146 corpses discovered in April in mass graves in the state of Durango. The hanging in March of five victims from bridges in the resort town of Mazatlan. The apparently deliberate killing in February of U.S. immigration officer Jaime Zapata (and the shooting of his partner) on a highway north of Mexico City.

And on, and on, and on.

Yet a funny thing happened on the way to Mexico becoming another failed state. To wit, the "failed state" boomed.

In 2010, a year when there were more than 15,000 drug-related killings (up by nearly 60% from the year before), the economy grew by 5.5%—the fastest rate in a decade. The Mexican peso appreciated against the dollar. Inflation was essentially flat. Foreign reserves rose to $113 billion. Twenty-two million tourists visited the country. Trade with the U.S. reached an all-time high of nearly $400 billion. In Ciudad Juárez, where 3,000 people were killed last year, the maquiladora industries added some 20,000 jobs. The percentage of the population living below the poverty line declined to 47.4% in 2008 (the last year for which the World Bank has data) from 63.7% a decade earlier. Literacy rates surpassed 90%. Life expectancy continues to rise to near-First World levels.

In the U.S., sociologists are puzzling over the paradox of falling crime rates in an era of high unemployment and economic uncertainty. The Mexican paradox appears to be the reverse.

Then again, what most people consider a paradox is simply the crash of reality against our own unexamined clichés and preconceptions.

Consider the idea that crime in Mexico is out of control. The homicide rate in Mexico (about 12 per 100,000 in 2009) was more than twice that of the U.S. (five per 100,000) but well below Brazil's rate of 20.5 in 2008, to say nothing of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where it's about 50. In Mexico City, home to some 20 million people, the murder rate actually fell over the last decade. In 2009, it was about one quarter of the rate in Washington, D.C.

So how shall we define "out of control"? And what shall we make of the fact that the vast majority of the victims of Mexico's drug wars are themselves members of drug gangs? "They constitute a portion of population, that is worse than useless in any community," said Abraham Lincoln about the gamblers of Vicksburg in 1838. "And their death, if no pernicious example is set by it, is never a matter of reasonable regret with anyone." Something similar might be said of the drug cartels in their current orgy of mutual annihilation.

Then there's the idea that Mexico would have been better off had it never picked a fight with the cartels. I grew up in that Mexico, in which a corrupt and authoritarian government made its peace with—and took its cut from—the cartels.

That Mexico, built on conspiracies of silence and fear, could not survive the country's transition to democracy. It's no surprise that, even now, in the fifth year of his presidency and after 34,612 deaths, Felipe Calderón has an approval rating of 54%. Mexicans have no shortage of misgivings about his methods, but not many are proposing a viable alternative to taking the cartels head on. And by "viable," that means something other than the fantasy of expecting Ron Paul to win the presidency and end the war on drugs. Not that libertarians will ever stop proposing that utopia as their sole idea in what otherwise amounts to a feckless counsel of despair.

Last week I asked former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe whether Mexico can defeat the narcos. "Colombia is a typical case demonstrating that we can win," he answered—with the statistics to prove his case. He stressed that the key to winning was what he called a "permanent pedagogy" to convince people that the war on the cartels is "a necessary fight, not a partisan cause."

Mr. Uribe rescued Colombia from a plight far worse than what Mexico confronts today. But the central challenge is the same: how to establish a rule of law that has the legitimacy of consent and the courage of its convictions. Doing just that was Mr. Uribe's achievement, and it remains Mr. Calderón's challenge. Not much of a paradox here. Mexico's current prosperity is the bet that its market-friendly policies won't soon be betrayed by a government that can be cowed or seduced by criminals.

Title: Ataques a Casinos en Monterrey
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 14, 2011, 09:55:47 AM
Money-Laundering Targets

Another significant facet of Monterrey’s strategic value to the cartels made the news May 25 when four casinos were robbed. Heavily armed gunmen reportedly emptied out the cashier cages at Casino Hollywood, Casino Royale, Casino Red and Casino Miravalle Palace, all in the same general area between Monterrey proper and the westside city of San Pedro Garza Garcia.

Los Zetas are currently fighting with the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels for Monterrey. The Zetas hold the city, but the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels want to take it because it sits astride intersecting smuggling corridors for drug and human trafficking. But that is only part of the story. The greater Monterrey area has about three dozen casinos, most of the more than 40 casinos in northeast Mexico. To an extent that no other business sector can be, large casino operations are essential to laundering the billions of dollars generated by Mexico’s cartels. Clearly, the tit-for-tat operations in which Gulf and Zetas elements target each other’s vital support networks appear to have been elevated to a higher level with bigger stakes.

Mexican media have indicated that “millions” were taken in the heists, but no source has quantified how much money was taken or whether the currency was in pesos or U.S. dollars. Furthermore, the reports have offered confusing or conflicting information about the order in which the heists occurred, so much so that a sequence may not be easily determined. In this situation, however, such tactical details are less important than the larger implications of the apparently well-coordinated heists.

Last January, the Casino Royale was the scene of an apparent effort to eliminate two high-profile members of the Juarez cartel who were gambling in the casino. Gunmen entered the establishment and started firing hundreds of rounds, but the reported targets got away — and later were apprehended by authorities. Almost as an afterthought, one online report mentioned in its last sentence that “in the confusion” the casino’s cashier cage was robbed and all of the casino’s security-camera tapes disappeared. STRATFOR has found no direct link in the media between the January shooting-robbery and the May robbery at Casino Royale. But we find the events more than coincidental. In all likelihood, the first heist in January was a test run for the coordinated multi-casino robberies conducted May 25.

Certainly, U.S. interdiction efforts have put a financial strain on all of the Mexican cartels, making casino robberies a tempting proposition, but the successful theft of millions of dollars or pesos may only have been a bonus on top of the larger reward of hitting a rival cartel at a vulnerable spot: its money-laundering operations.

Two years ago, Monterrey was something of a neutral zone where all top cartel families made use of the affluent stability and superior schools and medical care. In late January 2010, however, Los Zetas started consolidating their hold on the city after declaring open war on their former parent organization, the Gulf cartel. Last summer, after taking losses on the border at Reynosa and Matamoros, Los Zetas retreated to Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey. In Monterrey, the Zetas forces were entrenched for about two weeks when Hurricane Alex roared into the Rio Grande Valley and catastrophic flooding demolished huge sections of the city’s transportation arteries — effectively pulling up the drawbridge behind the Zetas.

Despite the heavy Zetas presence, Monterrey’s longer history as relatively neutral ground means that the casinos robbed May 25 were likely laundering funds for any number of drug trafficking organizations. The Zetas’ control of the Monterrey metropolitan area does not equate to exclusive use of its black market infrastructure, and dozens of large casinos have far more strategic worth as money-laundering operations than they do as extortion targets.


On the Quiet Coahuila Front

With the exception of Torreon and Saltillo, Coahuila state has been fairly quiet in Mexico’s cartel wars. The state is sparsely populated, lacks high-volume interstate highway arteries and remains largely undisputed Los Zetas territory. But several recent events along with an increasing Mexican military presence could point to a coming change in Coahuila’s security conditions.

According to official government news releases and confirmed by STRATFOR sources in the region, there has been a gradual increase in the deployment of military assets to Coahuila and in military activities in 2011. Mexican marines seized just over a ton of cocaine at a ranch northwest of Monclova on May 24. Then on June 1, Mexican army personnel found 38 narcofosas, or hidden graves, in the village of Guerrero, 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Piedras Negras. It is not yet clear how many victims were disposed of at the Guerrero site — the meter-deep pits contained thousands of bits of charred human bones, metal buckles, buttons, and other personal items, and three 55-gallon drums also were found in which human bodies had been cremated. Also on June 1, the Mexican military uncovered a large cache of firearms and munitions on a farm in Nadadores, including 161 weapons and 92,039 rounds of ammunition of various calibers.

By no means are these recent events in Coahuila unique for Mexico, but the increase in military personnel and operations in the sparsely populated state is notable. As that military presence grows, STRATFOR expects significant clashes between Los Zetas and Mexican troops over the next few months. In Mexico, cartels have demonstrated that they will absorb a low level of losses as “the cost of doing business.” However, losses can reach a point where they are no longer acceptable to an organization, and violent countermeasures tend to result. In the quieter areas of Coahuila, particularly in the western and northern parts of the state where the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels have not bothered to contest Zetas control, Los Zetas may soon respond to the Mexican government’s inroads with direct and violent action against the military.



(click here to view interactive map)

May 31

Unidentified people asphyxiated a man and abandoned his body in a vacant lot near the Francisco Madero avenue in Cancun, Quintana Roo state. The victim was tortured and beaten before being killed.
Soldiers arrested four men in Acapulco, Guerrero state, for transporting a dismembered body in the trunk of a car. A fifth suspect managed to escape. The men had been stopped at a military roadblock but attempted to flee and crashed into another car.

June 1

Unidentified gunmen in the Dale neighborhood of Chihuahua, Chihuahua state, shot and killed Fernando Oropeza, the former deputy director of a low-risk prison. Oropeza had resigned from his post after a clandestine bar was discovered at the prison.
Two people were killed and one was injured in a firefight between suspected members of drug trafficking gangs in the Region 233 neighborhood of Cancun, Quintana Roo state. The incident reportedly began when six members of a criminal gang arrived at a food vendor’s stall and opened fire on several members of a rival group identified only as “LGD.”
Relatives of journalist Noel Lopez identified his body among those found in a mass grave in Chinameca, Veracruz state. Lopez had last been seen headed to Soteapan on March 8.

June 2

Unidentified gunmen in the Jardines de Oriente neighborhood of Chihuahua, Chihuahua state, opened fire on a municipal police vehicle, killing a police officer.
Federal police officers arrested Candido Ramos Perez, the suspected head for Cartel Pacifico Sur of the Cuernavaca “plaza” in Morelos state, during vehicle inspections on the Cuernavaca-Mexico City highway near the southern boundary of the Federal District. A suspected cartel lookout riding in Ramos Perez’s vehicle also was arrested.

June 3

Military authorities announced the seizure of 161 firearms and 92,039 rounds of ammunition reportedly belonging to Los Zetas in the municipality of Nadadores, Coahuila state.
Security guards at the Sinaloa state government palace in Culiacan discovered a severed head and hands on the building’s exterior stairs. A preliminary report stated that the victim could be a state police officer.
The Mexican prosecutor general’s office announced the seizure of two large containers holding 80 barrels of monomethylamine, a precursor used to manufacture chemical drugs, at container-ship facilities in Manzanillo, Colima state. Another 80 barrels were seized from a separate ship, bringing the total amount of precursors seized to 34,848 kilograms.

June 4

Soldiers arrested Jorge Hank Rhon, a former mayor of Tijuana, Baja California state, during a raid in response to a citizen complaint. Approximately 50 firearms were seized from Rhon’s house.
Federal police announced the arrest of Victor Manuel Perez Izquierdo, the head of Los Zetas in Quintana Roo state, during an operation in Cancun. Ten other members of Los Zetas were arrested along with Perez Izquierdo. Authorities said the operation resulted from the arrests of 10 Zetas in Cancun on May 28.

June 5

Military authorities announced the seizure of four armored vehicles and 23 tractor-trailers during raids on vehicle workshops in Reynosa and Camargo, Tamaulipas state.
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed the municipal police commander of Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, in the San Angel neighborhood as he headed to his house.
Police in the Mitras Norte neighborhood of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, discovered the bodies of two men hanging from a pedestrian bridge. Signs bearing undisclosed messages to members of a criminal group were found near the bodies.
Unidentified people abandoned a taxi with a dismembered body outside a police station in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state. A message found in the vehicle included a threat to the mayor of Guadalupe, warning that she would be next.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Casino Attacks in Monterrey | STRATFOR
Title: Aun peor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 14, 2011, 01:31:40 PM


Narco gangster reveals the underworld-Houston Chronicle

 

Narco gangster reveals the underworld
Cartels have taken cruelty up a notch, says one drug trafficker: kidnapping bus passengers for gladiatorlike fights to the death
By DANE SCHILLER
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
June 13, 2011, 12:26AM
 

The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death.

In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins.

In an in-person interview arranged by intermediaries on the condition that neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push cocaine worth $5 million to $10 million a month into the United States.

Law enforcement sources confirm he is a cartel operative but not a fugitive from pending charges.

His words are not those of a federal agent or drawn from a news conference or court papers.

Instead, he offers a voice from inside Mexico's mayhem — a mafioso who mingles among crime bosses and foot soldiers in a protracted war between drug cartels as well as against the government.

If what he says is true, gangsters who make commonplace beheadings, hangings and quartering bodies have managed an even crueler twist to their barbarity.

Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, "Who is going to be the next hit man?"

"They cut guys to pieces," he said.

The victims are likely among the hundreds of people found in mass graves in recent months, he said.

In the vicinity of the Mexican city of San Fernando, nearly 200 bodies were unearthed from pits, and authorities said most appeared to have died of blunt force head trauma.

Many are believed to have been dragged off buses traveling through Mexico, but little has been said about the circumstances of their deaths.

The trafficker said those who survive are taken captive and eventually given suicide missions, such as riding into a town controlled by rivals and shooting up the place.

The trafficker said he did not see the clashes, but his fellow criminals have boasted to him of their exploits.

Killing 'for amusement'
Former and current federal law-enforcement officers in the U.S. said that while they knew Mexican bus passengers had been targeted for violence, they'd never before heard of forcing passengers into death matches.

But given the level of violence in Mexico — nearly 40,000 killed in gangland warfare over the past several years — they didn't find it tough to believe.

Borderland Beat, a blog specializing in drug cartels, reported an account in April of bus passengers brutalized by Zeta thugs and taunted into fighting.

"The stuff you would not think possible a few years ago is now commonplace," said Peter Hanna, a retired FBI agent who built his career focusing on Mexico's cartels. "It used to be you'd find dead bodies in drums with acid; now there are beheadings."

Even so, Hanna noted, killing people this way would be time-consuming and inefficient. "It would be more for amusement," he suggested. "I don't see it as intimidation or a successful way to recruit people."

Hidden behind designer sunglasses and a whisper of a beard, the trafficker interviewed by the Houston Chronicle talked at a restaurant's back table. He had silver shopping bags filled at Nordstrom, but seemed anything but a typical wealthy Mexican on a Texas shopping trip.

As a condition of the interview, he asked that he be referred to only as Juan.

He has worked as a drug-trafficker in Northern Mexico for more than a decade, he said, but has grown tired of gangsters running roughshod over each other and innocent civilians.

Juan, who has worked with the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, the two major drug organizations that control territory along the South Texas-Mexico border, said that back home, he sleeps with a semiautomatic rifle by his bed and a handgun under his pillow.

"It is like the Wild West. You can carry a gun and you are Superman," he said of gangsters and killing at will. "Like everybody says, it is out of control now. We have to put a stop to it."

A recent U.S. Senate report contends the Zetas are the most violent of Mexico's cartels. Its members are believed to be responsible for the recent killing of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was shot on a Mexican highway.

'They brag about it'
Just on Thursday, authorities in Mexico said they arrested members of the Zetas and seized 201 automatic weapons, 600 camouflage uniforms and 30,000 rounds of ammunition.

"I am not defending the Sinaloa or the Gulf Cartel," Juan said of the Zetas' main rivals. "I earn more money with the Zetas, but I know the (crap) they do," he said. "They brag about it."

With the recent killing of the ICE agent and perhaps other attacks, the Zetas also are breaking the golden rule for Mexican traffickers: Don't kill Americans, he said. It brings too much heat.

If the Zetas are crushed, violence will lessen, he said, and Mexico's older cartels will go back to the older way of doing business - dividing up territory and agreeing not to clash with each other.

Death toll has exploded
Mike Vigil, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was the chief of international operations, said Mexican gangsters used to understand that violence should be used sparingly.

"They love brutality," Vigil said of the Zetas. "They do not care whether you are a police officer, a trafficker or an innocent bystander.

"The drug-trafficking organizations are eventually going to have to deal with the Zetas."

The death toll has exploded since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and dispersed military troops throughout the country to fight the cartels. The resulting battles have wrought carnage among local politicians, soldiers, gangsters and civilians alike.

As for the military, Juan said, "They are not helping," noting that the soldiers, like the gangsters, seem to kill whoever they want.

He also discussed some of the finer points of drug trafficking.

Checkpoints no problem
"We don't hide it," he said, telling stories of openly off-loading tractor-trailer rigs of cocaine in parking lots. "These are not lies. Everybody in Mexico knows it."

Even the checkpoints Mexican officials operate along the highways between Central Mexico and the border do not pose much of a problem, Juan said.

The trick, he confided, is to send someone in advance to bribe a commander so a drug load won't be bothered.

"It is better to tell them," he said. "It will cost you more if they catch it."

Tries not to be flashy
As for how he's been able to survive a decade, Juan said the secret is not being greedy or flashy enough to draw attention from other gangsters, who these days show no hesitation to cut down rivals.

He said he can quickly size up in a bar or cafe who is likely to be a trafficker, from the money they spend to the way they talk, sit or eat.

"You can tell in a restaurant or anywhere - that guy is moving dope," Juan said.

Other keys to longevity in the business: knowing your place in the Mexican under­world's hierarchy and not giving the impression you are making more money or interested in taking a chunk out of another gangster's livelihood.

"You keep doing the work you do," Juan said. "Stay at your level."



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/topstory/7607122.html#ixzz1PGAG4aVk

 

 

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 16, 2011, 04:56:32 AM
New Mexican President, Same Cartel War?
June 16, 2011


Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico’s Criminal Cartels
STRATFOR Book
Mexico In Crisis: Lost Borders and the Struggle for Regional Status
By Scott Stewart

We talk to a lot of people in our effort to track Mexico’s criminal cartels and to help our readers understand the  dynamics that shape the violence in Mexico. Our contacts include a wide range of people, from Mexican and U.S. government officials, journalists and business owners to taxi drivers and street vendors. Lately, as we’ve been talking with people, we’ve been hearing chatter about the 2012 presidential election in Mexico and how the cartel war will impact that election.

In any democratic election, opposition parties always criticize the policies of the incumbent. This tactic is especially true when the country is involved in a long and costly war. Recall, for example, the 2008 U.S. elections and then-candidate Barack Obama’s criticism of the Bush administration’s policies regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. This strategy is what we are seeing now in Mexico with the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) criticizing the way the administration of Felipe Calderon, who belongs to the National Action Party (PAN), has prosecuted its war against the Mexican cartels.

One of the trial balloons that the opposition parties — especially the PRI — seem to be floating at present is the idea that if they are elected they will reverse Calderon’s policy of going after the cartels with a heavy hand and will instead try to reach some sort of accommodation with them. This policy would involve lifting government pressure against the cartels and thereby (ostensibly) reducing the level of violence that is wracking the country. In effect, this stratagem would be a return of the status quo ante during the PRI administrations that ruled Mexico for decades prior to 2000. One other important thing to remember, however, is that while Mexico’s tough stance against the cartels is most often associated with President Calderon, the policy of using the military against the cartels was established during the administration of President Vicente Fox (also of PAN), who declared the “mother of all battles” against cartel kingpins in January 2005.

While this political rhetoric may be effective in tapping public discontent with the current situation in Mexico — and perhaps obtaining votes for opposition parties — the current environment in Mexico is far different from what it was in the 1990s. This environment will dictate that no matter who wins the 2012 election, the new president will have little choice but to maintain the campaign against the Mexican cartels.


Changes in the Drug Flow

First, it is important to understand that over the past decade there have been changes in the flow of narcotics into the United States. The first of these changes was in the way that cocaine is trafficked from South America to the United Sates and in the specific organizations that are doing that trafficking. While there has always been some cocaine smuggled into the United States through Mexico, like during the “Miami Vice” era from the 1970s to the early 1990s, much of the U.S. supply came into Florida via Caribbean routes. The cocaine was trafficked mainly by the powerful Colombian cartels, and while they worked with Mexican partners such as the Guadalajara cartel to move product through Mexico and into the United States, the Colombians were the dominant partners in the relationship and pocketed the lion’s share of the profits.

As U.S. interdiction efforts curtailed much of the Caribbean drug flow due to improvements in aerial and maritime surveillance, and as the Colombian cartels were dismantled by the Colombian and U.S. governments, Mexico became more important to the flow of cocaine and the Mexican cartels gained more prominence and power. Over the past decade, the tables turned. Now, the Mexican cartels control most of the cocaine flow and the Colombian gangs are the junior partners in the relationship.

The Mexican cartels have expanded their control over cocaine smuggling to the point where they are also involved in the smuggling of South American cocaine to Europe and Australia. This expanded cocaine supply chain means that the Mexican cartels have assumed a greater risk of loss along the extended supply routes, but it also means that they earn a far greater percentage of the profit derived from South American cocaine than they did when the Colombian cartels called the shots.

While Mexican cartels have always been involved in the smuggling of marijuana to the U.S. market, and marijuana sales serve as an important profit pool for them, the increasing popularity of other drugs in the United States in recent years, such as black-tar heroin and methamphetamine, has also helped bring big money (and power) to the Mexican cartels. These drugs have proved to be quite lucrative for the Mexican cartels because the cartels own the entire production process. This is not the case with cocaine, which the cartels have to purchase from South American suppliers.

These changes in the flow of narcotics into the United States mean that the Mexican narcotics-smuggling corridors into the United States are now more lucrative than ever for the Mexican cartels, and the increasing value of these corridors has heightened the competition — and the violence — to control them. The fighting has become quite bloody and, in many cases, quite personal, involving blood vendettas that will not be easily buried.

The violence occurring in Mexico today also has quite a different dynamic from the violence that occurred in Colombia in the late 1980s. In Colombia at that time, Pablo Escobar declared war on the government, and his team of sicarios conducted terrorist attacks like  destroying the Department of Administrative Security headquarters with a huge truck bomb and bombing a civilian airliner in an attempt to kill a presidential candidate, among other operations. Escobar thought his attacks could intimidate the Colombian government into the kind of accommodation being in discussed in Mexico today, but his calculation was wrong and the attacks served only to steel public opinion and government resolve against him.

Most of the violence in Mexico today is cartel-on-cartel, and the cartels have not chosen to explicitly target civilians or the government. Even the violence we do see directed against Mexican police officers or government figures is usually not due to their positions but to the perception that they are on the payroll of a competing cartel. There are certainly exceptions to this, but cartel attacks against government figures are usually attempts to undercut the support network of a competing cartel and not acts of retribution against the government. Cartel groups like Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) have even produced and distributed video statements in which they say they don’t want to fight the federal government and the military, just corrupt officers aligned with their enemies.

This dynamic means that, even if the Mexican military and federal police were to ease up on their operations against drug-smuggling activities, the war among the cartels (and factions of cartels) would still continue.


The Hydra

In addition to the raging cartel-on-cartel violence, any future effort to reach an accommodation with the cartels will also be hampered by the way the cartel landscape has changed over the past few years. Consider this: Three and a half years ago, the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) was a part of the Sinaloa Federation. Following the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva in January 2008, Alfredo’s brothers blamed Sinaloa chief Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, declared war on El Chapo and split from the Sinaloa Federation to form their own organization. Following the December 2009 death of Alfredo’s brother, Arturo Beltran Leyva, the organization further split into two factions: One was called the Cartel Pacifico del Sur, which was led by the remaining Beltran Leyva brother, Hector, and the other, which retained the BLO name, remained loyal to Alfredo’s chief of security, Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal. Following the August 2010 arrest of La Barbie, his faction of the BLO split into two pieces, one joining with some local criminals in Acapulco to form the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA). So not only did the BLO leave the Sinaloa Federation, it also split twice to form three new cartels.

There are two main cartel groups, one centered on the Sinaloa Federation and the other on Los Zetas, but these groups are loose alliances rather than hierarchical organizations, and there are still many smaller independent players, such as CIDA, La Resistencia and the CJNG. This means that a government attempt to broker some sort of universal understanding with the cartels in order to decrease the violence would be far more challenging than it would have been a decade ago.

Even if the government could gather all these parties together and convince them to agree to cease hostilities, the question for all parties would be: How reliable are all the promises being made? The various cartels frequently make alliances and agreements, only to break them, and close allies can quickly become the bitterest enemies — like the Gulf cartel and its former enforcer wing, Los Zetas.

We have heard assertions over the last several years that the Calderon administration favors the Sinaloa Federation and that the president’s real plan to quell the violence in Mexico is to allow or even assist the Sinaloa Federation to become the dominant cartel in Mexico. According to this narrative, the Sinaloa Federation could impose peace through superior firepower and provide the Mexican government a single point of contact instead of the various heads of the cartel hydra. One problem with implementing such a concept is that some of the most vicious violence Mexico has seen in recent years has followed an internal split involving the Sinaloa Federation, such as the BLO/Sinaloa war.


From DTO to TCO

Another problem is the change that has occurred in the nature of the crimes the cartels commit. The Mexican cartels are no longer just drug cartels, and they no longer just sell narcotics to the U.S. market. This reality is even reflected in the bureaucratic acronyms that the U.S. government uses to refer to the cartels. Up until a few months ago, it was common to hear U.S. government officials refer to the Mexican cartels using the acronym “DTOs,” or drug trafficking organizations. Today, that acronym is rarely, if ever, heard. It has been replaced by “TCO,” which stands for transnational criminal organization. This acronym recognizes that the Mexican cartels engage in many criminal enterprises, not just narcotics smuggling.

As the cartels have experienced difficulty moving large loads of narcotics into the United States due to law enforcement pressure, and the loss of smuggling corridors to rival gangs, they have sought to generate revenue by diversifying their lines of business. Mexican cartels have become involved in kidnapping, extortion, cargo theft, oil theft and diversion, arms smuggling, human smuggling, carjacking, prostitution and music and video piracy. These additional lines of business are lucrative, and there is little likelihood that the cartels would abandon them even if smuggling narcotics became easier.

As an aside, this diversification is also a factor that must be considered in discussing the legalization of narcotics and the impact that would have on the Mexican cartels. Narcotics smuggling is the most substantial revenue stream for the cartels, but is not their only line of business. If the cartels were to lose the stream of revenue from narcotics sales, they would still be heavily armed groups of killers who would be forced to rely more on their other lines of business. Many of these other crimes, like extortion and kidnapping, by their very nature focus more direct violence against innocent victims than drug trafficking does.

Another way the cartels have sought to generate revenue through alternative means is to increase drug sales inside Mexico. While drugs sell for less on the street in Mexico than they do in the United States, they require less overhead, since they don’t have to cross the U.S. border. At the same time, the street gangs that are distributing these drugs into the local Mexican market have also become closely allied with the cartels and have served to swell the ranks of the cartel enforcer groups. For example, Mara Salvatrucha has come to work closely with Los Zetas, and Los Aztecas have essentially become a wing of the Juarez cartel.

There has been a view among some in Mexico that the flow of narcotics through Mexico is something that might be harmful for the United States but doesn’t really harm Mexico. Indeed, as the argument goes, the money the drug trade generates for the Mexican economy is quite beneficial. The increase in narcotics sales in Mexico belies this, and in many places, such as the greater Mexico City region, much of the violence we’ve seen involves fighting over turf for local drug sales and not necessarily fighting among the larger cartel groups (although, in some areas, there are instances of the larger cartel groups asserting their dominance over these smaller local-level groups).

As the Mexican election approaches, the idea of accommodating the cartels may continue to be presented as a logical alternative to the present policies, and it might be used to gain political capital, but anyone who carefully examines the situation on the ground will see that the concept is totally untenable. In fact, the conditions on the ground leave the Mexican president with very little choice. This means that in the same way President Obama was forced by ground realities to follow many of the Bush administration policies he criticized as a candidate, the next Mexican president will have little choice but to follow the policies of the Calderon administration in continuing the fight against the cartels.

Title: El Chango
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 22, 2011, 07:06:15 PM
Vice President of Tactical Intelligence Scott Stewart looks at the implications of the arrest of drug cartel leader Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas or “El Chango.”


Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

In today’s Dispatch we’re going to be looking at the arrests yesterday in Aguascalientes State, of Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, “El Chango” (the monkey), the leader of one of the factions of the La Familia Michoacana cartel.

To understand what the arrest of El Chango means, we have to really go back and look at the flow, or really the context, of what has been happening with the Mexican cartels over the last year. A year ago this time, the La Familia or, as we call them, “LFM,” (La Familia Michoacana), the LFM cartel was an up-and-coming cartel, it was rising in power and prominence, and it had banded together with two other powerful cartel groups, the Sinaloa Federation and the Gulf Cartel, to assist them in their battle against the Zetas and their allies.

Now one of the things that we’ve seen happen over the years with the Mexican cartels is that when any one figure — especially in the Sinaloa Federation — gets too powerful, they have a tendency to run into accidents, and that’s what we saw happen last July. There was a gentleman by the name of Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, “El Nacho.” Ignacio Coronel had an issue with the authorities, was taken out, and this created a vacuum in Jalisco and Guadalajara. Now at this time what happened is we had the LFM cartel saw that vacuum of power that was started by the removal of Ignacio Coronel, and they decided to move in and try to assume control of Jalisco and Guadalajara. This then initiated a war between the Sinaloa Federation and the LFM for control of this very lucrative place. As LFM began fighting with Sinaloa, we saw Sinaloa Federation becoming really dominant and getting the upper hand in that fight, and that struggle culminated in the death, late last year, of the leader of the LFM, a guy by the name of Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, “El Mas Loco,” (the craziest one).

Following the death of El Mas Loco, what we saw happen was that it devolved into two different organizations that were basically coalescing around different powerful leaders — lieutenants of El Mas Loco. The first of these lieutenants was Jose Mendez Vargas, “El Chango.” The second one was Servando Gomez, “La Tuta,” (the teacher). La Tuta’s faction began using the name the Knights Templar. The other organization — the faction that formed around El Chango — kept using the name La Familia. So over the last few months, as these organizations have formed up, we’ve seen them locked in a very bloody battle for control of Michoacan. So over the next weeks and months we’re going to be watching for indications of which way this is going to be going: whether or not this LFM faction will be able to stay united, whether they’ll be able to be able to fend off the offensive of the Knights Templar, and whether or not they could become more closely allied with Los Zetas.

Click for more videos





85281
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 28, 2011, 09:40:08 AM
El Chango’s Arrest

The leader of a faction of La Familia Michoacana (LFM) — the faction that continues to use the LFM name — was arrested June 21 without incident in  Aguascalientes state in central Mexico. At the time of his arrest, Jose de Jesus “El Chango” Mendez Vargas and his branch of the LFM were under heavy pressure from the other LFM faction, known as the Knights Templar (KT) and led by Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, as well as from Mexican authorities and the Sinaloa Federation.

Mendez Vargas’ arrest clearly is a  short-term blow to his faction of LFM, but it is too early to tell if it will result in the end of the group. More important, it is unclear what effect it will have on the battle for control of the drug flow through Michoacan state.

Mendez Vargas’ faction of the LFM is the weaker of the two currently fighting for control of the LFM territory and business. In fact, STRATFOR sources and media reports indicate that Mendez Vargas’ faction was losing the battle against the Knights Templar. Mendez Vargas’ forces had experienced some significant losses in the weeks prior to his arrest, and banners posted by the Knights Templar alleged that Mendez Vargas was so desperate that he had even reached out to his former enemies in Los Zetas for assistance.

Presently, it appears that the Knights Templar has placed itself in a position to assume control of the LFM empire. The Knights Templar is a local organization with local support, and many of its members have a long history of close ties to the community. However, after being weakened by the fight with Mendez Vargas’ faction, it is not altogether clear if the Knights Templar will have the strength to fend off a renewed push by its enemies in the Sinaloa Federation. It is also possible that the remnants of Mendez Vargas’ organization will become even more closely aligned with Los Zetas, which will allow the Zetas to expand their presence in Michoacan by working through locals. All this means that the capture of Mendez Vargas may have removed one cartel leader, but it will likely do little to quell the violence in the state.


Troops in Tamaulipas

Around 2,800 Mexican soldiers deployed during the week of June 19 to 22 cities in Tamaulipas state along the U.S.-Mexico border. The objective of the deployment is to put the military in charge of security operations in the state while stamping out corruption in local police forces. After relieving all officers of duty, the military will conduct interviews and drug tests on new officers to determine who will receive further training and continue in law enforcement. Many of the officers who are not rehired likely will begin working for the cartels.

The military has taken control in Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros and San Fernando, border towns that saw violence increase just last week, along with the state capital of Victoria. An audacious raid in Matamoros by Los Zetas on June 17 looked to be an indication that the violence was only going to get worse in Tamaulipas. In this context it is not surprising that the Tamaulipas state government felt the need to ask the federal government for help.

The government position is that the presence of the military in Tamaulipas will lead to a decrease in violence. However, statistics on murders in Juarez, Chihuahua state, where the military took control in early March 2009, are evidence that military deployments do not necessarily correlate with a reduction in violence. In 2008, prior to the deployment, there were 1,600 murders in Juarez attributed to organized crime, according to Spanish newspaper Diario Universal. In 2009, the number went up to 2,650. The attorney general’s office in the state’s northern zone reported 3,200 murders in 2010, and as of June 15 there were already 1,500 murders on record for 2011.

The military cannot be everywhere at once, and it would take far more than 2,800 soldiers to secure the entire state of Tamaulipas. Cartels know the military presence will not last forever, so while there occasionally can be direct conflicts, more often the cartels will hunker down and wait for the military to leave or simply strike where the military has no presence.

Also, the Mexican military cannot risk being in a location too long because it faces the same corruptive forces that continually destroy the police departments. The longer the military comes in contact with those forces, the harder it is to guarantee soldiers are not being corrupted. The value of the military is that it has long been kept separate from the drug war and therefore has not been the focus of the cartels’ corruption efforts. This is already changing, and authorities must be careful with using the military to fight the war.

Another issue is that populations tend to tire of the presence of soldiers, who lack the police skills and training necessary to manage a civilian population. An extended deployment increases the chances of an incident that could upset the locals, and at the very least it is a hindrance to civilians’ daily lives.

The arrival of the military in Tamaulipas state is not a guarantee of security and tranquility. Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel are currently locked in a brutal battle for control of the northeast. The way they fight their battle may be altered a bit due to the presence of the military, but we believe that based on the experience of past military deployments in places such as Juarez, the violence between the two groups will continue despite the deployment.



(click here to view interactive map)

June 20

A journalist, his wife and son were found murdered in their house in Veracruz, Veracruz state. The journalist, the second murdered in the state this month, wrote about crime and politics for the newspaper Notiver.
Five bodies were found throughout Michoacan state with a narcomanta on each claiming responsibility on behalf of the Knights Templar.
The police chief in Morelia, Michoacan state, was detained for possession of drugs and weapons for military use only.
More than three tons of methamphetamine and precursor chemicals were found in an industrial area of El Marques, Queretaro state.

June 21

A cache of weapons and military tactical gear, including camouflage uniforms, were found in Coneto de Comonfort, Durango state.
The burned bodies of three traffic cops were found on the street in Guadalupe, Chihuahua state.
Eight suspected members of the Knights Templar were detained in Piedras de Lumbre, Michoacan state. Among the detained were the group’s leaders in Tuxpan and Zitacuaro, Michoacan state.

June 22

A man’s body was found in Jesus Maria, Aguascalientes state, with a narcomanta alluding to the detention of Mendez Vargas, the LFM head who was detained by police the previous day.
A group of marines was ambushed by unknown gunmen in Panuco, Zacatecas state, leaving one marine dead.
The police chief in Praxedis G. Guerrero, Chihuahua state, and her family were attacked and held at knifepoint during a robbery in the state of Chihuahua.
The municipal police chief of Ciudad Isla, Veracruz state, Ricardo Reyes Alvarez, was attacked by gunmen. The police chief was killed and three others were injured in the attack.
Three individuals working for the criminal organization led by Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal were detained in Tlaltizapan, Morelos state. The suspects were arrested with two kilograms (more than four pounds) of marijuana, one kilogram of cocaine and firearms.

June 23

A group of suspected extortionists opened fire on an escort vehicle in the convoy of Julian Leyzaola Perez, the municipal security chief in Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Leon state. One attacker was injured in the ensuing firefight.
Seven individuals suspected of belonging to a gang of kidnappers operating in Pachuca and Mineral de la Reforma were detained in Hidalgo state. The individuals are responsible for at least two kidnappings and one murder.
Seventy-eight Central American migrants were detained at a railway station in Irolo, Hidalgo state. Among the migrants were Hondurans, Salvadoreans, and Guatemalans.

June 24

Ninety-one police officers were arrested in Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala state, on charges of robbery and collusion among public officials.
Four Salvadorans were arrested in San Salvador, El Salvador, in connection to the August 2010 massacre in San Fernando, Tamaulipas state, that left 72 immigrants dead. The Salvadorans were responsible for transferring undocumented migrants to Mexico.
Approximately 60 undocumented migrants were kidnapped by armed men in Veracruz. The migrants were on a freight train headed from Oaxaca to Veracruz when the train was stopped by three vehicles parked in its path.
Eleven graves containing human remains were found in Nuevo Leon by the Mexican army.
The Mexican government announced the deployment of around 2,800 Mexican troops to Tamaulipas to take charge of public safety and counter corruption within the police force.

June 25

Mexican Federal Police captured alleged Los Zetas leader Albert Gonzalez Pena, aka “El Tigre,” in Xalapa, Veracruz state. He was responsible for moving drugs farther into northern and central Mexico and was also linked to various other criminal activities in Veracruz state.
Nine women from the Institutional Revolutionary Party were assaulted and received death threats allegedly due to political affiliations in Pachuca, Hidalgo state. The attackers are allegedly working for the campaign of a rival candidate.
Seven bodies were found in the municipalities of Ixtapaluca and Valle de Chalco, Mexico state. A message from LFM was left with them.

85540
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on July 07, 2011, 02:58:05 PM
Some know, I've been spending most of my time in Mexico. Last weekend, there were several people killed. So much so that my girlfriend didn't want to risk going to Aguas Calientes for a weekend due to the danger on the roads.

Here is an interesting link with lots of news.

You have to speak Spanish to understand it, but many of you do. Actually....just looked and they have a translate button for those of you that don't speak Spanish. Enjoy.

http://www.blogdelnarco.com/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 08, 2011, 04:45:36 PM
Como decia Porfirio Diaz hace un poco mas de cien anos atras "Pobre Mexico, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca a los Estados Unidos."  Que tristeza ver tanto muerte tan feo.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on July 10, 2011, 03:26:46 PM
Como decia Porfirio Diaz hace un poco mas de cien anos atras "Pobre Mexico, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca a los Estados Unidos."  Que tristeza ver tanto muerte tan feo.



Exacto.... Tu conosces la gente Mexicana bien Guro y muchos de ellos eran gente muy, muy buena.... tan triste....exactamente asi.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: jcordova on July 10, 2011, 08:53:17 PM
Mexico tiene muchos lugares muy hermosos. Esta Rico en petroleos y de muchas cosas mas.  Desafortunada mente estamos pasando muchas cosas malas Que a mi me hace en no ir para Mexico.  LLO viivo a trieinta :-( minutos de la frontera a San Luis Sonora. Yo lla ni intento en ir para alla, ni riesgo a mi familia en ir y llevarlos. Como dije el terror Que esta pasando en Mexico esta causando mucho miedo.  Ojala algun dia eso se acave.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on July 11, 2011, 11:19:29 AM
Mexico tiene muchos lugares muy hermosos. Esta Rico en petroleos y de muchas cosas mas.  Desafortunada mente estamos pasando muchas cosas malas Que a mi me hace en no ir para Mexico.  LLO viivo a trieinta :-( minutos de la frontera a San Luis Sonora. Yo lla ni intento en ir para alla, ni riesgo a mi familia en ir y llevarlos. Como dije el terror Que esta pasando en Mexico esta causando mucho miedo.  Ojala algun dia eso se acave.

Me parece tambien.... solo que yo no tengo otra opcion a este momento.

Mexico.... nuestra Mexico tienen bastante lugares bonitas como Chiapas, Michocan, Xilitla y Real de 14.... y los pin__e Zetas se aflictan los todos... Yo odio ellos con mas que palabras.

Muchos de los Americanos no saben de Mexico, la gente, las cosa buenas, su cultura....solo de la noticias que estan malo.

Me voy  a regresar manana a las 1000 horas.

Suerte JC... Cuidate....no se pero creo que su trabajo tambien muy peligroso, y necitamos cada uno que tienen la fuerza de combatir los malos. Me voy a rezar para ti.

Haste la junta companero.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: jcordova on July 11, 2011, 11:25:41 AM
Gracias HK.  :-D
Title: Kights Templar
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 19, 2011, 10:01:31 PM



Knights Templar-Orchestrated March in Michoacan

In Apatzingan, Michoacan state, a large protest materialized July 13 in which the drug-trafficking organization Los Caballeros Templarios (aka the Knights Templar or KT) figured prominently. Demonstrators carried signs supporting the cartel and protesting the presence of federal security forces in Michoacan. This was not the first time that a cartel has orchestrated a “popular protest” in Mexico. Los Zetas, the Sinaloa Federation and the Juarez cartel are known to have contrived public demonstrations to enhance their public image. What makes the KT-engineered protest in Apatzingan interesting is that the cartel leadership seemed so adamant about the turnout and timing.

In three recorded telephone conversations believed to have been released to the media a day after the march, a mid-level KT leader insisted that all residents and business owners in Apatzingan participate and warned that those who did not would be “fined.” The KT organizers arranged for food and drink to be served to the marchers and ensured that the Mexican press would cover the event. We find the recorded conversations interesting not so much for their content — which was revealing — but because of their sourcing. Who recorded them and put the tapes in the hands of the Mexican media outlet Milenio Television? What was the purpose?

However the recordings were obtained and whatever their intent, they do suggest two possible motives for the KT to organize the July 13 protest. First, there is a good possibility that the prearranged presence of the Mexican press made the march the kick-off event of a propaganda campaign in Michoacan to pressure the federal forces to leave. Another possible motive is misdirection. The federal forces have been targeting the Knights Templar as well as La Familia Michoacana, and the increased federal presence may be hampering KT smuggling activities; the group is reportedly having difficulties receiving shipments of methamphetamine precursors and moving the finished product north to the border to generate revenue.

In one of the recorded discussions, an apparent boss ordered an underling to mobilize all of the people in Apatzingan and march immediately. When the underling said arrangements had already been made for the protest to begin, the boss relented. Timing was obviously an issue, so the question arises: Why stage the protest now? It could be that the KT needed to create a diversion — make a lot of noise, protest the federal presence, require that every resident participate, ensure that the country’s national press would be present with cameras.

We may not end up developing all the facts, but a well-publicized public protest could be an effective way to ensure that the bulk of the federal forces in the state are focused on — or removed from — one particular area of Michoacan.


Prison Break in Nuevo Laredo

On July 15, 59 prisoners believed to be members of Los Zetas escaped from the federal prison in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. Immediately before their escape, a large fight broke out that resulted in the deaths of seven inmates, all believed to be members of the Gulf cartel. Following the escape, it was determined that the prison’s warden was missing.

This was not the first time that a large group of inmates had broken out of the federal prison in Nuevo Laredo; the last major escape occurred in December 2010 and involved 151 escapees, all believed linked to Los Zetas. Nor is this particular prison an anomaly: A year ago in Gomez Palacio, Durango state, Zeta assassins left the prison in street clothes, driving official prison vehicles and armed with prison guards’ weapons. After killing 17 people attending a birthday party, the gunmen returned to the prison, gave the weapons back to the guards and re-entered their cells. It was later determined that they had conducted such operations from the prison on two previous occasions in 2010.

Mexican authorities have tried rotating prison staff and spending more money on training, but so far it has had little long-term effect. Many incarcerated cartel operatives, especially those who have leadership positions, seem to be able to get out of prison almost any time they wish. Until these problems are corrected, the federal effort in the cartel war can only be a qualified success.


Ambush in Sinaloa

On July 16, a convoy carrying members of Grupo Elite, a special operations unit of the Sinaloa state police, was ambushed on a highway near Guasave, Sinaloa state, in an area that has been hotly contested by cartels this year. The personnel were travelling in officially marked but unarmored trucks when they were attacked, and 10 members of the unit as well as one civilian were killed.

According to media reports, the convoy had just finished providing security for the chief of the Ministry of Public Security in Sinaloa state, Francisco Cordova Celaya, at an appearance in Los Mochis. (Cordova Celaya was not with the convoy, having departed Los Mochis by helicopter.) Though there is not yet any evidence to indicate this, the intent of the ambush may have been to kill Cordova Celaya.

Most notable about the ambush are the topographic features of the site. In other cartel ambushes seen over the past two years, geography has offered obvious tactical advantages for the ambush team such as high ground, roadblock-created kill zones, existing fighting positions, protective cover and limited visibility. In this case, the highway is in flat, level terrain, with two lanes in each direction separated by a “k-rail,” a low concrete partition common to many highways around the world. Other than the k-rail, which is high enough to prevent vehicles from crossing it and heading in the opposition direction, photographs and video of the scene show no other cover from which to conduct an effective ambush.

How, then, were cartel gunmen able to surprise a group of highly trained, well-armed law enforcement personnel traveling in multiple trucks and having excellent visibility and fields of fire? If a stationary roadblock were used, the Grupo Elite officers would have seen it well in advance and been able to take adequate measures to avoid or deal with the attackers. Similarly, a rolling roadblock, in which attacking vehicles box in the target vehicle while moving and force it to slow down, stop or crash, would have been easy to detect, and with multiple vehicles in the convoy such a tactic would have been difficult to pull off.

We suspect that a ruse was used to get the convoy to slow or stop voluntarily, such as a staged accident scene. Whatever it was that stopped the police convoy, it appears that security protocols were not followed and situational awareness was minimal at best. Even for well-trained security forces travelling in numbers, complacency can kill.



(click here to view interactive map)

July 11

Thirteen individuals were charged in a July 8 shooting at a bar in Valle de Chalco, Mexico state, that left 11 people dead. The shooting was a result of fighting between the Knights Templar and La Familia Michoacana.
Five members of Los Zetas were arrested in Ixcan, Peten, Guatemala, including a Mexican national. The arrests were the result of an ongoing investigation of a massacre that killed 27 people in Peten.
A lieutenant of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Luis Fernando Bertolucci Castillo, was arrested in the Dominican Republic. During the lieutenant’s interrogation he revealed the Sinaloa Cartel’s attempt to use the Dominican Republic as a base for drug-smuggling operations.

July 12

Two police officers were killed by residents of San Crisobalito in the municipality of San Andres, Chiapas. The police were following a man who was accused of stealing a vehicle. When the police entered San Cristobalito they were detained by residents then thrown into a ravine that was more than 200 meters deep.
A grenade thrown from a moving vehicle exploded at an Institutional Revolutionary Party office in Saltillo, Coahuila.
The public security director in Tuzantla, Michoacan state, was reported missing. His vehicle was found empty in Benito Juarez.

July 13

Five police officers were arrested in Mexico state for the June 26 execution of eight individuals in Valle de Chalco, Mexico state.
Five minors were killed after playing a soccer game in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. The bodies of the youth were found inside a truck.
Javier Beltran Arco, an alleged leader of Knights Templar also known as “El Chivo,” was arrested in Apatzigan, Michoacan.
A protest march organized by the Knight Templar was held in Apatzigan, Michoacan. A man identified as “Pantera” organized the march in response to federal troop deployments in the area.

July 14

Five vehicles that were replicas of typical police vehicles in the area were seized in San Luis Potosí.
Mexican authorities discovered a 300-acre marijuana plantation in Baja California, thought to be the largest cultivated marijuana operation ever found in Mexico.
Roadblocks and firefights involving the Mexican navy were reported in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.

July 15

A firefight between armed groups in Torreon, Coahuila, left four people dead and two injured.
Fifty-nine prisoners, many of whom were thought to be Los Zetas, escaped from a federal prison in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. Seven inmates thought to be members of the Gulf cartel were killed before the escape.
A convoy made up of members of the state police unit Grupo Elite was ambushed while traveling along a highway in Guasave, Sinaloa. At least 10 police officers were killed.

July 16

Mexican soldiers discovered 114 kilograms of cocaine in a truck in Sonora.

July 17

A firefight between two groups in south Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, lasted for 45 minutes and included the use of high-powered rifles and grenades.
The Mexican army captured a Los Zetas leader, Cristobal “El Golon” Flores Lopez, in Anahuac, Nuevo Leon. El Golon is thought to have trafficked drugs from northern Mexico into the United States for the last eight years.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: A Diversionary Protest by the Knights Templar? | STRATFOR

86806
Title: Major Overview
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 19, 2011, 10:07:31 PM
Segundo post del dia


Mexican Drug War 2011 Update
April 21, 2011 | 1214 GMT
PRINT Text Resize:   
ShareThis
STRATFORRelated Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Editor’s Note: Since the publication of STRATFOR’s 2010 annual Mexican cartel report, the fluid nature of the drug war in Mexico has prompted us to take an in-depth look at the situation more frequently. This is the first product of those interim assessments, which we will now make as needed, in addition to our annual year-end analyses and our weekly security memos.

In the first three months of 2011, overall violence across Mexico continued to rise. The drug cartels are fighting for control of lucrative ports of entry along the U.S. border and strategic choke points in the interior of Mexico — urban crossroads on both major and minor smuggling routes. These crossroads include cities like Ciudad Victoria, San Luis Potosi, Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Durango, Torreon, Saltillo and Chihuahua. Some of them are important because they straddle vital north-south routes running along the coastlines. Others have strategic value because they sit on major highways that serve as direct routes through the interior of the country, from various points on the Pacific coast to ports of entry on the Texas border. And along that border, the control of plazas that have border crossings is being hotly contested from Juarez to Matamoros on the Gulf of Mexico.



(click here to enlarge image)
The Gulf cartel, still battling its former enforcer arm Los Zetas, is holding on to Matamoros, a vital Gulf asset. With the Sinaloa Federation’s help, the Gulf cartel has repelled Zeta offensives both at Matamoros and Reynosa but has not displayed the force necessary to push Los Zetas out of Monterrey. Los Zetas, suffering the loss of 11 mid- to upper-level leaders and plaza bosses, continue to fight their primary war with the Gulf cartel while training and assisting allied cartels in Juarez, Tijuana and Acapulco.

The Vicente Carrillo Fuentes (VCF) cartel is managing to keep Sinaloa forces at bay in Juarez but has lost its outlying territories in Chihuahua state as well as its primary drug supply line from Chihuahua City. Sinaloa’s effective blockade of Juarez has begun to choke off VCF’s supply and revenue flow. VCF is not yet out of the game, but it is limping noticeably. Another cartel on the decline — a shadow of its former self — is the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO, aka the Tijuana cartel). AFO has very little territory left that it holds alone and is now subservient to the Sinaloa Federation, to which it pays for the right to access the California ports of entry.

The Cartel Pacifico Sur (CPS) and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA), both of which comprise splinter factions of the former Beltran Leyva Organization, are battling each other for control of Acapulco’s seaport. CPS is the more successful of the two, with its territorial control stretching north along the Gulf of California coast into Sonora state, though smuggling corridors up the coastline are regularly disputed by the Sinaloa Federation.

After what seemed to be the sudden death of La Familia Michoacana (LFM) in January, it is now apparent that a portion of LFM of undetermined size has rebranded itself as the Knights Templar, which emerged on the scene in mid-March. Other members of LFM continue to operate under that name. This development is very new and it is not clear yet who the Knights Templar leaders are, how many are in the new group, what kind of relationship they have with their former brethren in LFM and what, if any, relationship either group has with the Sinaloa Federation. A great deal likely depends on the willingness of Sinaloa and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera to allow LFM or the Knights Templar to re-establish their former infrastructure and smuggling routes.

As for the Sinaloa Federation, it is now the regional hegemon in the western half of Mexico and is actively expanding its territory. Currently there are Sinaloa forces helping the Gulf cartel battle Los Zetas in the northeast, slowly strangling the VCF in Juarez, running the show in Tijuana and fighting for supremacy in Acapulco. Wherever there is a conflict in Mexico between or among a cartel’s current or former factions, you will find Sinaloa’s helpful hand. And in every case Sinaloa is gaining territory. While internal strife and external pressure from the Mexican military and federal law enforcement agencies have weakened all of the other cartels, the Sinaloa Federation has proved impervious to the turmoil — and it is growing.

In the next three to six months, STRATFOR expects Sinaloa to lead the pack in the fights for Acapulco and Durango. However, Sinaloa has so much going on around Mexico that Guzman may redeploy some of his fighters — from regions already solidified under his control, such as Tijuana — to Durango and Acapulco to facilitate quicker, more decisive victories there. STRATFOR anticipates an even greater level of violence in Juarez as Sinaloa’s chokehold tightens, and we expect to see a major push by Los Zetas to recover control of Reynosa, where the Gulf cartel will lose its hold if Sinaloa pulls fighters from there to fight elsewhere. Los Zetas are highly likely to hold onto Monterrey in the near term, absent a major government push or a massive effort by Gulf and Sinaloa, which is unlikely at this point but cannot be ruled out.

The CIDA may fade out completely in the next three to six months, with its remaining territory and assets likely split between the CPS, aided by Los Zetas, and Sinaloa. As for the Knights Templar, STRATFOR expects to see it pick up where LFM left off in December, though re-establishment of its methamphetamine production probably will be gradual.


Current Status of the Mexican Cartels


Los Zetas

Los Zetas have had setbacks over the last three months — reduced territory, captured or killed regional leaders, internal control issues — but the organization appears to be able to absorb such losses. Los Zetas have maintained control of their strongholds in Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo as well as the key Gulf of Mexico port of Veracruz, despite the best efforts of the Gulf cartel and elements of the New Federation. STRATFOR sources indicate that the Gulf cartel maintains constant surveillance of all roads leading to Matamoros, making a Zeta move in that direction difficult at best and at this point unlikely. It is more likely that Los Zetas will make a concerted effort to retake Reynosa in the coming months.

Since the beginning of 2011, actions by the Mexican military and federal police have resulted in the loss of at least 11 mid- to upper-level Los Zetas leaders, including Flavio “El Amarillo” Mendez Santiago, one of the original founding members, captured by federal police in Oaxaca on Jan. 18. One of seven Zeta gunmen killed Jan. 25 by Mexican soldiers during a running gunbattle through the Monterrey metropolitan area was identified only as “Comandante Lino,” who is believed to have been the top Zeta leader in Nuevo Leon state.

STRATFOR has heard rumors of a split between Los Zetas leader Heriberto “El Lazca” Lazcano Lazcano and No. 2 leader Miguel “Z-40” Trevino Morales. However, we have not been able to confirm this or determine if the attrition of secondary leaders was affected — or caused — by such a division.

One of the most significant events involving Los Zetas since December 2010 was the Feb. 15  attack against two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The motivation for the attack remains unclear, but viewed against documented Zeta operational behaviors and priorities, it clearly was not consistent with the top leadership’s doctrine and past practices. There has been much speculation regarding the attackers’ motives, but a planned and sanctioned attack against U.S. officials would be certain to bring the full weight of the U.S. government onto the perpetrators, and that is not something the top Zeta leadership would want to invite. This suggests the possibility that lower-level regional leaders either lost control of their operational cells or actually condoned and/or ordered the attack.

Regarding the possibility of neglected control, the erosion of Zeta forces through battle, targeted assassination and capture has been high over the past year. There have been numerous indications that recent Zeta recruits have tended to be younger and less experienced than those who joined prior to 2010. The attrition in leadership has also resulted in leaders who are themselves younger and less experienced. Such a mix may be creating conditions in which young men equipped with vehicles and weapons but with little discipline or oversight are left to their own devices.

A number of mid-level Zeta leaders came from military and law enforcement backgrounds and had received some level of institutional training and education. But many of them likely do not grasp the gravity — or even know about — an incident 26 years ago, when the Guadalajara cartel kidnapped, tortured and killed Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In response, the U.S. government orchestrated the annihilation of the Guadalajara cartel in a massive offensive called Operation Leyenda. It is possible that certain midlevel Zetas, lacking knowledge or appreciation of that operation, may not be aware of the potential repercussions of an attack on known U.S. government personnel.

If that is the case, there may be a few sporadic attacks on U.S. government agents in the coming months. But unless such events go unanswered by U.S. agencies, thereby lending the cartels a sense of impunity, it is doubtful that more than a handful of such attacks will occur.

To some extent, out-of-control gunmen within Los Zetas are a self-solving problem. Rash actions by low-level Zetas can and do trigger the occasional harsh “house cleaning,” in which the transgressors, on the orders of top-level leaders, are either killed or betrayed to authorities to send a message to the rest of the organization. Either way, the internal problem weakens the cartel and reduces both its numbers and its organizational efficacy, and it is unlikely that the internal punishment of wayward Zetas protects the organization as a whole from the consequences of their actions.

Los Zetas’ current organizational dynamics suggest that we are likely to see more unsanctioned operations such as the ICE and Falcon Lake shootings. This obviously has implications for U.S. law enforcement personnel and innocent bystanders. Such operations also will continue to induce internal culling of the elements responsible for such attacks. In all likelihood, this internal pressure, when combined with external pressures brought against Los Zetas by their cartel rivals, the Mexican government and American authorities, will continue to take a heavy toll on the cartel. And as losses are replaced with younger and less-experienced operatives, ongoing violence and destabilization will likely erode Los Zetas’ power.


Gulf Cartel

Since late January, the Gulf cartel has been solidifying its hold on Matamoros. As both a northbound smuggling route into the United States and an inbound supply port for receiving waterborne shipments, Matamoros is vital to the Gulf cartel’s survival. The organization is not down for the count, but it continues to be weakened and dependent on its allies in the Sinaloa Federation to protect it from Los Zetas. With Los Zetas in control of the port of Veracruz, Matamoros serves as the cartel’s primary resupply point for Colombian cocaine, Central American arms shipments and other logistical operations. Certainly, Gulf cartel logistics are not constricted solely to that corner of Mexico, but seaport access enables large-volume resupply that minimizes the losses inherent in land routes through hostile areas.

Though Gulf cartel control encompasses Matamoros and Reynosa, both smuggling plazas with vital ports of entry on the border, the ownership of that territory has been contested. On Jan. 29, Los Zetas launched a sizable offensive that they had prepared in advance by placing resupply caches in and around Matamoros shortly after Antonio “Tony Tormenta” Cardenas Guillen was killed last November. Several weeks of heavy fighting flared up in Matamoros and to the south and west, as Zeta fighters hit Gulf cartel groups and Mexican military units took on both cartels. Smaller fights broke out along the border northwest to Nuevo Laredo as well as southward between Matamoros and Monterrey.

The fighting died down toward the end of February, and the Gulf cartel took the opportunity to ramp up revenue streams and restock. According to STRATFOR sources, cocaine seizures by U.S. law enforcement agencies rose steadily from mid-February to late March in the Rio Grande Valley portion of the south Texas border zone — a significant increase of high-value/low-volume contraband. To offset losses from the early February Zeta offensive, the Gulf cartel tried to bring in substantial revenue very quickly.

The upswing in cocaine smuggling corresponded with the lull in cartel battles and the need for quick cash. According to a Jan. 11 U.S. Department of Justice report on illicit drug prices, wholesale cocaine prices in the area were approximately $25,000 per kilogram (more than $11,000 per pound) versus $440 to $660 per kilogram for marijuana. There is no way to calculate the ratio of contraband seized to the total contraband smuggled in any given area at any given time, but various STRATFOR sources have made conservative estimates of 1:10 to 1:12 (seized to total smuggled). Since approximately 348 kilograms (767 pounds) of cocaine were seized between the last week of February and April 1, a reasonable extrapolation of the expected revenues — after the loss of the seized cocaine — would be $87 million.

The Gulf cartel leadership does not appear to have taken as big a loss as the Los Zetas leadership did in the first quarter. On March 4, however, authorities arrested Gustavo “El 85” Arteaga Zaleta and Pablo Jesus “El Enano” Arteaga Zaleta in Tampico, Tamaulipas. The brothers were wanted on charges of kidnapping, extortion, and arms and drug trafficking for the Gulf cartel in the states of Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi. Secretariat of Public Security intelligence reports indicate that Gustavo Arteaga Zaleta is a former municipal policeman from Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas, and was the “jefe de plaza” (plaza boss) in El Ebano, San Luis Potosi.

The loss of two Gulf cartel leaders over the past few months does not appear to have adversely affected the organization, though as a whole the cartel continues to be stretched thin. With federal forces occasionally entering the fray and Los Zetas seeking any weaknesses to exploit, the Gulf cartel is engaged in a large, bloody game of “whack-a-mole” in which its dual opponents further stretch its resources — augmented though it may be by Sinaloa elements.

While the Gulf cartel has held its territory and successfully repelled a Zeta offensive this past quarter, it has not been able to wrest Monterrey, Veracruz or Nuevo Laredo away from Zeta control. In northeast Mexico, the battle lines have not shifted, there are no clear winners and the violence will continue for the foreseeable future.


Sinaloa Federation

The Sinaloa Federation remains the largest and most cohesive of the Mexican cartels. Under the leadership of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, Sinaloa has been steadily making inroads into the territories of other cartels, friend and foe alike. This expansion has been seen in Durango, Guerrero (specifically Acapulco and its vital seaport) and Michoacan states as well as Mexico City. Because it has remained a cohesive organization and maintained widely diversified revenue streams — from narcotics to avocados — the Sinaloa Federation stands to benefit most from the chaos across Mexico.

Only two significant members of the Sinaloa leadership were captured during the first quarter of 2011. The first was Cesar “El Placas” Villagran Salazar, arrested by army troops on Feb. 12. Villagran Salazar is alleged to be a key operator for Guzman in northern Sonora and coordinator of Sinaloa drug shipments for distribution across the border into Arizona. The second, on March 18, was Victor Manuel “El Senor” Felix, who is presumed to be a relative and confidante of Guzman and runs one of the cartel’s financial networks.

According to a STRATFOR source, the Mexican government’s current priority is getting the violence under control, not eliminating the cartels. It is a pragmatic approach. While some of the cartels may be breaking up or in the process of being absorbed, it is not possible at this point to eliminate them all — or to stop the trafficking of narcotics. Systemic corruption at all levels of government, well-entrenched for many years, turns a blind eye to cartel activities at best and enables them at worst. Apparently, the Mexican government has decided that the best course of action in this environment is to wage a war of attrition, taking out the low-hanging fruit and letting Sinaloa do the rest.

Extreme levels of violence are not in the best interests of cartels, whose primary goal is to make money. When violence goes up, revenue goes down. As the largest and most widespread Mexican cartel — incapable of being eliminated in the current environment — the Sinaloa Federation likely will continue to be relatively impervious to government efforts. It also is the organization most likely to assume the dominant position in the cartel landscape, which would enable it ultimately to impose a forced reduction in the cartel violence. Sinaloa could use its dominance to keep weaker groups in line, which would suit the government’s purposes.

As Sinaloa has steadily gained influence and territory over the past several years, its competition has been fragmenting. The destabilization that began in 2006 with Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s anti-cartel campaign thoroughly upset the cartel equilibrium and created power vacuums. With the possible exception of Los Zetas, the fragmentation and power vacuums have weakened or destroyed cartels while Sinaloa has either been unaffected or strengthened as the primary beneficiary. Even those elements within the Sinaloa Federation that were neutralized — the Beltran Leyva brothers and Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel Villarreal — were elements that posed a potential challenge to the leadership of Sinaloa head Guzman.

In the case of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), once a part of the Sinaloa Federation, the remaining Beltran Leyva brother Hector (see section on Cartel Pacifico Sur below) believes that Guzman betrayed his brothers and used the government to remove a potential challenger — the BLO. This was borne out by events in the first quarter of 2011, when Sinaloa expanded into the territories of cartels that were fragmented or floundering such as its New Federation allies La Familia Michoacana (LFM) and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA). “Divide and conquer” works, even when a third party causes the fragmentation, and Guzman knows this well.


Knights Templar

As was discussed in STRATFOR’s 2010 annual cartel report, the death of Nazario “El Mas Loco” Moreno Gonzalez in a shootout with federal authorities on Dec. 9, 2010, was a blow to LFM. Moreno was a charismatic and compelling leader, around whom grew a curious blend of religious cult, merciless killing machine and highly specialized drug-trafficking organization. Without Moreno’s centrally focused leadership, the bands of LFM killers fractured and seemed to engage in directionless violence in late December and into January.

LFM continued to devolve with the loss of its methamphetamine labs to government takedowns (and probably efforts by other cartels as well). As with the territorial grabs in other parts of Mexico, LFM’s leaderless cells did not hold onto the bulk of the cartel’s smuggling routes but likely lost them to regional hegemon Sinaloa. At this point in the degeneration of the organization, it is likely that the faithful core of Moreno’s followers saw the need to reorganize or rebrand the group in order to reunify its scattered elements. Such an effort at organizational self-preservation would require a particular sort of leader to fill the void left by Moreno’s death.

As with most charismatic pseudo-religious organizations and their inherent strongman leadership, there was a fiercely loyal cadre of lieutenants who surrounded Moreno. From that group alone will be found a successor who will be followed, since most of the LFM rank and file will align themselves only with someone who has complete faith in Moreno’s teachings. In the chaos of last December, following Moreno’s death, the two top members of his inner circle were rumored to have fled the country. STRATFOR has been unable to confirm the rumor (or, if it is true, whether they have returned), but the two — Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez and Jose Jesus “El Chango” Mendez Vargas — are the prime candidates to replace Moreno and bring the elements of LFM back together. They fit the mold for being the most likely to succeed in the reconstitution and rebranding of the group.

LFM announced its dissolution in January. Authorities and analysts dismissed the announcement and waited to see what evolved. The wait was not very long. On March 17, banners appeared in multiple cities and villages in Michoacan that proclaimed the presence of a previously unknown group — Los Caballeros Templar, aka the Knights Templar.

The new name may have triggered a few chuckles in some agencies — and objections from members of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, which traces its origins to the original Knights Templar, an order of Christian knights formed to protect pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land during the First Crusade. There is some parallel to the religion-centric LFM, with its stated goals of protecting the people of Michoacan from criminal elements, including corrupt government officials.

Banners announcing the emergence of the Knights Templar in Michoacan read: “To the people of Michoacan, we inform you that starting today we will be carrying out here the altruistic activities previously realized by La Familia Michoacana. We will be at the service of the people of Michoacan to attend to any situation that threatens the safety of Michoacanos. Our commitment is to: keep order; avoid robberies, kidnappings, extortion; and protect the state from possible (interventions) by rival organizations. — The Knights Templar.”

The Knights Templar banners bore the same type of message and tone as previous LFM banners, which suggests that the activities of the Knights Templar in the next few months will likely be consistent with documented LFM activities. This development is recent, and information regarding the composition of the group, its leadership and its relations with remnant LFM cells and the Sinaloa Federation is very sparse. STRATFOR will continue to monitor events in Michoacan over the next quarter, paying particular attention to the emergence of the Knights Templar leadership and the reconstitution of LFM alliances and business, enforcement and smuggling operations. It is too soon to know whether the former LFM partnership with the Sinaloa Federation will be reinstituted.


Cartel Pacifico Sur

The groups that evolved from the factions of the BLO no longer are recognizable as such. The BLO split into two separate groups, with an unknown number of BLO operatives electing to return to the Sinaloa Federation rather than join either of the two new drug-trafficking organizations.

The first of these two independent groups, Cartel Pacifico Sur (CPS), centers around Hector Beltran Leyva and is allied with Los Zetas. During the first quarter of 2011, CPS demonstrated an addition to its skill set: the use of an improvised explosive device (IED) placed in a car in Tula, Hidalgo state, with an anonymous call to local law enforcement to lure victims to the booby trap. The small device detonated on Jan. 22 when one of the vehicle’s doors was opened, injuring four police officers.

Though no one claimed responsibility for the IED, a connection can be made that suggests CPS involvement. Last summer, STRATFOR discussed the use of an IED in a car in Juarez in which the first responders were targeted and killed following an anonymous call regarding a wounded police officer. That IED is believed to have been detonated by members of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes cartel (VCF, aka the Juarez cartel). In both the Juarez and Tula bombings, the devices used were small, composed of industrial hydrogel explosives and placed in vehicles to which local police were lured by some ruse.

The common denominator is likely Los Zetas. Though the cities of Juarez and Tula are about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) apart, and the Juarez cartel and CPS do not share assets, both organizations are allied with Los Zetas — and Los Zetas have members with military demolitions training. In the coming months, STRATFOR will be watching for any other indicators that this connection has led to other permutations in CPS tactics previously not associated with the BLO.


Independent Cartel of Acapulco

The second group that broke off from the BLO is the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (Cartel Independiente de Acapulco, or CIDA). This group is still evolving and information about it remains rather muddled. At this point, STRATFOR has identified CIDA as a large part of the BLO faction loyal to Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal. Since Valdez Villarreal was arrested in September 2010, his faction has apparently become somewhat marginalized. Some CIDA members came from La Barbie’s faction, some did not. There are also some former LFM elements in the CIDA as well as a handful of miscellaneous Acapulco street thugs and miscreants. There continues to be sporadic violence attributable to, or claimed by, the CIDA, but there is mounting evidence that the organization is fading from the picture in some areas.

That said, the CIDA is not giving up without a fight. STRATFOR sources recently indicated that the group is locked in a battle with CPS for control of the city of Cuernavaca, Morelos state. Sources say CPS gunmen currently control the east side of Cuernavaca and CIDA operatives control the city’s west side. Particularly dangerous areas are the Jiutepec sector on the city’s southeast side and the Carolina neighborhood on the west side.

According to Mexican media reports, federal police arrested Benjamin “El Padrino” Flores Reyes, one of the suspected top CIDA leaders, on March 6 in Acapulco, Guerrero state. Flores Reyes reportedly controlled the distribution of drugs, managed the cartel’s lookout groups and is said to have reported directly to cartel chief Moises “El Koreano” Montero Alvarez.

The CIDA was aligned with LFM and the Sinaloa Federation, and until late last year it was most likely in control of the Acapulco plaza and seaport. The disbanded LFM, reincarnated into the Knights Templar, probably has not provided any help to the weakened CIDA, and Sinaloa has likely taken full advantage of the chaos and helped itself to the Acapulco plaza. STRATFOR has asked its sources which cartel controls the Acapulco seaport itself, and while conditions are sufficiently murky to prevent any definitive answers, the working hypothesis is that the port is also in the hands of Sinaloa.

Currently, the CIDA is at war with former ally Sinaloa, likely triggered by Guzman’s move to take CIDA territory after the arrest of Valdez Villarreal. The CIDA appears to be taking a beating on that front. During President Calderon’s visit to Acapulco last month, five dismembered bodies were found in front of a department store on Farallon Avenue in Acapulco. The discovery was made about an hour after Calderon opened the 36th Tourist Marketplace trade fair in the International Center of Acapulco. Pieces of two of the bodies were scattered on the ground near an abandoned SUV, and body parts from the other three were found in plastic bags inside the vehicle. Messages left at the scene said the victims were police officers killed by the Sinaloa Federation because they worked with the CIDA.

The outlook for the CIDA over the next three to six months is not promising. Unless something occurs to revitalize the group, such as a successful escape from prison by Valdez Villarreal, the CIDA may fade into obscurity within the year. Certainly the next three months will be telling.


Arellano Felix Organization

Fernando “El Ingeniero” Sanchez Arellano, nephew of the founding Arellano Felix brothers, is still in control of the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO, aka the Tijuana cartel), though the group is only a shadow of its former self. Little changed in the cartel’s condition in the first quarter of 2011 from how it was described in the 2010 annual cartel report. Sinaloa’s “partnership agreement” with the AFO has relegated the once-mighty Tijuana cartel to vassal status, with the bulk of its former territory and all of its smuggling avenues across the border now controlled by the Sinaloa Federation. The AFO now pays Sinaloa for access to its former territory.


Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization

The Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization (VCF, aka the Juarez cartel) is holding on. Though STRATFOR has previously reported that the VCF was hemmed in on all sides by the Sinaloa cartel, and essentially confined to the downtown area of Ciudad Juarez, recent reports from STRATFOR sources indicate that this is not quite the case. The VCF retains control of the plaza and the border crossings in Juarez, from the Paso Del Norte port of entry on the northwest side to the Ysleta port of entry on the west side of town. However, the VCF’s territory is significantly diminished to the extent that it no longer controls the city of Chihuahua, which is now held by Sinaloa, as is the rest of Chihuahua state and the border zone on both sides of Juarez/El Paso.

As we have discussed in previous cartel reports, VCF second-in-command Vicente Carrillo Leyva has been in Mexican federal custody since his arrest in Mexico City in 2009. He is the son of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, founder of the cartel, and nephew of the current leader (and cartel namesake) Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. On March 15, Carrillo Leyva was formally charged with money laundering, which diminishes the possibility of his eventual release. Given how long he has been detained and the foibles of the Mexican legal system, Carrillo Leyva may yet be released, but it seems doubtful at present.

In the absence of Carrillo Leyva, his right-hand man, Juan “El JL” Luis Ledezma, has been acting as the No. 2 in the organization, running the cartel’s operations and those of its enforcement arm, La Linea. But one of the other high-ranking VCF leaders has been taken out of the mix. On Feb. 22, Luis Humberto “El Condor” Peralta Hernandez was killed during a gunbattle with federal police in Chihuahua City, which removed the leader of the network holding open the cartel’s supply lines. As it stands now, STRATFOR sources indicate that most of the contraband seized by law enforcement on the U.S. side of the border with Chihuahua state is owned by Sinaloa, not the VCF, though the percentage remains unclear.

The VCF is surrounded by Sinaloa-held territory. Barring an unlikely reversal of Sinaloa’s fortunes, such as a massive operation by Los Zetas/VCF with all their allied gangs that successfully routs Sinaloa, the VCF is facing slow strangulation as its supply lines close and its revenue streams dry up. This will not happen overnight or even within the next three months, but as the noose tightens we can expect violence in Juarez to skyrocket beyond its current record-breaking level because the VCF will not go quietly.

In the short term, the inability to move narcotics will cause the VCF to continue to seek operational funding through other means, such as kidnapping, extortion, alien smuggling and cargo theft. We have seen indications of that with a couple of recent nightclub shootings that are thought to have been associated with VCF extortion rackets. As hard as it might be to imagine, the violence in Juarez may actually get worse.



Read more: Mexican Drug War 2011 Update | STRATFOR

868806
Title: Los Zetas almaciendo armas para deshacer las eleciones de 2012?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 21, 2011, 07:24:38 AM
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/07/los-zetas-may-attempt-to-overthrow.html#more


86890
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 26, 2011, 10:32:55 AM
From a very reliable source:


Juárez authorities were dealing with a riot at the Cereso prison late Monday night, a police spokesman said. Multiple gunshots heard from inside the prison. Soldiers, state and federal police officers were deployed to the prison. It is unknown if anyone was injured.  The Norte newspaper reported on its website that some prisoners may have been disguised as security guards and were heavily armed during a possible escape attempt .At the same time, authorities were also dealing with a burning car on Norzagaray boulevard and a shootout between gunmen and federal police on Eje Vial Juan Gabriel.


87103
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 29, 2011, 05:00:45 AM
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2011/07/ciudad-juarez-police-federal-chief-leyzaola-shooting-prison.html

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_696057.html

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18563275?source=most_viewed

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18564733?source=most_viewed

87228
Title: !Hijos de la gran , , ,!
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 29, 2011, 01:29:53 PM


U.S. Taxes Bought ATF Guns for Cartels; Holder Lied

Written by Alex Newman   

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 16:00
 
As the scandal surrounding the Obama administration’s operation to put high-powered guns in the hands of Mexican drug cartels continues to grow, new revelations suggest that American taxpayers might have actually paid for the weapons through the stimulus bill and multiple agencies. On top of that, Attorney General Eric Holder apparently lied about his knowledge of the scheme.

 The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (still known as ATF) is facing growing pressure after whistleblowers exposed “Project Gunrunner” and “Operation Fast and Furious” to public and congressional scrutiny. It turns out many of the guns shipped to Mexican crime syndicates with ATF permission have ended up at crime scenes on both sides of the border. And at least three of the weapons were involved in the slaying of U.S. federal agents. 
 
But despite the Obama administration’s frantic efforts to cover up and minimize the fiasco while demonizing guns, the furor continues to grow. And more federal agencies are now coming under scrutiny for their roles in the plot.
 
Acting ATF boss Kenneth Melson (standing right in picture above), recently threatened with contempt of Congress charges for obstructing the investigation, revealed a startling new twist to investigators late last week. At least some of the criminals supposedly being armed with ATF permission for “investigations” were actually working for the FBI and the DEA — unbeknownst to the ATF. Or so the story goes.

 Melson may have been pressured by the Department of Justice not to disclose details of the operation, and some members of Congress believe he was being set up as a fall guy to avoid investigations of higher-ups. But in testimony last week, the embattled ATF boss claimed his agency was not aware of the other agencies’ involvement because information was not properly shared.

 His recent statement sparked a widening of the congressional investigation, according to a source close to the probe cited in the San Francisco Gate. "We know now it was not something limited to just a small group of ATF agents in Arizona," the congressional source explained. 

 Members of Congress leading the inquiry into the scandal are getting very suspicious. "The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities," wrote Rep. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in a letter to Attorney General Holder.

“It is one thing to argue that the ends justify the means in an attempt to defend a policy that puts building a big case ahead of stopping known criminals from getting guns,” they added. “Yet it is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify.”

Even more explosive was a recent statement by one of the founders of a top Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas. In a taped interrogation released to the public, Jesús "El Mamito" Aguilar told Mexican police earlier in July that his crime syndicate was getting weapons directly from the U.S. government. Similarly, a top operative in the Sinaloa drug cartel explained to a federal court earlier this year that he was trafficking drugs with permission from the U.S government.

 Beyond the question of whether or not the U.S government has been deliberately aiding gun and drug trafficking, however, there’s still more. Top administration officials — and even Obama himself — have made headlines in recent days after reportedly getting caught in blatant lies.

 Attorney General Holder, for example, is under intense fire. He told Congress in May of this year that he had “probably” learned about the government’s involvement in gun running only in “the last few weeks.”

But a couple of years ago, he was bragging about the scandalous program by name during a speech in Mexico. “My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner,” he boasted to an anti-gun crowd outside of Mexico City in 2009.

 Similarly, Obama said he neither approved nor had knowledge of the program to arm the cartels. But the so-called “stimulus” bill, which the President signed, contained an explicit appropriation of tens of millions of dollars in funding for the scheme.   

“The evidence suggests that [Border Patrol] Agent [Brian] Terry's death was financed by the president's stimulus package with the full knowledge and support of Attorney General Holder,” charged the Investor’s Business Daily in a scathing editorial entitled "The Stimulation of Murder" about the ATF program. “President Obama needs to man up about Gunrunner and either take responsibility for this tragedy or admit, under oath if need be, that even he didn't know what was in the stimulus bill.”

Critics of the administration have for weeks been raising the possibility that federal officials may have been deliberately arming the cartels for ulterior motives. But even as the gun trafficking scandal explodes, the Obama administration is making good on threats to impose more unconstitutional restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment rights by executive decree.

 As the public outcry over the federal gun smuggling operations intensifies, blame will eventually be pinned on someone. The media frenzy has been steadily growing for months as new revelations continue to shock observers. Where it will all end, however, remains to be seen.
 
 http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/8194-us-taxes-bought-atf-guns-for-cartels-holder-lied

87243
Title: Fragmentacion de los narcos
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 05, 2011, 08:57:25 PM

http://insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/1359-mexico-upstart-gangs-eat-into-cartel-hegemony

87621
Title: Blurring the lines
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 07, 2011, 09:11:05 AM
En mi opinion hay que tener en cuenta que el NYTimes es aliado a Presidente Obama; osea no esta' 100% digna de fe:



WASHINGTON — The United States is expanding its role in Mexico’s bloody fight against drug trafficking organizations, sending new C.I.A. operatives and retired military personnel to the country and considering plans to deploy private security contractors in hopes of  turning around a multibillion-dollar effort that so far has shown few results.

The United States is assisting Mexican police forces in conducting wiretaps, running informants and interrogating suspects.
In recent weeks, small numbers of C.I.A. operatives and American civilian military employees have been posted at a Mexican military base, where, for the first time, security officials from both countries work side by side in collecting information about drug cartels and helping plan operations. Officials are also looking into embedding a team of American contractors inside a specially vetted Mexican counternarcotics police unit.

Officials on both sides of the border say the new efforts have been devised to get around Mexican laws that prohibit foreign military and police from operating on its soil, and to prevent advanced American surveillance technology from falling under the control of Mexican security agencies with long histories of corruption.

“A sea change has occurred over the past years in how effective Mexico and U.S. intelligence exchanges have become,” said Arturo Sarukhán, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States. “It is underpinned by the understanding that transnational organized crime can only be successfully confronted by working hand in hand, and that the outcome is as simple as it is compelling:  we will together succeed or together fail.”

The latest steps come three years after the United States began increasing its security assistance to Mexico with the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative and tens of millions of dollars from the Defense Department. They also come a year before elections in both countries, when President Obama may confront questions about the threat of violence spilling over the border, and President Felipe Calderón’s political party faces a Mexican electorate that is almost certainly going to ask why it should stick with a fight that has left nearly 45,000 people dead.

“The pressure is going to be especially strong in Mexico, where I expect there will be a lot more raids, a lot more arrests and a lot more parading drug traffickers in front of cameras,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a counternarcotics expert at the Brookings Institution. “But I would also expect a lot of questioning of Merida, and some people asking about the way the money is spent, or demanding that the government send it back to the gringos.”

Mexico has become ground zero in the American counternarcotics fight since its cartels have cornered the market and are responsible for more than 80 percent of the drugs that enter the United States. American counternarcotics assistance there has grown faster in recent years than to Afghanistan and Colombia. And in the last three years, officials said, exchanges of intelligence between the United States and Mexico have helped security forces there capture or kill some 30 mid- to high-level drug traffickers, compared with just two such arrests in the previous five years.

The United States has trained nearly 4,500 new federal police agents and assisted in conducting wiretaps, running informants and interrogating suspects. The Pentagon has provided sophisticated equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, and in recent months it has begun flying unarmed surveillance drones over Mexican soil to track drug kingpins.

Still, it is hard to say much real progress has been made in crippling the brutal cartels or stemming the flow of drugs and guns across the border. Mexico’s justice system remains so weakened by corruption that even the most notorious criminals have not been successfully prosecuted.   

“The government has argued that the number of deaths in Mexico is proof positive that the strategy is working and that the cartels are being weakened,” said Nik Steinberg, a specialist on Mexico at Human Rights Watch. “But the data is indisputable — the violence is increasing, human rights abuses have skyrocketed and accountability both for officials who commit abuses and alleged criminals is at rock bottom.”

Mexican and American officials involved in the fight against organized crime do not see it that way. They say the efforts begun under President Obama are only a few years old, and that it is too soon for final judgments. Dan Restrepo, Mr. Obama’s senior Latin American adviser, refused to talk about operational changes in the security relationship, but said, “I think we are in a fundamentally different place than we were three years ago.”

===================



Page 2 of 2)



A senior Mexican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed. “This is the game-changer in degrading transnational organized crime,” he said, adding: “It can’t be a two-, three-, four-, five- or six-year policy. For this policy investment to work, it has to be sustained long-term.”

Enlarge This Image
 
The New York Times

 
Several Mexican and American security analysts compared the challenges of helping Mexico rebuild its security forces and civil institutions — crippled by more than seven decades under authoritarian rule — to similar tests in Afghanistan. They see the United States fighting alongside a partner it needs but does not completely trust.

Though the new United States ambassador to Mexico was plucked from an assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Obama administration bristles at such comparisons, saying Mexico’s growing economy and functioning, though fragile, institutions put it far ahead of Afghanistan. Instead, administration officials more frequently compare Mexico’s struggle to the one Colombia began some 15 years ago.

Among the most important lessons they have learned, they say, is that in almost any fight against organized crime, things tend to get worse before they get better.

When violence spiked last year around Mexico’s industrial capital, Monterrey, Mr. Calderón’s government asked the United States for more access to sophisticated surveillance technology and expertise. After months of negotiations, the United States established an intelligence post on a northern Mexican military base, moving Washington beyond its traditional role of sharing information to being more directly involved in gathering it.

American officials declined to provide details about the work being done by the American team of fewer than two dozen Drug Enforcement Administration agents, C.I.A. officials and retired military personnel members from the Pentagon’s Northern Command. For security reasons, they asked The New York Times not to disclose the location of the compound.

But the officials said the compound had been modeled after “fusion intelligence centers” that the United States operates in Iraq and Afghanistan to monitor insurgent groups, and that the United States would strictly play a supporting role.

“The Mexicans are in charge," said one American military official. “It’s their show. We’re all about technical support.”

The two countries have worked in lock step on numerous high-profile operations, including the continuing investigation of the February murder of Jaime J. Zapata, an American Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Mexico’s federal police chief, Genaro García Luna, put a helicopter in the air within five minutes after receiving a call for help from Mr. Zapata’s partner, the authorities said. Then he invited American officials to the police intelligence center — an underground location known as “the bunker” — to work directly with Mexican security forces in tracking down the suspects.

Mexican officials hand-carried shell casings recovered from the scene of the shooting to Washington for forensics tests, allowed American officials to conduct their own autopsy of the agent’s body and shipped the agent’s bullet-battered car to the United States for inspection.

In another operation last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration and a Mexican counternarcotics police unit collaborated on an operation that led to the arrest of José Antonio Hernández Acosta, a suspected drug trafficker. The authorities believe he is responsible for hundreds of deaths in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, including the murders of two Americans employed at the United States Consulate there.

While D.E.A. field officers were not on the scene — the Mexicans still draw the line at that — the Americans helped develop tips and were in contact with the Mexican unit almost every minute of the five-hour manhunt, according to a senior American official in Mexico. The unit, of about 50 officers, is the focus of another potentially ground-breaking plan that has not yet won approval. Several former D.E.A. officials said the two countries were considering a proposal to embed a group of private security contractors — including retired D.E.A. agents and former Special Forces officers — inside the unit to conduct an on-the-job training academy that would offer guidance in conducting operations so that suspects can be successfully taken to court. Mexican prosecutors would also work with the unit, the Americans said.

But a former American law enforcement official familiar with the unit described it as one good apple in a barrel of bad ones. He said it was based on a compound with dozens of other nonvetted officers, who provided a window on the challenges that the Mexican police continue to face.

Some of the officers had not been issued weapons, and those who had guns had not been properly trained to use them. They were required to pay for their helmets and bulletproof vests out of their own pockets. And during an intense gun battle against one of Mexico’s most vicious cartels, they had to communicate with one another on their cellphones because they had not been issued police radios. “It’s sort of shocking,” said Eric Olson of the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Mexico is just now learning how to fight crime in the midst of a major crime wave. It’s like trying to saddle your horse while running the Kentucky Derby.”




87700
Title: The Buffer
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 18, 2011, 07:40:08 AM
The Buffer Between Mexican Cartels and the U.S. Government
August 17, 2011


By Scott Stewart

It is summer in Juarez, and again this year we find the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization (VCF), also known as the Juarez cartel, under pressure and making threats. At this time in 2010, La Linea, the VCF’s enforcer arm, detonated a small improvised explosive device (IED) inside a car in Juarez and killed two federal agents, one municipal police officer and an emergency medical technician and wounded nine other people. La Linea threatened to employ a far larger IED (100 kilograms) if the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) did not investigate the head of Chihuahua State Police intelligence, whom the VCF claimed was working for the Sinaloa Federation.

La Linea did attempt to employ another IED on Sept. 10, 2010, but this device, which failed to detonate, contained only 16 kilograms of explosives, far less than the 100 kilograms that the group had threatened to use.

Fast-forward a year, and we see the VCF still under unrelenting pressure from the Sinaloa Federation and still making threats. On July 15, the U.S. Consulate in Juarez released a message warning that, according to intelligence it had in hand, a cartel may be targeting the consulate or points of entry into the United States. On July 27, “narcomantas” — banners inscribed with messages from drug cartels — appeared in Juarez and Chihuahua signed by La Linea and including explicit threats against the DEA and employees of the U.S. Consulate in Juarez. Two days after the narcomantas appeared, Jose Antonio “El Diego” Acosta Hernandez, a senior La Linea leader whose name was mentioned in the messages, was arrested by Mexican authorities aided by intelligence from the U.S. government. Acosta is also believed to have been responsible for planning La Linea’s past IED attacks.

As we have discussed in our coverage of the drug war in Mexico, Mexican cartels, including the VCF, clearly possess the capability to construct and employ large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) — truck bombs — and yet they have chosen not to. These groups are not averse to bloodshed, or even outright barbarity, when they believe it is useful. Their decision to abstain from certain activities, such as employing truck bombs or targeting a U.S. Consulate, indicates that there must be compelling strategic reasons for doing so. After all, groups in Lebanon, Pakistan and Iraq have demonstrated that truck bombs are a very effective means of killing perceived enemies and of sending strong messages.

Perhaps the most compelling reason for the Mexican cartels to abstain from such activities is that they do not consider them to be in their best interest. One important part of their calculation is that such activities would remove the main buffer that is currently insulating them from the full force of the U.S. government: the Mexican government.


The Buffer

Despite their public manifestations of machismo, the cartel leaders clearly fear and respect the strength of the world’s only superpower. This is evidenced by the distinct change in cartel activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, where a certain operational downshift routinely occurs. In Mexico, the cartels have the freedom to operate far more brazenly than they can in the United States, in terms of both drug trafficking and acts of violence. Shipments of narcotics traveling through Mexico tend to be far larger than shipments moving into and through the United States. When these large shipments reach the border they are taken to stash houses on the Mexican side, where they are typically divided into smaller quantities for transport into and through the United States.

As for violence, while the cartels do kill people on the U.S. side of the border, their use of violence there tends to be far more discreet; it has certainly not yet incorporated the dramatic flair that is frequently seen on the Mexican side, where bodies are often dismembered or hung from pedestrian bridges over major thoroughfares. The cartels are also careful not to assassinate high-profile public figures such as police chiefs, mayors and reporters in the United States, as they frequently do in Mexico.

The border does more than just alter the activities of the cartels, however. It also constrains the activities of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. These agencies cannot pursue cartels on the Mexican side of the border with the same vigor that they exercise on the U.S. side. Occasionally, the U.S. government will succeed in luring a wanted Mexican cartel leader outside of Mexico, as it did in the August 2006 arrest of Javier Arellano Felix, or catch one operating in the United States like Javier’s oldest brother, Francisco Arellano Felix. By and large, however, most wanted cartel figures remain in Mexico, out of the reach of U.S. law.

One facet of this buffer is corruption, which is endemic in Mexico, reaching all the way from the lowest municipal police officer to the presidential palace. Over the years several senior Mexican anti-drug officials, including the nation’s drug czar, have been arrested and charged with corruption.

However, the money generated by the Mexican cartels has far greater effects than just promoting corruption. The billions of dollars that come into the Mexican economy via the drug trade are important to the Mexican banking sector and to the industries in which the funds are laundered, such as construction. Because of this, there are many powerful Mexican businessmen who profit either directly or indirectly from the narcotics trade, and it would not be in their best interest for the billions of drug dollars to stop flowing into Mexico. Such people can place heavy pressure on the political system by either supporting or withholding support from particular candidates or parties.

Because of this, sources in Mexico have been telling STRATFOR that they believe that Mexican politicians like President Filipe Calderon are far more interested in stopping drug violence than they are in stopping the flow of narcotics. This is a pragmatic approach. Clearly, as long as there is demand for drugs in the United States there will be people who will find ways to meet that demand. It is impossible to totally stop the flow of narcotics into the U.S. market.

In addition to corruption and the economic benefits Mexico realizes from the drug trade, there is another important element that causes the Mexican government to act as a buffer between the Mexican cartels and the U.S. government — geopolitics. The Mexico-U.S. relationship is a long one that has involved considerable competition and conflict. The United States has long meddled in the affairs of Mexico and other countries in Latin America. And from the Mexican perspective, American imperialist aggression, via the Texas War of Independence and the Mexican-American War, resulted in Mexico losing nearly half of its territory to its powerful northern neighbor. Less than a century ago, U.S. troops invaded northern Mexico in response to Pancho Villa’s incursions into the United States.

Because of this history, Mexico — as with most of the rest of Latin America — regards the United States as a threat to its sovereignty. The result of this perception is that the Mexican government and the Mexican people in general are very reluctant to allow the United States to become too involved in Mexican affairs. The idea of American troops or law enforcement agents with boots on the ground in Mexico is considered especially threatening from the Mexican perspective.


A Thin Barrier

While Mexican sovereignty and international law combine with corruption and economics to create a barrier to assertive U.S. intervention in Mexico’s drug war, this barrier is not inviolable. There are two distinct ways this type of barrier has been breached in the past: by force and by consent.

An example of the first was seen following the 1985 kidnapping, torture and murder of U.S. DEA special agent Enrique Camarena. The DEA was not able to get what it viewed as satisfactory assistance from the Mexican government in pursuing the case despite the tremendous pressure applied by the U.S. government. This prompted the DEA to unilaterally enter Mexico and snatch two Mexican citizens connected to the case. Because of his involvement in the Camarena case, Honduran drug kingpin Juan Matta-Ballesteros was also rendered from his home in Honduras by U.S. government agents.

As a result of the U.S. reaction to the Camarena murder, the Guadalajara Cartel, Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization at the time, was decapitated, its leaders — Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero — all arrested and convicted for their part in ordering the killing. The tremendous pressure applied to Mexican authorities by the U.S. government to arrest the trio, coupled with the fear that they too might be rendered, ultimately led to their detention, although they did maintain sufficient influence to ensure that they were not extradited to the United States.

The Guadalajara Cartel also lost its primary connection to the Medellin cartel (Matta-Ballesteros) as a result of the Camarena case, and the cartel was eventually fractured into smaller units that would become today’s Sinaloa, Juarez, Gulf and Tijuana cartels. The Camarena case taught the Mexican cartel bosses to be careful not to provoke the Americans to the point where it will bring the full power of the U.S. government to bear upon their organizations (a lesson recently demonstrated by the unilateral U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan).

But in addition to unilateral force, sometimes the U.S. government can be invited into a country despite concerns about sovereignty. This happens when the population has something it fears more than U.S. involvement, and this is what happened in Colombia in the late 1980s. In an effort to influence the Colombian government not to cooperate with the U.S. government and extradite him to the United States, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin Cartel, resorted to terrorism. In 1989 he launched a string of terrorist attacks that included the assassination of one presidential candidate, the bombing a civilian airliner in an attempt to kill a second presidential candidate and several large VBIED attacks, including the detonation of a 1,000-pound truck bomb in December 1989 targeting the Colombian Administrative Department of Security (DAS, Colombia’s primary national intelligence and security service) that caused massive damage in the area around the DAS building in downtown Bogota. These attacks had a powerful impact on the Colombian government and Colombian people and caused them to reach out to the United States for increased assistance despite their concern about U.S. power. The increased U.S. assistance eventually led to the death of Escobar and the systematic dismantling of his organization.

The lesson in the Escobar case was: Do not push your own government or population too far or they will turn on you and invite the Americans in.


Full Circle

So, in looking at the situation in Mexico today, there are indeed cartel organizations that have been hit hard. Over the past few years, we have seen groups such as the Beltran Leyva Organization, the Arellano Felix Organization, the VCF and Los Zetas heavily damaged. Many of these groups, particularly the VCF, the Arellano Felix Organization and Los Zetas, have been forced to resort to other criminal activity such as kidnapping, extortion and human trafficking to fund their operations. However, they have not yet undertaken large-scale terrorist attacks. The VCF tiptoed along that line last year, with La Linea’s small-scale IED attacks, as did the Gulf cartel, but these groups were careful not to use IEDs that were too large, and La Linea never employed the huge IED it threatened to. In fact, the overall use of IEDs is down dramatically in 2011 compared to the same period last year — despite the fact that explosives are readily available in Mexico and the cartels have the demonstrated capability to manufacture and employ them.

It is also important to recognize that in the past couple of years, when the United States has become heavily interested in attacks linked to the Mexican cartels, the cartel figures believed to be responsible for these actions have been arrested or killed. This has happened in cases such as the March 2010 murders of three people with ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, the September 2010 murder of David Hartley on Falcon Lake, the February 2011 murder of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata, and even the previously mentioned July 27 threats against U.S. interests in Juarez. This means that the chances of a cartel such as the VCF getting the United States directly involved without the cartel being directly impacted are probably quite slim. In other words, if the VCF attacks the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, it can expect to be targeted directly by the U.S. and Mexican governments, instead of the governments focusing on other cartel players in the city, such as the VCF’s rival, the Sinaloa Federation.

As noted in our last cartel update, we anticipate that in the coming months the Mexican government campaign against Los Zetas will continue to impact that group, as will the attacks against Los Zetas by the Gulf cartel and its criminal allies. We also anticipate that the aforementioned Sinaloa pressure against the VCF in Juarez will not diminish. Nor will Mexican government pressure: We have seen reports that Luis Antonio Flores (also known as El Comen 2 or El Tarzan), El Diego’s replacement as the leader of La Linea, was arrested Aug. 16. However, we have seen nothing that would indicate that this pressure will cause these groups to lash out in the form of large-scale terrorist attacks like those associated with Pablo Escobar. Even when wounded, these Mexican organizations have shown that they seek to maintain the buffer protecting them from the full power of the U.S. government.





88260
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 23, 2011, 09:43:45 AM


Gunfight at a Soccer Match in Torreon

A gunfight erupted in Torreon, Coahuila state, at around 8 p.m. on Aug. 20, after a three-vehicle convoy of gunmen reportedly crashed through a security checkpoint outside the  Territorio Santos Modelo soccer stadium. No one was killed or seriously injured during the shootout. Security forces closed the doors of the stadium — likely preventing the deaths of fans who might have panicked and run out into the gunfight — and established a security cordon around the facility.

Adelaido Flores Diaz, the director general of public security in Torreon, confirmed that the gunmen were targeting a Public Security Patrol, rather than the stadium or the fans therein. Stray bullets did enter the stadium. The gunmen evaded arrest by using caltrops (small, four-pointed spikes used to deflate vehicle tires) to slow pursuing authorities. Their truck was found abandoned and containing three high-caliber weapons and two grenades.



(click here to enlarge image)
The shootout in Torreon illustrates the role geography plays in Mexico’s drug trafficking operations — a role of which cartel leaders keenly understand the importance. Cartels must not only move contraband into and out of the country, but also across it. Situated in central Mexico at the intersection of a couple of major highways, Torreon is a critical hub for cartels moving product to northern Mexico and, eventually, into the United States. Control of Torreon helps facilitate the movement of product from Mexico’s Pacific coast across the country to smuggling corridors, such as Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad Juarez, on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Because cartels understand the importance and vulnerability of their own supply routes, such gateway cities have become hotly disputed territory. Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation have been fighting for control of Torreon for some time, and members of one or both of those groups were very likely among those involved in the shootout. We can expect to see continual violence in the city as the Zetas and Sinaloa continue to vie for unfettered control of transit routes. Unfortunately for Torreon, its geographic location predisposes it to such violence and increases the psychological impact of “terror,” which STRATFOR has previously addressed.

Indeed, aside from the geographic issue, there is also a notable psychological component to the incident in Torreon. Soccer is by far the most popular sport in Mexico, often used as a means to escape the realities of daily life. In a country where the populace does not often have much reason for optimism — corruption is rampant and violence, often grotesque and public, is commonplace — fans can always cheer for their home team and take pride in their city when victorious. While Torreon is unlikely to stop hosting soccer matches altogether, the psychological impact of the Aug. 20 gunfight is an affront to a cherished pastime. It signifies a permeation of violence into every aspect of Mexican life and robs Torreon’s citizens of a respite from news of prolific violence, making a return to normalcy seem all the more remote.

Moreover, the game was a high-profile event, airing not only in Mexico but also the United States, and a number of fans documented the episode on cameras and phones. (None of the fans actually recorded anything but the sounds of the gunfire. During the live telecast, the game’s announcers discussed what was happening, who was responsible and how to escape.) Such publicity serves as a reminder that while Mexico’s war on drugs directly affects comparatively few — those in cities such as Torreon — the violence it causes can be seen by anyone with an Internet connection.


Violence in Acapulco

On Aug. 17, two bus drivers and an assistant driver were killed in separate incidents in Acapulco, Guerrero state. The first incident took place on the Acapulco-Mexico highway at an area known as La Llave de Agua, where a bus driver and his assistant were found dead in their bus, near a number of shell casings. In the second incident, a female driver was found shot and killed in her bus on the Avenida Adolfo Ruiz Cortines.

The violence in Acapulco is a result of its strategic geographic location. The port is a natural coastal harbor and provides excellent shelter. It has become an important port, not only for legitimate economic enterprises, but also for the drug industry. Though far smaller than Lazaro Cardenas, it is still a critical hub for the import of precursor chemicals used in the production of methamphetamine, and of cocaine that arrives at port from Colombia. It also straddles the Pacific coastal highway, which traverses nearly the entire country. Acapulco is currently being fought over by several different criminal groups. One of these is the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA), which consists of a faction of the former Beltran Leyva Organization that was loyal to Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal and that joined with local Acapulco criminals to form CIDA. This group has long been locked in a bloody war with the Sinaloa cartel and the Cartel Pacifico Sur, which is headed by Hector Beltran Leyva.

As cartel infighting continues to escalate, so too does violence against transportation employees. This violence can occur for many reasons. The first is extortion. Like other businesses, many bus companies and taxi companies are forced to pay “taxes” to the criminal organizations that control the city in which they operate. Failure to pay these organizations frequently results in violence. Conversely, in a city where various groups are vying for control, one group can target a business that it believes is providing financial support to a rival organization. This leaves businesses facing a deadly situation: Failure to pay may result in death, while paying one cartel over others invites reprisal from rival cartels.

Finally, some transportation workers serve as “halcones” — a name given to those working to supply street-level information to various cartels. Certainly not all of those working in the transportation industry work for the cartels, but those who do are vital assets of their respective intelligence apparatuses. They have an inherent cover story and the ability to access different areas of a city (bus drivers even have scheduled, predictable routes). Cartels, therefore, have every incentive to target those halcones they believe to be on the take of their rivals.

As violence continues in the struggle to control Acapulco, it will impact bystanders as well as those supporting the various combatants.



(click here to view interactive map)

Aug. 15

A decapitated body was hung off a bridge in Huixquilucan, Mexico state, with a narcomanta from La Mano con Ojos. The message stated that the decapitated individual thought the La Mano con Ojos organization was disjointed and decided to work for himself. The message follows the arrest of Oscar Osvaldo “El Compayito” Garcia Montoya, the former leader of the group.
Police seized 2 tons of marijuana in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state, after an armed individual was spotted discarding a package in the presence of police. No arrests were made.

Aug. 16

Federal police arrested the presumed successor to the leader of La Linea, Jose Antonio “El Diego” Acosta Hernandez. He was arrested in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state. “El Coman 2,” who operates under the aliases Luis Antonio Flores Diaz and Jose Antonio Rincon, replaced Acosta after his arrest on July 29.
The Mexican army killed eight gunmen traveling in a three-vehicle convoy in Michoacan state’s Tacambaro region. As the army patrol approached, two of the vehicles sped away while the third engaged in a gunfight with the soldiers.
Gunmen shot and killed Francisco Torres Ibanez, the intermunicipal police commander of Veracruz-Boca Del Rio, while he was on patrol in Veracruz, Veracruz state.
A severed pig head was discovered in a cooler at a university in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state, with a note stating that the pig head was for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The message was signed “El Coman 2.”

Aug. 17

During a reconnaissance operation, Mexican authorities seized a drug lab in Chilchota, Michoacan state, containing approximately 1 ton of chemical precursors.
Federal police seized approximately 116 kilograms (256 pounds) of marijuana from a vehicle in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state.
Five coolers containing severed human remains were found throughout Acapulco, Guerrero state. The identities of the victims and the killers remain unknown.

Aug. 18

Multiple narcomantas were posted throughout Chihuahua, Chihuahua state, criticizing Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Some of the banners were critical of the lack of reporting of clandestine graves in Durango and accused Calderon of a cover-up.
Ten Los Zetas members were killed when the Mexican army approached a safe house in Agualeguas, Nuevo Leon state. At least 20 gunmen escaped during the fight.

Aug. 19

The Mexican army detained 10 members of the group Comando Del Diablo, in Acapulco, Guerrero state. The arrests were a result of an investigation conducted after members of the group left coolers with human remains in Acapulco on Aug. 17.

Aug. 20

The mayor of Zacualpan, Mexico state, was found dead in Teloloapan, Guerrero state. He was kidnapped Aug. 19 after he and his bodyguards were attacked by gunmen.
A gunfight erupted between police and gunmen in Torreon, Coahuila state. The gunfight occurred outside of a soccer stadium where a game was being played.
Nine dead bodies with multiple gunshot wounds were found along a highway near Mora, Nayarit state. The bodies were found with their hands bound.
After stopping traffic and firing gunshots, gunmen hung a narcomanta off a bridge in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, addressed to Calderon and state Gov. Rodrigo Medina. The narcomanta warned of an upcoming prison escape at the Apodaca prison in Nuevo Leon.

Aug. 21

Three human heads were discovered in a plastic bag along a busy street in Acapulco, Guerrero state. The authorities have not dismissed the possibility that the heads belong to headless corpses found in Acapulco on Aug. 19.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Violence Shows Strategic Value of Torreon, Acapulco | STRATFOR

88591
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 26, 2011, 08:39:46 AM
MONTERREY – Two dozen gunmen burst into a casino in northern Mexico on Thursday, doused it with gasoline and started a fire that trapped gamblers inside, killing 53 people and injuring a dozen more, authorities said.

The fire at the Casino Royale in Monterrey, a city that has seen a surge in drug cartel-related violence, represented one of the deadliest attacks on an entertainment center in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/25/eleven-killed-in-attack-on-northern-mexico-casino/#ixzz1W7c6fNgF
---------

El Los Angeles Times ahora esta' diciendo que murieron entre 40 and 50 personas  :cry:

88762
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on August 26, 2011, 09:05:16 AM
MONTERREY – Two dozen gunmen burst into a casino in northern Mexico on Thursday, doused it with gasoline and started a fire that trapped gamblers inside, killing 53 people and injuring a dozen more, authorities said.

The fire at the Casino Royale in Monterrey, a city that has seen a surge in drug cartel-related violence, represented one of the deadliest attacks on an entertainment center in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/25/eleven-killed-in-attack-on-northern-mexico-casino/#ixzz1W7c6fNgF
---------

El Los Angeles Times ahora esta' diciendo que murieron entre 40 and 50 personas  :cry:

88762

Yo eso lo vi... horrible.

Es increible que Mexico hay tan muchas personas buenas, pero tambien, tanto cosas malos.... por eso necitamos cazar cada persona que estan hacienden las cosas mas feas, por que la mayoria de la gente no se pueden por sus mismos.  :x
Title: Operaciones del ejercito Mexicano en los EU?!?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 31, 2011, 04:07:40 AM
www.southernpulse.com


Mexico - President Calderon calls for U.S. action following attack in Monterrey

Following the attack on Casino Royal, which killed more than 50 in Monterrey on 25 August 2011, Mexican President Felipe Calderon addressed the nation on 26 August 2011, condemning the attacks and calling them acts of terrorism. Calderon placed some blame on the United States, citing the fact that the U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of drugs and leading weapons retailer, stating that these activities finance the criminal activity plaguing Mexico. Calderon implored both the U.S. President and Congress to take action to prevent the transfer of profits from drug sales back to Mexico and also to curb the criminal sale of high-powered assault rifles.

MARC:  Pues hay que hablar con nuestro Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, and Firearms con respeto al ultimo frase.  :x

Mexico - U.S. increases role in war against drugs in Mexico

The United States is expanding their role in the war on drugs in Mexico, allowing Mexican authorities to stage cross border helicopter raids in the U.S., in addition to staging drones to eavesdrop on cartel’s cell phone communications and to capture video of drug processing labs and smuggling units. While U.S. authorities maintain these are not joint operations, rather Mexican operations staged in U.S. territory, cooperation is increasing despite historical tensions between the two nations.

MARC:  !Eso me parece increible,; no tengamos ninguna noticicia al respeto aqui!

89102
Title: Monterrey casino firebombing
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 31, 2011, 08:36:25 AM


Above the Tearline: Reconstructing the Monterrey Arson Attack from Surveillance Footage
August 31, 2011 | 1347 GMT
Click on image below to watch video:



Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton demonstrates how video surveillance footage is used to reconstruct the recent arson attack in Monterrey, Mexico.


Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

In this week’s Above the Tearline, we’re going to show you how agents utilize video surveillance tape to reconstruct the crime using the recent casino fire in Monterrey, Mexico, as an example.

Let’s take a look at the first video, which takes place before the crime occurs. This is surveillance footage at a gas station, and you see the suspects have purchased gas that they have placed in the back of this pickup truck in these white barrels. Note that you could digitally enhance this and get a very good tag number. You also can get a make and model the vehicle, and notice the distinct clothing and attire on this one suspect on the right. And you’re going to have a good date time stamp as when this truck pulls out of the gas station.

This is our second video surveillance tape, and notice the truck that was at the gas station pulling out onto a public highway in Monterrey. So you’re going to be able to sync up the time of the gas purchase when the vehicle pulls out on the highway. I want you to note this vehicle up in the corner. It’s a mini — a white mini with black markings. It rolls in behind the pickup truck along the same route. This vehicle will subsequently show up at the crime scene as well.

Before I roll the tape here, you will see a third vehicle rolling in behind the mini that subsequently shows up at the crime scene as well. So you have the truck leading the convoy; you have the mini; and now you have a third vehicle in the mix right here. You’ll see a fourth vehicle that subsequently shows up at the crime scene as well.

Our next video is taken from a security camera at the casino. Notice you’ll have the first, second and third suspect vehicles already pulled up into the parking lot, and it will be quickly followed by a fourth vehicle — right here — that I’m going to show you. Now you have all four of the vehicles seen on the highway, and you have the truck that had purchased the gasoline earlier in the videotape on the scene. You’ll see the suspects start to deploy out. As we roll the videotape, you’ll see individuals carry the cans of gasoline from the bed of the truck into the actual casino. Notice here also the countersurveillance elements here. You’ll have the security arm of the cartel members — in this case believed to be Zetas — on the scene of the attack site. They’re watching. They’re looking for cops, no doubt. You’ll see the first mini — these guys are getting kind of antsy; they’re wanting to move on. You’ll see the black smoke start to billow, and, pretty soon, the actual video footage is going to be obscured completely by the smoke billowing out.

Let’s take a look at a photograph from the crime scene from a different perspective. The video surveillance camera that we had seen where the video was shot was up in this area shooting downward. You can see the upward turn of the driveway. So the suspects came in from this direction and pulled this way. You’ll see the windows that had been broken, probably by the fire department for ventilation to let the smoke clear.

The Above the Tearline aspect with this video footage is the significant value that security videotape has to help you piece together the elements of the crime. There is also the tactical ramifications. You know they’re going to have additional attacks tomorrow or the next day in Mexico, and the police and the military can study this to learn the Zeta methodology when they go to carry out a similar attack down the road.

Title: En su defensa, El Vicentillo acusa a los EUA
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 08, 2011, 07:02:58 AM
Suspect Accuses U.S. of Aiding Mexican Cartel: Unlikely, but Clever Defense
September 7, 2011


By Scott Stewart

Many people interested in security in Mexico and the Mexican cartels will turn their attention to Chicago in the next few days. Sept. 11 is the deadline for the U.S. government to respond to a defense discovery motion filed July 29 in the case of Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, aka “El Vicentillo.” El Vicentillo is the son of Ismail “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, a principal leader of the Sinaloa Federation. While not as well-known as his partner, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, El Mayo nevertheless is a very powerful figure in Mexico’s cartel underworld, and one of the richest men in Mexico.

The Mexican military arrested El Vicentillo in March 2009 in an exclusive Mexico City neighborhood. Grand juries in Chicago and Washington had indicted El Vicentillo on drug smuggling charges, prompting the United States to seek his extradition from Mexico. Upon his February 2010 extradition, it was decided he would first face the charges pending against him in the Northern District of Illinois. According to the Justice Department, El Vicentillo is “one of the most significant Mexican drug defendants extradited from Mexico to the United States since Osiel Cardenas Guillen, the accused leader of the notorious Gulf Cartel, was extradited in 2007.”

The Zambada legal team’s July 29 motion caused quite a stir by claiming that the U.S. government had cut a deal with the Sinaloa Federation via the group’s lawyer, Humberto Loya Castro, in which El Chapo and El Mayo would provide intelligence to the U.S. government regarding rival cartels. In exchange, the U.S. government would not interfere in Sinaloa’s drug trafficking and would not seek to apprehend or prosecute Loya, El Chapo, El Mayo and the rest of the Sinaloa leadership — a deal reportedly struck without the Mexican government’s knowledge.

The allegations generated such a buzz in part because they came so soon after revelations that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Justice Department had permitted guns illegally purchased in the United States to “walk” into Mexico in an operation called “Fast and Furious.” Marked differences separate the two cases, however, making the existence of any deal between Sinaloa and the U.S. government highly unlikely. Accordingly, the government will likely deny the allegations in its impending response. Even so, the July 29 allegations still could prove useful for El Vicentillo’s defense strategy.


A History of Seizures and Arrests

The many seizures and arrests during the period El Vicentillo’s attorneys allege the truce was in effect — which the motion says began no later than January 2004 — are the first factor undermining the allegations. For example, in February 2007 the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced the culmination of “Operation Imperial Emperor,” a 20-month investigation directed against the Sinaloa Federation that resulted in 400 arrests and netted 18 tons of drugs and $45 million in cash. In 2009, the DEA announced the conclusion of “Operation Xcellerator,” a multiagency counternarcotics investigation that involved the arrests of more than 750 alleged Sinaloa Federation members and confederates across the United States over a 21-month period and the seizure of 23 tons of narcotics and $53 million in cash.

The Northern District of Illinois indictment of El Vicentillo and other Sinaloa leaders contains a long list showing that the U.S. government seized thousands of kilograms of cocaine and more than $19 million in cash in the district alone from 2005 to 2008.

And these are just a few examples of Sinaloa’s losses during the time the DEA allegedly turned a blind eye to the cartel’s smuggling activities. Based on the size and scope of these Sinaloa losses in manpower, narcotics and cash, it is hard to imagine that anyone affiliated with that organization honestly thinks the DEA gave Sinaloa a pass to traffic narcotics.


It’s the Politics, Stupid

The second element militating against the allegation that the U.S. government entered into an agreement with the Sinaloa Federation is politics. Such an agreement would be political suicide for any attorney general or DEA administrator and the president they served were it ever disclosed. And as anyone who has worked inside the Beltway knows, secrets are very hard to keep — especially because of the length of time alleged by the defense in this case and because the period spanned multiple U.S. administrations involving two political parties.

Not only are such secrets hard to keep at the top levels of an administration, they are tough to keep at the street level, too. Notably, the first information about Fast and Furious came from rank-and-file ATF special agents incensed that guns were being allowed to walk. These agents leaked information regarding the program to reporters. The same dynamic certainly would have emerged among street-level DEA, FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who had spent their careers attempting to stem the flow of narcotics. These agents would not have just sat by and watched narcotics shipments walk into the United States. Thus, if a long-standing relationship between the U.S. government and the Sinaloa Federation really existed, the story most likely would not have emerged first from a Mexican drug trafficker.

And U.S. attorneys certainly take political considerations into account. They do not like to lose high-profile cases and enjoy much prosecutorial leeway, meaning they can decline cases they are likely to lose. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois is Patrick Fitzgerald, who is no stranger to high-profile cases. He served as the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, and he oversaw the prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. As an assistant U.S. attorney in New York, Fitzgerald was involved in the prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman and members of the Gambino crime family.

It is highly unlikely a U.S. attorney of Fitzgerald’s experience would have pushed for such a high-profile case had he known of an agreement between the U.S. government and the Sinaloa Federation. Instead, he could have sat back and allowed the U.S. attorney in Washington to take the first crack at El Vicentillo — and deal with the fallout. That Fitzgerald pressed to prosecute this case suggests no deal existed — as does the fact that the U.S. government pressed so hard for his extradition; why would a government seek an extradition that would cause major embarrassment?

When taking politics into account, it is also critical to remember the looming 2012 U.S. elections. Republican lawmakers have hammered the Obama administration over Fast and Furious, holding several high-profile congressional hearings on the subject. The Obama administration and congressional Democrats certainly have investigated the Zambada defense team’s allegations. Any truth to the allegation that the Bush administration had cut a deal with the Sinaloa Federation almost certainly would have prompted high-profile hearings by Democratic lawmakers in the Senate to reveal the truth — and to offset negative publicity from Fast and Furious.

That no hearings publicizing the allegations have been forthcoming is very revealing. The issue of publicity itself points toward another potential motive for the defense claims.


Legal Dream Team II

Wealthy defendants naturally seek the best representation money can buy, and that has held true in this case. Court filings indicate that El Vincentillo has retained a host of high-profile criminal defense attorneys, including New York attorneys Edward Panzer and George Santangelo, who have previously defended John Gotti and other members of the Gambino crime family; Los Angeles lawyer Alvin Michaelson, who has represented defendants such as former Los Angeles Mafia boss Dominic Brooklier; and Tucson defense attorney Fernando Gaxiola, a Spanish-speaking attorney who has worked several high-profile cases related to border crime.

A defense attorney’s prime objective is to sow doubt regarding a defendant’s guilt in the minds of jurors. In high-profile cases, big-money attorneys begin that task well ahead of trial with potential jurors. One means of accomplishing this is with a court motion certain to attract much media attention — like a motion claiming that the U.S. government allowed the Sinaloa Federation to smuggle tons of narcotics into the United States. Such charges also put the question of government integrity on trial.

The legal memorandum filed in support of the discovery motion in the present case stands out not only because it mistakenly refers to El Vicentillo’s father as “Ismael Zambada-Niebla” several times instead of consistently using his real name, Ismael Zambada Garcia, and incorrectly refers to the defendant as “Vicente Jesus Zambada Niebla,” but also because of its focus. It is very general, providing few details regarding the alleged agreement between the U.S. government and the Sinaloa Federation. It does not identify a single person who allegedly met with Loya or El Vicentillo and who claimed to speak on behalf of the U.S. government.

Normally, high-level confidential informants must sign detailed agreements delineating the criminal activities in which they are allowed to engage, in accordance with the attorney general’s guidelines on the use of such informants. Typically, such authorizations run for 90-day periods, and the respective law enforcement agency is tasked with exercising careful supervision over the informant’s activities. The process described in the defense memorandum sharply deviates from this typical U.S. law enforcement practice, with the Sinaloa leadership allegedly receiving free rein and immunity for years.

It is certainly possible that members of the Sinaloa Federation provided information to the U.S. and Mexican governments about the activities of rival drug cartels. El Chapo is well-known for using governments as a tool against his enemies, and even against potential rivals within his own organization like Alfredo Beltran Leyva and Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel Villarreal. Still, it is quite unlikely the Sinaloa leadership ever had a working source relationship with the DEA.

Large portions of the discovery request also focus on obtaining documents from the Fast and Furious hearings, and the defense team appears to be attempting to establish that if the U.S. government was willing to let guns walk in Fast and Furious, it also would be willing to let narcotics walk into the United States. In the words of the defense memorandum:

Essentially, the theory of the United States government in waging its “war on drugs” has been and continues to be that the “end justifies the means” and that it is more important to receive information about rival drug cartels’ activities from the Sinaloa Cartel in return for being allowed to continue their criminal activities, including and not limited to their smuggling of tons of illegal narcotics into the United States.

In practical terms, however, the concept behind Fast and Furious was quite different from the allegations made by El Vicentillo’s defense. The idea behind Fast and Furious was to allow low-level gunrunners to walk so law enforcement could trace the big players for subsequent arrest. In Fast and Furious, ATF agents never dealt with high-level gun dealers or cartel leaders; such individuals were the target of the ill-fated operation. Fast and Furious also was not nearly as wide-ranging or as long-lived as the alleged deal with the Sinaloa leadership. It also did not promise immunity from prosecution to cartel leaders.

The two cases thus are starkly different. But if the press can be persuaded to equate the two and widely disseminate this view to the public over the next few months, the defense team may have an easier time sowing a reasonable doubt in the minds of potential jurors. El Vicentillo’s trial begins in February 2012, which means that any publicity surrounding the case could reach potential jurors. And even if the government shows they are false, the allegations are likely to have a long shelf-life among conspiracy-minded individuals and Internet sites. As such, they will continue to be useful in El Vicentillo’s defense efforts.



89571
Title: Stratfor: Zeta comms disrupted, more
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 13, 2011, 10:28:27 AM

Zetas Communications Network Disrupted in Veracruz

The Mexican navy on Sept. 8 dismantled a communications network used by Los Zetas throughout Veracruz state. Among the equipment seized were mobile radio transmitters, computers, radio scanners, encryption devices, solar power cells and as many as seven trailers that served as base stations, according to media reports. A spokesman for the Mexican navy said some 80 individuals have been arrested over the past month in connection with the operation, itself the result of months of work by naval intelligence officers.

Los Zetas have been known to utilize more sophisticated communications networks than other cartels, due in large part to the organization’s origins in military special operations. The Zetas needed to augment sparse communications in some areas they control, and the Veracruz network likely was for the purpose of “off the grid” communications. Since cellphones are relatively easy for authorities to monitor, Los Zetas have sought to diversify their telecommunications capabilities, a fact of which Mexican authorities are aware.

It is possible that the seizure of this communications equipment means the navy is preparing to launch operations to push the Zetas out of the Veracruz port region. Indeed, a navy spokesman said the immediate result of the operation was the disruption of the Zetas’ “chain of command and tactical coordination.” If the navy is about to engage the Zetas in Veracruz, dismantling the Zetas’ communications network would be one of the first moves it would make.

There is not yet enough evidence to conclude with certainty that an operation is in the works, but STRATFOR will continue to watch for signs of increased military operations against the Zetas in Veracruz.


Hand Grenade Attacks in Rio Bravo

On Sept. 10, armed men in an SUV and an accompanying car reportedly threw five hand grenades at two businesses in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas state, killing two people. Beginning at 2:30 p.m., the assailants lobbed three grenades at a bar on the city’s east side, an unnamed police official said; one of the grenades failed to detonate. A few minutes later, unidentified men threw two grenades at a strip club in downtown Rio Bravo, causing the building to catch fire and injuring three people.

It is unclear who conducted the attacks, but they are believed to be the work of Los Zetas, who are engaged in a turf war with the Gulf cartel in the wider region. At present the Gulf cartel controls the Rio Bravo plaza, but Los Zetas have been known to “heat up” a plaza — increase attacks to soften their target — prior to an offensive, as was the case in Matamoros in mid-June.

The targets are significant in that they are “legitimate” businesses. Businesses can serve as money-laundering hubs for cartels and thus are not immune to attack. Also significant is that the attacks occurred during daylight hours. While violence in Mexico is unpredictable and by no means limited to nighttime hours, there is a general sense that the goings-on of a normal day are spared from targeted violence. Incidents such as the Sept. 10 grenade attacks show that this is not always the case.

If the Zetas did not conduct the attacks, they could be a symptom of infighting within the Gulf cartel. The recent death of Samuel “El Metro 3” Flores Borrego, the Gulf cartel’s Reynosa plaza boss and overall No. 2, suggests rifts are forming within the cartel. Rio Bravo can expect to see reprisal attacks regardless of who is responsible.


U.S. Citizens as Couriers for Money, Guns

Mexican authorities arrested seven individuals Sept. 7 in Piedras Negras, Coahuila state, and confiscated firearms, ammunition, radio communication equipment, two vehicles and the equivalent of $600,000. The Ministry of National Defense has not disclosed the identities or nationalities of those arrested, but local and state media have reported that they are all U.S. citizens.

It is not uncommon for a cartel to use individuals with U.S. citizenship as couriers. These individuals have unfettered access to the United States and, while highly visible due to their frequent border crossings, they may receive less scrutiny from border security. Therefore, U.S. citizens are useful in moving guns and money south into Mexico (but they are less useful coming north, as security checks are more robust when coming from Mexico to the United States). This is particularly true in an area such as Coahuila state, where authorities have recently uncovered several large weapons caches.

The corridor of Piedras Negras and its sister city in the United States, Eagle Pass, thus is valuable not as a route to smuggle drugs north but as a route to move guns and money south. (A lack of drug-smuggling routes makes the area desirable territory, so the Zetas are the only ones operating there.) As recently as Sept. 7, in a separate incident from the seven arrests, Texas law enforcement stopped a van with Texas license plates that was carrying 14 assault rifles, a sniper rifle and more than 500 assault rifle magazines.

But the incident in which seven U.S. citizens were arrested, if true, is interesting because those arrested reportedly only had enough weaponry to protect the money they were transporting. This means they were not moving guns but cash, most likely proceeds from drug sales in the United States, the beneficiaries of which are Los Zetas.



(click here to view interactive graphic)

Sept. 5

The Mexican military dismantled a drug lab in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, containing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of methamphetamines and chemical precursors.
Mexican authorities attempted to stop a stolen vehicle traveling on a road in Cadereyta municipality, Nuevo Leon state. The vehicle, along with two accompanying vehicles, refused to stop, leading authorities on a chase that turned into a gunfight in which four gunmen were killed.

Sept. 6

Gunmen in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, shot and killed two women traveling in a vehicle with Texas license plates. The four-year-old daughter of one of the women survived the attack.
Federal police arrested four members of Los Aztecas in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, including a leader of the group.
A criminal group sent a message to the Department of Education in Acapulco, Guerrero state, demanding a percentage of the salaries of teachers who matched certain criteria. The message also demanded identification information on teachers in the city.
Gunmen attacked a deputy traveling in his vehicle in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco state. During the attack, the deputy left his vehicle and was subsequently hit by a semitrailer.
Mexican authorities arrested a U.S. citizen in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state. The individual was charged with trafficking weapons from the United States for the Sinaloa cartel.

Sept. 7

Three members of Los Zetas were arrested in a neighborhood of Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon state, while attempting to kidnap an individual. One of the members arrested was in charge of the “halcones” (Zetas lookouts) in Nuevo Leon.
The Mexican Attorney General’s Office identified 18 Los Zetas operators who were involved in the attack on the Casino Royale in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, that killed 52 people. The Mexican government is offering a reward of 15 million pesos ($1.2 million) for information leading to the arrest of each individual.
Mexican soldiers seized approximately 2.5 tons of marijuana after receiving a tip on the existence of a drug camp in Cerro del Borbollon, Durango state. Soldiers also found a vehicle with Baja California license plates.

Sept. 8

Federal police killed seven gunmen during a firefight in Villanueva, Zacatecas state. A conflict with the gunmen had erupted earlier when two federal police officers were kidnapped in the area.
Authorities announced that an operation conducted throughout Veracruz state resulted in the dismantling of a Los Zetas telecommunications network. More than 80 members of the cartel were arrested, and a variety of communications equipment was seized, including solar power cells, high-powered transmitters, encryption devices and secure radio communication systems.

Sept. 9

A drug courier transporting 1 kilogram of cocaine was arrested at Mexico City International Airport after authorities discovered the drugs. The individual’s itinerary indicated he was flying to Rome via Madrid.
The Knights Templar posted a narcomanta over a bridge in Zamora, Michoacan state, offering a 500,000-peso reward for information leading to the location of the Los Zetas members listed on the banner.
The Mexican military seized approximately 9 tons of marijuana, 51 firearms and 8,000 rounds of ammunition hidden in a cave near Reynosa, Tamaulipas state.

Sept. 10

Unidentified men threw five hand grenades in two separate locations in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas state. The first incident involved gunmen traveling in a vehicle who threw three grenades at bar, and the second attack involved an individual who tossed two grenades at a strip club. The attacks killed two people.

Sept. 11

The Mexican military captured Veronica Mireya “La Vero” Moreno Carreon, Los Zetas’ plaza boss for San Nicolas de los Garza, Nuevo Leon state. Also know as “La Flaca,” she was discovered to be the plaza boss after she was arrested while traveling in a stolen vehicle.


89806
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 20, 2011, 03:47:11 AM
An internet friend's comments begin this post:
================================

This pretty much confirms what I already suspected - the Calderon administration is more interested in teaming up with Obama to infringe on the rights of U.S. citizens than in getting answers on this debacle. I think it's safe to say they have little to no interest in seeing this solved, "breach of sovereignity" or not.

==============================

Quote:
Mexico still waiting for answers on Fast and Furious gun program


Top Mexican officials say the U.S. kept them in the dark. One official was stunned to learn that the cartel hit men who killed her brother had assault rifles from Fast and Furious in their arsenal.

By Ken Ellingwood, Richard A. Serrano and Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

5:00 PM PDT, September 19, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City and Washington


Last fall's slaying of Mario Gonzalez, the brother of a Mexican state prosecutor, shocked people on both sides of the border. Sensational news reports revealed that cartel hit men had tortured Gonzalez, and forced him to make a videotaped "confession" that his high-powered sister was on the take.

But American authorities concealed one disturbing fact about the case from their Mexican counterparts: U.S. federal agents had allowed AK-47 assault rifles later found in the killers' arsenal to be smuggled across the border under the notorious Fast and Furious gun-trafficking program.

U.S. officials also kept mum as other weapons linked to Fast and Furious turned up at dozens of additional Mexican crime scenes, with an unconfirmed toll of at least 150 people killed or wounded.

Months after the deadly lapses in the program were revealed in the U.S. media — prompting congressional hearings and the reassignment of the acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — top Mexican officials say American authorities have still not offered them a proper accounting of what went wrong.

Marisela Morales, Mexico's attorney general and a longtime favorite of American law enforcement agents in Mexico, told The Times that she first learned about Fast and Furious from news reports. And to this day, she said, U.S. officials have not briefed her on the operation gone awry, nor have they apologized.

"At no time did we know or were we made aware that there might have been arms trafficking permitted," Morales, Mexico's highest-ranking law enforcement official, said in a recent interview. "In no way would we have allowed it, because it is an attack on the safety of Mexicans."

Morales said she did not want to draw conclusions before the outcome of U.S. investigations, but that deliberately letting weapons "walk" into Mexico — with the intention of tracing the guns to drug cartels — would represent a "betrayal" of a country enduring a drug war that has killed more than 40,000 people. U.S. agents lost track of hundreds of weapons under the program.

Concealment of the bloody toll of Fast and Furious took place despite official pronouncements of growing cooperation and intelligence-sharing in the fight against vicious Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. The secrecy also occurred as President Felipe Calderon and other senior Mexican officials complained bitterly, time and again, about the flow of weapons into Mexico from the U.S.

Patricia Gonzalez, the top state prosecutor in Chihuahua at the time of her brother's 2010 kidnapping, noted that she had worked closely with U.S. officials for years and was stunned that she did not learn until many months later, through media reports, about the link between his death and Fast and Furious weapons.

"The basic ineptitude of these officials [who ordered the Fast and Furious operation] caused the death of my brother and surely thousands more victims," Gonzalez said.

Fast and Furious weapons have also been linked to other high-profile shootings. On May 24, a helicopter ferrying Mexican federal police during an operation in the western state of Michoacan was forced to land after bullets from a powerful Barrett .50-caliber rifle pierced its fuselage and armor-reinforced windshield. Three officers were wounded.

Authorities later captured dozens of drug gang gunmen involved in the attack and seized 70 weapons, including a Barrett rifle, according to a report by U.S. congressional committees. Some of the guns were traced to Fast and Furious.

Email traffic and U.S. congressional testimony by ATF agents and others make clear that American officials purposefully concealed from Mexico's government details of the operation, launched in November 2009 by the ATF field offices in Arizona and New Mexico.

In March 2010, with a growing number of guns lost or showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, ATF officials convened an "emergency briefing" to figure out a way to shut down Fast and Furious. Instead, they decided to keep it going and continue to leave Mexico out of the loop.

Communications also show that the U.S. Embassy, along with the ATF office in Mexico, at least initially, was also kept in the dark.

In July 2010, Darren Gil, the acting ATF attache in Mexico City, asked his supervisors in the U.S. about guns in Mexico but got no answer, according to his testimony before a U.S. congressional committee investigating the matter.

"They were afraid that I was going to either brief the ambassador or brief the government of Mexico officials on it," Gil said.

Part of the reason for not telling Mexican authorities, Gil and others noted, is the widespread corruption among officials in Mexico that has long made some U.S. officials reluctant to share intelligence. By late last year, however, with the kidnapping of Mario Gonzalez and tracing of the AK-47s, some ATF officials were beginning to tell their superiors that it was time to inform the Mexicans.

Carlos Canino, an ATF agent at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, warned headquarters that failure to share the information would have dire consequences for the U.S.-Mexican relationship.

"We need to tell them [Mexico] this, because if we don't tell them this, and this gets out, it was my opinion that the Mexicans would never trust us again," Canino testified to congressional investigators in Washington.

Atty. Gen. Morales said it was not until January that the Mexican government was told of the existence of an undercover program that turned out to be Fast and Furious. At the time, Morales said, Mexico was not provided details.

U.S. officials gave their Mexican counterparts access to information involving a group of 20 suspects arrested in Arizona. These arrests would lead to the only indictment to emerge from Fast and Furious.

"It was then that we learned of that case, of the arms trafficking," Morales told The Times. "They haven't admitted to us that there might have been permitted trafficking. Until now, they continue denying it to us."

In March, after disgruntled ATF agents went to congressional investigators, details of Fast and Furious began to appear in The Times and other U.S. media. By then, two Fast and Furious weapons had been found at the scene of the fatal shooting of a U.S. border agent near Rio Rico, Ariz.

As well, a second agent had been killed near the Mexican city of San Luis Potosi, sending the ATF hierarchy into a "state of panic," ATF supervisor Peter Forcelli said, because of fears the weapons used might have arrived in Mexico as part of Fast and Furious. So far, all the U.S. government has said in the latter case is that one of the weapons was traced to an illegal purchase in the Dallas area.

In June, Canino, the ATF attache, was finally allowed to say something to Atty. Gen. Morales about the weapons used by Mario Gonzalez's captors, thought to be members of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.

"I wanted her to find out from me, because she is an ally of the U.S. government," he testified.

Canino later told congressional investigators that Morales was shocked.

"Hijole!" he recalled her saying, an expression that roughly means, "Oh no!"

Canino testified that Fast and Furious guns showed up at nearly 200 crime scenes.

Mexican Congressman Humberto Benitez Trevino, who heads the justice committee in the Chamber of Deputies, said the number of people killed or wounded by the weapons had probably doubled to 300 since March, when he said confidential information held by Mexican security authorities put the figure at 150. The higher number, he said, was his own estimate.

A former attorney general, Benitez labeled the operation a "failure," but said it did not spell a collapse of the two nations' shared fight against organized crime groups.

"It was a bad business that got out of hand," he said in an interview.

Many Mexican politicians responded angrily when the existence of the program became known in March, with several saying it amounted to a breach of Mexican sovereignty. But much of that anger has subsided, possibly in the interest of not aggravating the bilateral relationship. For Mexico, the U.S. gun problem goes far beyond the Fast and Furious program. Of weapons used in crimes and traced, more than 75% come from the U.S.

"Yes, it was bad and wrong, and you have to ask yourself, what were they thinking?" a senior official in Calderon's administration said, referring to Fast and Furious. "But, given the river of weapons that flows into Mexico from the U.S., do a few more make a big difference?"

Still, Mexican leaders are under pressure to answer questions from their citizens, with very little to go on.

"The evidence is over there [north of the border]," Morales said. "I can't put a pistol to their heads and say, 'Now give it to me or else.' I can't."

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

richard.serrano@latimes.com

wilkinson@latimes.com

Ellingwood and Wilkinson reported from Mexico City and Serrano from Washington.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times 



90226
Title: Narcos amenazan periodistas esadounidenses (US journalists intimidated
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 22, 2011, 05:31:04 AM


Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton examines the emerging threat against journalists covering Mexican cartel violence along the border and the challenges of corroborating source information.


Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Related Links
Mexico Security Memo: Zetas Communications Network Dismantled
As a forecasting company, we try to look at emerging threats. Intelligence surfaced this week over concerns for border violence against journalists that cover cartel violence from Mexico. In this week’s Above the Tearline, we’re going to examine the challenges of making sense of this kind of emerging threat, as well as how we go about attempting to corroborate or refute the information.

Being a journalist or an investigative reporter in Mexico is an extremely dangerous job. Organizations like Reporters Without Borders reports that there’s been 80 journalists killed in Mexico since 2000, and recently we had two female journalists found naked, bound and killed in Mexico City. The intelligence we received this week is from a very reliable source of STRATFOR that expressed very specific concern for this emerging threat against journalists inside the United States, especially those in close proximity to the border.

When STRATFOR receives a report like this from a reliable contact, we take great strides to attempt to corroborate or refute the data point, meaning we go about contacting our other sources in state and local and federal law enforcement, as well as foreign police, in this case, Mexico, in an effort to see what they may know about this concern and to seek out their assessment as to whether or not this could be a viable threat. One of the things that we did to connect the dots is, we have had over the years anecdotal information from various media contacts and investigative journalists of the exact same fear. We’ve had reports of journalists being relocated out of concerns surrounding this exact issue, and in essence protective security measures being taken by various media outlets to protect themselves from this kind of issue.

One of the other things we do in an effort to corroborate or refute a source report is, we’ll gather together the tactical team that puts together the Mexico Security Memo and discuss in great detail whether or not we think this is a viable threat and will unpack that threat to see if it makes sense or if it’s something that just is totally off the wall.

The Above the Tearline aspect with this video is the fear that the cartels have the capability to suppress the open source as to what’s taking place in Mexico or along the border and in essence shape the perception of what the cartels are doing. We have already seen this happen inside of Mexico. There has been a reduction of investigative journalists, we’ve had numerous killed and intimidated and if this threat is now coming across the border, this is an issue that most of us have to look at very closely and think about the ramifications of the spillover effect and the ability of the cartels to shape the news inside the United States.

Click for more videos




90375
Title: Possible narco hit on a PRI Congressman
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 23, 2011, 02:41:53 PM
Possible Cartel Hit on a Federal Lawmaker

On Sept. 17, the bodies of Mexican federal legislator Moises Villanueva de la Luz and his driver were found along a riverbank below a bridge in Huamuxtitlan, Guerrero state. The men had been missing since Sept. 4, when they disappeared following an Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) political event Villanueva de la Luz attended in his congressional district.

Shortly before his disappearance, Villanueva de la Luz had submitted a proposal to Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Attorney General Marisela Morales asking them to establish a special commission to investigate crimes against migrants, probably triggered by the discovery of several mass graves of migrants across Mexico and neighboring Guatemala over the past year. Though Mexican law enforcement authorities have not speculated on suspects in the case, and though his death may have been the result of some sort of personal or political dispute unrelated to the proposed migrant crimes commission, the cartels have been known to traffic and forcibly recruit (or sometimes kill) migrants, and may have been involved in Villanueva de la Luz’s killing in response to his attempt to investigate those crimes.

A report from the coroner’s office indicated that the men were executed by gunshots to the temple, and the bodies were found with no signs of torture. From the severe level of decomposition, the two men were likely killed shortly after they were kidnapped — they were also found wearing the same clothes they wore the day they disappeared. The location where they were discovered, on a riverbank below a bridge, could indicate that they were killed somewhere else and their bodies were quickly dumped from a vehicle off the bridge. According to the Guerrero state attorney general’s office, investigators have ruled out a kidnapping for ransom as the motive because Villanueva de la Luz’s family was never contacted about ransom demands.

Establishing a commission to investigate the abuse of migrants, a known cartel activity, may have been cause enough for Villanueva de la Luz to be targeted, but cartels have been known to attack lawmakers for a variety of reasons. In some instances, the cartels have tried to kill lawmakers known to be on the payroll of a rival drug cartel, or who have refused to cooperate with a cartel after being approached.

One other theory on Villanueva de la Luz’s death bears mentioning — though at this point it seems very unlikely. The PRI chapter in Guerrero state sent an official letter to local authorities suggesting the murder may have been politically motivated and demanded rural development secretary Socorro Sofio Ramirez Hernandez of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (who previously had held Villanueva de la Luz’s congressional seat) be detained for questioning. The PRI party chief said Ramirez had unsuccessfully pressured Villanueva de la Luz in the past to “subordinate him to his personal interests,” but provided no specifics. Given the ambiguity of the accusation from a single source, the relatively rare political violence between parties in Mexico and the fact that the state attorney general has said there is no evidence indicating Ramirez was involved, this seems an unlikely explanation for the congressman’s death.

If the killing was orchestrated by the cartels, there are a number of potential suspects. Los Zetas, due to their well-known role in trafficking migrants and sometimes forcibly recruiting them into their ranks, would be among the most hostile to an investigative body examining and publicizing their activities. Besides the large drug cartels, other, smaller criminal groups have been known to target migrants and would not have welcomed Villanueva de la Luz’s proposed commission. A STRATFOR source in U.S. federal law enforcement said that remnants of the defunct Beltran Leyva Organization are believed to be connected to the killing. One of those remnant groups, La Barredora, has been very active in nearby Acapulco, making statements threatening state-level political leaders in Guerrero state. It is also known to have connections to the Sinaloa Federation, currently Mexico’s most powerful drug-trafficking organization. The ties to Sinaloa mean La Barredora may act at the behest of the larger group and can easily take actions outside of the typical activities of the small-time gangs, like kidnappings for ransom, though Mexican authorities have already eliminated that as a possibility in this case.

Regardless of which cartel or criminal organization was responsible, the congressman’s death could have a chilling effect on other Mexican lawmakers with intentions to investigate anti-migrant crimes.


Teachers Killed in Guerrero State

Reports emerged Sept. 18 that a vehicle carrying four teachers was stopped and fired upon by gunmen in the town of Puerto Rico del Sur, Guerrero state. Three of the people in the car were killed, and the fourth was wounded. (A separate, conflicting story described the victims as three people, only one a teacher, who were attacked driving in a pickup truck in a nearby municipality.) The attack coincides with the closure of elementary and high schools across the state since the beginning of September after extortion letters were sent to school administrators.

The letters demanded the names, addresses, phone numbers, voter registration information and district payroll records for all teachers being paid more than 20,000 pesos (about $1,400) per month. It said that by Oct. 1, all teachers making more than that amount would be required to forfeit half of their monthly salary to the extortioner as well as half of their annual bonus, and threatened unspecified but “severe” consequences for noncompliance. According to a Mexican media report, the teachers’ union has said the teachers in the closed schools will not return to work until the government guarantees their safety.

While the extortion letter’s deadline has not arrived, it is possible that teachers refused to allow their information to be passed to the extortion group (the extortion letter demanded administrators provide the names of any teachers who refused and that they would address the matter). If all the occupants in the car were teachers, it seems unlikely that they were the victims of a random act of violence, and if the gunmen were connected to the extortion letter, they may have attacked the teachers before the deadline to reinforce fear and ensure compliance by the appointed time.

The Guerrero state prosecutor’s office reportedly denied any connection between the attack on the teachers and the known extortion threat, though it would obviously be reluctant to confirm a connection, given the potential for an attack against teachers to cause a panic and exacerbate the situation. Most cartels, and many of the smaller criminal organizations, have proven well to the Mexican population that threats rarely are hollow; intimidation related to the extortion threat appears to be the motive for the attack.



(click here to view interactive graphic)

Sept. 12

Three “narcomantas,” or banners posted by drug cartels, were posted in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state, and signed by the Carrillo Leyva brothers. The banners criticized the Mexican government and invited citizens to join the Juarez cartel.
Mexican authorities arrested an individual for smuggling 102 pellets of cocaine weighing a total of about 1.14 kilograms (2.5 pounds), in his stomach at the Mexico City International Airport. The individual had flown to Mexico City from Cancun, Quintana Roo state, and was destined for Spain.
Mexican authorities arrested seven members of the Gulf cartel in San Cristobal de la Barranca, Jalisco state.

Sept. 13

Narcomantas signed by Los Zetas were left with two bodies hanging from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. The messages threatened anyone who uses social media networks to report on Mexican cartel activity.

Sept. 14

Gunmen attacked the State Investigation Agency office in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state. The gunmen used high-powered rifles and at least one grenade.
About 70 Gulf cartel members entered Juchipila, Zacatecas state, in 22 trucks and stopped at the municipality’s headquarters. The members stayed in the area for approximately five hours, carrying rifles, grenades and grenade launchers. The Gulf members stated to observers they were in the area to “do a good cleaning.”

Sept. 15

Gunmen in two separate incidents in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon state, attacked five transit officers. The attacks resulted in the deaths of three police officers and the kidnapping of another.
A bomb in a vehicle was detonated on a street in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state. No deaths were reported from the explosion.
Members of Knights Templar handed out flyers to citizens in Apatzingan, Michoacan state, warning of upcoming attacks by Los Zetas.

Sept. 16

At least thirty narcomantas were posted in at least 10 municipalities of Michoacan state signed by the Knights Templar. The banners denounced Los Zetas and claim that the Knights Templar are protecting the citizens of Michoacan. Some of the cities with banners include Apatzingan, Morelia and Quiroga.
The Mexican military dismantled a drug lab in Culiacan, Sinaloa state. The military seized approximately 60 kilograms of methamphetamine, 2 liters (about half a gallon) of liquid methamphetamine, and chemical precursors.

Sept. 17

Gunmen kidnapped a PRI party member in front of his home in Jose Azueta, Veracruz state. The individual was a leader of a municipal committee.
The body of PRI federal legislator Moises Villanueva de la Luz, was discovered in Huamuxtitlan, Guerrero state. The congressman and his driver had been missing since Sept. 4.

Sept. 18

Mexican authorities captured six Los Zetas members in Santa Catarina, Nuevo Leon state. One of the members was allegedly a lookout for the Casino Royale attack in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.
Three men were arrested in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, while attempting to post narcomantas. The contents of the banners were not released.
A member of the Sinaloa Federation, Jesus Hernandez Valenzuela, was arrested at a safe house in Tijuana, Baja California state.

Sept. 19

A confrontation between rival criminal groups left at least eight dead in Nocupetaro, Michoacan state.
Mexican authorities discovered the bodies of five executed individuals in Ixtapaluca, Mexico state. Left with the body was a narcomanta signed by La Familia Michoacana, which claimed ownership of the area.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 29, 2011, 07:36:43 AM
By Scott Stewart
The 2011 Pan American Games will be held in Guadalajara, Mexico, from Oct. 14 through Oct. 30. The games will feature 36 different sports and will bring more than 6,000 athletes and tens of thousands of spectators to Mexico’s second-largest city. The Parapan American Games, for athletes with physical disabilities, will follow from Nov. 12 to Nov. 20.
Like the Olympics, the World Cup or any other large sporting event, planning for the Pan American Games in Guadalajara began when the city was selected to host them in 2006. Preparations have included the construction of new sports venues, an athletes’ village complex, hotels, highway and road infrastructure, and improvements to the city’s mass transit system. According to the coordinating committee, the construction and infrastructure improvements for the games have cost some $750 million.
The preparations included more than just addressing infrastructure concerns, however. Due to the crime environment in Mexico, security is also a very real concern for the athletes, sponsors and spectators who will visit Guadalajara during the games. The organizers of the games, the Mexican government and the governments of the 42 other participating countries also will be focused intensely on security in Guadalajara over the next two months.
In light of these security concerns, STRATFOR will publish a special report on the games Sept. 30. The report, of which this week’s Security Weekly is an abridged version, will provide our analysis of threats to the games.
Cartel Environment
Due to the violent and protracted conflicts between Mexico’s transnational criminal cartels and the incredible  levels of brutality that they have spawned, most visitors’ foremost security concern will be Mexico’s criminal cartels. The Aug. 20 incident in Torreon, Coahuila state, in which a firefight occurred outside of a stadium during a nationally televised soccer match, will reinforce perceptions of this danger. The concern is understandable, especially considering Guadalajara’s history as a cartel haven and recent developments in the region. Even so, we believe the cartels are unlikely to attack the games intentionally.
Historically, smuggling has been a way of life for criminal groups along the U.S.-Mexico border, and moving illicit goods across the border, whether alcohol, guns, narcotics or illegal immigrants, has long proved quite profitable for these groups. This profitability increased dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s as the flow of South American cocaine through the Caribbean was sharply cut due to improvements in maritime and aerial surveillance and interdiction. This change in enforcement directed a far larger percentage of the flow of cocaine through Mexico, greatly enriching the Mexican smugglers involved in the cocaine trade. The group of smugglers who benefited most from cocaine trade included Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, who would go on to form a Guadalajara-based organization known as the Guadalajara cartel. That cartel became the most powerful narcotics smuggling organization in the country, and perhaps the world, controlling virtually all the narcotics smuggled into the United States from Mexico.
The Guadalajara cartel was dismantled during the U.S. and Mexican reaction to the 1985 kidnapping, torture and murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Enrique Camarena by the group. Smaller organizations emerged from its remains that eventually would become the Arellano Felix Organization (aka the Tijuana cartel), the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization (aka the Juarez cartel), the Gulf cartel and the Sinaloa Federation. The sheer number of major cartel organizations that came out of the Guadalajara cartel demonstrates the immense power and geographic reach the group once wielded.
Even after the demise of the Guadalajara cartel, Guadalajara continued to be an important city for drug smuggling operations due to its location in relation to Mexico’s highway and railroad system and its proximity to Mexico’s largest port, Manzanillo. The port is not just important to cocaine smuggling; it also has become an important point of entry for precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. For many years, the Sinaloa Federation faction headed by Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel Villarreal was in charge of the Guadalajara plaza. Although Guadalajara and the state of Jalisco continued to be an important component of the cocaine trade, Coronel Villarreal became known as “the king of crystal” due to his organization’s heavy involvement in the meth trade.
Guadalajara remained firmly under Sinaloa control until the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) split off from Sinaloa following the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva in January 2008. This caused the Beltran Leyva Organization to ally itself with Los Zetas and to begin to attack Sinaloa’s infrastructure on Mexico’s Pacific coast. In April 2010, Coronel Villarreal’s 16-year-old son Alejandro was abducted and murdered. Like the murder of Edgar Guzman Beltran, the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the BLO and Los Zetas were thought to have been behind the murder of Coronel Villarreal’s son. In July 2010, Coronel Villarreal himself was killed during a shootout with the Mexican military in Zapopan, Jalisco state.
Coronel Villarreal’s death created a power vacuum in Guadalajara that several organizations attempted to fill due to the importance of Guadalajara and Jalisco to the smuggling of narcotics. One of these was La Familia Michoacana (LFM). LFM’s attempt to assume control of Guadalajara led to the rupture of the alliance between LFM and Sinaloa. (LFM has since fractured; the most powerful faction of that group is now called the Knights Templar.) The group now headed by Hector Beltran Leyva, which is called the Cartel Pacifico Sur, and its ally Los Zetas also continue to attempt to increase their influence over Guadalajara.
But the current fight for control of Guadalajara includes not only outsiders such as the Knights Templar and the CPS/Los Zetas but also the remnants of Coronel Villarreal’s network and what is left of the Milenio cartel (also known as the Valencia cartel) which has historically been very active in Guadalajara and Manzanillo. One portion of the former Milenio cartel is known as “La Resistencia” and has become locked in a vicious war with the most prominent group of Coronel’s former operatives, which is known as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). CJNG appears to have gotten the better of La Resistencia in this fight, and La Resistencia has recently allied itself with Los Zetas/CPS out of desperation.
In July, CJNG announced it was moving some of its forces to Veracruz to attack Los Zetas’ infrastructure there. This CJNG group in Veracruz began to call itself “Matazetas,” Spanish for “Zeta killers.” It is believed that the CJNG is responsible for the recent killings of low-level Zeta operators in Veracruz. Taken with the Los Zetas/La Resistencia alliance, the CJNG offensive in Veracruz means that if Los Zetas have the ability to strike against the CJNG infrastructure in Guadalajara, they will do so. Such strikes could occur in the next few weeks, and could occur during the games.
As illustrated by the recent body dumps in Veracruz, or the bodies dumped in Acapulco during Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s visit to that city in March, the Mexican cartels do like to perform a type of macabre theater in order to grab media attention. With the attention of the press turned toward Guadalajara, it would not be surprising if one or more cartel groups attempted some sort of body dump or other spectacle in Guadalajara during the games.
And given the ongoing fight for control of Guadalajara, it is quite likely that there will be some confrontations between the various cartel groups in the city during the games. However, such violence is not likely to be intentionally directed against the games. The biggest risk to athletes and spectators posed by the cartels comes from being in the wrong place at the wrong time; the cartels frequently employ fragmentation grenades and indiscriminate fire during shootouts with the authorities and rival cartels.
Crime
One of the side effects of the Mexican government’s war against the cartels is that as some cartels have been weakened by pressure from the government and their rivals, they have become less capable of moving large shipments of narcotics. This has made them increasingly reliant on other types of crime to supplement their income. Crime always has been a problem in Mexico, but activities such as robbery, kidnapping and extortion have gotten progressively worse in recent years. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2011 Crime and Safety report for Guadalajara, crimes of all types have increased in the city. Indeed, due to the high levels of crime present in Mexico, athletes and spectators at the Pan American Games are far more likely to fall victim to common crime than they are to an act of cartel violence.
The Mexican government will employ some 10,000 police officers (to include 5,000 Federal Police officers) as well as hundreds of military personnel to provide protection to the athletes and venues associated with the Pan American Games. But when one considers that the Guadalajara metropolitan area contains some 4.4 million residents, and that there will be thousands of athletes and perhaps in excess of 100,000 spectators, the number of security personnel assigned to work the games is not as large as it might appear at first glance. Nevertheless, the authorities will be able to provide good security for the athletes’ village and the venues, and on the main travel routes, though they will not be able to totally secure the entire Guadalajara metropolitan area. Places outside the security perimeters where there is little security, and therefore a greater danger of criminal activity, will remain.
When visiting Guadalajara during the games, visitors are advised to be mindful of their surroundings and maintain situational awareness at all times in public areas. Visitors should never expose valuables, including wallets, jewelry, cell phones and cash, any longer than necessary. And they should avoid traveling at night, especially into areas of Guadalajara and the surrounding area that are away from the well-established hotels and sporting venues. Visitors will be most vulnerable to criminals while in transit to and from the venues, and while out on the town before and after events. Excessive drinking is also often an invitation to disaster in a high-crime environment.
As always, visitors to Mexico should maintain good situational awareness and take common-sense precautions to reduce the chances of becoming a crime victim. Pickpockets, muggers, counterfeit ticket scalpers, and express kidnappers all will be looking for easy targets during the games, and steps need to be taken to avoid them. Mexico has a problem with corruption, especially at lower levels of their municipal police forces, and so this must be taken into account when dealing with police officers.
While traditional kidnappings for ransom in Mexico are usually directed against well-established targets, express kidnappings can target anyone who appears to have money, and foreigners are often singled out for express kidnapping. Express kidnappers are normally content to drain the contents of the bank accounts linked to the victim’s ATM card, but in cases where there is a large amount of cash linked to the account and a small daily limit, an express kidnapping can turn into a protracted ordeal. Express kidnappings can also transform into a traditional kidnapping if the criminals discover the victim of their express kidnapping happens to be a high net worth individual.
It is also not uncommon for unregulated or “libre” taxi drivers in Mexico to be involved with criminal gangs who engage in armed robbery or express kidnapping, so visitors need to be careful only to engage taxi services from a regulated taxi stand or a taxi arranged via a hotel or restaurant, but even that is no guarantee.
Miscellaneous Threats
In addition to the threats posed by the cartels and other criminals, there are some other threats that must be taken into consideration. First, Guadalajara is located in a very active seismic area and earthquakes there are quite common, although most of them cannot be felt. Occasionally, big quakes will strike the city and visitors need to be mindful of how to react in an earthquake.
Fire is also a serious concern, especially in the developing world, and visitors to Guadalajara staying in hotels need to ensure that they know where the fire exits are and that those fire exits are not blocked or locked.
The traffic in Mexico’s cities is terrible and Guadalajara is no exception. Traffic congestion and traffic accidents are quite common.
Visitors to Mexico also need to be mindful of the poor water quality in the country and the possibility of contracting a water-borne illness from drinking the water or from eating improperly prepared food. Privately operated medical facilities in Mexico are well-equipped for all levels of medical care, and foreign visitors should choose private over public (government-operated) health care facilities. Private medical services can also stabilize a patient and facilitate a medical evacuation to another country (such as the United States) should the need arise.
In conclusion, the most dangerous organizations in Mexico have very little motivation or intent to hit the Pan American Games. The games are also at very low risk of being a target for international terrorism. The organizing committee, the Mexican government and the other governments that will be sending athletes to the games will be coordinating closely to ensure that the games pass without major incident. Because of this, the most likely scenario for an incident impacting an athlete or spectator will be common crime occurring away from the secure venues.

90867
Title: WSJ: Mata Zetas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 29, 2011, 04:13:16 PM
Second post of the day

MEXICO CITY—A self-styled drug-trafficking group calling itself the "Zeta Killers" claimed responsibility this week for the recent murders of at least 35 people believed to belong to the Zetas, Mexico's most violent criminal organization.

The claim by the "Mata Zetas" has stoked fears that Mexico, like Colombia a generation before, may be witnessing the rise of paramilitary drug gangs that seek society's approval and tacit consent from the government to help society confront its ills, in this case, the Zetas.

On Wednesday, Mexico's national security spokeswoman Alejandra Sota vowed in a statement that the government would "hunt down" and bring to justice any criminal group that takes justice into its own hands.

 In the last four years, roughly 43,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related killings. Three Wall Street Journal reporters went to three of the country's most violent cities to tell the stories from a single day: Friday, July 29, 2011.
.Mexico's War
Just an Ordinary Day of Death in Mexico's War on Drug Traffickers (Aug. 27, 2011)
.The issue surfaced last week after 35 bodies were dumped just blocks away from a hotel in the port city of Veracruz where Mexico's state attorney generals were due to hold a meeting the following day. Two days later, after the convention kicked off, an additional 11 bodies were found in different parts of the city.

The shocking scenes, suggesting mass murder in front of the country's top law-enforcement officials, were followed up days later by a video in which five hooded men took responsibility for the murders, saying the victims were all Zetas who had carried out crimes like extortion.

"Our only objective is the Zetas cartel," said a burly, hooded man who said he was a Mata Zetas spokesman, in the video. The man said that unlike the Zetas, his group didn't "extort or kidnap" citizens and were "anonymous warriors, without faces, but proudly Mexican" who would work "clandestinely" but "always to benefit Mexico's people."

The mysterious group appears to be part of the New Generation drug cartel, which operates in the northwestern state of Jalisco, according to an earlier video that showed some three dozen hooded men brandishing automatic rifles as a spokesman vowed to wipe out the Zetas in Veracruz. In that video, the spokesman lauded the work of the Mexican armed forces against the Zetas, and urged citizens to give information on their location to the military.

The rise of any paramilitary gangs could propel Mexico into an even more violent stage of a drug war that has killed more than 43,000 people since President Felipe Calderón took power in December 2006.

Enlarge Image

CloseAssociated Press
 
Soldiers secured 35 bodies in Veracruz last week, deaths for which the Zetas claimed responsibility.
.In Colombia, government-backed peasant militias formed to defend against Communist guerrillas in decades past were eventually taken over by drug traffickers, who were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. "This is a version of para-militarism which is emerging," said Bruce Bagley, an expert on Latin America and drug trafficking at the University of Miami. "We are not sure who these guys are. They are outlaws, but if they kill Zetas, they could find a following among some of the Mexican political and military elite. It bodes very badly for the rule of law in Mexico."

Other analysts say the Mata Zetas appear to be just another drug gang battling it out with the Zetas over turf.

The new group "pretends to use vigilante tactics to finish off another criminal organization," wrote Eric Olson, an analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, on El Palenque, a Mexican website.

In the recent past, other cartels, most notably La Familia, based in the state of Michoacán, have tried to use the Zetas' reputation for brutality as a way of rallying popular support and gaining new adherents to fight them. La Familia recently suffered a major split after the group made peace with the Zetas.

Nevertheless, the rise of a group like the Mata Zetas raises troubling questions for ordinary Mexicans and the government: Is it a good thing when members of a bloodthirsty cartel known for murders, extortions, and kidnapping are themselves summarily killed by other criminals?

While Mexico's federal government has condemned the killing, the response by Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte was widely seen as more equivocal.

"It's lamentable the assassination of 35 people, but it's more so that these people had chosen to dedicate themselves to extortion, kidnapping and murder," the governor wrote on his Twitter account a day after the event.

Drug Crime in Mexico
Track the increasing violence in an interactive map.

View Interactive
.More photos and interactive graphics
.Among other atrocities, the Zetas are blamed for last month's casino fire that killed 52 people in the business capital of Monterrey in Nuevo León state, and the murder of 72 U.S.-bound migrants last year in Tamaulipas state.

The Zetas evolved from a small group of elite soldiers who defected in the late 1990s to work as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel into a vicious multinational crime organization.

Since they broke with the Gulf Cartel in 2010, the Zetas have been fighting a bloody turf war across Mexico against other groups, in which thousands have perished.

Jorge Chabat, a security analyst at the CIDE think tank in Mexico says that the emergence of illegal groups such as the Mata Zetas—perhaps with some help from local or national government authorities—wouldn't be a surprise, given the level of violence inflicted by the Zetas on the Mexican population and the Mexican state's inability to provide its citizens with protection.

Officials "would never tell you openly, but I wouldn't be surprised if some sectors of government look the other way, and I fear that parts of the civilian population would also see this with approval," he said.

Title: Re: WSJ: Mata Zetas
Post by: Hello Kitty on September 29, 2011, 04:34:24 PM
Second post of the day

"On Wednesday, Mexico's national security spokeswoman Alejandra Sota vowed in a statement that the government would "hunt down" and bring to justice any criminal group that takes justice into its own hands."

Jorge Chabat, a security analyst at the CIDE think tank in Mexico says that the emergence of illegal groups such as the Mata Zetas—perhaps with some help from local or national government authorities—wouldn't be a surprise, given the level of violence inflicted by the Zetas on the Mexican population and the Mexican state's inability to provide its citizens with protection.

Officials "would never tell you openly, but I wouldn't be surprised if some sectors of government look the other way, and I fear that parts of the civilian population would also see this with approval," he said.



Mexican authorities can't comabt this due to the high level of corruption in every government branch with the notable excpetion of the Mexican Marines. Violence strikes daily at any place and any time.
Officials indeed look the other way.
I've lived in Mexico for quite a while and one sees the strangest things.
The one thing that is curious is the difficulty with which anyone, that wanted to be a Mata Zeta would find and/or communicate with others due to the fact that finding people willing to risk this type of activity would prove extremely difficult without revealing oneself (a danger in and of itself).
The Mata Zetas are either already working for the government (and finding death squads in Mexico is like looking for rice in China - they are indeed ubiquitous) or they are small local groups that know each other extremely well (almost certainly the former rather than the latter).
Title: Texas Border Security Report
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 30, 2011, 08:43:48 AM
http://www.texasagriculture.gov/vgn/tda/files/1848/46982_Final%20Report-Texas%20Border%20Security.pdf
 
 
This is a recent report by, among others, Gen. Barry McCaffrey.  It's over 180 pages but does have a 5-page executive summary.
Title: Re: Texas Border Security Report
Post by: Hello Kitty on September 30, 2011, 11:31:10 AM
http://www.texasagriculture.gov/vgn/tda/files/1848/46982_Final%20Report-Texas%20Border%20Security.pdf
 
 
This is a recent report by, among others, Gen. Barry McCaffrey.  It's over 180 pages but does have a 5-page executive summary.


Thank you. I'll print it and read it on my flight to New York tonight.
Title: D.F. becoming part of battleground
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 12, 2011, 08:57:49 AM
In this week’s Above the Tearline, we are going to examine two recent brutal events in Mexico which could mean that the cartels are taking the fight to Mexico City.
We’ve been following cartel violence for quite some time at STRATFOR and it’s very easy to become numb to the levels of brutality that we see. From body dumps in Veracruz, to firefights across from Roma, Texas, with incursions into the United States.
However, there have been two recent events in Mexico City that give us cause to re-evaluate what could be occurring here and they are the murder of the two female journalists that were found naked, bound and gagged and their bodies dumped in a park in Mexico City. And most recently two severed heads were found on Oct. 3 in close proximity to the Mexican military office Sedena in Mexico City. These two recent brutal events are unusual in that it happened in Mexico City, which has historically been spared the levels of violence we have seen elsewhere throughout Mexico. The signal resonates with the murder of the journalists, which is a very powerful example to others who may be writing about cartel activity inside of Mexico, and now with the severed heads being found in close proximity to the Mexican military office, this is also a very powerful signal to the Mexican military from the cartels that anybody is accessible in Mexico.
In doing assessments of countries or monitoring the scope of violence that could be occurring, you’re consistently looking for tripwires that are crossed or anomalies which are outside the norm, and those are incidents such as what we have seen unfold here.
The Above the Tearline with this video is the tactical shift that could be taking place here with the cartels striking inside the Mexican capital, specifically targeting journalists and the Mexican military. The symbolism resonates, and it also clearly shows that the cartels are very capable of reaching out and targeting whoever they want throughout the country, even in the capital city of Mexico.


91626

Title: Strat: Unlikelihood of Terror Attack from Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 14, 2011, 01:36:52 PM
91743


The Unlikelihood of a Terrorist Attack in the United States from Mexico
October 12, 2011 | 1208 GMT
PRINT Text Resize:   
 62 4ShareThis90
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SHIRLEY SHEPARD/AFP/Getty Images
An artist’s rendering of Manssor Arbabsiar in a New York courtroom on Oct. 11Summary
Charges announced by the U.S. Department of Justice on Oct. 11 allege that a man with connections to elements of the Iranian government planned to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Though threats are always present, it is very unlikely that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil will be successfully staged from Mexico. With the resources at hand, the U.S. response against such terrorist networks would be monumental, and cooperation with such terrorists would go against the interests of both the Mexican government and cartels.

Analysis
Related Links
Mexico Security Memo: Defining Cross-Border Violence
New Mexican President, Same Cartel War?
The Strategic Challenges of the U.S.-Mexico Relationship
Recommended External Link
The complaint detailing the charges against Arbabsiar
STRATFOR is not responsible for the content of other Web sites.
An alleged plot to kill Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir in Washington using assassins from Mexico was described in an indictment announced Oct. 11. The plot raises a number of serious questions about Mexico’s utility as a staging point for terrorist operations against the United States. The porous nature of the U.S.-Mexico border and the potential for security breaches is always a high-interest issue in the United States and a perennial concern for U.S. security agencies.

The allegation that accused terrorist and U.S.-Iranian dual citizen Manssor Arbabsiar attempted to hire an individual whom he believed to have connections to a Mexican drug cartel raises additional concerns that Mexican cartels could use their  considerable linkages to the United States to help international terrorist organizations. Upon careful examination, the threat is much smaller than it might initially seem — in part because of close U.S.-Mexican cooperation and primarily because the threat of U.S. retaliation on any organization that participates in terrorist activities is extremely high.

The complaint detailing the Oct. 11 charges says Arbabsiar approached an individual already on the payroll of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who he thought had links to a “large, sophisticated, and violent drug-trafficking cartel.” Anonymous sources later told ABC News that the cartel in question was Los Zetas, who control much of the narcotics trade along Mexico’s eastern coast. Arbabsiar has been accused of asking the informant if he had experience with C-4 explosives, and the two discussed sending a total of four people to stage an attack on the ambassador. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar deemed civilian casualties acceptable as collateral damage. The DEA informant was offered and accepted (but never received in full) $1.5 million as a fee for the assassination. The informant did, however, receive a $100,000 down payment on the operation.

On Sept. 28, Arbabsiar flew to Mexico, was denied entry, and while en route to an unspecified destination was arrested in New York City by U.S. authorities Sept. 29. In the Oct. 11 announcement of the arrest, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the role Mexico played in the operation to arrest Arbabsiar was significant, but he declined to comment further.

The successful interception of the alleged plot, the cooperation with Mexico and the lack of involvement of any real drug cartels still leaves open the question: What if the source had been a real cartel member and the plot had actually gone through? Though there are always reasons for concern, there are a number of factors that make Mexico a particularly difficult route of penetration into the United States, particularly for groups known to have conflicts with the United States.

First, the United States has extremely active intelligence capabilities in Mexico. With the Defense Intelligence Agency, DEA, CIA, FBI and other agencies deeply embedded in Mexico, it is a heavily monitored environment — as evidenced by this case. And while the United States may be focused primarily on the drug cartels and cooperation with the Mexican government, Iranians raise red flags everywhere they go. As a general rule, the United States reacts strongly to any Iranian presence in Latin America and tends to actively engage host countries to ramp up cooperation and monitoring of Iranian companies and personnel in the region. The same heightened attention is paid to organizations with histories of terrorist activity, like Hezbollah.

Second, as friendly as Mexico is as an intelligence environment for the United States, it is equally unfriendly to U.S. enemies. The Mexican government has every reason to be hostile to a foreign entity hoping to launch an attack on the United States from Mexican soil. The reasons the United States would want to prevent such an attack are obvious, but Mexico is also inherently vulnerable both territorially and economically to any shifts by its northern neighbor. Should Mexico become a serious transit point for terrorist operatives seeking to attack the United States, the country would be subject to rapid U.S. intervention.

This brings us to the potential wild card in the equation: the cartels. Infamous for being especially violent and unscrupulous, Los Zetas are known to be active throughout the region in attacking rival cartels and Mexican security forces, human smuggling and drug trafficking. On its face, it might seem that the Zetas — or their competitor cartel, the Sinaloa Federation — could have the capacity to cooperate with trans-border terrorist campaigns. If nothing else, one might imagine, they could do it for the money. Looking more closely, however, any such plan would be exceedingly ill-conceived.

Despite participating in a wide array of illegal and often violent activities, the Zetas and all other cartels in Mexico are ultimately business organizations with long-term strategic goals. These are not organizations that are looking to make easy money or become involved in anyone else’s violent political statements. Mexican drug cartels are already facing challenges — struggling with one another and with the Mexican government for control over transportation routes that will allow them to transit cocaine from South America to the United States. Any foray into international terrorism would be bad for business. The United States and Mexico would focus every available asset on dismantling any organization that engaged in international terrorism. With deep links into Mexico and close physical proximity, the United States alone could dismantle a single network fairly rapidly. With cooperation from the Mexican government, it could do it even faster.

But the risks do not end there. If an individual or smaller group of individuals even loosely associated with a cartel attempted to cooperate with international terrorist groups, they would be risking not only the wrath of the U.S. and Mexican governments, but also the wrath of the cartels. Any group of individuals risking the safety of the cartel transportation networks would quickly be hunted down and turned over to the authorities by the cartels themselves in order to avoid inviting the fury of the U.S. or Mexican government on the cartel as a whole. It is a consistent pattern with Mexican drug gangs that perpetrators of high-profile, politically costly attacks are rapidly turned over to Mexican authorities by their own compatriots.

This is not to say that it would be impossible to hire Mexican criminals to attack U.S. targets. But any plan to use Mexican drug cartels to carry out attacks against the United States would threaten the very existence of the cartel. And with the United States, Mexico and the cartels all united against the possibility, any attempt to do so would be extremely unlikely to succeed.



Read more: The Unlikelihood of a Terrorist Attack in the United States from Mexico | STRATFOR
Title: Hillary Clinton behind OFF?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 21, 2011, 07:40:40 PM
92125

We do not have any opinion as to the trustworthiness of this site/author:
=============================

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/breaking-new-evidence-show-hillary-a-mastermind-behind-gunwalker

Last week it was reported that the State Department and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were deeply involved in the scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, or Project Gunwalker. Today, however, new evidence has surfaced indicating that not only was Hillary deeply involved in the scandal but was one of the masterminds behind it.

According to investigative citizen journalist Mike Vanderboegh, sources close to the development of the Gunwalker scheme state that early on, Hillary and her trusted associated at State, Andrew J. Shapiro, devised at least part of the framework of what would later become Operation Fast and Furious. It was Shapiro who first described the details of the proposed scheme early in 2009 just after the Obama Administration took office.

Vanderboegh relates the following:

My sources say that as Hillary's trusted subordinate, it was Shapiro who first described to the Secretary of State the details of what has become the Gunwalker Scandal.

The precise extent to which Hillary Clinton's knowledge of, and responsibility for, the Gunwalker Plot, lies within the memories of these two men, Shapiro and Steinberg, sources say.

The sources also express dismay that the Issa committee is apparently restricting itself to the Department of Justice and not venturing further afield. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, they say, needs to summon these two men and their subordinates -- especially at the Mexico Desk at State -- and question them under oath as to what Hillary Clinton knew about the origins of the Gunwalker Scandal and when she knew it.

There is one other thing those sources agree upon. The CIA, they say, knows "everything" about the "Mexican hat dance" that became the Gunwalker Scandal.

The 'Steinberg' mentioned in the quote above is Hillary Clinton's former Deputy Secretary of State, who was appointed directly by Barack Obama and was considered from the start to be an 'Obama man' whose objective was to carry out the wishes of the President in the State Department.

Hillary had said of Steinberg,

Clinton said Steinberg had been a “fixture” at meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House.

That statement is key. Hillary herself stayed out of all meetings dealing with strategy concerning the euphemism the Administration used to designate Gunwalker, 'strategy meetings on Mexico and the problem of drug and gun trafficking.' Hillary's absence would give the impression that she had no connection to the scheme while making sure that her views were represented by Steinberg and Shapiro, both of whom were fully complicit with the details that developed concerning how to pad statistics on U.S. guns in Mexico.

According to sources, Hillary was obsessed with gun statistics that would prove that '90% of the firearms used by Mexican criminals come from the United States.' As previouly reported, that meme, repeated incessantly by Democratic Senators, Barack Obama, certan members of the ATF, Janet Napolitano, and Hillary Clinton was patently and blatantly false. The fact that they all knew it was false is borne out by the lengths to which each of the above named co-conspirators went to attempt to 'prove' that the 90% figure was true.

Again, Vanderboegh relates the following:

My sources say that this battle of the "statistics" was taken very seriously by all players -- the White House, State and Justice. Yet, WHY was this game of statistics so important to the players? If some weapons from the American civilian market were making it to Mexico into the hand of drug gang killers that was bad enough. What was the importance of insisting that it was 90 percent, 80 percent, or finally 70 percent? Would such statistics make any difference to the law enforcement tactics necessary to curtail them? No.

This statistics mania is similar to the focus on "body counts" in Vietnam. Yet if Vietnam body counts were supposed to be a measure of how we were winning that war, the focus on the 90 percent meme was certainly not designed to be a measure of how we were winning the war against arming the cartels, but rather by what overwhelming standard we were LOSING. Why?

Recall what the whistleblower ATF agents told us right after this scandal broke in the wake of the death of Brian Terry: "ATF source confirms ‘walking’ guns to Mexico to ‘pad’ statistics."

Thus, from the beginning the scheme was to pad statistics on U.S. guns in Mexico in order to be in a strengthened position to call for gun bans and strict gun control at a time when it was politically unpopular. Further, the scheme would involve a made-up statistic, out of thin air--90%--which then had to be proved by using civilian gun retailers along the southern border as unsuspecting pawns to walk U.S. guns into Mexico by ATF agents, straw purchasers, and others with connections to Mexican drug cartels.

And the evidence points to the fact that Hillary Clinton was one of the original Administration officials who was 'in the loop' on the scheme from the very beginning.
Title: WSJ: Iran's South American/Mexican play
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 24, 2011, 08:45:35 AM
92250

Regarding the alleged attempt by Iranian agents to enlist a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, there are two significant parts to the story. But only one of them is getting much attention.

That's the part about how Iranian officials apparently felt little compunction ordering up a terrorist attack on American soil. Some commentators have noted that the plot does little credit to the supposedly expert tradecraft of Iran's terrorist Qods Force, suggesting that unspecified rogue agents may have played a role. Others have argued that Tehran's readiness to conduct the attack suggests how little they think they have to fear from the Obama administration.

The real shocker, however, is how shocked the administration seems to be by the plot. "The idea that they would attempt to go to a Mexican drug cartel to solicit murder-for-hire to kill the Saudi ambassador, nobody could make that up, right?" marvelled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Information about the plot was initially met within the government with a level of incredulity more appropriate for an invasion by, say, alien midgets.

Yet policy analysts, military officials and even a few columnists have been warning for years about Iran's infiltration of Latin America. The story begins with the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, an example of the way Tehran uses proxies such as Hezbollah to carry out its aims while giving it plausible deniability. Iran later got a boost when Hugo Chávez came to power in Venezuela and began seeding the top ranks of his government with Iranian sympathizers. In October 2006, a group called Hezbollah América Latina took responsibility for an attempted bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005, Iran has increased the number of its embassies in Latin America to 11 from six.

Enlarge Image

CloseAFP/Getty Images
 
Buenos Aires in March 1992, shortly after the bombing of the Israeli embassy.
.All this has served a variety of purposes. Powerful evidence suggests that Iran has used Venezuelan banks, airliners and port facilities to circumvent international sanctions. Good relations between Tehran and various Latin American capitals—not just Caracas but also Managua, Quito, La Paz and Brasilia—increase Tehran's diplomatic leverage. Hezbollah's ties to Latin American drug traffickers serve as a major source of funding for its operations world-wide. Hezbollah has sought and found recruits among Latin America's estimated population of five million Muslims, as well as Hispanic converts to Islam.

And then there is the detail that Latin America is the soft underbelly of the United States.

In September 2010, the Tucson, Ariz., police department issued an internal memo noting that "concerns have arisen concerning Hezbollah's presence in Mexico and possible ties to Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO's) operating along the U.S.-Mexico border. The potential partnership bares alarming implications due to Hezbollah's long-established capabilities, specifically their expertise in the making of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED's)." The memo also noted the appearance of Hezbollah insignia as tattoos on U.S. prison inmates.

The concerns that the Tucson police had immediately in mind were twofold. First there was the arrest in New York of Jamal Yousef, a former Syrian military officer caught in a 2009 Drug Enforcement Agency sting trying to sell arms to Colombian terrorists in exchange for a ton of cocaine.

Then there was the July 2010 arrest by Mexican authorities of a Mexican citizen named Jameel Nasr. According to a report in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasah, Mr. Nasr was attempting to set up "a logistics infrastructure of Mexican citizens of Shiite Lebanese descent that will form a base in South America and the United States to carry out operations against Israeli and Western targets." The paper added that Mr. Nasr "traveled regularly to Lebanon to receive instructions and inform his employers of developments," but that Mexican officials had been tipped off by his "long visit to Venezuela in mid-2008 . . . during which he laid the foundations for building a network for Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard."

Might Mr. Nasr have been connected to the Washington plot? Probably not, since he was arrested before it was hatched, though it's probably worth asking him directly. The larger problem, as Roger Noriega of the American Enterprise Institute points out, is that until now the administration hasn't been especially curious. "They don't want to mud wrestle with Chávez and roil the waters in Latin America," he says. "The policy of reticence and passivity sends the message that we don't know or care what's going on."

It's time to wise up. Until now, the idea of terrorist infiltration along our southern border has been the stuff of Tom Clancy novels. Not anymore. And unless Tehran is made to understand that the consequences for such infiltration will be harder than an Obama wrist slap, we can expect more, and worse, to come.

Title: NYTimes: Narcos inflitrated
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 25, 2011, 07:49:33 AM
WASHINGTON — American law enforcement agencies have significantly built up networks of Mexican informants that have allowed them to secretly infiltrate some of that country’s most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations, according to security officials on both sides of the border.

As the United States has opened new law enforcement and intelligence outposts across Mexico in recent years, Washington’s networks of informants have grown there as well, current and former officials said. They have helped Mexican authorities capture or kill about two dozen high-ranking and midlevel drug traffickers, and sometimes have given American counternarcotics agents access to the top leaders of the cartels they are trying to dismantle.
Typically, the officials said, Mexico is kept in the dark about the United States’ contacts with its most secret informants — including Mexican law enforcement officers, elected officials and cartel operatives — partly because of concerns about corruption among the Mexican police, and partly because of laws prohibiting American security forces from operating on Mexican soil.
“The Mexicans sort of roll their eyes and say we know it’s happening, even though it’s not supposed to be happening,” said Eric L. Olson, an expert on Mexican security matters at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
“That’s what makes this so hard,” he said. “The United States is using tools in a country where officials are still uncomfortable with those tools.”
In recent years, Mexican attitudes about American involvement in matters of national security have softened, as waves of drug-related violence have left about 40,000 people dead. And the United States, hoping to shore up Mexico’s stability and prevent its violence from spilling across the border, has expanded its role in ways unthinkable five years ago, including flying drones in Mexican skies.
The efforts have been credited with breaking up several of Mexico’s largest cartels into smaller — and presumably less dangerous — crime groups. But the violence continues, as does the northward flow of illegal drugs.
While using informants remains a largely clandestine affair, several recent cases have shed light on the kinds of investigations they have helped crack, including a plot this month in which the United States accused an Iranian-American car salesman of trying to hire killers from a Mexican drug cartel, known as Los Zetas, to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
American officials said Drug Enforcement Administration informants with links to the cartels helped the authorities to track down several suspects linked to the February murder of a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Jaime J. Zapata, who is alleged to have been shot to death by members of Los Zetas in central Mexico.
The D.E.A.’s dealings with informants and drug traffickers — sometimes, officials acknowledged, they are one and the same — are at the center of proceedings in a federal courthouse in Chicago, where one of the highest-ranking leaders of the Sinaloa cartel is scheduled to go on trial next year.
And last month, a federal judge in El Paso sentenced a midlevel leader of the Sinaloa cartel to life in prison after he was found guilty on drug and conspiracy charges. He was accused of working as a kind of double agent, providing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency with information about the movements of a rival cartel in order to divert attention from his own trafficking activities.
As important as informants have been, complicated ethical issues tend to arise when law enforcement officers make deals with criminals. Few informants, law enforcement officials say, decide to start providing information to the government out of altruism; typically, they are caught committing a crime and want to mitigate their legal troubles, or are essentially taking bribes to inform on their colleagues.
Morris Panner, a former assistant United States attorney who is a senior adviser at the Center for International Criminal Justice at Harvard Law School, said some of the recent cases involving informants highlight those issues and demonstrate that the threats posed by Mexican narcotics networks go far beyond the drug trade.
“Mexican organized crime groups have morphed from drug trafficking organizations into something new and far more dangerous,” Mr. Panner said. “The Zetas now are active in extortion, human trafficking, money laundering, and increasingly, anything a violent criminal organization can do to make money, whether in Mexico, Guatemala or, it appears, the U.S.”
===================
Because of the clandestine nature of their communications with informants, and the potential for diplomatic flare-ups between the United States and Mexico, American officials were reluctant to provide any details about the scope of their confidential sources south of the border.
Over the past two years, officials said, D.E.A. agents in Houston managed to develop “several highly placed confidential sources with direct access” to important leaders of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. This paid informant network is a centerpiece of the Houston office’s efforts to infiltrate the “command and control” ranks of the two groups.
One of those paid informants was the man who authorities say was approached last spring by a man charged in Iran’s alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Law enforcement documents say the informant told his handlers that an Iranian-American, Mansour J. Arbabsiar, had reached out to him to ask whether Los Zetas would be willing to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States and elsewhere.
Authorities would provide only vague details about the informant and his connections to Los Zetas, saying that he had been charged in the United States with narcotics crimes and that those charges had been dropped because he had “previously provided reliable and independently corroborated information to federal law enforcement agents” that “led to numerous seizures of narcotics.”
The Justice Department has been more forthcoming about the D.E.A.’s work with informants in a case against Jesús Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as Vicentillo. Officials describe Mr. Zambada-Niebla as a logistics coordinator for the Sinaloa cartel, considered one of the world’s most important drug trafficking groups. His lawyers have argued that he was an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, which offered him immunity in exchange for his cooperation.
The D.E.A. has denied that allegation, and the Justice Department took the rare step of disclosing the agency’s contacts with him in court documents. The intermediary was Humberto Loya-Castro, who was both a confidant to the cartel’s kingpin, Joaquín Guzmán, known as El Chapo, and an informant to the D.E.A.
The documents do not say when the relationship between the agency and Mr. Loya-Castro began, but they indicate that because of his cooperation, the D.E.A. dismissed a 13-year-old conspiracy charge against him in 2008.
In 2009, the documents said, Mr. Loya-Castro arranged a meeting between two D.E.A. agents and Mr. Zambada-Niebla, who was floating an offer to negotiate some kind of cooperation agreement. But on the day of the meeting, the agents’ supervisors canceled it, expressing “concern about American agents meeting with a high-level cartel member like Zambada-Niebla.”
Mr. Zambada-Niebla and Mr. Loya-Castro showed up at the agents’ hotel anyway. The D.E.A. agents sent Mr. Zambada-Niebla away without making any promises, the documents said. A few hours later, Mr. Zambada-Niebla was captured by the Mexican police, and was extradited to the United States in February 2010.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on organized crime at the Brookings Institution, said that while some had criticized the D.E.A. for entertaining “deals with the devil,” she saw the Zambada case as an important intelligence coup. Even in an age of high-tech surveillance, she said, there is no substitute for human sources’ feeding authorities everything from what targeted traffickers like to eat to where they sleep most nights.
A former senior counter narcotics official echoed that thought.
“A D.E.A. agent’s job, first and foremost, is to get inside the body of those criminal organizations he or she is investigating,” the former official said, asking not to be identified because he occasionally does consulting work in Mexico. “Nothing provides that microscopic view more than a host that opens the door.”
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 25, 2011, 09:22:05 AM
Second post of the day

Editor’s Note: Since the publication of STRATFOR’s 2010 annual Mexican cartel report, the fluid nature of the drug war in Mexico has prompted us to take an in-depth look at the situation more frequently. This is the third product of those interim assessments, which we will now make as needed, in addition to our annual year-end analyses and our weekly security memos.

While there has been a reshuffling of alliances among Mexican drug cartels since our July cartel update, the trend discussed in the first two updates of the year continues. That is the polarization of cartels and associated sub-groups toward the two largest drug-trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas. Meanwhile, the three primary conflicts in Mexico’s drug war remain cartel vs. cartel, cartel vs. government and cartel vs. civilians. Operations launched by the military during the second quarter of 2011, primarily against Los Zetas and the Knights Templar, continued through the third quarter as well, and increasing violence in Guerrero, Durango, Veracruz, Coahuila and Jalisco states has resulted in the deployment of more federal troops in those areas.

The northern tier of states has seen a lull in violence, from Tijuana in Baja California state to Juarez in Chihuahua state. Violence in that stretch of northern Mexico subsided enough during the third quarter to allow the military to redeploy forces to other trouble spots. In Tamaulipas state, the military remains in charge of law enforcement in most of the cities, and the replacement of entire police departments that occurred in the state during the second quarter was recently duplicated in Veracruz following an outbreak of violence there (large numbers of law enforcement personnel were found to be in collusion with Los Zetas and were subsequently dismissed).

The battles between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas for control over northeastern Mexico continue, though a developing rift within Gulf leadership may complicate the cartel’s operations in the near term. While Gulf remains a single entity, we anticipate that, absent a major reconciliation between the Metros and Rojos factions, the cartel may split violently in the next three to eight months. If that happens, alliances in the region will likely get much murkier than they already are.

In central and southern Mexico, fighting for control of the major plazas at Guadalajara, Acapulco, Chilpancingo and Oaxaca continues to involve the major players — Sinaloa, Los Zetas and the Knights Templar — along with several smaller organizations. This is particularly the case at the Jalisco and Guerrero state plazas, where there are as many as seven distinct organizations battling for control, a situation that will not likely reach any level of stasis or clarity over the next three to six months.

Though our last update suggested the potential for major hurricanes to complicate the drug war in Mexico, the region has avoided the worst of the weather so far. Though the hurricane season lasts until the end of November, the most productive period for major storms tends to be September and early October, so the likelihood of any hurricanes hitting Mexico’s midsection is fairly remote at this point.

Looking ahead toward the end of 2011, STRATFOR expects high levels of cartel violence in the northeastern and southern bicoastal areas of Mexico to continue. The military has deployed more troops in Guadalajara for the Pan-American Games, which run Oct. 14-30, as well as in Veracruz and Coahuila, and any flare-up of violence in those areas will likely be influenced by the military’s presence.



(click here to enlarge image)

Current Status of the Mexican Cartels


Sinaloa Federation

Over the past four months, the Sinaloa cartel, under the leadership of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, has continued to control the bulk of its home state of Sinaloa, most of the border region in Sonora state and the majority of Chihuahua and Durango states. The cartel continues to pursue its strategic goals of expansion into or absorption of neighboring cartel territories and to import precursor chemicals, mostly from China, for its methamphetamine production in Sinaloa, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes and Jalisco states. These shipments typically are received in the Pacific coast port cities of Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo.

In addition to marijuana, Sinaloa is known to be smuggling high-value/low-volume methamphetamines, domestically produced heroin and Colombian cocaine into the United States via the plazas it directly controls at Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales, Agua Prieta, Columbus and Santa Teresa (both in New Mexico), Rio Bravo, El Porvenir and Manuel Ojinaga as well as the Gulf-controlled plazas at Ciudad Mier, Miguel Aleman, Diaz Ordaz, Reynosa and Matamoros.

As we will further discuss in a separate section below, it appears that Sinaloa recently managed to co-opt the formerly independent Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), which until early September was believed to be strongly distrustful of El Chapo. It is clear that dynamic has changed. Regarding Sinaloa’s running battles to subdue the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes cartel (VCF, aka the Juarez Cartel) and take control of the Juarez plaza, the slow, long-term strangulation of the VCF remains in progress.

Sinaloa recently took two significant hits to its leadership when regional chief Jose Carlos Moreno Flores was captured by military forces in Mexico City in mid-September and Noel “El Flaco Salgueiro” Salgueiro Nevarez, leader of Sinaloa’s enforcer arm Gente Nueva, was captured in Culiacan, Michoacan state, in early October.

According to information released by Mexico’s Defense Secretariat, Moreno Flores ran Sinaloa’s Guerrero state operations in the cities of Chilpancingo, Jaleaca de Catalan, Izotepec, Pueblo Viejo, Buena Vista, Tlacotepec and Leonardo Bravo. He also controlled agricultural drug operations in Izotepec, Tlacotepec, Chichihualco and Chilpancingo.

Salgueiro Nevarez reportedly founded Gente Nueva and had led it since 2007. Also under his control were the Juarez street gangs Los Mexicles and Los Artistas Asesinos, which conduct operations against the Juarez cartel and its allies Los Aztecas. Salgueiro Nevarez also ran operational cells in Guerrero and Durango states. His removal may adversely affect Gente Nueva’s operational cohesion, though it is not yet clear whether he had a trusted lieutenant in the wings to replace him.


Gulf Cartel

In the last four months, it has become apparent that a schism within the Gulf cartel over divided loyalties may be evolving into a split with large and violent consequences. As discussed in the 2009 and 2010 annual cartel reports, Gulf leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen continued to run the cartel from his federal prison cell in Mexico after his capture in March 2003. He was subsequently extradited to the United States, where he was convicted. Currently, he resides in the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, where tight security measures make it difficult for him to maintain any control over his organization.

Following his removal from power-by-proxy, Osiel Cardenas Guillen was replaced as leader of the organization by a pair of co-leaders, his brother Antonio Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta” Cardenas Guillen and Jorge Eduardo “El Coss” Costilla Sanchez. This arrangement shifted when Antonio Cardenas Guillen was killed in a six-hour standoff with Mexican military forces in November 2010.

The split within the Gulf cartel that we are now watching began to a large extent with the death of Antonio Cardenas Guillen. At the time, it is believed that Rafael “El Junior” Cardenas, the nephew of Osiel and Antonio Cardenas Guillen, expected to replace his uncles as leader of the Gulf cartel. Instead, Costilla Sanchez assumed full control of the organization. The schism became wider as two factions formed, the Metros, which were loyal to Costilla Sanchez, and the Rojos, which were loyal to the Cardenas family.

While government operations against the Gulf cartel resulted in the capture of several plaza bosses over the last three months — Abiel “El R-2” Gonzalez Briones, Manuel “El Meme” Alquisires Garcia, Ricardo Salazar Pequeno and Jose Antonio “El Comandante” Martinez Silva — internal violence brought down one of the factional leaders. On Sept. 3, 2011, the body of Samuel “El Metro 3” Flores Borrego was found by authorities in Reynosa. Flores Borrego had been the trusted lieutenant of Costilla Sanchez and served as his second in command as well as Reynosa plaza boss. These two men were at the top of the Metros faction.

Then on Sept. 27, in a rather brazen hit on U.S. soil, gunmen in an SUV opened fire on another vehicle traveling along U.S. Route 83 east of McAllen, Texas. The driver, Jorge Zavala from Mission, Texas, who was connected to a branch of the Gulf Cartel, was killed. Though his role in the cartel is unclear, he is rumored to have been close to a senior Gulf plaza boss, Gregorio “El Metro 2” Sauceda Gamboa, who was arrested in April 2009. As indicated by his “Metro” nickname, Sauceda had been aligned with the faction of the Gulf cartel that supports Costilla Sanchez.

On Oct. 11, the Mexican navy reported that the body of Cesar “El Gama” Davila Garcia, the Gulf cartel’s head finance officer, was found in the city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas. According to a statement from the Ministry of the Navy, the body was found in a home, dead of a gunshot wound. El Gama had been Antonio Cardenas Guillen’s accountant, but after the 2009 death of Tony Tormenta, El Gama was made plaza boss of the Gulf cartel’s port city of Tampico for a period of time, then placed back in Matamoros as the chief financial operator for the cartel. Many questions arise from this killing, but it could be another indication of internal Gulf conflict.

Though the Gulf split has been quietly widening for two years, the apparent eruption of internally focused violence during the past quarter indicates the division may be about to explode. The consequences of a violent rupture within the Gulf cartel likely include moves by Los Zetas and Sinaloa to take advantage of the situation and grab territory. This would further heighten violence beyond the already volatile conditions created by the three-way battle between Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel and government forces for control of Mexico’s northeast.


Arellano Felix Organization

Little has changed in the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) since July’s update on cartel activity in Tijuana, Baja California. The AFO (aka the Tijuana Cartel) is widely considered to be operating by permission of the Sinaloa cartel, an agreement suggested by a drop in the turf-war homicide rate in Tijuana. According to the Mexican federal government, deaths by homicide statewide in Baja California from January through August 2011 numbered 464, compared to 579 for the same period in 2010.

In mid-August, Mexican authorities arrested AFO member Juan Carlos Flores “El Argentino” in Tecate, Baja California. Carlos Flores indicated that he was subordinate to a man known only as “El Viejon,” who is second in command of the AFO, which is led by Fernando “El Ingeniero” Sanchez Arellano. On July 9, Mexican authorities arrested Armando “El Gordo” Villarreal Heredia, an AFO lieutenant who reported to Sanchez Arellano. Any significant gains or losses for the AFO have gone largely unnoticed since the cartel effectively operates as a Sinaloa vassal organization.

For the near term we do not expect significant changes within or related to the AFO, although given the cartel’s continued but discrete interaction with Los Zetas, we believe there will probably be a resurgence of open hostility by the AFO at some point to regain control of its plazas.


The Opposition


Los Zetas

Los Zetas continue to fight a large, multi-front war across Mexico. They are combating the Gulf cartel, Sinaloa and Mexican government forces in the northeast while assisting the Juarez cartel in holding Sinaloa forces back in Chihuahua state. Los Zetas are also taking control of additional territory in Zacatecas, pushing into Jalisco, Nayarit, Guerrero and Mexico states and battling Sinaloa in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. The organization is being hit hard by the Mexican military in its home territories in Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Veracruz states and fighting to hold the crucial plazas at Monterrey and the port of Veracruz against incursions by Sinaloa, Gulf and CJNG.

Certainly, Los Zetas are being pressed on every side. What we find telling is that despite significant challenges to their ownership of Monterrey and Veracruz, Los Zetas do not appear to have been displaced, though we do expect violence to increase significantly in the near term as rival groups openly push into both cities. While Los Zetas have withdrawn from territory before — Reynosa in the spring of 2010 being a prime example — the loss of that plaza was not detrimental overall to the cartel’s operations, given its control of other plazas in the region and in Nuevo Laredo. However, we expect to see Los Zetas ramp up defensive efforts in Monterrey and Veracruz, two cities that have great strategic value for the cartel.

From July to mid-October, federal operations against Los Zetas in Veracruz, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi and Quintana Roo states netted 17 cell leaders and plaza bosses, including Angel Manuel “Comandante Diablo” Mora Caberta in Veracruz, Jose Guadalupe “El Dos” Yanez Martinez in Saltillo and Carlos “La Rana” Oliva Castillo, reported to be the third in command of Los Zetas, in Saltillo. During a two-month operation in Coahuila, government forces also reportedly seized caches of weapons, ammunition, tactical gear and 27 tons of marijuana and freed approximately 97 kidnapped migrants.

Over the past four months, questions have emerged in the U.S. and Mexican security communities about the strength, cohesion and capabilities of Los Zetas. At times, information from open sources, government reports and confidential STRATFOR sources on both sides of the border has been contradictory — which tends to be the norm given the exceptionally fluid nature of the drug war. The question of whether Los Zetas are weakening has many factors, including leadership losses, gains or losses in territorial control, increases or decreases in apparent smuggling activities (which directly tie to revenue) and the quality and quantity of human resources.

As we discussed in July, the estimated 30 deserters from the Mexican army’s Special Forces Airmobile Group (GAFE) who originally formed the core cadre of Los Zetas have been shrinking in number. On July 3, one of the remaining 11 “Zeta Viejos” at large, Jesus Enrique “El Mamito” Rejon, was apprehended by Mexican Federal Police in Atizapan de Zaragoza, Mexico state. In the past decade, 15 members of the original core group have been reported captured and imprisoned and nine have been reported killed. It is not realistic to assume, however, that the organization has lost the specialized skillsets, training and knowledge that those particular individuals possessed.

When evaluating reports of captured or killed Zeta leaders and the effects those losses might have on the organization, it is important to consider what leaders remain, the size of the manpower pool (both in terms of trained foot soldiers and potential recruits) and the existence of training programs and infrastructure for the rank and file.

First, unlike the more traditional Mexican drug cartels, which tend to be family-centric, the Los Zetas organization is more of a meritocracy, and a number of later recruits have risen to leadership positions. Prime examples are Miguel “Z-40” Trevino Morales, who was recruited roughly two years after the group’s 1998 founding and has risen to No. 2 in the organization, and Carlos “La Rana” Oliva Castillo, reported to be the regional boss over the states of Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas and Coahuila, who joined Los Zetas in 2005 and was captured the first week of October 2011. In recent media reports of his capture, Oliva Castillo is described as the No. 3 leader in the organization behind Trevino Morales. While STRATFOR has yet to corroborate Oliva Castillo’s position in the cartel, if he did in fact replace captured third-in-command Jesus “El Mamito” Rejon, neither part of the founding group.

Second, it is known that Mexico’s Defense Secretariat “lost track” of as many as 1,700 special operations soldiers over the past 10 years, according to documents obtained from the Federal Institute for Access to Information by the Mexican newspaper Milenio. A March 8 Milenio article indicated that at least 1,680 Special Forces Airmobile Group (GAFE) soldiers had deserted in the past decade, including trained snipers, infantrymen and paratroopers with advanced survival and counternarcotics training.

It is not reasonable to assume that all of the GAFE deserters over the last decade went to work for Los Zetas or any of the other drug-trafficking organizations. However, it is reasonable to expect that, in an environment where cartels have had a wide presence and a demonstrated willingness to pay handsomely for highly skilled soldiers, a significant proportion of the GAFE deserters would sell their skills to the highest bidder and many would gravitate toward Los Zetas. If even one-third of the GAFE deserters chose to join any of Mexico’s cartels, there are likely dozens of highly skilled soldiers already in positions of authority or working their way up the Zeta organizational ladder (along with recruits from other Mexican military branches and law enforcement agencies).

While the organization long has recruited predominantly from military and law enforcement pools, which means most new recruits are already able to use basic firearms and understand fundamental tactics, the strength of Los Zetas comes from structured training in small-unit combat tactics at facilities modeled after GAFE training camps. According to STRATFOR sources with access to seized training materials, Zeta training includes basic marksmanship, fire-team drills and room-clearing techniques.

The thoroughness of Zeta training depends on the tempo of the drug war. Prior to about May 2010, Zeta camps in Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and elsewhere operated with sufficient space and freedom for recruit training to last as long as six months. When the Mexican government and the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia Michoacana (LFM) cartels began to press them on every side, Zeta recruit training was reduced. According to a captured Zeta foot soldier, basic training in early 2011 involved two weeks of boot camp in which rudimentary firearms skills were taught. The recruits were then mobilized to gain additional training on the battlefield. The net effect has been seen in such “loose cannon” events as the Falcon Lake shooting in September 2010 and the  botched carjacking attack on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents travelling through San Luis Potosi in February 2011. Nevertheless, we expect that Los Zetas will ramp up training whenever possible since their continued success depends upon it.

What we find important in these dynamics is that Los Zetas have taken several big hits in the past several months but have managed to absorb the losses without any overall diminution of the organization’s size or reach, even though the persistent pressure has reduced the capabilities of rank-and-file Zeta operatives. The net effect has been the organization’s fairly static condition. Peripheral Zeta losses on the outskirts of Monterrey and Veracruz have been offset by recent gains in Zacatecas state and elsewhere. It certainly is possible, however, that the last months of 2011 may see an overall degradation of Los Zetas if CJNG and Sinaloa are successful in making inroads into Monterrey and Veracruz, and we expect the military to continue its operations against Los Zetas as well.


Cartel Pacifico Sur

Since the last cartel update, we have seen little activity by Cartel del Pacifico Sur (CPS). The cartel has suffered no significant arrests, and any violence associated with group has gone unnoticed in contested areas. This lack of reported losses and gains for CPS may be due to its alliance with Los Zetas, which attracts most of the media attention. There also is the possibility that, while Sinaloa and the Mexican government focus their efforts on Los Zetas, CPS is taking advantage of a lull in territorial battles to concentrate on smuggling activities and rejuvenate its revenue streams. We do not consider CPS to be marginalized at this point and will be watching for signs of activity during the last quarter of this year.


Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization

Although constriction of the VCF continues, the cartel retains the loyalty of the approximately 8,000-member Azteca street gang, which has helped it hold on to Juarez and maintain control of the three primary ports of entry into the United States, all of which feed directly into El Paso, Texas. STRATFOR sources recently indicated that the VCF also retains supply lines for its marijuana and cocaine shipments and continues to push large quantities of narcotics across the border.

On July 29, Mexican authorities captured Jose Antonio “El Diego” Acosta Hernandez, the top leader of La Linea, the VCF’s enforcement arm. His position in the VCF hierarchy makes him difficult to replace. For the cartels, there is never a good time to lose an important figure, but the loss is felt even more acutely when the figure is the leader of a cartel’s armed wing and he is removed from the mix during a heated and prolonged battle for survival.

The whereabouts of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and his closest lieutenants are unknown. At the beginning of 2011 there was an expectation that the level of violence associated with Sinaloa operations against the VCF would continue to escalate, given the indicators seen at the time. However, over the last eight to nine months we have seen cartel-related homicides drop significantly. It appears now, though, that violence again is on the rise in Juarez. Gun battles and targeted killings are increasing in the city, and STRATFOR sources in the region expect the current trend to continue through the end of 2011.


La Resistencia

La Resistencia was originally a confederation between enforcers from Guadalajara-based affiliates of the Sinaloa Federation, the Milenio Cartel and Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel’s faction, along with enforcers from the Gulf Cartel and LFM. The organization was intended to fight against Zeta incursions into Jalisco and Michoacan. Following the July 2010 death of Coronel, the alliance splintered as the LFM made a push to take over Guadalajara and Coronel’s followers blamed Sinaloa leader El Chapo Guzman for Nacho Coronel’s demise.

In the melee that followed, the Milenio Cartel was badly damaged by the arrests of high-profile leaders and by battles with the strongest of the splinter groups from Coronel’s organization, CJNG. Remnants of the Milenio Cartel have continued to use the La Resistencia name. Although La Resistencia was originally formed to combat Los Zetas, it recently announced an alliance with the group. If there is an alliance forming, it could help explain why CJNG, the enemy of La Resistencia, recently traveled across Mexico to target Zeta operatives in the port city of Veracruz.

La Resistencia has been hit hard by CJNG and the Mexican government, but an apparent alliance with Los Zetas raises questions regarding the transfer of skills and the potential for a significantly increased Zeta presence in La Resistencia’s area of operations. We will be watching this situation closely, since the dual dynamic of a Zeta-La Resistencia alliance and CJNG’s cross-country operation lead us to expect elevated violence over a substantial part of Mexico’s bi-coastal midsection.


Independent Operators


La Familia Michoacana

LFM continues to suffer losses at the hands of the Knights Templar and the Mexican government. On Oct. 5, LFM leader Martin Rosales Magana “El Terry” was captured in Mexico state, the most significant hit to the cartel’s leadership since Jesus “El Chango” Mendez’s fall in July. The Mexican Federal Police claims that the La Familia structure is disintegrating and the cartel no longer has much access to essential precursors in the production of methamphetamines. The continued losses indicate that LFM as an organization is nearing its end. However though LFM’s losses have hurt the organization, the cartel continues to show activity. In a raid in July, U.S. law enforcement agencies arrested 44 individuals in Austin, Texas, who allegedly were LFM members, though it remains unclear whether the cell in Austin worked for LFM or the Knights Templar.

There have been indications that remnants of LFM are continuing to seek an alliance with Los Zetas. Narcomantas signed by the Knights Templar were intended to send a message to El Terry, blaming him for aligning with Los Zetas. Following his arrest in early October, Mario Buenrostro Quiroz, the alleged leader of a Mexico City drug gang known as “Los Aboytes,” claimed in an on-camera interview that El Terry had sought an alliance with Los Zetas prior to his arrest. This claim followed reports that Jesus “El Chango” Mendez was also seeking an alliance with Los Zetas before being arrested. While the Mexican government denies LFM has achieved an alliance with Los Zetas, LFM will likely continue pressing for any advantage to stay alive as the Knights Templar continue trying to eradicate it.


The Knights Templar

One question that emerged over the last quarter is whether the Federal Police will increase its focus on Knights Templar operations. With LFM’s organizational decline, Federal Police will have more resources to target the Knights Templar in Michoacan and Mexico states. Federal Police Commissioner Facundo Rosas has suggested an imminent end to LFM and a shift in operations against the Knights Templar.

The Knights Templar have taken hits from Mexican federal forces, but there have been no indications that the group’s organizational structure has been seriously impacted. Arrested in September was one of the group’s principal members, Saul “El Lince” Solis Solis, the highest-level Knights Templar leader to fall in the third quarter. A number of other Knights Templar leaders were arrested in the third quarter, including Bulmaro “El Men” Salinas Munoz and Neri “El Yupo” Salgado Harrison. The effect of these arrests on the group’s operations remains unclear.

The Knights Templar continue to display narcomantas in Michoacan and Mexico states. In September, the cartel offered monetary rewards for information leading to the capture of certain individuals named on the banners (known LFM members who the Knights Templar claimed were aligned with Los Zetas).

The early October arrest of Los Aboytes gang leader Buenrostro Quiroz has raised questions about Knights Templar leadership. In the video of Buenrostro Quiroz being questioned by authorities, he said he met with Knights Templar leaders approximately a month before he was captured. He further claimed that Nazario “El Mas Loco” Moreno Gonzalez is still alive and heading the Knights Templar with Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, former LFM plaza boss, as second in command. There has been no evidence supporting Buenrostro Quiroz’s claims, although Moreno Gonzalez’s body was never found when he was reported dead in December 2010. The prospect of Moreno Gonzales, the ideological founder of LFM, still being alive would explain to a large extent LFM’s immediate decline following the emergence of the Knights Templar in March.

The Knights Templar will continue to target LFM members in Michoacan and Mexico states, and as it takes over La Familia’s turf it will likely increase its methamphetamine production operations. Regardless of whether an alliance exists between LFM and Los Zetas, we anticipate increasing conflict between the Knights Templar and Los Zetas in the coming months due to both groups’ territorial aspirations.


Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion

When we began discussing Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in the last quarterly update, we included it in the “Independent Operators” section. We took the cartel at its word, which had been made clear its publically released videos, that CJNG had declared war on all other cartels. The organization, based in Guadalajara, consists primarily of former Sinaloa members who had worked for Nacho Coronel and who believe that Nacho was betrayed by Sinaloa leader El Chapo Guzman Loera. However, recent activities by CJNG have greatly muddied our take on the group.

Between Sept. 20 and the first week in October, at least 67 bodies labeled as Zetas were dumped in Boca del Rio, a wealthy southern suburb of Veracruz. The first batch of 35 bodies was dumped in a busy traffic circle in broad daylight during afternoon rush hour. All of the killings were claimed by CJNG. We find this odd for two reasons: While it is not surprising that CJNG would go after Los Zetas, Veracruz is very much outside of CJNG’s home territory in Guadalajara, and CJNG appears to have conducted these operations in cooperation with the Sinaloa Federation. Therefore, it seems as though CJNG may have been co-opted by Sinaloa (though Sinaloa has not confirmed this).

However, as discussed in the Sinaloa and La Resistencia sections above, such a restructuring of affiliations makes sense, and we anticipate that CJNG’s links to other cartels will become increasingly clear over the next quarter.

Title: Stratfor: IEDs
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 26, 2011, 02:39:45 PM

An IED Attack in Monterrey

On Oct. 20, as a Mexican military patrol chased a vehicle carrying suspected cartel gunmen through the streets of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, an unidentified party remotely detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) placed in a parked car moments before the patrol passed by it. There were no reported deaths or injuries from the blast, but all of the gunmen in the vehicle escaped. Though this is the first IED attack Monterrey has witnessed,  there have been other such attacks in Mexico within the past year or so. In July 2010, La Linea, the enforcement arm of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes cartel, set off an IED in a car in Ciudad Juarez, killing four people; between August and December 2010, the Gulf cartel deployed as many as six IEDs throughout Tamaulipas state; and in January 2011, a small IED detonated in Tula, Hidalgo state, injuring four people.

In the aftermath of such attacks, it is tempting for observers and the mainstream media to assume cartel violence in Mexico has reached an unprecedented level of escalation, and that an increased use of IEDs is all but certain. However, the Oct. 20 ambush, sophisticated though it was, actually showed some degree of restraint on the part of the planners, as did the IED attacks of the past year elsewhere in Mexico. Given the psychological impact and tactical effectiveness of IED use in a combat environment — and cartel personnel armed with the knowledge to construct sophisticated explosive devices — perhaps more astonishing than the occurrence of IED attacks is the fact that cartels do not conduct them with more regularity or on a greater magnitude than they have. That the cartels choose not to do so illustrates a calculated strategy aimed at staving off further American involvement and limiting negative domestic public opinion against them.


courtesy of El Universal
A Mexican soldier stands near the site of the Oct. 20 Monterrey blastMilitary grade explosives are very easy to acquire on the black market in Mexico. More readily available and cheaper than guns, they are routinely confiscated by security forces. In fact, the army has made notable seizures as recently as the past week. On Oct. 18, the Mexican army seized around 20 kilograms (about 45 pounds) of C4 in or around Mexico City, capable of producing an explosion 10 times larger than that of the Monterrey blast. Later on Oct. 20, the army seized 45 blocks of C4, detonators, weapons and cell phones in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state.

The prevalence of individuals practiced at constructing explosive devices adds to the issue. Many cartels employ ex-military personnel as enforcers. Los Zetas, for example, were founded by defectors from the Mexican army’s Special Forces Airmobile Group and originally served as the enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel before embarking on their own narcotics trafficking operations. These individuals learned the intricacies of demolitions as part of their military training, and they are now in a position to deploy — or train others to deploy — IEDs across the country.

However, former members of the military are not the only ones in Mexico who know how to make bombs. The country’s mining sector has given many people an expertise in the use of explosives and has contributed to cartel inventories. Industrial hydrogel explosives have been used in some IEDs, notably in an attempt made in Juarez in August 2010. They also have been seized in cartel munitions caches in large enough quantities to bring down buildings.

Despite the availability of explosives and the prevalence of people who know how to manipulate those explosives, large IEDs have yet to be deployed in Mexico. This dynamic has been very different from what we have seen in places like Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s. The reason for this is simple. The leaders of Mexico’s various cartels conduct business based on the principle that if they can stand to benefit from something — an assassination, extortion or even a licit activity — they will do it; if not, it will be avoided. The use of large IEDs would create substantial domestic pressure and compel the Mexican government to come down hard on the cartels — much harder than Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s administration has demonstrated to date.

More important, cartels cannot afford direct and heavy-handed interdiction from the U.S. government aimed at their total dismantlement. The use of large, powerful IEDs would lead the Mexican government to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations. Such a designation would allow U.S. law enforcement easier access to their finances and operation, something the cartels want to avoid at every cost. It could also lead to dramatically increased U.S. involvement in the fight against the Mexican criminal cartels.

Mexico’s drug cartels must weigh the tactical benefits of using IEDs with the strategic need to keep the U.S. government off their backs. Intermittent IED attacks can be expected in the future, but those attacks will continue to utilize small amounts of explosives to mitigate the risk of U.S. involvement — or political crisis in Mexico. This dynamic could possibly change should one of the criminal cartels become desperate and believe they have nothing to lose, but as we saw in the case of La Linea in Juarez, the group did not follow through on their threat to employ a 100-kilogram vehicle-borne IED even when heavily pressed.



(click here to view interactive map)

Oct. 19

The Mexican military seized a drug lab in Zapopan, Jalisco state. Approximately 27 metric tons of chemical precursors were discovered.
Mexican authorities seized a heroin and cocaine processing lab in Xochitepec, Morelos state. Two individuals were detained in the operation.

Oct. 20

An improvised explosive device in a vehicle exploded Oct. 20 as a Mexican military convoy passed by it in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, while pursuing gunmen. All the gunmen escaped.
A police radio operator was killed by gunmen in a security hut in Veracruz city, Veracruz state. The operator was involved in an ongoing operation in Los Volcanes neighborhood. Police pursued the gunmen afterwards, killing one gunman and injuring another.
The Mexican military detained five alleged Los Zetas members in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state. Among the five was Rodrigo Herrera Valverde, a nephew of the former Veracruz state governor, Fidel Herrera Beltran.

Oct. 21

A confrontation in Tancitaro, Michoacan state, between gunmen and the Mexican military left one soldier and three gunmen dead.
Three individuals were executed in Apatzingan, Michoacan state. Their bodies were left with a narcomanta signed by the Knights Templar stating that the individuals died because of their behavior.

Oct. 22

Police seized 42 kilograms of cocaine from a tractor-trailer near Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state.
Police arrested four suspected La Barredora members in Acapulco, Guerrero state.

Oct. 23

A convoy of gunmen executed three individuals in Villa Ocampo, Durango state. The same convoy was reported driving through Las Nieves, Durango state, prior to the executions.
Soria “El Hongo” Adrian Ramirez, leader of Cartel del Centro, was arrested in Ojo de Agua, Mexico state. Cartel del Centro is reportedly in territory disputes with the Knights Templar, La Familia Michoacan and La Mano Con Ojos.
A confrontation between Mexican authorities and gunmen in Doctor Gonzalez, Nuevo Leon state resulted in the death of a Los Zetas plaza boss and the capture of three Los Zetas members. The plaza boss, Gabriel “El Cochiloco” Hernandez Hernandez, was responsible for the municipalities of La Laja and El Oregan in Nuevo Leon state.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Restrained IED Attacks a Necessary Tactic For Drug Cartels | STRATFOR
Title: Rafael Cardenas Vela of Gulf Cartel captured in US
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 27, 2011, 01:31:14 PM
Vice President of Tactical Intelligence Scott Stewart discusses the arrest of Rafael Cardenas Vela and what it means for the Gulf Cartel and for security in Mexico’s northeast.

Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.


•   Mexican Drug War Update: The Polarization Continues

On Oct. 26, U.S. authorities announced they had arrested Rafael Cardenas Vela in a traffic stop in Port Isabella, Texas on Oct. 20. The arrest of Cardenas, who is also known as “El Junior,” is significant because he was one of the leaders of two factions that are currently fighting for control of the Gulf Cartel. The struggle among these differing Gulf Cartel factions could have a significant impact on the security situation in Mexico’s northeast.

Rafael Cardenas Vela is the nephew of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, former leader of the Gulf Cartel. Osiel Cardenas Guillen was convicted in a U.S. court in 2010 and sentenced to serve 25 years, which he is currently serving in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colo. Following the arrest of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, control of the Gulf Cartel was handed to his brother, Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, also know as “Tony Tormenta,” as well as Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, who is know as “El Coss.”

That arrangement seemed to work fairly well for several years, but it broke apart following the death of Tony Tormenta in November 2010. This led to a rift in the Gulf Cartel between a faction of those members of the cartel who are loyal to the Cardenas family and a section of the cartel that is loyal to El Coss. In recent months, we’ve been watching as that friction and tension have increased and it appears currently that it’s on the verge of breaking into an all-out war.

In early September, we saw one of El Coss’s major lieutenants, Samuel “El Metro 3” Flores Borego, get assassinated in northern Mexico. And this was one of the signs that tensions were increasing between the two factions. We believe that it’s very likely that the arrest of El Junior is connected to this inter-factional fighting between the Gulf Cartel, and it’s quite possible that the information that led to his arrest was leaked to U.S. authorities by El Coss, his primary rival for control of the Gulf Cartel.

The fact that Cardenas was in U.S. custody for several days before his arrest was announced is very interesting. It indicates to us that he was likely cooperating with U.S. authorities. So we’re going to be watching this Gulf Cartel infighting very carefully for signs that it’s going to weaken these various cartel factions enough that other organizations can move into their areas of operation. In this case of the Gulf Cartel, we have both Los Zetas, who used to be the enforcer group of the Gulf Cartel before splitting from them in January 2010 and are now bitter rivals with the Gulf Cartel, and of course their allies, the Sinaloa Cartel.

Over time, the Sinaloa Cartel has shown that it is very aggressive at moving into and taking territory from its former allies like we saw in Tijuana and in Juarez. So it would not be surprising for them to try to make a move in the northeast to take control of Matamoros. And it’s going to be important to watch the area around Matamoros to see if the areas that are controlled currently by the Gulf Cartel fall to one of these other very powerful cartel organizations.
Title: Activists vs. Cartels
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 31, 2011, 09:43:45 AM
Summary
The online activist collective Anonymous released a video Oct. 6 in which a masked spokesman denounces Mexico’s criminal cartels, demands that a member of Anonymous kidnapped by Los Zetas be released and threatens to release information about individuals cooperating with Mexico’s cartels. If Anonymous carries out its threat, it will almost certainly lead to the deaths of individuals named as cartel associates, whether or not the information released is accurate. Furthermore, as Mexican cartels have targeted online journalists and bloggers in the past, hackers could well be targeted for reprisal attacks.

Analysis
Anonymous, an online collective of activists including hackers, lashed out at Mexican cartels in a video released online Oct. 6. In the video, a masked individual claiming to speak on behalf of Anonymous denounces Mexico’s cartels and demands that Los Zetas release a member of Anonymous kidnapped during a street-level protest named Operation Paperstorm in Veracruz state. The spokesman also threatens to release revealing information about journalists, police, politicians and taxi drivers colluding with the cartels.

Simply disseminating information on cartel members will not significantly impede overall cartel operations, but if Anonymous carries out its threat, it will affect cartel associates and others the that cartels could target for retaliatory attacks.

Anonymous is not an organized, monolithic group; rather, it is a collection of activists whose organizers work under the name Anonymous. Hackers have conducted several online activities using the name Anonymous, as they have had to develop code for conducting cyberattacks. The collective of hackers takes on several different causes and carries out attacks involving participation by experienced hackers and unskilled members alike. Not everyone involved in Anonymous participates in every action, and some actions are more popular than others.

The Anonymous spokesman in the video does not specify how many individuals support the threat against the cartels or how the group acquired the information it threatens to release. It would not take a group of hackers to obtain the kind of information the spokesman claims Anonymous could release; much of this kind of information could be acquired via rumors circulating through Mexico. In fact, the Anonymous spokesman does not mention anything about using hacking activities to acquire confidential information about the cartels.

However, there are many examples of hackers acting under the name Anonymous acquiring personal and sensitive information about their targets. Recently, hackers shut down child pornography website Lolita City and reportedly posted more than 1,500 usernames and activities of the website’s users. On Oct. 21, Anonymous hackers stole sensitive information — including Social Security numbers — from a series of police-affiliated targets including the International Association of Chiefs of Police website and the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association email portal and revealed more than 1,000 usernames and passwords of Boston police officers. Although cartels’ activities are focused on the streets of the cities they control, even cartels use the Internet for communication and some business transactions. Any cartel activities occurring online could be potential vulnerabilities if individuals involved in the new Anonymous threat can identify them; though the threat from Anonymous does not necessarily mean that hackers are now targeting cartels, given the history of activities carried out in Anonymous’ name, it is certainly possible.

If Anonymous carries out its threat, members would use online media outlets to publish revealing information about the cartels and their associates. Anonymous members frequently focus on these media, which allow them to post revealing information while concealing their own identities. Any information released to the public would not pose a direct threat in itself; it would be up to others to determine the information’s validity and whether to take action. For example, if Anonymous claims that a politician is colluding with criminal cartels, the politician could be threatened by whatever actions the Mexican government decides to take or by members of rival cartels.

Loss of life will be a certain consequence if Anonymous releases the identities of individuals cooperating with cartels. Whether voluntarily or not, cooperating with criminal cartels in Mexico comes with the danger of retribution from rival cartels. Taxi drivers, typically victims of extortion or otherwise forced to act as lookouts or scouts, are particularly vulnerable. In areas such as Acapulco, Guerrero state, reports of murdered taxi drivers occur weekly. The validity of the information Anonymous has threatened to reveal is uncertain, as it might not have been vetted. This could pose an indiscriminate danger to individuals mentioned in whatever Anonymous decides to release.

The online media frequently used to organize Anonymous-labeled activities are far removed from the violent world of Mexican criminal cartels. This distance — along with the likely physical distance of many Anonymous members from Mexico — could limit the activists’ understanding of cartel activities. Anonymous activists may act with confidence stemming from perceived anonymity when sitting in front of a computer, but this could blind them to any possible retribution.  Cartels have targeted bloggers and online journalists in previous attacks, and even hackers in Mexico are not beyond the cartels’ reach. Cartels reportedly have turned to the information technology community in the past, coercing computer science majors in Mexico into working for them. Any Anonymous activists inside Mexico who are targeting or perceived as targeting the Mexican cartels will be just as vulnerable as online journalists and bloggers as the cartels seek to make them examples of what happens when someone exposes or publicizes damaging information about cartel activity.

Anonymous activists can threaten to reveal information about cartels or launch cyberattacks. But even if the cartels cannot track down the individuals directing cyberattacks or releasing information, the cartels will continue to commit acts of violence meant to warn the online community about such activities.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 01, 2011, 04:15:17 PM
Tactical Analyst Ben West discusses online activists Anonymous’ continued efforts against Mexican drug cartels and the cartels’ responses.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Related Links
•   Mexico’s Cartels Draw Online Activists’ Ire
•    Dispatch: Implications of a Mexican Drug Lord’s Capture
•   Mexican Drug War Update: The Polarization Continues
A member of the online activist group, Anonymous, released a video statement October 31 stating that it will continue to search for and publicize sensitive data about Mexican criminal organizations despite the physical threat of doing so.
Based upon past examples, the latest Anonymous campaign against Los Zetas could spill over into the real world, resulting in violence and deaths as Los Zetas target a new group.
Online media has been in conflict with Mexican criminal and drug organizations for some time now. Journalists are known to be targets of the cartels and plenty have been killed in the past.
Bloggers are also included in the online media campaign against the cartels, but they have typically not been targeted as much — likely because the information they post has not had as much of an impact on cartel operations as the journalists have.
However, that could be changing with the addition of Anonymous to the anti-cartel online media campaign in Mexico.
Throughout August and September of this year four people with connections to anti-cartel blog websites have been attacked.
• Two individuals killed and hung from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo with signs warning not to post on blogs.
• A girl found beheaded in Nuevo Laredo who had contributed to anti-cartel blogs in the past.
• Additionally, an Anonymous member claimed that a volunteer was abducted by Los Zetas while distributing pamphlets in Veracruz.
Anonymous has conducted successful Distributed Denial of Service Attacks on institutions such as Visa and MasterCard and has stolen sensitive information from HB Gary Federal in 2011 and subsequently publicized internal emails from that group. It brings together a group of individuals with a higher skill-set and sense of operational security than the less savvy anti-cartel bloggers already active in Mexico.
This higher skill-set means that Anonymous could contribute to the effectiveness of the online struggle against the cartels or at least bring more publicity to the issue. It’s important to remember that the U.S. has been engaging in its own electronic observation of the Mexican cartels for years. Anonymous likely won’t be able to turn up more information than the U.S. government already has, but they are able to publicize more information than the U.S. government can.
If Anonymous is able to increase the effectiveness of online operations seeking to expose cartel activities then that makes them and other anti-cartel bloggers in Mexico much higher profile targets than before.
Anonymous is not an organization. It’s important to remember, it is a loose association of individuals. It’s not the group itself then, but the individuals involved, who become targets of the cartels.
We have seen reports that Los Zetas are deploying their own teams of computer experts to track those individuals involved in the online anti-cartel campaign, which indicates that the criminal group is taking the campaign very seriously. Those individuals involved face the risk of abduction, injury and death — judging by how Los Zetas has dealt with threats in the past.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 10, 2011, 02:24:51 PM


AFO Lieutenant Arrested

Mexican authorities arrested a senior member of the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) on Nov. 5 in Tijuana, Baja California state. According to a statement from the Mexican Defense Ministry, Juan Francisco “La Rueda” Sillas Rocha, the AFO’s top enforcer, who is believed to have reported directly to current AFO leader Fernando Sanchez Arellano, was arrested after shooting and wounding two rival cartel members near Insurgentes Boulevard. An army spokesman said Sillas was captured after police and soldiers cordoned off the area immediately following the attack.

In 2007, the Sinaloa Federation encroached on the AFO’s long-held territory in Baja California, prompting an all-out turf war between the groups. AFO leader Luis Fernando “El Ingeniero” Sanchez Arellano, a nephew of the cartel’s founders, allegedly ordered Sillas to regain Tijuana from rival Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, who had defected from the AFO and joined ranks with Sinaloa. As a result, Tijuana was extremely violent from 2007 to 2009, with decapitations, hangings and daylight shootouts becoming common occurrences. The violence subsided after Garcia was arrested and after Sinaloa absorbed AFO’s territory, relegating Sanchez Arellano’s organization, which was severely damaged by the war and unable to resist, to a reluctant vassal that paid Sinaloa for the right to exist.

Sillas’ arrest furthers the trend of cartel dynamics in the area. Any push from the AFO to regain territory lost to Sinaloa likely would have been conducted by Sillas. Though the AFO has not been eliminated completely, the arrest of Sillas means that the AFO’s chances of countering Sinaloa and regaining power in Tijuana are diminishing. Likewise, as the AFO’s power continues to wane, the Sinaloa Federation’s grip on territory along Mexico’s Pacific coast only strengthens.


Mayor Killed in Michoacan

While distributing campaign material for Michoacan state gubernatorial candidate Luisa Mario Calderon Hinojosa, Ricardo Guzman, the mayor of La Piedad, Michoacan state, was shot and killed Nov. 3 by an unidentified gunman in a black SUV bearing Jalisco state plates. According to reports, Guzman died as he was being transported to a hospital by ambulance.

With the presence of multiple drug cartels, including Los Zetas, the Knights Templar, remnants of La Familia Michoacana and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Michoacan public officials on all levels are vulnerable to competing cartel pressure. Candidates from all three major Mexican political parties reportedly have been threatened during the recent campaign season in Michoacan, and six municipal police chiefs have been killed in the state in 2011 alone.

Mayors and other local officials are particularly susceptible to cartel pressure. Unlike governors or presidents — but like cartels — mayors must operate in their local environments (state and federal officials are by no means insulated from cartel machinations, but they are further removed from the warlike environments found in some of these locations). If such officials are perceived to favor a cartel, they will be attacked by a rival cartel. If they refuse to work for a specific cartel, that organization will attack them in retribution. If they have no support from any cartel, they are vulnerable to attack by all.

For mayors and other local officials, consorting with criminal groups often is a matter of necessity, and since they generally have security inferior to that of presidents and governors, they often fall victim to attacks or pressure. In fact, 25 mayors have been killed throughout Mexico since 2006. The timing of this incident, however, is notable, as are those involved.

The candidate for whom Guzman was campaigning is the sister of current Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Like her brother, she is a member of the National Action Party (PAN), as was Guzman, who, according to Calderon Hinojosa’s campaign manager, had received threats prior to the shooting. The campaign manager did not give any specifics as to why or by whom the threats were made, and at present there is no hard evidence to suggest the killing was a targeted political assassination. The possibility cannot be ruled out, however. Neither can it be ruled out that Guzman was attacked to send Calderon Hinojosa or her brother a message.

There is another line of investigation into the murder. According to media reports, Guzman is rumored to have issued permits that would grant casinos authorization to operate in La Piedad. Authorities are looking into this theory, as it suggests an element of corruption in Guzman. But even though casinos and organized crime often are intimately linked, any concrete connection tying Guzman to organized crime remains unconfirmed. Of course, the attack could be personal and completely unrelated to his position as mayor.

Whatever the precise motive behind Guzman’s killing, the timing of the attack serves as a reminder that politicians are not immune to cartel operations; in fact, they are often the targets of such operations. Politicians can guarantee key access and cover for cartels looking to operate in a number of arenas, including money laundering and entering legitimate businesses. They also are limited to serving only one term, so they are somewhat expendable. The gubernatorial elections in Michoacan are the final elections in Mexico before the presidential election takes place in 2012. In light of the Nov. 3 attack, STRATFOR will be watching the lead-up to the presidential election carefully for signs of cartel influence.



(click here to view interactive map)

Nov. 1

The bodies of two men shot multiple times were discovered in an SUV in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state. Their hands were bound.
Mexican authorities raided a Gulf cartel safe-house in Temixco, Morelos state. An unidentified number of Gulf cartel lookouts were arrested in the raid.
Mexican authorities arrested 21 municipal police officers in the cities of Pesqueria, Linares and Mina, Nuevo Leon state, for their connections with criminal organizations.

Nov. 2

Gunmen attacked Mexican soldiers as they raided a safe-house in Xochitepec, Morelos state. One gunman was killed and three others were arrested.
Federal police rescued at least eight kidnapping victims from a safe-house in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state.
Two criminal groups engaged in a firefight in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state. Gunmen used public and private transit vehicles to block several roads in the city.
Mexican military forces seized four residences in Xochitepec, Morelos state, used by a criminal organization. During the operation, authorities seized weapons, chemical precursors and surveillance equipment used to monitor pedestrians entering and exiting an adjacent airport.
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a Federal Ministerial Police commander in Saltillo, Coahuila state.
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed Ricardo Guzman Romero, the mayor of La Piedad, Michoacan state.

Nov. 3

Mexican military forces engaged in a firefight with unidentified gunmen while on patrol in Tantoyuca, Veracruz state. One of the gunmen was arrested, though the rest escaped.
Federal police arrested Hector Russel “El Toro” Rodriguez Baez, a leader of La Familia Michoacana, in Chalco, Mexico state.

Nov. 4

Mexican military forces engaged in a firefight with gunmen while on patrol in Mocorito, Sinaloa state. All of the gunmen escaped.
Unidentified gunmen executed 15 individuals in various areas of Culiacan, Sinaloa state.

Nov. 6

Mexican authorities announced the arrest of Victor Manuel “El Gordo” Rivera Galeana in Mexico state. Rivera was a founder and leader of La Barredora, a criminal organization operating in Acapulco, Guerrero state.
A narcomanta signed by La Familia Michoacana was left with a dead body in Chalco, Mexico state.
Armed men executed a man at a bar in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. All gunmen escaped before the police arrived.
Mexican authorities seized 2,913.4 kilograms (6,422.9 pounds) of marijuana stored in a warehouse in Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas state.
Gunmen entered the offices of El Buen Tono news agency in Cordoba, Veracruz state, destroying computers and other equipment before setting an office on fire.

Nov. 7

Mexican authorities announced the arrest of Juan Francisco “La Rueda” Sillas Rocha, a lieutenant of Arellano Felix Organization leader Luis Fernando Sanchez Arellano. Sillas was arrested over the previous weekend in Tijuana, Baja California state.
Mexican authorities discovered two bodies in Mexico City with a narcomanta signed by La Mano con Ojos and The New Administration organization.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: AFO Continuing To Lose Power in Tijuana | STRATFOR
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 15, 2011, 07:18:46 PM
Acabo de regresar del DF.  Parece que se murio' en un accidente de helicopetero la Secretaria de Gobernacion Blake.  Hace tres anos en maneras semajantes se murio' OTRO Secretaria de Gobernacion.  Dado que fueron despedidos dos otros SdeG, en 5 anos, han habido 4! 

Mucho mas por reportar, pero ahora estoy cansado.
Title: Strat 11/17
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 17, 2011, 11:27:28 AM


Zetas Paymaster Apprehended

After receiving a tip about suspicious activity Nov. 11 in the Hacienda Las Palmas area of Escobedo, Nuevo Leon state, Mexican marines arrested five suspected members of Los Zetas. Among those arrested was Juan Carlos “El Charly” Morales Magallanes, a high-ranking financial operator who, according to the Navy Secretariat, is believed to be responsible for preparing and disbursing the Zetas’ payroll in multiple cities across Nuevo Leon state, including Cienega de Flores, China, Santiago, Monterrey, Villa Garcia, Escobedo, Allende, Marin, Apodaca, Montemorelos and others.

Given the illicit nature of the cartels’ businesses and the propensity toward violence, it can be easy to forget that drug cartels and other criminal organizations are bound by many of the same business practices as legitimate enterprises. Like licit businesses, these organizations have bills to pay and records to maintain. They have cash inflows and cash outflows, and whoever is tasked with the flow of money must ensure that all “accounts” are reconciled. This includes doling out salaries to “employees” — from street-level informants to high-level assassins to corrupt police officers and politicians.

If the Navy Secretariat’s description is accurate, Morales had a unique position within his organization: As a paymaster, he paid salaries, procured weapons and bought everything from vehicles to cellphones. He thus would have keen insight into whom the cartel employs in his region — atypical for someone in a criminal organization that takes steps to minimize its members’ knowledge of its various branches. Most important, however, is that his arrest and the search of the location where he was arrested could lead authorities to financial information on the Zetas that can and likely will be exploited. It also could lead them to other cartel targets.

As a general rule, a criminal organization’s survival depends upon a high degree of compartmentalization. Low-level informants or operatives who provide around-the-clock surveillance of street corners, blocks or neighborhoods report only to their boss; they know which organization they work for and, likely, who that organization’s leader or leaders are, but they have little knowledge as to the criminal operations, money flows and movement of people of the group. The prevailing wisdom is that the less the various members of an organization know about other compartments, the less valuable they are to law enforcement. Thus, criminal organizations such as the Zetas maintain dozens of layers between a low-level corner lookout and overall leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano.

Law enforcement officials therefore place great value on the paymasters of illicit enterprises. They are singular points of failure, whereby the capture of one can compromise many aspects of the organization’s structure or, in the case of the Zetas, the structure of a particular region. Nuevo Leon state, where Morales was arrested, is the Zetas’ largest territory, and Morales’ capture potentially opens up to law enforcement the single most vulnerable component of the organization in that region: money, and the knowledge of where and to whom that money goes.

Morales may or may not cooperate with the authorities. If he does provide the authorities with actionable intelligence — and if the authorities quickly follow up on the intelligence he provides — the damage to Los Zetas in Monterrey and central Nuevo Leon state may be profound and extensive. This is especially true if he can provide them with information that could allow the authorities to seize accounts or shut down funding channels of Los Zetas, a top priority for the Mexican government.


Sinaloa Federation Lieutenant Captured

Mexican authorities on Nov. 9 arrested a senior member of the Sinaloa Federation in what has been described as a well-planned and well-executed military raid in Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Believed to be part of Sinaloa leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera’s inner circle, Ovidio Limon Sanchez reportedly oversaw the purchase, transportation and distribution of cocaine and other drugs to the United States, mainly to Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California. Limon had been wanted for extradition to the United States, which had placed a $5 million reward on his capture.

His arrest has precipitated a number of theories in the mainstream media, the most striking of which is that in retaliation the Sinaloa Federation commissioned the assassination of Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Blake Mora, who died in a helicopter crash four days after Limon’s arrest.

STRATFOR considers this story unlikely. To mobilize an assassination against an official as high-ranking as the interior minister (or Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who reportedly was supposed to fly later that day in the same helicopter that crashed) would require unmatched intelligence, planning, and logistical and operational capabilities. Sinaloa would have to activate, and perhaps pay up front, multiple operatives with the skill set to conduct such an attack. It would also require knowledge of the helicopter flight schedule and the president’s and interior minister’s travel itinerary. In short, there are too many working parts to successfully plan and execute this kind of sophisticated plot in a mere 100 hours.



(click here to view interactive map)

Nov. 8

At least 10 gunmen ambushed Alejandro Higuera Osuna, the mayor of Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, while he was traveling along the Autopista del Pacifico. Higuero survived the ambush unharmed.
A firefight between the Mexican army and gunmen took place in Saltillo, Coahuila state. Three unidentified individuals were killed and two soldiers were injured.
Mexican authorities announced the capture of Alejandro “El Alex” Chavez Moreno, identified by authorities as the leader of Los Mano con Ojos. Chavez is believed to be responsible for more than 70 executions.

Nov. 9

Federal police arrested three members of La Familia Michoacana in Chalco, Mexico state.
Unidentified gunmen killed the manager of a hardware store in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state.

Nov. 10

Five gunmen were killed in two separate shootouts with the Mexican military in Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila state.
Mexican authorities announced the seizure of a training camp near Madero, Chihuahua state. Authorities seized assault rifles, ammunition, grenades and vehicles.
Police discovered a residence used by a criminal organization in Marin, Nuevo Leon state. Authorities discovered the burned bodies of two men inside the residence.
Gunmen opened fire on a gas station in Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon state, killing a 16-year-old boy.
The Mexican army seized more than 9 tons of marijuana from four vehicles in Culiacan, Sinaloa state.

Nov. 11

Mexican authorities arrested five Los Zetas operators in Escobedo, Nuevo Leon state, two of whom were financial operators for the criminal organization.
Mexican authorities discovered the decapitated bodies of a man and a woman in a taxi in Acapulco, Guerrero state.

Nov. 12

Mexican authorities announced the arrest of Samuel Reynoso Garcia, also known as Inocencio Carranza Reynoso, a senior member of the Knights Templar. Directly linked to the leader of the Knights Templar, Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, Reynoso Garcia was arrested with nine accomplices.

Nov. 13

Gunmen ambushed agents from Durango state’s bureau of investigations in Santiago Papasquiaro, Durango state. One agent was wounded in the ambush.

Nov. 14

Mexican authorities arrested Rigoberto “Comandante Chapparo” Zamarripa Arispe, a Zetas plaza boss in Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon state.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Authorities Arrest Suspected Zetas Paymaster | STRATFOR
Title: Destapo de la corrupcion
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 22, 2011, 02:55:59 PM
No tengo ningun opinion sobre lo siguiente.  

http://www.zetatijuana.com/2011/11/14/destapo-la-corrupcion/

Cabe mencionar que segun el episodio del momento de la revista "Proceso", la cual yo estaba leyendo durante mi reciente visita al DF, el recien fallado Secretaria de Gobernacion, Blake Mora, quien venia de BC, no buscaba subir a la presidencia sino regresar a ser Gobernador de BC. 

Dado las circunstancias de su muerte, la curiosa muerte de otro Secretaria de Gobernacion hace tres anos, y el despedido de dos Secretarias mas durante este sexenio, esa estrategica de Blake Mora es muy curiosa.

Title: Armed illegals stalked Border Patrol
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 23, 2011, 09:04:53 AM
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/22/armed-illegals-stalked-border-patrol/?page=all#pagebreak
Armed illegals stalked Border Patrol
Mexicans were ‘patrolling’ when agent was slain, indictment says
By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times
Tuesday, November 22, 2011

SLAIN: Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry called out, “I’m hit,” after a bullet pierced his aorta. He died at the scene. (Associated Press)


 
Five illegal immigrants armed with at least two AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole known as Mesquite Seep just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and one U.S. agent was killed, records show.

A now-sealed federal grand jury indictmentin the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terrysays the Mexican nationals were “patrolling” the rugged desert area of Peck Canyon at about 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 14 with the intent to “intentionally and forcibly assault” Border Patrol agents.

At least two of the Mexicans carried their assault rifles “at the ready position,” one of several details about the attack showing that Mexican smugglers are becoming more aggressive on the U.S. side of the border.

According to the indictment, the Mexicans were “patrolling the area in single-file formation” a dozen miles northwest of the border town of Nogales and — in the darkness of the Arizona night — opened fire on four Border Patrol agents after the agents identified themselves in Spanish as police officers.

Two AK-47 assault rifles found at the scene came from the failed Fast and Furious operation.

Using thermal binoculars, one of the agents determined that at least two of the Mexicans were carrying rifles, but according to an affidavit in the case by FBI agent Scott Hunter, when the Mexicans did not drop their weapons as ordered, two agents used their shotguns to fire “less than lethal” beanbags at them.

At least one of the Mexicans opened fire and, according to the affidavit, Terry, a 40-year-old former U.S. Marine, was shot in the back. A Border Patrol shooting-incident report said that Terry called out, “I’m hit,” and then fell to the ground, a bullet having pierced his aorta. “I can’t feel my legs,” Terry told one of the agents who cradled him. “I think I’m paralyzed.”

Bleeding profusely, he died at the scene.

After the initial shots, two agents returned fire, hitting Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, 33, in the abdomen and leg. The others fled. The FBI affidavit said Osorio-Arellanes admitted during an interview that all five of the Mexicans were armed.

Peck Canyon is a notorious drug-smuggling corridor.

Osorio-Arellanes initially was charged with illegal entry, but that case was dismissed when the indictment was handed up. It named Osorio-Arellanes on a charge of second-degree murder, but did not identify him as the likely shooter, saying only that Osorio-Arellanes and others whose names were blacked out “did unlawfully kill with malice aforethought United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry while Agent Terry was engaged in … his official duties.”

The indictment also noted that Osorio-Arellanes had been convicted in Phoenix in 2006 of felony aggravated assault, had been detained twice in 2010 as an illegal immigrant, and had been returned to Mexico repeatedly.

Bill Brooks, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s acting southwest border field branch chief, referred inquiries to the FBI, which is conducting the investigation. The FBI declined to comment.

The case against Osorio-Arellanes and others involved in the shooting has since been sealed, meaning that neither the public nor the media has access to any evidence, filings, rulings or arguments.

The U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego, which is prosecuting the case, would confirm only that it was sealed. Also sealed was the judge’s reason for sealing the case.

The indictment lists the names of other suspects in the shooting, but they are redacted.

In the Terry killing, two Romanian-built AK-47 assault rifles found at the scene were identified as having been purchased in a Glendale, Ariz., gun shop as part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) failed Fast and Furious investigation.

A number of rank-and-file Border Patrol agents have questioned why the case has not gone to trial, nearly a year after Terry’s killing. Several also have concerns about the lack of transparency in the investigation, compounded now by the fact that the court case has been sealed.

Shawn P. Moran, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 17,000 nonsupervisory agents, said it is rare for illegal immigrants or drug smugglers to engage agents in the desert, saying they usually “drop their loads and take off south.”

“The Brian Terry murder was a real wake-up call,” Mr. Moran said. “It emphasizes the failed state of security on the U.S. border, which poses more of a threat to us than either Iraq or Afghanistan. We have terrorism going on right on the other side of the fence, and we’re arming the drug cartels.

“My biggest fear is that someday a cartel member is going to go berserk, stick a rifle through the fence and kill as many Border Patrol agents as he can,” he said.

Mr. Moran said he understood the “rationale of working things up the food chain,” as suggested in the Fast and Furious probe, but had no idea how ATF planned to arrest cartel members who ultimately purchased the weapons since the agency lacks jurisdiction south of the border and never advised Mexican authorities about the operation.

“It was a ridiculous idea from the beginning, and it baffles us on how it was ever approved,” he said.

Mr. Moran also challenged the use of less-than-lethal s in the shooting incident, saying field agents have been “strong-armed” by the agency’s leadership to use nonlethal weapons. He said they were not appropriate for the incident in which Terry was killed.

“That was no place for beanbag rounds,” he said, noting that the encounter was at least 12 miles inside the U.S. and was carried out by armed men looking specifically to target Border Patrol agents.

CBP has said Terry and the agents with him carried fully loaded sidearms, along with two additional magazines, and were not under orders to use nonlethal ammunition first.

Mr. Moran, himself a veteran Border Patrol agent, said he also was “surprised” that the suspected Mexican gunmen were carrying their weapons at the ready position, meaning that the butts of the weapons were placed firmly in the pocket of the shoulder with the barrels pointed down at a 45-degree angle. He said this probably meant they had some level of military training.

More than 250 incursions by Mexican military personnel into the United States have been documented over the past several years.

The Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona that many of the intruders were “trained to escape, evade and counter-ambush” if detected. The agency cautioned agents to keep “a low profile,” to use “cover and concealment” in approaching the Mexican units, to employ “shadows and camouflage” to conceal themselves and to “stay as quiet as possible.”

Several of the incursions occurred in the same area where Terry was killed, including a 2005 incident in which two agents were shot and wounded by assailants dressed in black commando-type clothing in what law-enforcement authorities said was a planned ambush. More than 50 rounds were fired at the agents after they spotted the suspected gunmen.

Many of the Mexican drug cartels use former Mexican soldiers, police and federal agents to protect drug loads headed into the U.S. Many cartel leaders also have targeted U.S. Border Patrol agents and state and local police, sometimes offering bounties of up to $50,000.
Title: As we suspected , , ,
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 27, 2011, 03:31:31 PM
There's been an 800 pound gorilla lurking just out of range or most Gunwalking reporting: how many of the firearms being used criminally in Mexico were first sold by the State Department to the Mexican government? This piece outlines the broad parameters:

U. S. Government May Be Primary Suppliers of Mexican Drug Cartel Guns
by Tom Stilson

With Operation Fast and Furious headlining the news, there is no doubt civilian arms have been trafficked into Mexico. However, many of the arms used by Mexican cartels are NOT supplied by civilian gun outlets in the United States. Based upon the statistics I have compiled, our State and Defense Departments may be the premier suppliers of weaponry to Mexican drug cartels — not the US civilian.

From 2003-2009, over 150,000 Mexican soldiers deserted from their ranks. Drug cartels became so confident in their recruitment of military personnel that they posted help wanted ads for hit men, traffickers, and guards. When these soldiers desert, their US-supplied weapons (grenades, sniper rifles, assault weapons, etc.) often accompany them over to the cartels. In 2008 and 2009, 13,792 and 20,530 small arms were exported to Mexico from the US. Over 92% of these arms were civilian legal semi-automatic or non-automatic firearms, a number eerily similar to the debunked 90% number echoed by the ATF. A 2008 State Department memo to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi shows a $1,000,000 shipment of select fire M4A2 assault rifles to the Mexican Federal Police Force, (AKA Federales) one of the most corrupt Mexican government agencies.
The most recent numbers from 2010 show the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) — the State Department agency responsible for overseeing the exportation of military goods — authorized the transfer of 2.5 million units of small arms, weapon optics, silencers, and related components. In that same year, over 11 million units of ammunition and 127,000 units of explosive ordnance were cleared for exportation to Mexico. This amounted to $25 million worth of small arms, ammunition, and explosives shipped to Mexico authorized by our State Department.

In recent months, allegations have surfaced that the State Department’s US Direct Commercial Sales Program and DDTC may have directly shipped arms to the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel’s hit squad. The Zetas were at one time trained and supplied with American weaponry by our own 7th Special Forces Group in the early 1990s. These claims against the State Department arose even after the DDTC recognized the Americas Region in 2009 as having the highest rate of unfavorable traces for their Blue Lantern Program. The Blue Lantern Program involves traces performed by the DDTC to ensure exported military weaponry does not end up with an unauthorized nation or organization. For the Americas, 80% of traces where unauthorized end users were identified involved small arms. Data specifically for Mexico was unavailable from the State Department.

From 2008 to 2009, when President Obama entered office, Defense Department expenditures to Mexico have increased from $12 million to $34,000,000 and State Department expenditures increased from $7.2 million to $356 million. While 2010 data is currently unavailable, it appears our foreign aid to Mexico has continued to increase for 2011. These statistics imply the State and Defense Departments may very well be the top suppliers of small arms to Mexico’s drug cartels and not civilians. Only the information obtained from ATF Firearms Traces will tell. However, those records are not public. After the DOJ and the White House knowingly pursued attemp

http://biggovernment.com/tstilson/2011/11/21/u-s-government-may-be-primary-suppliers-of-mexican-drug-cartel-guns/ts at new gun control legislation, we are left to ask the question; is this just another case of government stupidity or is this something more premeditated?
Title: Zeta hit in Texas?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 30, 2011, 03:19:38 PM
STRATFOR
---------------------------
November 30, 2011


VIDEO: ABOVE THE TEARLINE: MEXICAN CARTEL VIOLENCE IN TEXAS

Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton examines the recent murder allegedly
committed by Mexican cartel members and the complexity faced by law enforcement
agencies when cross-border violence occurs.

Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology.
Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

In this week's Above the Tearline, we are going to look at an incident that appears
to be a Mexican cartel-related murder in Texas.

Last Monday, in the Houston area, several undercover officers from a High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Areas Task Force (known as a HIDTA) were following a
tractor-trailer from south Texas transporting drugs in an undercover operation. Four
suspects ambushed the truck, firing shoulder weapons, shooting and wounding a task
force police officer and killing the driver, who media have identified as an
undercover government informant. 

The true motive for the attack is unclear. There has been speculation in the media
that the suspects attacked the truck to steal the marijuana, with others speculating
the real target was the undercover informant. It is unknown if the shooters were
aware that undercover police officers were surveilling the drug load. We have heard
through our law enforcement contacts the suspects may be linked to the violent Zeta
cartel organization. The brazen nature of the ambush certainly fits their m.o., but
killing government informants in the U.S. is something the cartels have typically
tried to avoid. The pressure the feds can place on the cartels disrupts their supply
chain and causes the cartels to lose money. 

The DEA has taken the lead investigative role, which is a positive step, assisted by
the Houston Police Department Homicide Division and the local sheriff's department.
However, behind the scenes, other state and federal agencies are also assisting the
DEA, to include the Texas DPS, ATF and the FBI. Three of the four suspects are
allegedly Mexican nationals, so the State Department and ICE will interface with our
Mexican counterparts, and an investigation will be conducted in Mexico to determine
if the suspects are connected to a drug trafficking organization. At the national
level, traces will also be conducted on the suspects through the entire U.S.
intelligence community. As you can see, a lot is taking place behind the scenes.

What is the Above the Tearline aspect of this video? The DEA needs to determine
whether or not a cartel source sold out the details of the undercover operation to
the bad guys. If so, the internal leak needs to be found before other drug
operations are jeopardized.
More Videos - http://www.stratfor.com/theme/video_dispatch


Copyright 2011 STRATFOR.


Title: State Dept behind more sales? Departamento de Estado atras de aun mas ventas?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 07, 2011, 06:10:09 AM
Legal U.S. gun sales to Mexico arming cartels
By Sharyl Attkisson

(CBS News)  Selling weapons to Mexico - where cartel violence is out of control - is controversial because so many guns fall into the wrong hands due to incompetence and corruption. The Mexican military recently reported nearly 9,000 police weapons "missing."
Yet the U.S. has approved the sale of more guns to Mexico in recent years than ever before through a program called "direct commercial sales." It's a program that some say is worse than the highly-criticized "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal, where U.S. agents allowed thousands of weapons to pass from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels.

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson discovered that the official tracking all those guns sold through "direct commercial sales" leaves something to be desired.

One weapon - an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle - tells the story. In 2006, this same kind of rifle - tracked by serial number - is legally sold by a U.S. manufacturer to the Mexican military.

Three years later - it's found in a criminal stash in a region wracked by Mexican drug cartel violence.

That prompted a "sensitive" cable, uncovered by WikiLeaks, dated June 4, 2009, in which the U.S. State Department asked Mexico "how the AR-15" - meant only for the military or police - was "diverted" into criminal hands.

And, more importantly, where the other rifles from the same shipment went: "Please account for the current location of the 1,030 AR-15 type rifles," reads the cable.

There's no response in the record.

The problem of weapons legally sold to Mexico - then diverted to violent cartels - is becoming more urgent. That's because the U.S. has quietly authorized a massive escalation in the number of guns sold to Mexico through "direct commercial sales." It's a way foreign countries can acquire firearms faster and with less disclosure than going through the Pentagon.

Here's how it works: A foreign government fills out an application to buy weapons from private gun manufacturers in the U.S. Then the State Department decides whether to approve.

And it did approve 2,476 guns to be sold to Mexico in 2006. In 2009, that number was up nearly 10 times, to 18,709. The State Department has since stopped disclosing numbers of guns it approves, and wouldn't give CBS News figures for 2010 or 2011.

With Mexico in a virtual state of war with its cartels, nobody's tracking how many U.S. guns are ending up with the enemy.

"I think most Americans are aware that there's a problem in terms of the drug traffickers in Mexico, increases in violence," said Bill Hartung, an arms control advocate with the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. "I don't think they realize that we're sending so many guns there, and that some of them may be diverted to the very cartels that we're trying to get under control."

The State Department audits only a tiny sample - less than 1 percent of sales - but the results are disturbing: In 2009, more than a quarter (26 percent) of the guns sold to the region that includes Mexico were "diverted" into the wrong hands, or had other "unfavorable" results.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation's Larry Keane, who speaks for gun manufacturers, said he understands the potential for abuse.

"There have been 150,000 or more Mexican soldiers defect to go work for the cartels, and I think it's safe to assume that when they defect they take their firearms with them," Keane told CBS News.

But Keane said the sales help the U.S.

"These sales by the industry actually support U.S. national security interests," Keane told Attkisson. "If they didn't, the State Department wouldn't allow them."

"Do they need better oversight?" asked Attkisson.

"It's certainly for the State Department and the Mexican government to try to make sure that the cartels don't obtain firearms that way," he replied. "But that's really beyond the control of the industry."

Mexico is now one of the world's largest purchasers of U.S. guns through direct commercial sales, beating out countries like Iraq. The State Department office that oversees the sales wouldn't agree to an interview. But an official has told Congress their top priority is to advance national security and foreign policy.

http://liten.be//jAOkC
Title: Zeta Narcomanta?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 09, 2011, 08:49:11 AM
Recommended External Links
Image and translation of Zetas narcomanta
STRATFOR is not responsible for the content of other websites.

Zetas Narcomanta Challenges the Government

Mexican media began reporting Dec. 2 of a narcomanta attributed to Miguel “Z-40” Trevino Morales, the overall No. 2 leader of Los Zetas, that appeared in an as yet undisclosed city in Mexico. In a clear threat to Mexican authorities, the banner read, “The special forces of Los Zetas challenge the government of Mexico.” The banner went on to say that “Mexico lives and will continue under the regime of Los Zetas. Let it be clear that we are in control here and although the federal government controls other cartels, they cannot take our plazas … Look at what happened in Sinaloa and Guadalajara.” The last sentence is a reference to the mass killings and body dumps attributed to the Zetas in Culiacan and Guadalajara discovered Nov. 23.

The language used in the banner is intriguing; never before has a cartel referred to itself as a “regime,” and such brazen, adversarial terminology directed against the Mexican government is uncommon. It is difficult to imagine a drug cartel with a pedigree as violent as the Zetas wanting to assume governmental duties. Historically, while cartels have exerted influence over portions of Mexico, they have not sought to actually govern. Instead they use corruption or fear to ensure an unrestricted ability to conduct their criminal operations.

Though it specifically references the incidents in Culiacan and Guadalajara, there is no way to verify that Trevino actually commissioned the banner. Trevino has commissioned banners in the past, and, given his predilection for violence, his underlings would be unlikely to author something on his behalf without his approval. The fact that the message in this banner is so out of character suggests the possibility that it is a disinformation campaign directed against Los Zetas. If this is indeed a disinformation effort, the Sinaloa Federation, which, as the other pre-eminent cartel in Mexico, has the most to gain from increased government action against the Zetas, cannot be ruled out.

What is more interesting than the content of the banner is how little is known about its origins. No media agency has definitely stated where the banner was found — or if there were others like it. Narcomantas are prevalent in Mexico, and details of their appearances are not hard to come by in the media. Also, major messages are frequently left with the bodies of mutilated enemies to prove bona fides. But for whatever reason, no agency has been able to ascertain the location of this banner (a rumor surfaced that it appeared in Ciudad Victoria in Zetas territory, but that rumor remains unconfirmed). That six days have passed without any indication of the location suggests the Mexican government, which is constantly attempting to maintain an image of control in the war on drugs, is taking the threat seriously and is disallowing the details of the banner’s location to come out.


More Victims in Veracruz

Seven bodies were found Dec. 4 in the Adolfo Lopez Mateo neighborhood of Veracruz, Veracruz state. All of the bodies were bound and gagged, and some of them bore signs of torture. The cause of death is unconfirmed, but from photographs of the scene it appears that many were shot. As many as five of the seven bodies had their faces completely covered by their shirts, which had been pulled over their heads and fastened to their necks with duct tape. Uncorroborated witness statements said members of the state police had executed the victims.

On the surface, the location in which the bodies were dumped seems notable. The Adolfo Lopez Mateo neighborhood lies just 2 miles from Boca del Rio, where the bodies of around 35 alleged Zetas members were dumped in September. (Less than a week later, another 32 bodies were found in stash houses in the same neighborhood.) At that time, STRATFOR predicted that the Zetas would carry out reprisals in Veracruz; the forecast was accurate, but the location was not. On Nov. 23, the Zetas dumped 24 bodies in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, and 26 bodies in Guadalajara, Jalisco state, the following day. Based on the messages left at the scenes, these two events — not the Dec. 4 incident — were revenge killings for the Boca del Rio incident in September.

Notably, the Dec. 4 victims were killed in a different manner than the September victims (who were suffocated), and there were no messages left at the scene to suggest the killings were in fact reprisals. This, coupled with the unconfirmed statements suggesting state police involvement in the killings, presents a few possible explanations.

Given the long-term control the Zetas have maintained in Veracruz and the possibility that that control included coercion of or collaboration with the state police, the victims may have been connected to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) and/or the Matazetas, who are believed to have been responsible for the September killings. With such control, it is possible that the state police acted on orders of the Zetas to kill the seven victims discovered Dec. 4.

Alternatively, Los Zetas may have killed the seven victims directly. If this were the case, they likely would have left a message with the bodies claiming retribution or providing some kind of explanation or threat. In either case, the time elapsed between the September killing of Zetas members and this possible retribution is not unreasonable; the Zetas would need time to investigate and track down the perpetrators.

There is the potential that the seven dead were members of Los Zetas and that this was a continuation of the September killings. But because the modus operandi was so different — specifically, there was no writing on the bodies or other written messages to indicate an affiliation of the victims with any group — it is unclear which cartel is responsible. What is clear is that the two mass-killing events in Boca del Rio in September were not isolated events. Rather, STRATFOR sees this series of events as an escalation of the cycle of retributive violence in Veracruz — in scale if not in frequency.

Whichever explanation is correct, it is clear that the struggle between Los Zetas and the CJNG in Veracruz is continuing, and more violence can be expected in the important port city.



(click here to view interactive map)

Nov. 29

Mexican authorities discovered the remains of three dismembered bodies in Xochitepec, Morelos state, after receiving an anonymous tip.
Mexican marines arrested Ezequiel Cardenas Rivera, the son of former Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta” Cardenas Guillen, at a residence in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state.
The prison director and twenty other officials at the San Pedro Cholulu prison in Puebla state were arrested in connection with the Nov. 27 prison escape of Los Zetas cartel members.
Four banners appeared in various areas of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, addressing Mexican President Felipe Calderon and linking the president to supporting Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera. The banners were signed, “The United Citizens of Juarez and Mexico.”

Nov. 30

Mexican authorities seized more than 3.9 metric tons of marijuana from a drug tunnel in Tijuana, Baja California state, running under the U.S.-Mexico border.
A narcomanta left with the body of an elderly man in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, mentioned the theft of $5 million and the name “Tono” Pena.

Dec. 1

Mexican authorities seized a synthetic drug lab in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, that housed various precursor chemicals for methamphetamine. No arrests were made.
Mexican authorities seized more than 550 kilograms (about 1,213 pounds) of methamphetamine in a drug lab in Zapotlanejo, Jalisco state.

Dec. 2

A narcomanta signed by the Knights Templar was posted on a bridge in Morelia, Michoacan state. The banner stated that the Knights Templar is not a criminal group and encouraged citizens to enjoy the “December holiday.”
After a two-month operation, the Mexican military dismantled Los Zetas communications networks in the states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, and Tamaulipas.
A radio host was murdered at a nightclub in Chihuahua, Chihuahua State. Witness reports claim the murderer was wearing military-style clothing.

Dec. 3

Mexican authorities arrested 22 police officers throughout Tabasco state for connections to Los Zetas.

Dec. 4

The bodies of five executed individuals were discovered in Sinaloa Municipality, Sinaloa state.
Gunmen fired at the house of the mayor of Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon state.

Dec. 5

Federal Police arrested six members of the Independent Cartel of Acapulco in Acapulco, Guerrero.
Gunmen shot and killed the police chief of Saltillo, Coahuila state, and his 11-year-old son.
Title: Desinformation continues in Tamaulipas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 16, 2011, 11:37:36 AM
Mexico Security Memo: The Disinformation Continues in Tamaulipas


Response to a Narcomanta
Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, the No. 2 leader of Los Zetas, may have responded Dec. 12 to the narcomanta found Dec. 6 in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state. Attributed to Trevino, the Dec. 6 banner referred to Los Zetas as a "regime" and directly challenged the Mexican government for control of plazas in Zetas territory.

Ten narcomantas reportedly signed by Trevino were placed throughout Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. The banners deny commissioning the threat to the government, saying the Zetas have no interest in challenging or governing Mexico. According to the response, Trevino said he is "aware that you cannot and should not fight against any government" and that he has "no motive to put such stupidness [sic] on a message." In the response, Trevino implied that whoever wrote the original message was trying to set him up by provoking a violent response from the Mexican government.

Trevino has never been one to shy away from violence, so it seems unlikely that he would issue such a bold challenge in the first message, then turn around and refute it days later. If his response is sincere, then the Dec. 6 narcomantas were part of a disinformation campaign against the Zetas (though the possibility that his response is also part of the disinformation campaign against him cannot be ruled out). The Sinaloa Federation, which is battling the Zetas for primacy in Mexico, would be the likely culprit behind the false narcomanta because it would have much to gain from military clashes with the Zetas. The Gulf cartel -- which has been in a continuous battle with the Zetas, its former enforcement arm, since the two split violently in February 2010 -- could also have been responsible for the Dec. 6 banner. Given its internal turmoil, the Gulf cartel would benefit the most, especially in the near term, if the government would turn its attention away from that cartel and toward the Zetas.
The Methodology of Identifying Cartels
On Dec. 6, a statement from the Jalisco state Public Security Secretariat indicated the presence of a group not previously seen in Guadalajara. According to the statement, La Barredora, a Sinaloa Federation affiliate from Acapulco, Guerrero state, left messages with three bodies found Dec. 5. Some Mexican news outlets published portions of the statement, which characterize La Barredora as a new organized crime organization operating in the city. The Sinaloa-affiliated Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Los Zetas-affiliated La Resistencia already operate in and vie for control of Guadalajara, and the presence of La Barredora in the Jalisco capital could complicate the situation.

Indeed, Guadalajara exemplifies just how difficult it can be to determine which cartel is active in a given location -- and which cartel is responsible for a given event, such as an assassination or a clash with the military. Indeed, the Mexican cartel landscape is constantly evolving, giving rise to new groups while leading to the demise of others. Given the complexity and fluidity of this landscape, STRATFOR has decided to share the methodology of how we identify where the cartels operate and how we come to the conclusions we do.

We should begin this discussion by saying virtually every report and communique -- from the Mexican government and cartels alike -- is met with scrutiny. Deception, propaganda and disinformation are simply additional theaters in Mexico's war on drugs, and we are careful to factor these into our assessments. However, there are situations in which we can determine who the victims or aggressors were based on what we see in photographs and government-released video statements or read in government reports.

For example, messages at a body dump do not necessarily take the form of narcomantas but, rather, can be displayed as words or symbols written on the bodies themselves. In photographs of the 35 bodies dumped Sept. 20 in the Boca del Rio neighborhood of Veracruz, we can see that "Por Z" was written in black on the torso of each victim. This indicated the likelihood that the victims were killed because they were members or associates of Los Zetas. Two days later, another 14 victims were found in the same location with "Por Z" written on the torsos, suggesting the same group was responsible for both incidents. (That all but one of the 49 victims were strangled to death also suggests a strong connection.)

The "Por Z" signature contrasts with the signature left on the victims of Los Zetas. In such cases, we have often seen a "Z" sliced into the victims' torsos with a knife, often across the width of the torso.

When we examine photographs of ambush or gunbattle scenes, we look at what the bodies (or captured operators) are wearing. The type of clothing, type or style of any tactical gear, consistencies in those elements among all of the bodies present and whether the tactical gear has been personalized by the individuals to fit their needs and fighting styles, such as a tactical pouch on a belt, are all indicators that can help determine to which cartel the operators belong.

We also examine pictures of the weapons involved, particularly the types and conditions of those weapons, to help identify the cartel that used them. Consistency among the weapons for functionality or professional tactical use can reveal much about their operators. For example, if all of the weapons at a crime scene are AR-15 assault rifles and in well-maintained condition, the force that used them likely was professionally trained and experienced military personnel. But if the weapons found at a scene are an assortment of hunting rifles, AK-47s and miscellaneous handguns -- past evidence suggests such assorted caches are typically in poor condition -- the group likely had little or no formalized training. In these cases, we can likely rule out cartels or enforcer arm groups that comprise military personnel.

Such details do not necessarily identify which group was involved, but they help eliminate many possible suspects. When looking at the photos, we are constantly comparing what is seen in the images to what is known of particular groups in the given region, and when anomalies appear, we widen the search to include groups traditionally outside the area that fit those anomalies.

In interview or interrogation videos, we correlate what is said by the suspect with where the individual was captured and his known affiliations and areas of operation. We also investigate the individual's history, and then we examine the video for other indicators, such as body language, expressions, mannerisms and even blinking, which may lend to or undermine credibility.

As the organized crime landscape grows more complex in Mexico, and as the battle for territory grows more intense, it is very important to methodically determine which groups are operating where. These indicators all contribute to tracking the movement and activity of the cartels in Mexico.
 
(click here to view interactive map)
Dec. 6
•   Two gunmen died when the Mexican military repelled an attack by gunmen in Ojuelos, Jalisco state.
•   A peace activist representing the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity was kidnapped while traveling in Aquila, Michoacan state.
•   Mexican authorities reported the discovery of a clandestine grave in Ahuacuotzingo, Guerrero state. One body has been recovered, but authorities believe up to 20 bodies still remain in the grave.
•   Gunmen attacked Mexican soldiers in Acapulco, Guerrero state, while the soldiers were on patrol. All gunmen managed to escape after soldiers repelled the attack.
•   Gunmen killed the aunt and cousin of former Gulf cartel leader Ulises "El Mojo" Martinez Gonzalez in Cuernavaca, Morelos state. El Mojo was killed in a confrontation with federal police in June 2011.
•   Mexican authorities presented the arrest of six members of the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, including Gilberto "El Comandante Gil" Castrejon Morales, a senior member of the group.
Dec. 7
•   Mexican authorities arrested three alleged members of the Zetas-aligned Milenio cartel for their involvement in the deaths of 26 individuals in Guadalajara, Jalisco state.
Dec. 8
•   In Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state, Mexican authorities seized 205 metric tons of chemical precursors from a vessel originating from China. According to the Mexican government, the shipment was destined for Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.
•   Mexican authorities arrested 20 Los Zetas operators, including two plaza bosses, in a sports bar in Hidalgo, Nuevo Leon state.
Dec. 9
•   Mexican authorities dismantled an explosive device at the Ramon de la Fuente Psychiatric Hospital in Mexico City. The device was discovered during a routine patrol.
Dec. 10
•   Eleven gunmen were killed and two were arrested during a confrontation between gunmen and Mexican soldiers in Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas state.
Dec. 11
•   A group of gunmen attacked an ambulance transporting patients in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. Two patients and the ambulance driver were killed in the attack.
Dec. 12
•   In a graffiti message on a wall addressed to the governor of Chihuahua City, Chihuahua state, a group known as Gente Nueva said it was in the city for a "house cleaning."
•   An explosive detonated at a secret cockfighting event, killing one individual and injuring nine in Cerro Gordo, Veracruz state. Mexican authorities discovered another explosive device that failed to detonate in the same area.
•   At least 10 narcomantas were found Dec. 12 signed by Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales alleging that banners found the previous week challenging Mexican and U.S. authorities and purporting to be signed by Trevino were false.
•   Mexican authorities arrested senior Zetas member Raul Lucio "El Lucky" Hernandez Lechuga at a ranch in Cordoba, Veracruz state.
Title: Stratfor: CJNG: Regional threat w National Reach
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 22, 2011, 05:34:02 PM

CJNG: Regional Threat with a National Reach?

On Dec. 13, unknown gunmen in Ecuandureo, Michoacan state, ambushed another criminal group (some media agencies have reported that the targeted group was from La Familia Michoacana). The ambushed group’s leader reportedly was killed in the attack, and the assailants are said to have fled the scene after the assault. Mexican military personnel and federal police were deployed to the area. Additional security personnel were sent to border crossings between Michoacan and Jalisco states.

Authorities later detained five individuals near the scene of the attack. One detainee reportedly confessed to being a member of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), a Sinaloa Federation enforcer group from Jalisco state. Authorities also seized three AK-47s with 480 rounds of ammunition, two AR-15s with 690 rounds of ammunition, five pistols with 41 rounds of ammunition and various unidentified tactical gear. Two vehicles — a truck and an SUV — were also seized. The vehicles were reportedly armored, though the level of armor is not known and some media reports indicate only one vehicle was armored.

That authorities deployed to the Michoacan-Jalisco border in response to the attack suggests that they suspected the attackers might attempt to cross into Jalisco. That fact, combined with the suspect’s confessed membership in Jalisco-based CJNG, indicates a connection between the attack and the arrests, though media reports did not link the two.

If CJNG were responsible for the Dec. 13 ambush, it would mean that the group is expanding its geographic reach. CJNG obviously has been active in Jalisco, and its subgroup, known as the “Matazetas,” or Zeta killers, has claimed the killing of dozens of suspected Zetas in Boca del Rio, Veracruz state. (CJNG not only struck Los Zetas on their home turf in Veracruz, but remained there for an extended period of time.) Now, with the possible CJNG attack in Michoacan, it seems CJNG is evolving from a regional organization into a hit squad with a national reach.


Shallow Graves in Jalisco State

A man and four University of Guadalajara students were found dead in Jalisco state Dec. 14-15. Media reports vary widely in describing the sequence of events, the cause of death, the number of casualties and other details — while new details emerge every day. What statements from the Jalisco state attorney general do make clear is that the victims were found buried in shallow graves in the courtyard of the Federation of Guadalajara Students’ (FEG) headquarters.

Originally a student organization at the University of Guadalajara, the FEG is one of many informal groups at Mexican universities that extort money from food and drink vendors in exchange for the right to sell goods on and around campuses. The FEG no longer has any formal ties to the university and instead operates with high schools affiliated with the university. There are no prior reports of the group engaging in this degree of violence.

According to reports, a fried-dough vendor named Armando Gomez, his son and three other University of Guadalajara students went to FEG headquarters Dec. 9 to complain about the amount of protection money the FEG was charging them. Family members of Gomez and of the students reported that the victims never returned home after the confrontation. On Dec. 14, three bodies were found at the FEG headquarters, and the remaining two bodies were found nearby the following day. According to the attorney general, the families identified the bodies as those of Gomez and the students. The Jalisco Institute of Forensic Science reported that Gomez and his son died of gunshot wounds to the head, while the remaining three victims had been stabbed.

The events do not necessarily portend an overall escalation of violence in the Jalisco capital, nor do they suggest a growing trend within the FEG. More importantly, the killings serve as a reminder that drug cartels, while responsible for an overwhelming amount of crime and death in Mexico, are not the only ones capable of crime and violence.



(click here to view interactive map)

Dec. 13

Gunmen driving in two vehicles ambushed a government convoy in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua state. The city clerk of Gran Morelos, Chihuahua state, was killed, and the head of the Public Security Secretariat in Chihuahua state was wounded. All of the gunmen managed to escape.
Gunmen murdered the prison director of the Centro de Readaptacion Social at an intersection in Saltillo, Coahuila state.
A criminal cell was ambushed by gunmen in Ecuandureo, Michoacan state, resulting in the deaths of the cell’s leader, Javier Guerrero, and three of his men.
Five members of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) were arrested as a result of a Mexican military operation in Ecuandureo, Michoacan state. Authorities seized five rifles and five pistols as well as 27 kilograms (about 60 pounds) of marijuana.

Dec. 14

Gunmen ambushed a convoy of police vehicles in Tepic, Nayarit state, that was carrying the state’s attorney general. Some of the gunmen reportedly were wounded in the ensuing clash, but all of them escaped.
Police in Tijuana, Baja California state, arrested two Sinaloa Federation operators, who confessed to working in a cell led by a man known as El Neto.
Gunmen opened fire on the main entry of a hospital in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. No one was wounded in the shooting and no arrests were made.

Dec. 15

Mexican authorities discovered the body of Juan “El Juancho” Guzman Rocha, cousin of Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, on the side of a highway in Aguaruto, Sinaloa state. Guzman Rocha’s body was bound, bore signs of torture and had sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
Nine gunmen and one soldier were killed in a confrontation between the Mexican military and an armed group in Saltillo, Coahuila state.

Dec. 16

Members of the Sinaloa Federation attacked municipal police and civilians who were thought to be Zetas drug distributors in the cities of Fresnillo, Jerez, Rio Grande, Sombrerete and Zacatecas, Zacatecas state. Four individuals were killed and eight were wounded in the attacks. After the confrontation, gunmen went to a hospital and removed three of the wounded who had been admitted in the aftermath of the attack.

Dec. 17

Mexican authorities arrested eight members of the Knights Templar in Leon, Guanajuato state. Two kidnapped individuals were rescued as a result of the operation.
The Mexican military seized a weapons cache in Tayahua, Zacatecas state, and arrested one individual connected to the seizure. Among the weapons seized were various assault rifles, magazines, ammunition, high-caliber rifles and a grenade launcher.
Thirty-six gunmen attacked Mexican military personnel in Caracuaro, Michoacan state. Six gunmen died and two soldiers were injured.

Dec. 18

The Mexican military rescued 21 undocumented Central Americans who had been kidnapped from a safe house in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. Authorities also detained three armed individuals.
Title: Upcoming presidential elections
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 23, 2011, 06:10:58 AM

Summary
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) announced Enrique Pena Nieto as its presidential nominee, positioning him to run against Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and a yet-to-be-named candidate from the ruling National Action Party (PAN) in the July 2012 election. Mexican voters are ready for a shift away from the PAN after years of drug cartel-related violence. Pena and the PRI currently lead in polls, but Lopez Obrador’s resurgence under a united PRD could lead to a close vote.

Analysis
Mexico’s centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) on Dec. 17 announced that former Mexico state Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto would be its official nominee for the July 1, 2012, presidential election. Pena Nieto’s opponent from the leftist Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) is former Federal District Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The ruling National Action Party (PAN) has yet to name its candidate, but it is likely to choose Josefina Vazquez Mota.

November polling from Consulta Mitofsky showed the PRI leading with 40 percent, followed by the PAN with 21 percent, the PRD with 17 percent and 22 percent undecided. Polling for individual candidates showed Pena Nieto with a 43 percent approval rating and Lopez Obrador (before he became the PRD’s official candidate) around 20 percent. Vazquez held a 52 percent approval rating in the PAN, ahead of intra-party rivals Ernesto Cordero and Santiago Creel.

In an environment characterized by skyrocketing violence, the ruling PAN is at an extreme disadvantage in this election cycle. The PRI is currently leading in the polls, but a united effort from the left could make the PRD competitive in the election.


The National Action Party

The PAN has lost much credibility as a result of the conservatively estimated 50,000 violent deaths attributed to the ongoing fight against the cartels, and Mexicans have been signaling that they want to see a new party in control of the government. President Felipe Calderon had been hoping to name Cordero as his successor in the tradition of past Mexican presidents, but the popularity of longtime PAN politician Vazquez among both the public and the party’s political elite pushed Calderon to shift his support to her.

No matter who the PAN chooses as its candidate, their campaign will suffer from the legacy of 12 years of PAN rule characterized by an uncertain national economic environment and escalating violence. Furthermore, the PAN can no longer claim to be the party coming in from the outside — a position from which the PAN successfully unseated the PRI after 70 years of rule in 2000.


The Institutional Revolutionary Party

Pena Nieto is kicking off the presidential race at a considerable advantage. He has projected a carefully cultivated charismatic persona, has excellent relationships with Mexico’s major businessmen, media moguls and the core voters of the PRI and is generally well respected as a strong decision maker. Although the official campaign season will begin in late March, it has long been clear that Pena Nieto would be the PRI candidate.

Pena Nieto is currently maintaining his popularity — but not without difficulty. His opponents likely will point to gaffes such as a recent interview in which he was unable to recall his favorite books, as well as darker scandals from his past.


The Revolutionary Democratic Party

Though currently behind in the polls, the PRD cannot yet be discounted, and Lopez Obrador, as the representative of Mexico’s left, likely will pose the strongest challenge to Pena Nieto. A strong proponent of leftist reform in Mexico, Lopez Obrador has a long history in Mexican politics. After his loss in the 2006 elections to Calderon, Lopez Obrador denounced the results, declared himself the legitimate president of Mexico, and embarked on a yearslong tour of the country with his declared government. In the process, Lopez Obrador radicalized his position, moving to the far left of the political spectrum and creating a rift within the PRD.

This rift seriously weakened the party over the past five years, leaving it with control over only a few governorships, which are a key aspect of gaining power in Mexico. Some 20 Mexican states have PRI governors that can wield their funding and political influence to the benefit of their candidate. Similarly, the PAN’s control over federal institutions and their budgets will make it possible for them to influence social expenditures to the benefit of their candidate. With only three states — Chiapas, Guerrero and likely Oaxaca (with a PRD/PAN alliance government) — and the Federal District headed by friendly PRD operatives, Lopez Obrador will be at a disadvantage.

However, in spite of this setback and the political splits caused by his reaction to the 2006 loss, Lopez Obrador was an effective and highly popular mayor of Mexico City from 2000-2005 and retains significant support and credibility as a voice for Mexico’s political left. A crucial event for the left occurred when current Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard decided in mid-November not to enter the presidential race as a PRD candidate. Had Ebrard — whose well-respected record as mayor would have made him a popular presidential candidate — entered the race, the competition between the two would have further divided the PRD and likely knocked the left out of serious competition in the presidential election and reduced the party’s chances of gaining seats in the legislature.

With the PRD appearing to be united behind Lopez Obrador, who has also reduced his inflammatory rhetoric and taken a more conciliatory approach to Mexico’s varied power centers, the left has a credible chance of appealing to Mexico’s approximately 50 million people living in poverty by promising greater attention to social welfare. While the PRI remains firmly in the lead, a united left under Lopez Obrador will prove to be a powerful force in this election.



Read more: Mexico's Political Parties Look Ahead to 2012 Presidential Election | STRATFOR
Title: WSJ: Trial exposes odd ties
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 08, 2012, 07:00:35 AM
By JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA
MEXICO CITY—When a top Mexican or Colombian drug lord is captured, events normally go something like this: He gets extradited to the U.S. and makes a closed-door deal with prosecutors to give information on the drugs trade while getting a reduced sentence in return. The public finds out little to nothing of the details.

But the upcoming Chicago trial of the son of one of Mexico's top drug lords has broken all the rules. This time, Jesús Zambada Niebla is going mano a mano with U.S. prosecutors, with both sides trading allegations that have raised eyebrows across the U.S.-Mexico border.

In pre-trial motions, Mr. Zambada alleges the U.S. government lets the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most powerful criminal organization, to import tons of illegal drugs into the U.S. in exchange for information on other cartels.

Mr. Zambada, 36 years old, is no ordinary accuser: He is the son of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the co-head of the Sinaloa cartel alongside Mexico's most famous trafficker, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán.

The U.S. government has flatly denied the claims. But it has acknowledged in court filings that it received information for years from a close associate of the two Sinaloa cartel chiefs.

The pretrial wrangling provides a rare glimpse of both the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel and the complex and ambiguous relationships that drug traffickers and law-enforcement agents have with the informants who act as the couriers between the two camps.

Mr. Zambada's allegations come at a time when doubts are growing about the U.S.'s role in Mexico's drug war as well as Mexican President Felipe Calderón strategy in the conflict which has claimed more than 46,000 lives in the last five years.

Jesús Zambada was arrested in Mexico in early 2009, after a controversial meeting with U.S. law enforcement agents at a Sheraton Hotel next to the U.S. embassy in downtown Mexico City. He was extradited to the U.S. in 2010. Mr. Zambada's federal trial in Chicago is set to begin sometime this year. Mr. Zambada's claims were made as part of his legal defense in pretrial legal filings reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Enlarge Image

Close.Mr. Zambada doesn't deny drug trafficking. Rather, he says he did so with the permission of U.S. drug-enforcement agents and was promised immunity as part of an agreement with the U.S. government.

Both Mr. Zambada's defense lawyers and U.S. prosecutors declined to comment. Mr. Guzmán and Ismael Zambada are fugitives.

So far, the Chicago court filings have provided startling revelations. U.S. officials as well as Mr. Zambada, for instance, say that one of the Sinaloa cartel's top officials has been a U.S. informant for years.

The alleged informant, Humberto Loya, a Mexican lawyer, has long been a top confidant of Mr. Guzmán and Ismael Zambada, the Sinaloa cartel chiefs, according to sworn affidavits. Mr. Loya's location is unknown. A U.S. federal indictment of Mr. Loya and other top Sinaloa cartel capos in 1995 described Mr. Loya's alleged role in paying off Mexican government officials and altering judicial documents to protect the cartel.

Once, according to the indictment, Mr. Loya allegedly paid a Mexican police official $1 million to free Mr. Guzmán's brother from custody.

In 2000, Mr. Loya agreed to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement officials by providing information on drug trafficking operations of rival cartels, according to a pretrial court filings submitted by prosecutors.

A different Drug Enforcement Administration agent said that Mr. Loya gave the tip that led to Mexico's largest cocaine bust—the 2007 seizure of 23 tons of cocaine belonging to the rival Juarez cartel, according to an affidavit submitted by Patrick Hearn, a Washington-based U.S. prosecutor.

In 2008, the DEA's Mexico City chief David Gaddis recommended that the U.S. drop Mr. Loya's 1995 indictment. Prosecutors followed his recommendation.

"It was the only time I had ever been involved in asking for a dismissal of an indictment against a cooperating defendant," wrote DEA agent, Manuel Castañón, in an affidavit.

Mr. Loya's alleged role is central to Jesús Zambada's defense. Mr. Zambada's lawyers argue that the U.S. provided their client and top Sinaloa cartel figures with immunity in exchange for information through Mr. Loya from "at least" 2004.

"Under that agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel under the leadership of [Mr. Zambada's] father, Ismael Zambada and "Chapo" Guzmán were given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs ... into ... the United States and were protected by the United States government from arrest and prosecution in return for providing information against rival cartels," Mr. Zambada's lawyers wrote. "Indeed the Unites States government agents aided the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel."

U.S. prosecutors reject the claims as "simply untrue."

They also noted that Mr. Guzmán and Ismael Zambada have been indicted in absentia several times, and both have been placed on high priority "kingpin" lists by the U.S. government. Jesús Zambada himself was also indicted in 2003.

Over the years, many top drug traffickers, especially from Colombia, have worked out agreements with U.S. prosecutors to turn themselves in and provide information in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Such deals, however, are complicated. In most successful cases, the trafficker chooses a U.S. lawyer, often a former prosecutor who is trusted by current prosecutors. After numerous meetings, often in third countries, both sides reach a deal. It is rare for there to be a trial.

In an affidavit, Mr. Castañón, the DEA agent, wrote that Mr. Guzmán, the drug lord, asked Mr. Loya in 2009 to set up the meeting in Mexico City between Mr. Zambada and the DEA at the behest of Mr. Zambada's father, Ismael Zambada. The elder Zambada wanted his son out of the business, Mr. Hearn, the prosecutor, wrote. In exchange, he said, Jesús Zambada would cooperate with the U.S. government.

In Chicago, where in 2009 he was again indicted for drug trafficking after his extradition to the U.S., Mr. Zambada is also accused of trying to obtain rocket-propelled grenade launchers and bazookas, which U.S. officials allege were to be used on attacks on U.S. and Mexican government installations. "I want to blow things up," Mr. Zambada said, according to testimony in a court filling from another confidential informant.

The Department of Justice approved an initial meeting between the DEA and Mr. Zambada which was supposed to take place on March 17, 2009, the U.S. government says. Mr. Zambada drove to Mexico City to meet with DEA agents who flew in from out of town.

What happened at the meeting is in dispute. But the court filings reflect that both sides agree things went awry and the DEA station chief canceled the meeting at the last minute.

Mr. Castañón, the DEA agent, wrote in his affidavit that the agents met with Mr. Loya at the Sheraton Hotel next door to the U.S. embassy to tell him the meeting was off. But Mr. Loya, who was "visibly nervous," returned to the hotel shortly after with Jesus Zambada, surprising the agents.

Mr. Castañón wrote in his affidavit that he told Mr. Zambada he couldn't make any promises, but discussed future cooperation. Mr. Zambada's defense attorneys assert that the agents told him they would quash the Washington indictment in exchange for more information against rival cartels.

The next morning, Jesús Zambada and five bodyguards were arrested by Mexican army troops, who, an army spokesman said, responded to anonymous complaints from neighbors in one of Mexico City's toniest neighborhoods about the presence of armed men in vehicles.

Mr. Zambada is now being held in solitary confinement in a four-foot-by-six foot cell in a maximum security prison near Detroit, his lawyers said in a court filing.



97236
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on January 11, 2012, 12:44:32 PM
"Dec. 7
•   Mexican authorities arrested three alleged members of the Zetas-aligned Milenio cartel for their involvement in the deaths of 26 individuals in Guadalajara, Jalisco state."

Do you have anything else on this Guro?
Title: Stratfor: Annual Report
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 24, 2012, 08:07:47 PM


Editor's Note: In this annual report on Mexico's drug cartels, we assess the most
significant developments of 2011 and provide updated profiles of the country's
powerful criminal cartels as well as a forecast for 2012. The report is a product of
the coverage we maintain through our Mexico Security Memo, quarterly updates and
other analyses we produce throughout the year.

As we noted in last year's annual cartel report, Mexico in 2010 bore witness to some
15,273 deaths in connection with the drug trade. The death toll for 2010 surpassed
that of any previous year, and in doing so became the deadliest year ever in the
country's fight against the cartels. But in the bloody chronology that is Mexico's
cartel war, 2010's time at the top may have been short-lived. Despite the Mexican
government's efforts to curb cartel-related violence, the death toll for 2011 may
have exceeded what had been an unprecedented number.

According to the Mexican government, cartel-related homicides claimed around 12,900
lives from January to September -- about 1,400 deaths per month. While this figure
is lower than that of 2010, it does not account for the final quarter of 2011. The
Mexican government has not yet released official statistics for the entire year, but
if the monthly average held until year's end, the overall death toll for 2011 would
reach 17,000. Though most estimates put the total below that, the actual number of
homicides in Mexico is likely higher than what is officially reported. At the very
least, although we do not have a final, official number -- and despite media reports
to the contrary -- we can conclude that violence in Mexico did not decline
substantially in 2011.

Indeed, rather than receding to levels acceptable to the Mexican government,
violence in Mexico has persisted, though it seems to have shifted geographically,
abating in some cities and worsening in others. For example, while Ciudad Juarez,
Chihuahua state, was once again Mexico's deadliest city in terms of gross numbers,
the city's annual death toll reportedly dropped substantially from 3,111 in 2010 to
1,955 in 2011. However, such reductions appear to have been offset by increases
elsewhere, including Veracruz, Veracruz state; Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state;
Matamoros, Tamaulipas state; and Durango, Durango state.

Over the past year it has also become evident that a polarization is under way among
the country's cartels. Most smaller groups (or remnants of groups) have been
subsumed by the Sinaloa Federation, which controls much of western Mexico, and Los
Zetas, who control much of eastern Mexico. While a great deal has been said about
the fluidity of the Mexican cartel landscape, these two groups have solidified
themselves as the country's predominant forces. Of course, the battle lines in
Mexico have not been drawn absolutely, and not every entity calling itself a cartel
swears allegiance to one side or the other, but a polarization clearly is occurring.


Geography does not encapsulate this polarization. It reflects two very different
modes of operation practiced by the two cartel hegemons, delineated by a common
expression in Mexican vernacular: "Plata o plomo." The expression, which translates
to "silver or lead" in English, means that a cartel will force one's cooperation
with either a bribe or a bullet. The Sinaloa Federation leadership more often
employs the former, preferring to buy off and corrupt to achieve its objectives. It
also frequently provides intelligence to authorities, and in doing so uses the
authorities as a weapon against rival cartels. Sinaloa certainly can and does resort
to ruthless violence, but the violence it employs is merely one of many tools at its
disposal, not its preferred tactic.

On the other hand, Los Zetas prefer brutality. They can and do resort to bribery,
but they lean toward intimidation and violence. Their mode of operation tends to be
far less subtle than that of their Sinaloa counterparts, and with a leadership
composed of former special operations soldiers, they are quite effective in
employing force and fear to achieve their objectives. Because ex-military personnel
formed Los Zetas, members tend to move up in the group's hierarchy through merit
rather than through familial connections. This contrasts starkly with the culture of
other cartels, including Sinaloa.

Status of Mexico's Major Cartels

Sinaloa Federation

The Sinaloa Federation lost at least 10 major plaza bosses or top lieutenants in
2011, including its security chief and its alleged main weapons supplier. It is
unclear how much those losses have affected the group's operations overall.

One Sinaloa operation that appears to have been affected is the group's
methamphetamine production. After the disintegration of La Familia Michoacana (LFM)
in early 2011, the Sinaloa Federation clearly emerged as the country's foremost
producer of methamphetamine. Most of the tons of precursor chemicals seized by
Mexican authorities in Manzanillo, Colima state; Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco state;
Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state; and Los Mochis and Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, likely
belonged to the Sinaloa Federation. Because of these government operations -- and
other operations to disassemble methamphetamine labs -- the group apparently began
to divert at least some of its methamphetamine production to Guatemala in late 2011.


In addition to maintaining its anti-Zetas alliance with the Gulf cartel, Sinaloa in
2011 affiliated itself with the Knights Templar (KT) in Michoacan, and to counter
Los Zetas in Jalisco state, Sinaloa affiliated itself with the Cartel de Jalisco
Nueva Generacion (CJNG). Sinaloa also has tightened its encirclement of the Vicente
Carrillo Fuentes (VCF) organization in the latter's long-held plaza of Ciudad
Juarez. There are even signs that it continues to expand its control over parts of
Juarez itself.

Los Zetas

By the end of 2011, Los Zetas eclipsed the Sinaloa Federation as the largest cartel
operating in Mexico in terms of geographic presence. According to a report from the
Assistant Attorney General's Office of Special Investigations into Organized Crime,
Los Zetas now operate in 17 states. (The same report said the Sinaloa Federation
operates in 16 states, down from 23 in 2005.) While Los Zetas continue to fight off
a CJNG incursion into Veracruz state, they did not sustain any significant
territorial losses in 2011.

Los Zetas moved into Zacatecas and Durango states, achieving a degree of control of
the former and challenging the Sinaloa Federation in the latter. Both states are
mountainous and conducive to the harvesting of poppy and marijuana. They also
contain major north-south transportation corridors. By mid-November, reports
indicated that Los Zetas had begun to assert control over Colima state and its
crucial port of Manzanillo. In some cases, Los Zetas are sharing territories with
cartels they reportedly have relationships with, including the Cartel Pacifico Sur
(CPS), La Resistencia and the remnants of LFM. But Los Zetas have a long history of
working as hired enforcers for other organizations throughout the country.
Therefore, having an alliance or business relationship with Los Zetas is not
necessarily the equivalent of being a Sinaloa vassal. A relationship with Los Zetas
may be perceived as more fleeting than Sinaloa subjugation.

On the whole, Los Zetas remained strong in 2011 despite losing 17 cell leaders and
plaza bosses to death and arrest. Los Zetas also remain the dominant force in the
Yucatan Peninsula. However, the CJNG's mass killings of alleged Zetas members or
supporters in Veracruz have called into question the group's unchallenged control of
that state.

In response to the mass killings in Veracruz, Los Zetas killed dozens of CJNG and
Sinaloa members in Guadalajara, Jalisco state, and Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Aided by
La Resistencia, these operations were well-executed, and the groups clearly invested
a great deal of time and effort into surveillance and planning.

The Gulf Cartel

The Gulf cartel (CDG) was strong at the beginning of 2011, holding off several Zetas
incursions into its territory. However, as the year progressed, internal divisions
led to intra-cartel battles in Matamoros and Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. The
infighting resulted in several deaths and arrests in Mexico and in the United
States. The CDG has since broken apart, and it appears that one faction, known as
Los Metros, has overpowered its rival Los Rojos faction and is now asserting its
control over CDG operations. The infighting has weakened the CDG, but the group
seems to have maintained control of its primary plazas, or smuggling corridors, into
the United States. (CDG infighting is detailed further in another section of this
report.)

La Familia Michoacana

LFM disintegrated at the beginning of 2011, giving rise to and becoming eclipsed by
one of its factions, the Knights Templar (KT). Indeed, by July it was clear the KT
had become more powerful than LFM in Mexico. The media and the police continue to
report that LFM maintains extensive networks in the United States, but it is unclear
how many of the U.S.-based networks are actually working with LFM rather than the
KT, which is far more capable of trafficking narcotics. It appears that many reports
regarding LFM in the United States do not reflect the changes that have occurred in
Mexico over the past year; many former LFM leaders are now members of the KT. Adding
to the confusion was the alleged late-summer alliance between LFM and Los Zetas.
Such an alliance would have been a final attempt by the remaining LFM leadership to
keep the group from being utterly destroyed by the KT. LFM is still active, but it
is very weak.

The Knights Templar

In January 2011, a month after the death of charismatic LFM leader Nazario "El Mas
Loco" Moreno, two former LFM lieutenants, Servando "La Tuta" Gomez and Enrique
Plancarte, formed the Knights Templar due to differences with Jose de Jesus "El
Chango" Mendez, who had assumed leadership of LFM. In March they announced the
formation of their new organization via narcomantas in Morelia, Zitacuaro and
Apatzingan, Michoacan state.

After the emergence of the KT, sizable battles flared up during the spring and
summer months between the KT and LFM. The organization has grown from a splinter
group to a dominant force over LFM, and it appears to be taking over the bulk of the
original LFM's operations in Mexico. At present, the Knights Templar appear to have
aligned with the Sinaloa Federation in an effort to root out the remnants of LFM and
to prevent Los Zetas from gaining a more substantial foothold in the region through
their alliance with LFM.

Independent Cartel of Acapulco

The Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA) has not been eliminated entirely, but it
appears to have been severely damaged. Since the capture of CIDA leader Gilberto
Castrejon Morales in early December, the group has faded from the public view.
CIDA's weakness appears to have allowed its in-town rival, Sinaloa-affiliated La
Barredora, to move some of its enforcers to Guadalajara to fend off the Zetas
offensive there. The decreased levels of violence and public displays of dead bodies
in Acapulco of late can be attributed to the group's weakening, and we are unsure if
CIDA will be able to regroup and attempt to reclaim Acapulco.

Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion

After the death of Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel in July 2010, his followers suspected
the Sinaloa cartel had betrayed him and broke away to form the CJNG. In spring 2011,
the CJNG declared war on all other Mexican cartels and stated its intention to take
control of Guadalajara. However, by midsummer, the group appeared to have been
reunited with its former partners in the Sinaloa Federation. We are unsure what
precipitated the reconciliation, but it seems that the CJNG was somehow convinced
that Sinaloa did not betray Coronel after all. It is also possible CJNG was
convinced that Coronel needed to go. In any case, CJNG "sicarios," or assassins, in
September traveled to the important Los Zetas stronghold of Veracruz, labeled
themselves the "Matazetas," or Zeta killers, and began to murder alleged Zetas
members and their supporters. By mid-December, the CJNG was still in Veracruz
fighting Los Zetas while also helping to protect Guadalajara and other areas on
Mexico's west coast from
Zetas aggression.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization/Juarez Cartel

The VCF, aka the Juarez cartel, continues to weaken. A Sinaloa operative killed one
of its top lieutenants, Francisco Vicente Castillo Carrillo -- a Carrillo family
member -- in September 2011. The VCF reportedly still controls the three main points
of entry into El Paso, Texas, but the organization appears unable to expand its
operations or move narcotics en masse through its plazas because it is hemmed in by
the Sinaloa Federation, which appears to have chipped away at the VCF's monopoly of
the Juarez plaza. The VCF is only a shadow of the organization it was a decade ago,
and its weakness and inability to effectively fight against Sinaloa's advances in
Juarez contributed to the lower death toll in Juarez in 2011.

Cartel Pacifico Sur

The CPS, headed by Hector Beltran Leyva, saw a reduction in violence in the latter
part of 2011 after having been very active in the first third of the year. We are
unsure why the group quieted down. The CPS may be concentrating on smuggling for
revenue generation to support itself and assist its Los Zetas allies, who provide
military muscle for the CPS and work in their areas of operation. Because of their
reputation, Los Zetas receive a great deal of media attention, so it is also
possible that the media attributed violent incidents involving CPS gunmen to Los
Zetas.

Arellano Felix Organization

The November arrest of Juan Francisco Sillas Rocha, the AFO's chief enforcer, was
yet another sign of the organization's continued weakness. It remains an impotent
and reluctant subsidiary of the Sinaloa Federation, unable to reclaim the Tijuana
plaza for its own.

2011 Forecast in Review

In our forecast for 2011, we believed that the unprecedented levels of violence from
2010 would continue as long as the cartel balance of power remained in a state of
flux. Indeed, cartel-related deaths appear to have at least continued apace.

Much of the cartel conflict in 2011 followed patterns set in 2010. Los Zetas
continued to fight the CDG in northeast Mexico while maintaining their control of
Veracruz state and the Yucatan Peninsula. The Sinaloa Federation continued to fight
the VCF in Ciudad Juarez while maintaining control of much of Sonora state and Baja
California state.

We forecast that government operations and cartel infighting and rivalry would
expose fissures in and among the cartels. This prediction held true. The Beltran
Leyva Organization no longer exists in its original form, its members dispersed
among the Sinaloa Federation, the CPS, CIDA and other smaller groups. As noted
above, fissures within LFM led to the creation of two groups, LFM and the KT. The
CDG also now consists of two factions competing for control of the organization's
operations.

We also forecast that the degree of violence in the country was politically
unacceptable for Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his ruling National Action
Party. Calderon knew he would have to reduce the violence to acceptable levels if
his party was going to have a chance to continue to hold power after he left office
in 2012 (Mexican presidents serve only one six-year term). As the 2012 presidential
election approaches, Calderon is continuing his strategy of deploying the armed
forces against the cartels. He has also reached out to the United States for
assistance. The two countries shared signals intelligence throughout the year and
continued to cooperate through joint intelligence centers like the one in Mexico
City. The U.S. military also continues to train Mexican military and law enforcement
personnel, and the United States has deployed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in
Mexican airspace at Mexico's behest. The Mexican military was in operational command
of the UAV
missions.

As we have noted the past few years, we also believed that Calderon's continued use
of the military would perpetuate what is referred to as the three-front war in
Mexico. The fronts consist of cartels against rival cartels, the military against
cartels, and cartels against civilians. Indeed, in 2011 the cartels continued to vie
for control of ports, plazas and markets, while deployments of military forces
increased to counter Los Zetas in the states of Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and
Veracruz; to combat several groups waging a bloody turf war in Acapulco, Guerrero
state; and to respond to conflicts arising between the Sinaloa Federation and Los
Zetas and their affiliate groups in Nayarit and Michoacan states.

While Los Zetas were hit hard in 2011, the Mexican government's offensive against
the group was unable to damage it to the extent we believed it would. Despite losing
several key leaders and plaza bosses, as noted previously, the group maintains its
pre-eminence in the east. This is largely due to the ease with which such groups can
replenish their ranks.

Resupplying Leadership

One of the ways in which Mexico's cartels, including Los Zetas, replenish their
ranks is with defected military personnel. Around 27,000 men and women desert the
Mexican military every year, and about 50 percent of the military's recruiting class
will have left before the end of their first tour. In March 2011, the Mexican army
admitted that it had "lost track of" 1,680 special forces personnel over the past
decade (Los Zetas were formed by more than 30 former members of Mexico's Special
Forces Airmobile Group). Some cartels even reportedly task some of their own foot
soldiers to enlist in the military to gain knowledge and experience in military
tactics. In any case, retention is clearly a serious problem for the Mexican armed
forces, and deserting soldiers take their skills (and oftentimes their weapons) to
the cartels.

In addition, the drug trade attracts ex-military personnel who did not desert but
left in good standing after serving their duty. There are fewer opportunities for
veterans in Mexico than in many countries, and understandably many are drawn to a
lucrative practice that places value on their skill sets. But deserters or former
soldiers are not the only source of recruits for the cartels. They also replenish
their ranks with current and former police officers, gang members and others (to
include Central American immigrants and even U.S. citizens).

2012 Forecasts by Region

Northeast Mexico

Northeast Mexico saw some of the most noteworthy cartel violence in 2011. The
primary conflict in the region involved the continuing fight between CDG and Los
Zetas, who were CDG enforcers before breaking away from the CDG in early 2010. Los
Zetas have since eclipsed the CDG in terms of size, reach and influence. In 2011,
divisions within the CDG over leadership succession came to the fore, leading to
further violence in the region, and we believe these divisions will sow the group's
undoing in 2012.

The CDG began to suffer another internal fracture in late 2010 when the Mexican army
killed Antonio "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas Guillen, who co-lead the CDG with Eduardo
"El Coss" Costilla Sanchez, in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state. After Cardenas Guillen's
death in November 2010, Costilla Sanchez assumed full control of the organization,
passing over Rafael "El Junior" Cardenas Vela, the Cardenas family's heir apparent,
in the process. This bisected the CDG, creating two competing factions: Los Rojos,
loyal to the Cardenas family, and Los Metros, loyal to Costilla Sanchez.

In late 2011, several events exacerbated tensions between the factions. On Sept. 3,
authorities found the body of Samuel "El Metro 3" Flores Borrego, Costilla Sanchez's
second-in-command, in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. Then on Sept. 27, gunmen in an SUV
shot and killed a man driving a vehicle on U.S. Route 83, east of McAllen, Texas.
The driver, Jorge Zavala of Mission, Texas, was connected to Los Metros.

The Mexican navy reported the following month that Cesar "El Gama" Davila Garcia,
the CDG's head finance officer, was found dead in Reynosa. Davila previously had
served as Cardenas Guillen's accountant. Then on Oct. 20, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents arrested Cardenas Vela after a traffic stop near Port
Isabel, Texas. We believe Los Metros tipped off U.S. authorities about Cardenas
Vela's location. (Los Metros have every reason to kill Los Rojos leaders, including
Cardenas Vela, but cartels rarely conduct assassinations on U.S. soil for fear of
U.S. retribution.)

On Oct. 28, Jose Luis "Comandante Wicho" Zuniga Hernandez, believed to be Cardenas
Vela's deputy and operational leader in Matamoros, reportedly turned himself in to
U.S. authorities without a fight near Santa Maria, Texas. Finally, Mexican federal
authorities arrested Ezequiel "El Junior" Cardenas Rivera, Cardenas Guillen's son,
in Matamoros on Nov. 25.

By December, media agencies reported that Cardenas Guillen's brother, Mario Cardenas
Guillen, was the overall leader of the CDG. But Mario was never known to be very
active in the family business, and his reluctance to involve himself in cartel
operations appears to have continued after his brother's death. In addition,
Costilla Sanchez is reclusive, choosing to run his organization from several
secluded ranches. That he is not mentioned in media reports does not mean he has
been removed from his position. Given his reclusiveness and Mario Cardenas Guillen's
longstanding reticence to involve himself in cartel activity, it seems unlikely that
Costilla Sanchez would be replaced. Because Los Metros seemingly have gained the
upper hand over Los Rojos, we anticipate that they will further expand their
dominance in early 2012.

However, while Los Metros may have defeated their rival for control of the CDG, the
organizational infighting has left the CDG vulnerable to outside attack. Of course,
any group divided is vulnerable to attack, but the CDG's ongoing feud with Los Zetas
compounds its problem. Fully aware of the CDG's weakness, we believe Los Zetas will
step up their attempts to assume control of CDG territory.

If Los Zetas are able to defeat the Los Metros faction -- or they engage in a truce
with the faction -- they may be able to redeploy fighters to other regions or
cities, particularly Veracruz and Guadalajara. Reinforcements in Veracruz would help
counter the CJNG presence in the port city, and reinforcements in Guadalajara would
shore up Los Zetas' operations and presence in Jalisco state. Likewise, a reduction
in cartel-on-cartel fighting in the region would free up troops the Mexican army has
stationed in Tamaulipas state -- an estimated force of 13,000 soldiers -- for
deployment elsewhere.

Southeast Mexico

Some notable events took place in southeast Mexico in 2011. On Dec. 4 the Mexican
army dismantled a Zetas communications network that encompassed multiple cities in
Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi and Coahuila states.

In addition, Veracruz state Gov. Javier Duarte on Dec. 21 fired the city's municipal
police, including officers and administrative employees, and gave the Mexican navy
law enforcement responsibilities. By Dec. 22, Mexican marines began patrols and law
enforcement activities, effectively replacing the police much like the army replaced
the police in Ciudad Juarez in 2009 and in various cities in Tamaulipas state in
August 2011. We anticipate that fighting between the CJNG and Los Zetas will
continue in Veracruz for at least the first quarter of 2012.

We expect security conditions on the Yucatan Peninsula to remain relatively stable
in 2012 because there are no other major players in the region contesting Los Zetas'
control.

Southwest Mexico

In the southern Pacific coastal states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, we expect violence to
be as infrequent in 2012 as it was in 2011. Chiapas and Oaxaca have been
transshipment zones for Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation for several years; as
such, clashes and cargo hijackings occasionally take place. However, direct and
sustained combat does not occur regularly because the two groups tend to use
different routes to transport their shipments. The Sinaloa Federation prefers to
move its product north on roads and highways along the Pacific coast, whereas Los
Zetas' transportation lines cross Mexico's interior before moving north along the
Gulf coast.

Pacific Coast and Central Mexico

As many as a dozen organizations, ranging from the KT to local criminal
organizations to newer groups like La Barredora and La Resistencia, continue to
fight for control of the plazas in Guerrero, Michoacan and Jalisco states. Acapulco
was particularly violent in 2011, and we believe it will continue to be violent
through 2012 unless La Barredora is able to exert firm control over the city.
Acapulco has been a traditional Beltran Leyva stronghold, and the CPS may attempt to
reassert itself there. If that happens, violence will once again increase.

Security conditions worsened in Jalisco state at the end of 2011, and Stratfor
anticipates violence there will continue to increase in 2012, especially in
Guadalajara, a valued transportation hub. In November, Los Zetas struck the CJNG in
Guadalajara in response to the mass killings of Los Zetas members in Veracruz state.
The attacks are significant because they demonstrated an ability to conduct
protracted cross-country operations. Should Los Zetas establish firm control over
Guadalajara, the Sinaloa Federation's smuggling activities could be adversely
affected, something Sinaloa obviously cannot permit. Given an increased Zetas
presence in Zacatecas, Durango and Jalisco states, and Sinaloa's operational need to
counter that presence, we expect to see violence increase in the region in 2012.

Unless a significant military force is somehow brought to bear, we do not expect to
see any substantive improvement in the security conditions in Guerrero or Michoacan
states.

Northwest Mexico

The cross-country operations performed by Los Zetas indicate that the group's growth
and expansion has been more profound than we expected in the face of the
government's major operations specifically targeting the organization. Such
expansion will pose a direct threat not only to the Sinaloa Federation's supply
lines but to its home turf, which stretches from Guadalajara to southern Sonora
state.

In northwest Mexico, specifically Baja California, Baja California Sur and Chihuahua
states (and most of Sonora state), the Sinaloa Federation either directly controls
or regularly uses the smuggling corridors and points of entry into the United
States. Security conditions in the plazas under firm Sinaloa control have been
relatively stable. Indeed, as Sinaloa tightened its control over Tijuana, violence
there dropped, and we expect to see the same dynamic play out in Juarez as Sinaloa
consolidates its control of that city. Stability could be threatened, however, if
Los Zetas attempt to push into Sinaloa-held cities.

Outside of Mexico

As we noted in the past three annual cartel reports, Mexico's cartels have been
expanding their control of the cocaine supply chain all the way into South America.
This eliminates middlemen and brings in more profit. They are also using their
presence in South America to obtain chemical precursors and weapons.

Increased violence in northern Mexico and ramped-up law enforcement along the U.S.
border has made narcotics smuggling into the United States more difficult than it
has been in the past. The cartels have adapted to these challenges by becoming more
involved in the trafficking of cocaine to alternative markets in Europe and
Australia. The arrests of Mexican cartel members in such places as the Dominican
Republic also seem to indicate that the Mexicans are becoming more involved in the
Caribbean smuggling routes into the United States. In the past, Colombian smuggling
groups and their Caribbean partners in places like Cuba, Puerto Rico and the
Dominican Republic used these routes. We anticipate seeing more signs of Mexican
cartel involvement in the Caribbean, Europe and Australia in 2012.

Government Strategy in 2012

There is no indication of a major shift in the Mexican government's overarching
security strategy for 2012; Calderon will continue to use the military against the
cartels throughout the year (a new president will be elected in July, but Calderon's
term does not conclude until the end of 2012). This strategy of taking out cartel
leaders has resulted in the disruption of the cartel balance of power in the past,
which tends to lead to more violence as groups scramble to fill the resultant power
vacuum. Mexican operations may further disrupt that balance in 2012, but while
government operations have broken apart some cartel organizations, the combination
of military and law enforcement resources has been unable to dislodge cartel
influence from the areas it targets. They can break specific criminal organizations,
but the lucrative smuggling corridors into the United States will continue to exist,
even after the organizations controlling them are taken down. And as long as the
smuggling
corridors exist, and provide access to so much money, other organizations will
inevitably fight to assume control over them. 

Some 45,000 Mexican troops are actively involved in domestic counter-cartel
operations. These troops work alongside state and federal law enforcement officers
and in some cases have replaced fired municipal police officers. They are spread
across a large country with high levels of violence in most major cities, and their
presence in these cities is essential for maintaining what security has been
achieved.

While this number of troops represents only about a quarter of the overall Mexican
army's manpower -- troops are often supplemented by deployments of Mexican marines
-- it also represents the bulk of applicable Mexican military ground combat
strength. Meager and poorly maintained reserve forces do not appear to be a
meaningful supplemental resource.

In short, if the current conditions persist, it does not appear that the Mexican
government can redeploy troops to conduct meaningful offensive operations in new
areas of Mexico in 2012 without jeopardizing the gains it has already made. The
government cannot eliminate the cartels any more than it can end the drug trade. The
only way the Mexican government can bring the violence down to what would be
considered an acceptable level is for it to allow one cartel group to become
dominant throughout the country -- something that does not appear to be plausible in
the near term -- or for some sort of truce to be reached between the country's two
cartel hegemons, Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation.

Such scenarios are not unprecedented. At one time the Guadalajara cartel controlled
virtually all of Mexico's drug trade, and it was only the dissolution of that
organization that led to its regional branches subsequently becoming what we now
know as the Sinaloa Federation, AFO, VCF and CDG. There have also been periods of
cartel truces in the past between the various regional cartel groups, although they
tend to be short-lived.

With the current levels of violence, a government-brokered truce between Los Zetas
and Sinaloa will be no easy task, given the level of animosity and mistrust that
exists between the two organizations. This means that it is unlikely that such a
truce will be brokered in 2012, but we expect to see more rhetoric in support of a
truce as a way to reduce violence.

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on February 01, 2012, 09:17:47 AM
Just had nine people killed right down the street from our house three weeks ago. This won't be ending any time soon. It is what it is. It will end in a full scale revolution. There will be no peace brokering. The cartels are to powerful and corrupt, to settle for anything less than absolute control or death. An ugly fact.
Title: Stratfor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 08, 2012, 02:43:00 PM
Remobilizing Forces

Two narcomantas signed by the Cartel de Jalisco Nuevo Generacion (CJNG) were found Feb. 3 in Acapulco, Guerrero state. Through the messages, the CJNG vowed to "clean" Acapulco as it did Veracruz, referring to the multiple mass killings of Los Zetas there in late 2011. It specifically called out such criminal groups as the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA), Los Zetas and residual elements of the Beltran Leyva Organization, all of which are known to operate in Acapulco. The message also noted that the CJNG had no quarrel with Mexican authorities -- the Federal Police, the Mexican Navy and the National Defense Secretariat were all named -- but rather with the cartels that are "terrorizing" Acapulco.

The CJNG is now the third known major criminal organization aligned with the Sinaloa Federation to operate in Acapulco -- La Gente Nueva, Sinaloa's longtime enforcer unit, and La Barredora are the other two. A relatively nascent criminal group, La Barredora has been fighting CIDA for control of Acapulco for some time, and it aligned with Sinaloa in the latter half of 2011. Acapulco is a valuable plaza, so these groups are not interested in sharing power or territory. While La Barredora will continue to direct its efforts toward CIDA, the CJNG will continue its stated intention of fighting Los Zetas and other elements in Acapulco.

Larger cartels often use smaller affiliate groups -- enforcer units or regional gangs -- to assert their control in places far from their home turf. Backed by a powerful and resourceful patron, these affiliate groups become more powerful than they would be on their own (though it is unclear how much autonomy affiliate groups maintain). But this practice poses an inherent danger: If left unchecked, smaller groups could become too powerful, thereby threatening the authority of the patron. Such was the case with Los Zetas, who began as an enforcer unit with the Gulf cartel but have since become the largest cartel, in terms of areas of operation, in Mexico.

Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera understands this dynamic, and in utilizing affiliate groups, he is careful not to allow any one group to become so powerful that that it could jeopardize his power. One way he keeps these groups in check by constantly remobilizing them.

This may indeed explain CJNG's recent itinerancy. Hailing from Guadalajara, Jalisco state, the CJNG conducted operations in Jalisco, Michoacan and Veracruz states before being deployed to Guerrero state. Meanwhile, La Barredora, which originated in Acapulco independently of Sinaloa, reportedly was operating in Guadalajara by December 2011. In reshuffling the CJNG, La Barredora and other groups to different territories -- and at times consolidating them into one territory -- Guzman is ensuring that no one plaza is the exclusive domain of any one group.

NCJ Attacking Soft Targets in Chihuahua

For the past month the New Juarez Cartel (NCJ), the new iteration of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization's (VCF's) enforcement arm, La Linea, has been actively killing municipal police officers in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. But now it seems the group has begun to target police officers in Chihuahua, a city the VCF used to own before the Sinaloa Federation largely took it over.

In the past week, three municipal police officers and a brother of an officer from a joint police force were killed in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state. In one instance, gunmen shot an off-duty police officer while he was at a bar. Following the deaths, narcomantas signed by the NCJ were found in Chihuahua city; the messages contained threats to the city's law enforcement, which the NCJ believes is supporting Sinaloa.

Specifically, the narcomantas threatened the Policia Unica, a task force composed of municipal, state and federal law enforcement officials. While the threats are credible, it should be noted that the NCJ generally has not engaged on-duty police officers. Typically, the NCJ targets off-duty officers or small groups of on-duty officers rather than heavily armed groups. The killing of police officers shows the NCJ is trying to loosen Sinaloa's grip on the city. That it is targeting relatively soft targets reflects the weakness of the NCJ.

Jan. 31
•   The Mexican military had multiple confrontations with gunmen in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state. Gunmen used public buses to establish roadblocks near several of the firefights. During the confrontations, gunmen reportedly stole a tiger from a Matamoros circus.
•   Two U.S. missionaries were found dead in separate areas of their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon state, each with electrical cords wrapped around their necks. A safe, dug out of a wall in their home, and the couple's SUV were missing.
•   The Mexican military arrested police chief Leocadio Cabrera Delgado and 32 municipal police officers in Guasave, Sinaloa state, after they failed to respond as back up in a firefight in which three soldiers were killed.
•   Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police station in General Teran, Nuevo Leon state.
Feb. 1
•   U.S. Customs seized 26 kilograms (57 pounds) of methamphetamine hidden in a shipment of cucumbers at a border crossing near McAllen, Texas.
•   Mexican authorities found the body of a man who had been shot in the head in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state. The body was in front of a wall with a narcomanta signed "Los Z Zona Centro."
•   Gunmen ambushed a federal police patrol in Acapulco, Guerrero state. Three gunmen were killed.
•   Gunmen opened fire on two women at a gas station in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state, killing one and injuring the other.
•   Several hooded men robbed the Casino Caliente in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state. They fired at least two shots before taking $300,000 from the casino's safe.
•   Gunmen shot and killed a police officer in a bar in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state. The officer was an escort for the city's police chief.
•   Mexico state's attorney general and Department of Public Safety announced the arrest of La Familia Michoacana's main operator for drug sales in Chimalhuacan.
Feb. 2
•   The Mexican military presented 13 sicarios who were arrested during military actions throughout Nuevo Leon state.
•   The Mexican army dismantled a communications network used by drug traffickers in Praxedis G. Guerrero, Chihuahua state. Soldiers seized various radio communication devices and four solar cells used to power the communication hub. No arrests were made during the operation.
•   The Mexican army seized 9.8 kilograms of opium gum in El Nayar, Nayarit state. Five rifles, a magazine, 69 rounds of varying calibers and an abandoned vehicle were also seized.
•   A firefight in Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Tamaulipas state, between gunmen and the Mexican military carried over across the U.S. border. One gunman was injured and two others were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol.
•   Mexican officials announced the deployment of 4,000 soldiers to Morelia, Michoacan state, marking the largest deployment in the state since July 2009.
•   Unidentified attackers killed a man in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state by throwing him over a bridge and onto a city street below.
•   Gunmen in multiple vehicles opened fire on two bars in Colonia Obrerista of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, and launched Molotov cocktails that failed to detonate. Only one injury was reported, but some witnesses said four people were kidnapped. The gunmen spray painted a message to a rival gang on the wall of one of the bars.
•   Mexican authorities discovered the body of a burned man tied to several car tires in Tulancingo, Hidalgo state. A narcomanta signed "La Gente" was left with the body and threatened a similar fate to rivals.
•   At least 10 municipalities in Michoacan state received threats from an unnamed criminal organization, prompting the closure of primary schools in several municipalities.
•   Mexican authorities found the bodies of three executed men in a ditch approximately 400 meters from an educational institution, between the municipalities of Juarez and Guadalupe in Nuevo Leon state.
•   Gunmen in multiple vehicles ambushed Miguel Angel Yunes Marquez, a state program coordinator, and his brother Fernando Yunes, a PAN candidate for the Senate, in Alamo, Veracruz state, while the two were traveling from Alamo to Castillo de Teayo in an armored vehicle. Neither were hurt.
•   Mexican authorities discovered the body of a male La Resistencia member in Zapopan, Jalisco state. The man had been shot to death, and a narcomanta threatening other La Resistencia members was left with the body.
Feb. 3
•   Gunmen carrying sidearms killed three men, including two brothers, outside a residence in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state. The gunmen spray painted a message addressed to a criminal group on the wall near the bodies.
•   A gunman killed the brother of a State Unified Police commander outside a residence in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state.
•   Mexican authorities found a nude, male body showing signs of torture in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. The victim's hands and feet were tied and a black bag covered his the head. A message left with the body indicated the man was killed for being a member of Los Aztecas, a Ciudad Juarez street gang.
•   Gunmen traveling in a vehicle and carrying firearms ambushed and killed three men in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state.
•   Mexican authorities discovered a male body with five gun shot wounds, including two in the head, on a road in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.
•   Two narcomantas were placed on bridges in Acapulco, Guerrero state. They were signed "The C.N.G.J. warriors for the freedom of Acapulco," referring to the New Generation Jalisco Cartel. The banners said that CJNG plans to "clean the plaza" of CIDA, Beltran and Los Zetas.
Feb. 4
•   A gunman opened fire in Far West dance bar in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state, killing nine and wounding seven. Witnesses said the gunman fired indiscriminately after entering the bar. The victims included a police officer and a member of the band playing at the bar.
•   Two men were executed by gunmen in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state. Both bodies were left with a narcomanta addressed to a cartel.
•   Mexican federal authorities announced the arrest of Jose "El Marrufo" or "El Jaguar" Antonio Torres Marrufo, the leader of the Sinaloa enforcer branch Gente Nueva. The arrest was made in Leon, Guanajuato state.
Feb. 5
•   Gunmen shot a female municipal police officer several times in the head in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state. According to witnesses, the gunmen were traveling together in a vehicle.
•   Several narcomantas signed by NCJ, or New Juarez Cartel, were hung from bridges in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state. The banners blamed Sinaloa members for killing innocent people and accused the Policia Unica of supporting the Sinaloa cartel.
•   Mexican authorities found two decapitated women in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon state. Two narcomantas were left with the bodies, the contents of which have not been revealed.
•   Mexican authorities found a male body that had been set on fire after the victim’s execution in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon state.
•   Gunmen entered a residence in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state and shot and killed a man before setting the house on fire. The victim's mother and a second man were wounded as a result of the fire. The gunmen spray painted a message on a wall of the residence.
•   The Mexican military killed Guillermo "Francisco Contreras" or "El Pariente" Rubio Castillo in Villa Ahumada, Chihuahua state. Rubio oversaw the transportation of drugs from mountain areas for the Juarez cartel.
•   The Mexican army seized a shipment of 7,900 kilograms of marijuana from a trailer in Monclova, Coahuila state.
•   Mexican marines killed Los Zetas leader Mario "El Comandante Chabelo" Alberto Cantu Cantu in San Nicolas, Nuevo Leon state. According to media reports, Cantu may have been the plaza boss for Nuevo Leon state.
Feb. 6
•   Four gunmen killed two men who were talking to a woman on a residential street in Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon state. The woman remains under investigation by law enforcement.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on February 13, 2012, 01:06:57 PM
http://www.gtitraining.org/news_090711A.htm
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on February 13, 2012, 01:12:34 PM
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.3901/pub_detail.asp
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Hello Kitty on February 13, 2012, 01:17:30 PM
http://publicintelligence.net/ufouo-new-york-office-of-homeland-security-crime-terror-nexus-report/
Title: Stratfor: Meth in Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 16, 2012, 08:26:59 AM

Meth in Mexico: A Turning Point in the Drug War?
By Ben West | February 16, 2012
 

Mexican authorities announced Feb. 8 the largest seizure of methamphetamine in Mexican history -- and possibly the largest ever anywhere -- on a ranch outside of Guadalajara. The total haul was 15 tons of pure methamphetamine along with a laboratory capable of producing all the methamphetamine seized. While authorities are not linking the methamphetamine to any specific criminal group, Guadalajara is a known stronghold of the Sinaloa Federation, and previous seizures there have been connected to the group.

Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug manufactured in personal labs for decades, is nothing new in Mexico or the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has led numerous crusades against the drug, increasing regulations on its ingredients to try to keep it from gaining a foothold in the United States. While the DEA's efforts have succeeded in limiting production of the drug in the United States, consumption has risen steadily over the past two decades. The increasing DEA pressure on U.S. suppliers and the growing demand for methamphetamine have driven large-scale production of the drug outside the borders of the United States. Given Mexico's proximity and the pervasiveness of organized criminal elements seeking new markets, it makes sense that methamphetamine would be produced on an industrial scale there. Indeed, Mexico has provided an environment for a scale of production far greater than anything ever seen in the United States.

But last week's methamphetamine seizure sheds light on a deeper shift in organized criminal activity in Mexico -- one that could mark a breakthrough in the violent stalemate that has existed between the Sinaloa Federation, Los Zetas and the government for the past five years and has led to an estimated 50,000 deaths. It also reveals a pattern in North American organized crime activity that can be seen throughout the 20th century as well as a business opportunity that could transform criminal groups in Mexico from the drug trafficking intermediaries they are today to controllers of an independent and profitable illicit market.

While the trafficking groups in Mexico are commonly called "cartels" (even Stratfor uses the term), they are not really cartels. A cartel is a combination of groups cooperating to control the supply of a commodity. The primary purpose of a cartel is to set the price of a commodity so that buyers cannot negotiate lower prices. The current conflict in Mexico over cocaine and marijuana smuggling routes shows that there are deep rifts between rival groups like the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas. There is no sign that they are cooperating with each other to set the price of cocaine or marijuana. Also, since most of the Mexican criminal groups are involved in a diverse array of criminal activities, their interests go beyond drug trafficking. They are perhaps most accurately described as "transnational criminal organizations" (TCOs), the label currently favored by the DEA.

Examples from the Past

While the level of violence in Mexico right now is unprecedented, it is important to remember that the Mexican TCOs are businesses. They do use violence in conducting business, but their top priority is to make profits, not kill people. The history of organized crime shows many examples of groups engaging in violence to control an illegal product. During the early 20th century in North America, to take advantage of Prohibition in the United States, organized criminal empires were built around the bootlegging industry. After the repeal of Prohibition, gambling and casinos became the hot market. Control over Las Vegas and other major gambling hubs was a business both dangerous and profitable. Control over the U.S. heroin market was consolidated and then dismantled during the 1960s and 1970s. Then came cocaine and the rise in power, wealth and violence of Colombian groups like the Medellin and Cali cartels.

But as U.S. and Colombian law enforcement cracked down on the Colombian cartels -- interdicting them in Colombia and closing down their Caribbean smuggling corridors -- Colombian producers had to turn to the Mexicans to traffic cocaine through Mexico to the United States. To this day, however, Colombian criminal groups descended from the Medellin and Cali cartels control the cultivation and production of cocaine in South America, while Mexican groups increasingly oversee the trafficking of the drug to the United States, Europe and Africa.

The Mexican Weakness

While violence has been used in the past to eliminate or coerce competitors and physically take control of an illegal market, it has not proved to be a solution in recent years for Mexican TCOs. The Medellin cartel became infamous for attacking Colombian state officials and competitors who tried to weaken its grasp over the cocaine market. Going back further, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel is thought to have been murdered over disagreements about his handling of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Before that, Prohibition saw numerous murders over control of liquor shipments and territory. In Mexico, we are seeing an escalating level of such violence, but few of the business resolutions that would be expected to come about as a result.

Geography helps explain this. In Mexico, the Sierra Madre mountain range splits the east coast and the west from the center. The Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean coastal plains tend to develop their own power bases separate from each other.

Mexican drug traffickers are also split by market forces. With Colombian criminal groups still largely controlling the production of cocaine in jungle laboratories, Mexican traffickers are essentially middlemen. They must run the gauntlet of U.S.-led international interdiction efforts by using a combination of Central American traffickers, corruption and street-gang enforcers. They also have to move the cocaine across the U.S. border, where it gets distributed by hundreds of street gangs.

Profit is the primary motivation at every step, and each hurdle the Mexican traffickers have to clear cuts into their profit margins. The cocaine producers in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia can play the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas (as well as others) off of each other to strengthen their own bargaining position. And even though keeping the traffickers split appears to create massive amounts of violence in Mexico, it benefits the politicians and officials there, who can leverage at least the presence of a competitor for better bribes and payoffs.

For Mexican drug traffickers, competition is bad for the bottom line, since it allows other actors to exploit each side to get a larger share of the market. Essentially, everyone else in the cocaine market benefits by keeping the traffickers split. The more actors involved in cocaine trafficking, the harder it is to control it.

The Solution

Historically, organized criminal groups have relied on control of a market for their source of wealth and power. But the current situation in Mexico, and the cocaine trade in general, prevents the Mexican groups (or anyone) from controlling the market outright. As long as geography and market forces keep the traffickers split, all sides in Mexico will try to use violence to get more control over territory and market access. We assume that Mexico's geography will not change dramatically any time soon, but market forces are much more temporal.

Mexican criminal organizations can overcome their weakness in the cocaine market by investing the money they have earned (billions of dollars, according to the most conservative estimates) into the control of other markets. Ultimately, cocaine is impossible for the Mexicans to control because the coca plant can only grow in sufficient quantity in the foothills of the Andes. It would be prohibitively expensive for the Mexicans to take over control of coca cultivation and cocaine production there. Mexican criminal organizations are increasing their presence in the heroin market, but while they can grow poppies in Mexico and produce black-tar heroin, Afghanistan still controls a dominant share of the white heroin market -- around 90 percent.

What Mexicans can control is the methamphetamine market. What we are seeing in Mexico right now -- unprecedented amounts of the seized drug -- is reminiscent of what we saw over the past century in the infancy of the illegal liquor, gambling, heroin and cocaine markets: an organized criminal group industrializing production in or control of a loosely organized industry and using that control to set prices and increase its power. Again, while illegal methamphetamine has been produced in the United States for decades, regulatory pressure and law enforcement efforts have kept it at a small scale; seizures are typically measured in pounds or kilograms and producers are on the run.

Mexican producers have also been in the market for a long time, but over the past year we have seen seizures go from being measured in kilograms to being measured in metric tons. In other words, we are seeing evidence that methamphetamine production has increased several orders of magnitude and is fast becoming an industrialized process.

In addition to the 15 tons seized last week, we saw a record seizure of 675 tons of methylamine, a key ingredient of methamphetamine, in Mexico in December. From 2010 to 2011, seizures of precursor chemicals like methylamine in Mexico increased 400 percent, from 400 tons to 1,600 tons. These most recent reports are similar to reports in the 1920s of U.S. liquor seizures going from barrels to shiploads, which indicated bootlegging was being conducted on an industrial scale. They are also eerily similar to the record cocaine seizure in 1984 in Tranquilandia, Colombia, when Colombian National Police uncovered a network of jungle cocaine labs along with 13.8 metric tons of cocaine. It was the watershed moment, when authorities moved from measuring cocaine busts in kilograms to measuring them in tons, and it marked the Medellin cartel's rise to power over the cocaine market.

A True Mexican Criminal Industry?

Anyone can make methamphetamine, but it is a huge organizational, financial and legal challenge to make it on the industrial level that appears to be happening in Mexico. The main difference between the U.S. labs and the Mexican labs is the kind of input chemicals they use. The U.S. labs use pseudoephedrine, a pharmaceutical product heavily regulated by the DEA, as a starting material, while Mexican labs use methylamine, a chemical with many industrial applications that is more difficult to regulate. And while pseudoephedrine comes in small individual packages of cold pills, methylamine is bought in 208-liter (55-gallon) barrels. The Mexican process requires experienced chemists who have mastered synthesizing methamphetamine on a large scale, which gives them an advantage over the small-time amateurs working in U.S. methamphetamine labs.

Thus, while methamphetamine consumption has been steadily growing in the United States for the past two decades -- and at roughly $100 per gram, unpure methamphetamine is just as profitable on the street as cocaine -- it is even more profitable for Mexican traffickers. Methamphetamine does not come with the overhead costs of purchasing cocaine from Colombians and trafficking valuable merchandise through some of the most dangerous countries in the Western Hemisphere. Precursor materials such as methylamine used in methamphetamine production are cheap, and East Asian producers appear to be perfectly willing to sell the chemicals to Mexico. And because methamphetamine is a synthetic drug, its production does not depend on agriculture like cocaine and marijuana production does. There is no need to control large swaths of cropland and there is less risk of losing product to adverse weather or eradication efforts.

For the Mexican TCOs, industrializing and controlling the methamphetamine market offers a level of real control over a market that is not possible with cocaine. We expect fighting over the methamphetamine market to maintain violence at its current levels, but once a group comes out on top it will have far more resources to expel or absorb rival TCOs. This process may not sound ideal, but methamphetamine could pick the winner in the Mexican drug war.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 01, 2012, 05:24:37 AM

Ideal Circumstances
Mexican authorities found at least seven dismembered bodies on display March 26 in the Los Zetas stronghold of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. The displays were accompanied by three narcomantas, ostensibly signed by Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, claiming the Nuevo Laredo plaza as his own. The messages openly challenged Los Zetas' two senior leaders, Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales and Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano, and intimated that further assaults can be expected against Los Zetas in the northeast Mexican city.

If they were authentic, the narcomantas would suggest that Sinaloa has resumed operations against Los Zetas in Nuevo Laredo, one of the most valuable border towns for illicit drug trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. While the messages alone do not indicate the extent to which Sinaloa will encroach upon Los Zetas' northeastern stronghold, Sinaloa certainly has the resources to undertake the challenge. Were Sinaloa to try to reclaim the Nuevo Laredo plaza, Los Zetas would defend their territory with all available resources, and violence in the city would likely intensify.

There are several factors that make this an ideal time for Guzman's criminal organization to strike its eastern rival in Nuevo Laredo, not the least of which is that the Mexican military has recently stepped up operations against Los Zetas in the plaza. On March 1, Los Zetas plaza boss Gerardo "El Guerra" Guerra Valdez was killed in a firefight with the army. Then on March 13, authorities captured Guerra's alleged replacement, Carlos Alejandro "El Fabiruchis" Gutierrez Escobedo. Perceived weakness in Zetas leadership may have motivated Sinaloa to undertake operations before Los Zetas can recuperate.

New alliances among Los Zetas' rivals also make current conditions ripe for incursion. Following the 2003 arrest of Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen, Sinaloa moved a large group of enforcers into Nuevo Laredo and began a violent turf war with the Gulf cartel. After five years of intense fighting, Los Zetas, enforcers for the Gulf cartel at the time, pushed Sinaloa out of Nuevo Laredo. But Los Zetas quickly assumed control of the plaza after splitting with the Gulf cartel in 2010, and residual Gulf elements have fought intermittently with Los Zetas ever since.

In 2011, two rival factions within the Gulf cartel -- Los Metros and Los Rojos -- began fighting for absolute control of the cartel. Though weakened, these factions retained control of various areas of Tamaulipas state, such as Reynosa, Matamoros and Miguel Aleman, posing a significant threat to Los Zetas. Los Metros, led by Jorge Eduardo "El Coss" Costilla Sanchez, appeared to have consolidated control over the Gulf cartel by the end of 2011. But according to a Stratfor source and other unconfirmed reports, Costilla has since been forced out of the cartel by Mario "X-20" Ramirez-Trevino, who has assumed control of the Reynosa plaza. The source said Costilla has now been fully brought into the Sinaloa Federation's fold. If the report were true, Costilla would appear to be facilitating Sinaloa's incursion into Nuevo Laredo.

Another factor may also be creating ideal circumstances for Sinaloa's moves: control over transport routes. In September 2011, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) commenced operations against Los Zetas in the important port city of Veracruz, Veracruz state. Allegedly conducted at the behest of Sinaloa, these assaults helped CJNG establish a presence in previously uncontested Zetas territory. Then in January 2012, reports surfaced that Los Zetas had begun operations against an alleged Sinaloa-Gulf cartel alliance in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, a valuable transport hub linking Veracruz to Nuevo Laredo. Meanwhile, renewed violence between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas erupted in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state, located between Veracruz and Nuevo Laredo. Taken together, these events suggest Los Zetas are being confronted along a crucial supply line to Nuevo Laredo.

It is unclear if or to what degree Sinaloa will escalate its assaults on Nuevo Laredo, but given the plaza's importance, Los Zetas would respond with all available resources to defend it. This may require diverting manpower and resources from areas in which Los Zetas are encroaching on Sinaloa, such as Jalisco, Durango or Zacatecas states. Los Zetas would also have to defend against strikes on transport routes leading to Nuevo Laredo. In any case, security in Nuevo Laredo can be expected to degrade rapidly if Sinaloa and Los Zetas engage in all-out turf war.

March 20
■Authorities discovered the body of an executed man in Cancun, Quintana Roo state.
March 21
■Masked individuals identifying themselves as Los Guerreros de Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion ("The Warriors of CJNG") sent a video to a Mexican media agency. The individuals said CJNG would clean Guerrero and Michoacan states of all ills, threatened the Knights Templar and said former La Familia Michoacana leader Nazario "El Mas Loco" Moreno Gonzalez was alive and acting as a Knights Templar leader.
■Six members of the Mexican military were injured in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state, when a grenade thrown from a nearby bus station exploded, flipping their vehicle.
■Authorities discovered the bodies of three executed men next to a narcomanta addressed to a gang in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon state.
March 22
■Gunmen executed seven people, including three taxi drivers, in Acapulco, Guerrero state.
■State police detained eight Gulf cartel members and three Los Zetas members in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.
■Gunmen executed a municipal police chief outside a bar in Chihuahua, Chihuahua state.
■Gunmen left a narcomanta accusing the police chief of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, of supporting the Sinaloa Federation.
March 23
■Gunmen shot and killed seven people at a fuel vendor's stand in Angostura, Sinaloa state.
■Authorities found four severed heads in a truck in Acapulco, Guerrero state.
■The Mexican military seized 9.5 metric tons of marijuana from a warehouse in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, while responding to reports of an explosion. The warehouse was being used to install secret compartments for illicit drug transportation.
March 24
■Gunmen shot and killed a man in Acapulco, Guerrero state. The gunmen left a narcomanta with the body, but the message's contents have not been released.
March 25
■An explosive device was detonated near a TV studio in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state. No injuries were reported.
March 26
■Two grenade attacks injured one person in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state. Authorities attribute the city's recent rise in grenade attacks to fighting between rival gangs.
■A firefight with state police left 10 gunmen dead in Temosachi, Chihuahua state.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: In Nuevo Laredo, Killings May Herald a Sinaloa Incursion | Stratfor
Title: While Mexico burns
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 01, 2012, 05:33:07 AM
Segunda post del dia:
=================

102146


With the Focus on Syria, Mexico Burns, by Robert D. Kaplan
March 28, 2012 | 1237 GMT
Print 1563 272ShareThis2216Email321
 Text Size 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 By Robert D. Kaplan

While the foreign policy elite in Washington focuses on the 8,000 deaths in a conflict in Syria -- half a world away from the United States -- more than 47,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006 in Mexico. A deeply troubled state as well as a demographic and economic giant on the United States' southern border, Mexico will affect America's destiny in coming decades more than any state or combination of states in the Middle East. Indeed, Mexico may constitute the world's seventh-largest economy in the near future.

Certainly, while the Mexican violence is largely criminal, Syria is a more clear-cut moral issue, enhanced by its own strategic consequences. A calcified authoritarian regime in Damascus is stamping out dissent with guns and artillery barrages. Moreover, regime change in Syria, which the rebels demand, could deliver a pivotal blow to Iranian influence in the Middle East, an event that would be the best news to U.S. interests in the region in years or even decades.

Nevertheless, the Syrian rebels are divided and hold no territory, and the toppling of pro-Iranian dictator Bashar al Assad might conceivably bring to power an austere Sunni regime equally averse to U.S. interests -- if not lead to sectarian chaos. In other words, all military intervention scenarios in Syria are fraught with extreme risk. Precisely for that reason, that the U.S. foreign policy elite has continued for months to feverishly debate Syria, and in many cases advocate armed intervention, while utterly ignoring the vaster panorama of violence next door in Mexico, speaks volumes about Washington's own obsessions and interests, which are not always aligned with the country's geopolitical interests.

Syria matters and matters momentously to U.S. interests, but Mexico ultimately matters more, so one would think that there would be at least some degree of parity in the amount written on these subjects. I am not demanding a switch in news coverage from one country to the other, just a bit more balance. Of course, it is easy for pundits to have a fervently interventionist view on Syria precisely because it is so far away, whereas miscalculation in Mexico on America's part would carry far greater consequences. For example, what if the Mexican drug cartels took revenge on San Diego? Thus, one might even argue that the very noise in the media about Syria, coupled with the relative silence about Mexico, is proof that it is the latter issue that actually is too sensitive for loose talk.

It may also be that cartel-wracked Mexico -- at some rude subconscious level -- connotes for East Coast elites a south of the border, 7-Eleven store culture, reminiscent of the crime movie "Traffic," that holds no allure to people focused on ancient civilizations across the ocean. The concerns of Europe and the Middle East certainly seem closer to New York and Washington than does the southwestern United States. Indeed, Latin American bureaus and studies departments simply lack the cachet of Middle East and Asian ones in government and universities. Yet, the fate of Mexico is the hinge on which the United States' cultural and demographic future rests.

U.S. foreign policy emanates from the domestic condition of its society, and nothing will affect its society more than the dramatic movement of Latin history northward. By 2050, as much as a third of the American population could be Hispanic. Mexico and Central America constitute a growing demographic and economic powerhouse with which the United States has an inextricable relationship. In recent years Mexico's economic growth has outpaced that of its northern neighbor. Mexico's population of 111 million plus Central America's of more than 40 million equates to half the population of the United States.

Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, 85 percent of Mexico's exports go to the United States, even as half of Central America's trade is with the United States. While the median age of Americans is nearly 37, demonstrating the aging tendency of the U.S. population, the median age in Mexico is 25, and in Central America it is much lower (20 in Guatemala and Honduras, for example). In part because of young workers moving northward, the destiny of the United States could be north-south, rather than the east-west, sea-to-shining-sea of continental and patriotic myth. (This will be amplified by the scheduled 2014 widening of the Panama Canal, which will open the Greater Caribbean Basin to megaships from East Asia, leading to the further development of Gulf of Mexico port cities in the United States, from Texas to Florida.)

Since 1940, Mexico's population has increased more than five-fold. Between 1970 and 1995 it nearly doubled. Between 1985 and 2000 it rose by more than a third. Mexico's population is now more than a third that of the United States and growing at a faster rate. And it is northern Mexico that is crucial. That most of the drug-related homicides in this current wave of violence that so much dwarfs Syria's have occurred in only six of Mexico's 32 states, mostly in the north, is a key indicator of how northern Mexico is being distinguished from the rest of the country (though the violence in the city of Veracruz and the regions of Michoacan and Guerrero is also notable). If the military-led offensive to crush the drug cartels launched by conservative President Felipe Calderon falters, as it seems to be doing, and Mexico City goes back to cutting deals with the cartels, then the capital may in a functional sense lose even further control of the north, with concrete implications for the southwestern United States.

One might argue that with massive border controls, a functional and vibrantly nationalist United States can coexist with a dysfunctional and somewhat chaotic northern Mexico. But that is mainly true in the short run. Looking deeper into the 21st century, as Arnold Toynbee notes in A Study of History (1946), a border between a highly developed society and a less highly developed one will not attain an equilibrium but will advance in the more backward society's favor. Thus, helping to stabilize Mexico -- as limited as the United States' options may be, given the complexity and sensitivity of the relationship -- is a more urgent national interest than stabilizing societies in the Greater Middle East. If Mexico ever does reach coherent First World status, then it will become less of a threat, and the healthy melding of the two societies will quicken to the benefit of both.

Today, helping to thwart drug cartels in rugged and remote terrain in the vicinity of the Mexican frontier and reaching southward from Ciudad Juarez (across the border from El Paso, Texas) means a limited role for the U.S. military and other agencies -- working, of course, in full cooperation with the Mexican authorities. (Predator and Global Hawk drones fly deep over Mexico searching for drug production facilities.) But the legal framework for cooperation with Mexico remains problematic in some cases because of strict interpretation of 19th century posse comitatus laws on the U.S. side. While the United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to affect historical outcomes in Eurasia, its leaders and foreign policy mandarins are somewhat passive about what is happening to a country with which the United States shares a long land border, that verges on partial chaos in some of its northern sections, and whose population is close to double that of Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Mexico, in addition to the obvious challenge of China as a rising great power, will help write the American story in the 21st century. Mexico will partly determine what kind of society America will become, and what exactly will be its demographic and geographic character, especially in the Southwest. The U.S. relationship with China will matter more than any other individual bilateral relationship in terms of determining the United States' place in the world, especially in the economically crucial Pacific. If policymakers in Washington calculate U.S. interests properly regarding those two critical countries, then the United States will have power to spare so that its elites can continue to focus on serious moral questions in places that matter less.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.

Read more: With the Focus on Syria, Mexico Burns, by Robert D. Kaplan | Stratfor
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 16, 2012, 06:37:01 AM


Mexico Security Memo: Zetas-Sinaloa Conflict Intensifies
May 16, 2012 | 1255 GMT
Print 0 0ShareThisNewEmail0
 Text Size 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Criminals have assembled dramatic displays of corpses throughout Mexico since May 4, when 23 victims were arranged in two separate displays in Nuevo Laredo. Narcomantas accompanied both, the first signed "El Chapo" and the other unsigned but denouncing Gulf cartel leaders and a former sicario, or hit man, for the Sinaloa Federation. On May 9, Mexican authorities discovered 18 bodies near Guadalajara, Jalisco state. According to state authorities, Los Zetas and the Zetas-affiliated Milenio cartel were responsible. And in the highest-profile incident, 49 dismembered bodies were dumped along a highway near Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon state, along with a narcomanta in which Los Zetas claimed responsibility.

These public displays of violence all relate to the ongoing conflict between the Sinaloa Federation and its allies and Los Zetas and their allies in northeastern Mexico, in particular over Nuevo Laredo, a critical plaza for Los Zetas. This conflict has security implications throughout Mexico.

Since September 2011, the Sinaloa Federation and its allies, the Gulf cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), have challenged Los Zetas in cities along routes leading to Nuevo Laredo, such as Veracruz, Monterrey and Ciudad Victoria. Sinaloa announced its recent challenge to Los Zetas in Nuevo Laredo in a March 27 narcomanta. Los Zetas responded in kind along the route from Veracruz city to Nuevo Laredo and in traditional strongholds of Sinaloa and its allies, including Culiacan, Sinaloa and Guadalajara, Jalisco state, areas as critical to Sinaloa as Nuevo Laredo is to Los Zetas.

Continuing pressure from Sinaloa in Nuevo Laredo may force Los Zetas to divert resources from their other plazas to defend Nuevo Laredo. This limits Los Zetas' ability to defend plazas from additional incursions or to counter existing incursions like one in Cancun, where CJNG is competing for control of the plaza.


.The Mexican military also is mounting strong efforts against Los Zetas in states such as Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila. The arrests or deaths of Los Zetas members like the March loss of two Nuevo Laredo plaza bosses in military operations open up even more opportunities for the Sinaloa Federation and its allies. This could well translate into additional turf wars in Zetas-controlled territory -- and in the turf of the Sinaloa Federation and its allies when Los Zetas strike back. While Nuevo Laredo is critical for Los Zetas, it is only one battlefield in the war.

May 7
■Authorities seized 32 metric tons of monomethylamine, a chemical precursor used for the production of methamphetamine, from a ship in Veracruz city, Veracruz state. The shipment, which originated in China, was labeled falsely as containing aluminum sulfate.
May 8
■Authorities rescued 12 kidnapping victims from a house in Tala, Jalisco state. Authorities were alerted to the house after one of the victims escaped.
■Gunmen killed a Centro de Readaptacion Social prison guard director in Torreon, Coahuila state, in his vehicle at an intersection.
■Authorities detained six members of La Oficina in Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes state. At the time of their arrest, the six were planning to kidnap a person who did not pay an extortion fee.
■Gunmen established several roadblocks in central Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, by forcing motorists from their vehicles and then setting the vehicles ablaze.
■Gunmen ambushed a group of police officers along a road near Xalostoc, Guerrero state, killing two officers.
May 9
■Authorities discovered 18 headless bodies along a road in Ixtlahuacan de los Membrillo, Jalisco state, accompanied by a narcomanta signed "Milenio-Zetas alliance."
■Authorities seized 766.35 kilograms (1,689 pounds) of marijuana from a vehicle in Tijuana, Baja California state.
■Authorities seized approximately 14,700 liters (3,880 gallons) of chemical precursors used in the production of illicit drugs in Frontera Hidalgo, Chiapas state.
May 10
■Gunmen opened fire on a police patrol in Torreon, Coahuila state. Casualty information was not available.
■Authorities detained four people in possession of illegal drugs, a sidearm, seven cellphones, a radio and 135 voter ID cards in San Nicolas de los Garza, Nuevo Leon state.
■A firefight between gunmen and the military in Salvador Alvarado, Sinaloa state, killed five gunmen after gunfire ignited their vehicle. Elements of the 9th Military Zone initiated the exchange after encountering a checkpoint set up by the gunmen on Highway 15.
May 11
■Gunmen fired on newspaper El Manana's office in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, for several minutes and spray-painted an undisclosed message on the building. No injuries were reported.
May 12
■Authorities arrested four people in Tala, Jalisco state, in connection with decapitated bodies found May 9 in Ixtlahuacan de los Membrillos, Jalisco state.
May 13
■Forty-nine dismembered bodies in black bags were dumped near Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon state, along a highway leading to Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. "Z-100%" was spray painted on a nearby wall, suggesting Los Zetas carried out the attack.
■Authorities found the body of Orta Salgado, a police reporter with 20 years of experience, handcuffed and bearing signs of torture in the trunk of a vehicle in Cuernavaca, Morelos state.
■Authorities discovered a dismembered body in Ixlan, Michoacan state, along a highway. A narcomanta signed CJNG and threatening the Knights Templar accompanied the body.
May 14
■Authorities in Luvianos, Mexico state, arrested suspected La Familia Michoacana (LFM) operator Juan Castelan Martinez "El Virulo" on the Tejupilco-Luvianos road. He is believed to have reported to "El Pony" and "La Marrana," the two principal LFM operators in Mexico state.
■Soldiers in the municipality of Chapala, Jalisco state, discovered five bodies in an industrial freezer on a farm. The bodies matched severed body parts found May 9 in Jalisco state.
■Seven men are being held in Chiapas state for allegedly trying to smuggle 6.4 kilograms of methamphetamine through a roadblock in Margaritas, Chiapas state. The drug shipment allegedly originated in Comitlan de Dominguez, Chiapas state, and was bound for Mexico state.
■Authorities seized 136 metric tons of chemical precursors aboard a ship in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state. The shipment originated in China and had Honduras listed as its final destination.

104889
Title: Compartiendo secretos
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 06, 2012, 10:35:00 PM
Vea el 6 de Julio:

http://www.lawfareblog.com/

PD:  !Felicitaciones a Mexico por su eleccion!
Title: Stratfor: Record high violence in Torreon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 18, 2012, 07:41:27 PM


Violence in Torreon
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed three police officers traveling in a car July 12 in Torreon, Coahuila state. A fourth officer was injured in the attack. The incident is the latest in a trend of increasing violence in Coahuila state, particularly in Torreon.

Mexican law enforcement officials attribute the recent wave of violence in Torreon to the capture of a Los Zetas plaza boss, Alberto Jose "El Paisa" Gonzalez Xalate, who was detained April 29. In addition, homicide numbers released by the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security reflect an uptick in murders in Coahuila state since the arrest. Homicides increased from 82 in April to 121 in May, the highest number of homicides in state history, according to previous figures from the same source. Media reports indicate Torreon specifically has seen a sharp increase, with 112 reported homicides in June, the highest count reported in 2012. Regardless of whether Gonzalez's arrest triggered the increased violence in Torreon, it is certain the struggle between organized criminal groups in southern Coahuila state has intensified since the end of April.

.Given the notable increase in violence since the time of Gonzalez's arrest, his fall likely contributed to the increase in organized criminal violence in the area. The death or capture of a plaza boss can create violence for a number of reasons, such as retribution against law enforcement, internal power struggles or rival cartels attempting to exploit the lack of leadership to gain new territory or further disrupt opponents' networks. Unidentified rivals of Los Zetas' top two leaders, Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano and Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, have used Gonzalez's arrest as an opportunity to subvert the Zetas leaders by posting narcomantas labeling Lazcano and Trevino as traitors in various areas of Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas and Tamaulipas states. The narcomantas mention Gonzalez's arrest as an example of an alleged betrayal by Lazcano or Trevino and imply that there is an internal struggle within Los Zetas by possibly hinting that a Zetas leader could have something to do with the arrest of one of their own. However, there are no external indications that such a struggle exists, and the narcomantas could be misdirection from a rival cartel.

CJNG in Colima
Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion recently lost two leaders in Colima state. Unidentified gunmen killed four individuals and wounded six others July 14 when the assailants opened fire on patrons at a restaurant in Cerro de Ortega, Colima state. Among the dead was Leopoldo "Polo" Gonzalez Aviles, the alleged CJNG plaza boss of Cerro de Ortega. The next day in Colima state's port city of Manzanillo, authorities arrested Jaime Ignacio "El Pelotas" Ramirez Jauregui, the reported CJNG plaza boss of Manzanillo, along with a colleague. The presence of CJNG leaders in Colima state shows their activity in a region where the criminal organization has only recently expanded operations.

CJNG, which originated from Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal's group within the Sinaloa Federation, rapidly expanded its operations geographically during 2011 from its home state of Jalisco to several states, including neighboring Colima state. Manzanillo has long been used by Mexico's drug trafficking organizations to acquire chemical precursors for the production of methamphetamine, an illicit product Coronel's group specialized in producing. While the loss of the two leaders could affect CJNG's ability to operate in the near term, the arrests will not likely have a significant impact on long-term operations because leadership can easily be replaced in order to hold the strategic location.

Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Record-High Violence in Torreon | Stratfor
Title: Stratfor: Other consequences of OFF
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 18, 2012, 09:58:38 PM
Segunda post del dia:


The Other Consequences of Fast and Furious
July 12, 2012 | 0900 GMT
Print 375 129ShareThis664Email133
 Text Size 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Stratfor
By Scott Stewart

On the night of Dec. 14, 2010, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot and killed while on patrol in an Arizona canyon near the U.S.-Mexico border. Two guns found at the scene were linked to an investigation being run by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) called "Operation Fast and Furious," sparking a congressional inquiry into the program and generating considerable criticism of the ATF and the Obama administration. Because of this criticism, in August 2011 ATF acting director Kenneth Melson was reassigned from his post and the U.S. attorney for Arizona was forced to resign.

Currently, the congressional inquiry is focused on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who has been accused of misleading Congress about what he knew about Fast and Furious and when he learned it. The Obama administration has invoked executive privilege to block the release of some of the Department of Justice emails and memos sought by Congress pertaining to the operation. The controversy escalated June 28 when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for ignoring its subpoenas.

As all Second Amendment issues are political hot buttons, and with this being a presidential election year in the United States, the political wrangling over Fast and Furious is certain to increase in the coming months. The debate is also sure to become increasingly partisan and pointed. But, frankly, this political wrangling is not what we find to be the most interesting aspect of the operation's fallout. Rather, we are more interested in the way that criticism of Fast and Furious has altered law enforcement efforts to stem the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico and the way these changes will influence how Mexican cartels acquire weapons.

Law Enforcement Shifts
Several of these law enforcement changes already have been enacted. For example, the number of ATF inspectors has been increased due to additional funding for an inspection program through the U.S. Southwest Border Initiative. This means that there are more inspectors to audit the sales records of licensed gun dealers. In southern Arizona, for example, the number of inspectors was increased from three to eight. According to the ATF, these inspectors oversee the operations of some 430 federally licensed firearms dealers in six border counties.

These firearms dealers include gun store proprietors as well as independent dealers working the gun show circuit. The increase in ATF inspection staff and activity has sparked an outcry from gun show dealers who claim they are being unfairly harassed by inspectors. ATF sources have told Stratfor that they do not harass dealers but that the staff increase has allowed the bureau to catch up on inspections it was not able to conduct in the past. The sources also said they believe that their increased presence at gun shows is scaring away cartel buyers, although, obviously, some gun show firearms are still finding their way into cartel hands.

Another procedural change occurred in August 2011, when the ATF began a new program in which licensed gun dealers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California are required to report to the ATF bulk sales of certain types of rifles, namely semi-automatic rifles larger than .22 caliber with detachable magazines such as the semi-automatic AR-15 and AK-47 variants favored by the cartels. The new rule requires gun dealers to report people without federal firearms licenses who buy two or more of such rifles to the ATF within five working days. The rule has raised the ire of some Second Amendment activists, but the ATF notes that it has had a similar reporting regimen for multiple sales of handguns in place since 1975.

The attention that Fast and Furious attracted to the gun smuggling problem also has led to an increase in interdiction efforts by other U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Furthermore, weapons cases have reportedly been given increased prosecutorial priority by U.S. attorneys -- meaning they are now less likely to decline prosecution of a gun case than before the controversy emerged. This has led to increased pressure on lower-level violators such as straw purchasers -- people paid by arms traffickers to buy guns from dealers. Greed will ensure that people continue to work as straw purchasers, but considering the increased risk of prosecution and the new reporting requirements, straw purchasers and the traffickers who employ them will be more exposed.

In May 2012, the ATF claimed that the reporting requirements have led to a decrease in large-volume sales of semi-automatic rifles (10 or more in a single purchase). The ATF also said that traffickers are adapting their weapons procurement methods to the new regulations.

Arms Smugglers Adapt
Despite their impact, the law enforcement and reporting changes cannot stem the tide of weapons entirely. In the same way that drug flows adapt to law enforcement interdiction efforts, weapons flows will also adjust. Previous federal investigations have shown that Mexican cartels have contacts in many different parts of the United States, including cities such as Chicago and Atlanta, far from the border. One way to bypass the increase in ATF inspections and the border state reporting requirements is to buy guns in states located farther from the border. Of course, this would require the weapons to be transported longer distances to get to Mexico, increasing transportation costs as well as exposure to interdiction efforts. A shift in the points of purchase would also almost certainly result in the expansion of the new reporting requirements to other states.

Although it will never be possible to completely cut off the flow of guns to Mexico from the United States, it can be reduced. This would force the cartels to search for new sources of weapons.

One significant emerging source of AR-15/M16 variants is something called an 80 percent lower receiver. (The lower receiver is the part of the AR-15/M16/M4 that carries a manufacturer's serial number. These 80 percent lower receivers do not have any serial numbers.) Under U.S. federal firearms law, the unfinished lower receiver is not considered a firearm and thus can be shipped anywhere and sold to anyone without a license. Once the remaining machining on the lower receiver is completed, one can build an AR-15, M16 or M4 carbine by purchasing the additional required parts -- such as the bolt assembly, trigger assembly and barrel -- which also are not considered firearms. Once the weapon is fully assembled, it is then considered a firearm and subject to federal firearms law.

While the 80 percent lower receivers are intended for do-it-yourself gun enthusiasts, according to the ATF, these guns have also begun to show up in increasing numbers in Mexico.

Many if not most of the semi-automatic rifles purchased in the United States and smuggled into Mexico are converted to be capable of fully automatic fire by armorers working for various cartel groups. The same armorers are capable of finishing the machining on 80 percent lower receivers and assembling completed firearms from them. The finishing process is not difficult, and there are specialized jigs one can buy and instructional videos posted on the Internet to assist in the process. With experience, proper parts and equipment, a competent machinist can quickly and easily finish a lower receiver in an hour or less.

But acquiring 80 percent lower receivers is not the only alternative for cartels. As noted previously, the Mexican cartels obtain weapons from a variety of sources. The main reason they buy rifles and high-powered pistols from the United States is that such weapons are cheap and readily available. The United States is also nearby, so the guns do not have to be transported very far. Once in Mexico, such weapons can be sold to cartels or on the black market for three times their purchase price in the United States. This explains the difficulty of shutting down the flow of weapons between the two countries. The gun trade is almost as lucrative as the narcotics flowing north.

The premium prices Mexican cartels are paying for guns mean that even if the U.S.-Mexican border could somehow magically be sealed tomorrow, arms merchants from elsewhere would be able to fill the void. Indeed, there are some weapons that the cartels simply cannot buy from the United States due to a lack of availability. Such weapons include hand grenades, 40 mm grenades, M60 machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and M-72 anti-tank rockets. Instead, the cartels buy such items from members of the Mexican military, militaries in countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador, or international arms dealers. The cartels would go to these same sources to replace the weapons unavailable in the United States due to increased arms interdiction efforts. South American groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and Peru's Shining Path have demonstrated that it is not difficult for groups to arm themselves via the black arms market in the Western Hemisphere.

Rifles and other weapons are durable goods, and it is not unusual to find weapons in Mexico that were provided by the United States, the Soviets or the Cubans to various governments and insurgent groups during the Cold War. Weapons are also fungible, or easily substituted for each other. This means that an AK-47 rifle made in the Soviet Union in the 1950s could be replaced by a variant made in East Germany in the 1970s or in China or Romania today. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find assault rifles of various makes and ages in cartel possession. In videos published by groups such as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, gunmen armed with FN-FAL rifles have appeared alongside comrades armed with various models of AKs, M16s and M4s. A cartel gunman does not care where his rifle comes from.

In recent years, Mexican cartels have begun to forge close relationships with Chinese organized crime groups that are helping the cartels obtain precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs. These Chinese groups also are reportedly becoming increasingly important components of Mexican cartel money-laundering efforts. Chinese criminal groups have close ties with the Chinese arms manufacturers, and it is possible that they could begin sending guns to their Mexican contacts with the other illicit cargo.

The Mexican cartels have also reportedly become progressively more involved in the transportation of cocaine to Europe via Africa -- a continent awash in black market assault rifles and other weapons. Some of the cocaine trafficked into Europe is handled by Balkan groups with access to large stockpiles of weapons in Eastern Europe.

These various connections ensure that the Mexican cartels will continue to have access to assault rifles and other military ordnance for the foreseeable future, regardless of how much progress U.S. authorities make in their efforts to stem the flow of guns to Mexico.

Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.

Read more: The Other Consequences of Fast and Furious | Stratfor
Title: Stratfor: Drug War developments Q2
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 26, 2012, 04:55:08 AM

Editor's Note: In this interim report on Mexico's drug cartels, we assess important developments in the drug war during the second quarter of 2012 and explain what they could mean for the rest of the year.

Many of the trends discussed in the first quarter cartel update continued in the second quarter. Most significantly, smaller gangs aligned themselves with either Los Zetas or the Sinaloa Federation as the two sides continued their countrywide conflict. In the first quarter of 2012, Los Zetas came under increased attack from the Gulf cartel in the northeastern states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Most violence in Tamaulipas during the second quarter involved those two groups, though the Sinaloa Federation appears to be supporting Gulf cartel activities.


.Los Zetas also continued their struggles against another Sinaloa Federation ally, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, in Veracruz state. The Sinaloa Federation in turn faced attacks from Zetas allies in Sinaloa's strongholds of Jalisco and Sinaloa states. As during the first quarter, the Sinaloa Federation and its ally the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion continued their conflict in Guadalajara against Los Zetas and the Zetas-allied Milenio cartel. In Sinaloa state, the Sinaloa Federation has faced a resurgence of assaults from remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization, primarily Los Mazatlecos, to whom Los Zetas have provided gunmen. With the exception of Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion's arrival in Cancun, no territorial shifts in Mexico's criminal landscape have occurred.

Information Operations
Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation, as well as Sinaloa's ally the Gulf cartel, emphasized information operations campaigns beginning in the first quarter and continuing into the second quarter, particularly in northeastern Mexico. These campaigns have seen the display of dismembered bodies in public, a tactic that offers little operationally beyond broadcasting messages on behalf of the cartel involved. Through these operations, the cartels are striving to control the flow of information in a bid to subvert their rivals' support base.

As the focus on information operations increases, civilians have been increasingly affected. Links between victims in body dumps and organized crime have rarely been confirmed. Mexican authorities, for example, say many of the victims in the May 9 body dump in Guadalajara were simply bystanders. To maintain the shock value of body dumps, criminal groups must continue increasing their scale. This means there will likely be more body dumps like those in Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Mante, Culiacan and Guadalajara during the second quarter.

Los Zetas
Los Zetas do not appear to have suffered significant operational losses in areas where they are engaged in turf wars with the Gulf cartel. As noted in the last quarterly, Los Zetas will defend Nuevo Laredo at any cost, since it is perhaps their most valuable plaza. The lack of activity in Nuevo Laredo may indicate that Los Zetas do not yet perceive any significant threat there.

Law enforcement operations across Los Zetas' turf in the second quarter resulted in notable arrests. Guatemalan authorities arrested Horst Walther Overdick-Mejia, a Guatemalan drug distributor working with Los Zetas, in Guatemala on April 3. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities arrested Jose Trevino, the brother of Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, on June 11 in Oklahoma on charges of using a horse breeding company to launder money for Miguel Trevino. And Mexican authorities arrested Francisco Trevino Chavez, a Nuevo Laredo plaza boss and cousin of Miguel Trevino, on June 12. The arrests are not likely to impact overall Zetas operations significantly, since the group is apparently adept at finding replacement leaders.

Los Zetas carried out notable violent acts within Sinaloa Federation's stronghold in the states of Sinaloa and Jalisco during the second quarter with the help of local organized criminal groups such as the Milenio cartel in Jalisco and Los Mazatlecos and other remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization in Sinaloa. So far, this Zetas activity has not caused any significant operational setback for the Sinaloa Federation.

Sinaloa Federation
The second quarter saw a focus on increasing anti-Zetas assaults in areas where Sinaloa operations expanded in the first quarter. The Gulf cartel is leading the assault against Los Zetas in Nuevo Laredo and the rest of Tamaulipas state, while the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion continues its assault in Veracruz state and the Knights Templar continues to confront the weakened Zetas ally La Familia Michoacana in the central region of the country.

The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Knights Templar significantly increased their violent acts against one another in the central states of Guanajuato, Guerrero and Michoacan in the form of firefights and executions. Should the violence hinder the Sinaloa Federation's trafficking operations, the group might attempt to broker peace or pick a side to support. Currently, nothing suggests this conflict will end during the next quarter.

With the exception of the Baja California Peninsula, which is fully under Sinaloa Federation control, the Sinaloa Federation and its allies continue to deal with rivals in all of the states in which they operate. Just as Los Zetas are being confronted but not damaged in their stronghold, Sinaloa's rivals do not appear to be able to damage Sinaloa's operations in its strongholds.

Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion
The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion continued to expand its operations by confronting Los Zetas in Cancun, Quintana Roo state. Executions involving members of Los Zetas known as Los Pelones, a local gang involved in local criminal enterprises such as drug sales and extortion, and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion began in March in Cancun. Though still less violent than other popular tourist destinations in Mexico, drug-related deaths in Cancun more than doubled during the first half of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011.

The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion appears to be continuing its turf war against Los Zetas in Veracruz city, where executions attributed to the cartel continue. But the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion appears more focused on its turf war with the Knights Templar in Guerrero and Michoacan states.

Knights Templar
Since its split from La Familia Michoacana in January 2011, the Knights Templar has asserted control over La Familia Michoacana's former territories, a trend that continued in the second quarter. La Familia Michoacana has become a shadow of its former self; the Knights Templar appears more active in Guanajuato, Guerrero, Mexico, Michoacan and Morelos states.

The Knights Templar's main focus shifted during the second quarter toward its interstate turf war with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion as it defends against the latter's expansion into Knights Templar territory. This turf war accounted for the most intense intercartel violence in Guerrero and Michoacan states.

Beltran Leyva Organization
A resurgence in activity has been reported from remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization, primarily in Sinaloa state. Some remnants of the former Beltran Leyva Organization, in particular Cartel Pacifico Sur and Los Mazatlecos, appeared to maintain a working relationship. The second quarter of 2012 saw a resurgence of reported activity by Los Mazatlecos in Sinaloa state.

Firefights between gunmen affiliated with organized crime and the Mexican military occurred April 28 in the northern Sinaloa municipality of Choix. Some of the gunmen likely belonged to Los Mazatlecos, allied with the Cartel Pacifico Sur, and others may have belonged to another ally of Los Zetas. After the fighting subsided, military patrols discovered dead bodies from an unrelated conflict, revealing an ongoing intercartel battle in the vicinity. Media reports indicate that the same organized criminal groups engaged in conflicts in Choix are operating in rural towns in southwestern Chihuahua state. If true, this would indicate that remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization under the organization of Los Mazatlecos are fighting for control of a lucrative region in several states where marijuana and opium poppies are grown.

Gulf Cartel
The Gulf cartel saw a continued resurgence through the second quarter of 2012. According to several reports, Eduardo "El Coss" Costilla Sanchez, a Gulf cartel leader, led the group's violent acts against Los Zetas in Tamaulipas with the apparent backing of Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera.

The most public of the Gulf cartel's recent activity occurred March 26 in Nuevo Laredo, when authorities discovered 14 dismembered bodies along with a narcomanta ostensibly signed by El Chapo. While the message implied that the Sinaloa Federation was responsible, corroborated reporting shows that Gulf cartel members at least assisted. Whether the Gulf cartel has taken over any smuggling routes or undermined Los Zetas' support structure remains unclear. However, Gulf cartel activity is not likely to subside during the next quarter, with narcomantas and body dumps likely to continue in its conflict with Los Zetas. A few Gulf cartel members have been arrested recently, which could undermine its renewed assault against Los Zetas.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization
Little suggests that the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization will regain its former position as one of the dominant cartels in Mexico. The organization has splintered into various criminal groups such as the New Juarez Cartel. The New Juarez Cartel has shown less tactical sophistication compared to other offshoots of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization, such as La Linea. Reports of activity attributed to the New Juarez Cartel have dropped significantly. Indeed, it seems intercartel violence has decreased altogether in Ciudad Juarez. The drop can be attributed to the Sinaloa Federation gaining further control over Juarez.

La Linea, the enforcement arm of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization, has continued to show little activity in the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization's former territory since it suffered significant losses in leadership in 2011. Authorities captured a top leader and his replacement during the second quarter.

Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Read more: Mexican Drug War Update: Third Quarter | Stratfor
Title: Rumors of a split within Los Zetas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 01, 2012, 02:55:33 PM

Mexico Security Memo: Rumors of a Split Within Los Zetas
August 1, 2012 | 1000 GMT
Print 0 2 2 0
 Text Size 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Stratfor
Several media outlets recently have reported an organizational split between Los Zetas' two top leaders, Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano and Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales. These reports cite a series of narcomantas posted June 1 in several states in Mexico alleging that Lazcano and Trevino betrayed several Zetas leaders close to them. Reports also cite social media messages that portrayed the two leaders as traitors.

Given the frequent fracturing of Mexico's organized criminal groups since the breakup of Miguel Angel "El Padrino" Felix Gallardo's Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s, a rift within Los Zetas would not come as a surprise and likely would lead to increased violence while factions fight for territorial control. However, currently there are no explicit indications of fracturing within Los Zetas. The group continues to defend its areas of operations from the Sinaloa Federation and its allies and to make incursions into rivals' strongholds.

.Organizational splits within major criminal groups in Mexico typically have led to increased violence in regions where the criminal group operated. Felix Gallardo's decision to split the Guadalajara cartel into regional plazas eventually led to violent inter-cartel rivalries, such as the Sinaloa Federation's conflict with the Tijuana, Juarez and Gulf cartels. In northeastern Mexico, primarily in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon states, Los Zetas continue to engage in turf wars with the Gulf cartel, their former parent organization.

Los Zetas have also received the most attention from government counternarcotics operations targeting the organization's high-ranking criminal leaders. In 2011, Los Zetas lost more cell leaders and plaza bosses than any other Mexican organized crime group as a result of the operations, and the group continues to suffer losses in local and regional leadership -- most recently on July 27, when soldiers in Huejotzingo, Puebla state, arrested Mauricio Izar Cardenas, the regional plaza boss allegedly responsible for Los Zetas' operations in southeastern Mexico. Despite these losses, Los Zetas have expanded into at least 17 states, giving the group among the widest geographic reach of all Mexico's cartels.

Since Los Zetas operate in more than half of Mexico's states, a conflict between the group's top leaders likely would trigger additional violence in multiple regions of the country. However, a rift between the top leaders is not the only scenario that could lead to internal conflicts. Los Zetas operate using compartmentalized cells and local leaders throughout Mexico and other countries, such as Guatemala. These cells typically follow the instructions of higher-level regional leaders and pay monetary dues but also may act independently from the larger organization. The June 1 narcomantas brought attention to these cells by implying that the arrest or death of several regional Los Zetas leaders resulted from betrayals by either Lazcano or Trevino.

Indications of an internal conflict will largely depend on where the rift within the organization forms, whether between Lazcano and Trevino or a breakaway Los Zetas cell. Currently, no such indications have manifested. Should Los Zetas suffer a significant internal conflict, their principal rivals, the Sinaloa Federation and its allies the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Gulf cartel, would take advantage of the rift by redoubling their efforts to take control of Los Zetas' plazas. This in turn would result in increased violence, as recently seen in Coahuila state. Los Zetas' rivals may also attempt to bring any potential splinter groups into their own fold, much like the split between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas that led to the alignment of the Gulf cartel with the Sinaloa Federation.

Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.

Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Rumors of a Split Within Los Zetas | Stratfor
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 12, 2012, 05:47:12 AM
109,774


Stratfor
 
Arrest's Impact Likely Limited

The Mexican navy arrested Mario "El Gordo" Cardenas Guillen, a presumed senior member of the Gulf cartel, on Sept. 3 in Altamira, Tamaulipas state. Mario Cardenas Guillen, the brother of former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen, became the latest of a series of prominent Gulf cartel operatives to be arrested or killed in recent years. However, while U.S. and Mexican media outlets have described Mario as the overall leader of the Gulf cartel, he actually serves a lesser role within the fractured organization. His arrest will likely affect a specific faction of the Gulf cartel, Los Rojos, more than the cartel as a whole.
 
A series of Gulf cartel leadership changes began after Osiel Cardenas Guillen was extradited to the United States in 2010. Since then, Mario Cardenas Guillen has demonstrated neither the desire nor the ability to lead Gulf cartel operations. As a result, several cartel members who do not belong to the Cardenas family, most notably Eduardo "El Coss" Costilla Sanchez, have surpassed Mario Cardenas Guillen in the organization's hierarchy.
 





.
 
Even within the Los Rojos faction, which is instead led by Juan "R-1" Mejia Gonzalez, it is unclear whether Mario had much influence over day-to-day operations prior to his arrest. Moreover, the Gulf cartel's ongoing fight against Los Zetas in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon states has been commanded primarily by the rival Los Metros faction, so the cartel's ability to confront Los Zetas will likely endure. Thus, Mario's arrest is unlikely to significantly undermine the Gulf cartel's operational capabilities. At most, the arrest could deliver another blow, even if only a limited one, to the already weakened Los Rojos faction and further solidify Los Metros' control.
 
Los Zetas' Internal Power Struggle Continues
 
Gunmen opened fire on a group of young men Sept. 8 at a football field in Soledad de Graciano Sanchez, San Luis Potosi state, killing seven people. The assailants left a note pinned to the back of one victim with a screwdriver, warning that a similar fate would befall those who follow "50." The note, signed simply "Los Zetas," was likely referring to Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero, also known as "Z-50," the former Zetas plaza boss of San Luis Potosi state.
 
The killings took place in a week marked by multiple acts of violence related to the erupting turf war between Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales and Velazquez. Violence in states affected by the rivalry, including Zacatecas, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and possibly Nuevo Leon is unlikely to subside significantly until one of the two leaders gains control. Still, unless Velazquez attracts outside support from other criminal leaders such as Los Zetas plaza bosses or those from organizations such as the Gulf cartel or the Sinaloa Federation, violence associated with the turf war is unlikely to spread to additional states.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Senior Gulf Cartel Member Arrested | Stratfor
Title: WSJ: US shifts drug fight
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 18, 2012, 07:23:11 AM
U.S. Shifts Mexico Drug Fight
Military Aid Plummets as Washington Turns Focus to Bolstering Legal System.
Article Comments (4) more in Latin America | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ».
smaller Larger facebooktwittergoogle pluslinked ininShare.0EmailPrintSave ↓ More .
.
smaller Larger 
By NICHOLAS CASEY
MEXICO CITY—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets her Mexican counterparts at a security summit in Washington Tuesday to discuss the next phase in the drug war: how to train the judges and prosecutors that will be trying suspected drug lords.

The Merida Initiative, the U.S.'s $1.9 billion assistance program to Mexico, began mostly as a means to buy military hardware like Black Hawk helicopters for Mexico. But over the past two years, it has entered a new phase, in which purchases for the Mexican military are taking a back seat to measures to mend the branches of Mexico's civilian government.

The former director of Colorado's penitentiary system has trained more than 5,000 Mexican prison officials in recent years. Mexican jurists are running mock trials with visiting American judges to prepare for a transition to oral hearings that will replace Mexico's enigmatic closed-door meetings where sentences are handed down.

"Different things have come to the fore at different times, but strengthening the rule of law in Mexico is the area that's crucial right now," says Roberta Jacobson, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Enlarge Image


Close
Reuters
 
Police escort prisoners in Mexico in August. U.S. aid efforts are turning toward legal and police training.
.
Officials in both countries increasingly believe the root of Mexico's problem lies in creating an honest police force, professional judges and a prison system comparable with that in the U.S.

The challenges are harder to measure but will take center stage at the so-called High-Level Consultative Group on Tuesday, where Mrs. Clinton will be joined by Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Attorney General Eric Holder and top officials from Mexican President Felipe Calderón's cabinet. The two sides will also discuss topics ranging from border security to seizing assets of drug cartel members in the U.S.

"Our efforts to confront transnational crime on both sides of the border benefited from a clear understanding that we had to multitask," says Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhán.

While Mexico has had success at catching criminals, it's had less luck in putting them behind bars—the country has a meager 2% conviction rate for most crimes. A new test came just last week with the capture of Jorge "El Coss" Costilla, the alleged boss of Mexico's powerful Gulf Cartel. He is the 23rd in Mexico's "37 Most Wanted" list to have either been killed or captured under Mr. Calderón; after six years of fighting, the original heads of Mexico's drug gangs are mostly gone.

That reality is being reflected in how U.S. aid is being spent in Mexico. Assistance to the Mexican military has nearly collapsed, with counternarcotics and security aid falling from a height of around $529 million in 2010 to $67.5 million planned for next year.

Meanwhile money meant for strengthening institutions from law schools to prisons doubled in the last year, to $201.8 this year from $105 million in 2011.

Training Mexico to handle its own struggle could be more cost-effective for the U.S.—total aid this year to Mexico is at $330 million, less than half its number 2010—in large part because training police and prosecutors is less expensive than financing a military with big purchases like helicopters.

One example both sides are touting has to do with Mexico's courts, which are undergoing a radical overhaul. Unlike the U.S., most trials in Mexico take place in closed proceedings where judges aren't present nor even meet the defendant. Attorneys and witnesses gather in a cubicle where a clerk takes notes and prepares a file, later sent to the judge for a decision. There are no juries.

Enlarge Image


Close.
In 2008, Mexico's congress approved a change to have trials be conducted orally—with attorneys arguing in an open courtroom before a judge—with a complete rollout by 2016. The overhaul is hoped to boost conviction rates and guarantee fair trials.

Since the new system will be similar to the way trials are conducted in the U.S., the government has sent legal experts to train their Mexican counterparts in everything from witness protection to plea bargaining. So far more than 7,500 Mexican judicial personnel have received U.S. training at the federal level, and more than 19,000 at the state level.

A delegation from the U.S. Supreme Court met with Mexican judges in taking oral testimony, a first in Mexico. Members of the U.S. Bar Association are training lawyers.

"There was a skepticism that Mexican judges had coming into this, for this new role, but now they have enthusiasm," says John Feeley, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. "Judges are going to be the linchpin in this."

Another key area is the Mexican police. Experts believe most drug-related crime in Mexico is never reported because the populace mistrusts the police. Such problems were on full view last month when members of the Federal Police wounded two U.S. government employees after opening fire on their car in the hills outside of Mexico City. The police say they mistook the car for that of fugitive kidnappers they were looking for.

The U.S. is trying to avoid incidents like that in the future by taking a hand in training the police themselves.

A Mexican police academy in the central state of San Luis Potosí is now partially staffed by American law enforcement agents who have trained more than 4,500 federal police. Mr. Feeley says the program is being expanded to develop similar academies that will work with state and local police in other Mexican states. Spanish-speaking U.S. agents from border states now work with the Mexicans and the U.S. even hired the former director of Colorado's state penitentiary system to give classes to Mexican corrections officers.

Still, both the U.S. and Mexico agree that no amount of training will solve crime problems if corruption remains in institutions such as the police and judiciary.

Despite the collaboration, one reality can't be avoided when the leaders meet Tuesday: Mexico still has a long way to go in this second phase of the drug war.

Eric L. Olson, a Mexico expert at Washington think-tank the Wilson Center went to an oral trial in Morelos, one of the first adopters of the new system, and says the hearings reached an awkward moment where a judge was scolding the attorneys for wanting to read from sheets rather than argue properly.

Mr. Olson says the proceedings were a step in the right direction, even if there are missteps. Still, he says: "Both sides have always had difficulty defining what the criteria for success are," he says. "That has not happened yet."

Write to Nicholas Casey at nicholas.casey@wsj.com
Title: LO sale del PRD para establecer MORENA
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 18, 2012, 02:45:57 PM
second post:

Networked Intelligence | 18 September 2012

MEXICO - López Obrador leaves PRD to create new party

On 9 September 2012, defeated presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced in Mexico City that he would leave the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) in order to focus on turning his social project, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), into a political party.


Dado su politica izquierdista y que su fuerza politica esta' en el sur, se supone que el nombre del partido no es un accidente.  Aunque la logica es obvia desde cierto punto de vista, en mi opinion tambien fomenta tensiones raciales.  No sorprende que el lo haga, lo menciono, no mas.

 
Title: Univsion investiga "Fast & Furious"
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 01, 2012, 09:29:08 AM
El clip que se encuentra aqui esta' en espanol.

http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/57-previously-undiscovered-fast-furious-guns-mexican-crimes/story?id=17361775
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 02, 2012, 10:20:30 PM
He aqui el programa completo en espanol  http://videos.univision.com/programas/aqui-y-ahora/video/2012-10-01/operation-fast-and-furious-arming-the-enemy
Title: National Review: Univision hace su tarea (homework)
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 04, 2012, 12:44:52 PM

---Quote---
*Univision Does Its Homework* (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/329145/univision-does-its-homework-john-g-malcolm)
By John G. Malcolm
October 3, 2012 4:00 A.M.


Univision has done some outstanding investigative reporting on Operation Fast and Furious, the ill-conceived and disastrously executed gun-smuggling operation that was designed to identify the kingpins of a Mexican firearms-trafficking network but resulted in the transfer of approximately 2,000 high-powered weapons into the hands of dangerous thugs connected with the drug cartels. A recently issued report from the Justice Department’s inspector general criticizes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, and senior DOJ officials for their roles in this botched investi*gation. The report cites “a series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment, and management failures that permeated ATF Headquarters and the Phoenix Field Division, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

President Obama remains in denial about Fast and Furious. When asked about it two weeks ago, he responded: “Well, first of all, I think it’s important to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program, begun under the previous administration. When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it.” This is wrong on two counts. First, Operation Fast and Furious began in the fall of 2009, under the current administration. Second, it ended on December 15, 2010, the day it was discovered that two Fast and Furious weapons were found at the scene where U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered. That was two full months before Attorney General Eric Holder claims to have known about the operation.

Operation Fast and Furious began in 2009, after federally licensed firearms dealers informed ATF that several individuals were purchasing large quantities of AK-47-style rifles and FN 5.7 caliber pistols. These pistols are known as “cop killers” in Mexico because the bullets fired from them can penetrate the Kevlar vests worn by law-enforcement authorities. At the time, the northern Mexican states were a veritable battlefield, where the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels were fighting for control and the increasingly powerful Zetas were seeking to enlarge their territory. ATF encouraged gun-store owners to continue selling to the straw purchasers it was monitoring to avoid alerting the criminals to the presence of law enforcement.

Former Mexican attorney general Victor Humberto Benítez Treviño estimates that approximately 300 Mexican citizens have been killed with Fast and Furious weapons, and hundreds of guns remain unaccounted for. Some victims had been identified even before the Univision report. For example, there was Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez — the brother of former Chihuahua state attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez — who was kidnapped by members of the Sinaloa drug cartel in October of 2010. His tortured body was later discovered in a shallow grave. Following a shootout with Rodriquez’s suspected kidnappers, Mexican police seized 16 weapons, two of which were traced to Operation Fast and Furious.

But Univision has made some startling new and tragic connections. On the night of September 2, 2009, twelve hit men, looking for members of the Sinaloa cartel and carrying AK-47s they had acquired thanks to Fast and Furious, forced open the main door of Casa Aliviane, a drug-rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juárez. Once inside, they sprayed the building with bullets. Of the 19 young recovering addicts, 18 were killed. The massacre was ordered by José Antonio Acosta Hernandez (also known as “El Diego”), the leader of La Linea, the enforcement arm of the Juárez cartel.

At the time, Acosta Hernandez was at war with José Antonio Torres Marrufo, an enforcer — he reportedly once skinned an enemy’s face to make a soccer ball — close to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel. When Mexican authorities captured Marrufo in February 2012, they found a cache of guns that included powerful anti-aircraft weapons, as well as firearms linked to Operation Fast and Furious.

According to Univision, Acosta Hernandez was behind another bloodbath involving Fast and Furious guns. On January 30, 2010, a commando unit of at least 20 hit men parked outside a house in Ciudad Juárez. A birthday party of high-school and college students was going on inside, but Hernandez mistakenly thought it was occupied by members of the Sinaloa cartel. Around midnight, his men broke into the house and opened fire on nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who tried to escape. When the hit men fled, they left 16 young people dead and twelve others wounded. Three of the weapons used that night were traced to Operation Fast and Furious. When Acosta Hernandez was finally captured in July 2010, with Fast and Furious weapons in his possession, he confessed to Mexican authorities that he was responsible for nearly 1,500 murders.

And, as if letting 2,000 high-powered guns “walk” were not enough, it appears that the Obama administration launched other gun-walking operations as well. According to Univision, “weapons from [Florida-based] Operation Castaway ended up in the hands of criminals in Colombia, Honduras and Venezuela.” And the inspector general’s report states that his office is investigating “at least one other ATF [operation] . . . that involves an individual suspected of transporting grenade components into Mexico, converting them into live grenades, and then supplying them to drug cartels.”

The Mexican government has every right to be furious about this matter. If foreign law-enforcement agents had let nearly 2,000 weapons be delivered into the hands of U.S. gang-bangers — without any notice to or coordination with the feds — there would be serious repercussions.

Operation Fast and Furious is a disaster and a disgrace. Univision and the inspector general deserve credit for attempting to get to the bottom of this mess.

— John G. Malcolm is a senior legal fellow at the Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
---End Quote---
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 09, 2012, 08:38:40 PM
MEXICO - Federal police officers linked with Beltrán Leyva Cartel

On 3 October 2012, a U.S. Government Official told the Associated Press (AP) that there is strong circumstantial evidence that the federal police officers who fired at a U.S. Embassy car in Mexico, in which two CIA agents were wounded, worked for organized crime. He further asserted that the ambush could have been a targeted assassination attempt. A Mexican official confirmed to AP that prosecutors are investigating whether the Beltrán Leyva Cartel was behind the 24 August 2012 attack.

MEXICO - Peña Nieto to end Pemex control of refining, exploration

On 5 October 2012, Ildefonso Guajardo, Coordinator of Business Relations with President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto’s transition team, told Bloomberg that Peña Nieto wants to break state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos’ (Pemex) monopoly on oil refining and exploration. The President-elect is considering legislation that would not involve the two-thirds congressional majority needed for constitutional changes.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 12, 2012, 08:18:50 AM
Mexico's Election Spurs Policy Shifts
 

Summary
 



Though fierce intraparty fighting over the details of major reforms affecting labor, energy and politics will continue, the potential is emerging for negotiated agreements among Mexico's three major parties. Mexico's legislature has seen a flurry of activity on questions affecting the Mexican economy since the Institutional Revolutionary Party's candidate, former Mexico State Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto, won Mexico's July presidential election. The Chamber of Deputies has since passed major labor reforms -- reforms the Senate is likely to approve by Nov. 1. This represents a level of cooperation on policy issues absent for several years as Mexican politicians remained deadlocked over policy changes to deprive rival parties of any political advantage ahead of the 2012 elections. The new dynamic should continue for several years into Pena Nieto's administration, during which time the government will tackle major questions that will shape Mexico's economic and political future.
 


Analysis
 
The Mexican Senate is currently debating a bill already approved by the Chamber of Deputies that would make important changes to Mexico's labor laws. The changes would update labor regulations for the first time since the 1970s, introducing more modern protections for workers while easing the burden that outdated labor laws place on employers in Mexico. The legislation stops short of changing Mexico's complex constitutional labor strictures, instead focusing on changing laws, which can be altered more easily. The difficulty of changing the constitution means major union reforms have been postponed.
 
Although there are disagreements on the details of how reform should be implemented, a consensus has emerged that a host of major reforms are needed. Although Mexico is already in an advantageous position given its proximity to the U.S. consumer market, labor reforms should make it even easier for Mexico to attract foreign investment. With wages rising in China's coastal manufacturing zones, low-to-medium end manufacturing firms are looking for more cost-effective locations. Some of this investment is moving into the Chinese interior, but much is moving into emerging economies all over the world, including Mexico. The Mexican government has made strong efforts to attract such investment, efforts that the new administration will redouble -- making this a moment of strategic significance for Mexico.
 
Among other reforms, some of which are highly controversial, the changes would allow companies to hire and fire employees more easily. Regulations on severance pay would be loosened, with employers no longer required to guarantee payouts to employees fired for violating workplace standards. On the flipside, the law will also increase penalties on companies that violate labor regulations and will establish protection from sexual harassment for workers. Another important reform would allow companies to offer performance-based promotions instead of purely seniority-based promotions and to grant performance-based bonuses. 

 






.
 

One important area still under heated negotiation relates to regulations that would alter the way unions elect their leadership. In initial discussions, the National Action Party of outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon had proposed that unions be required to elect their leadership via free, direct and secret ballot processes. The laws currently under discussion, however, would permit unions to set their own leadership election processes. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, which historically has had close ties to Mexico's unions, backed the withdrawal of union transparency regulations. 


 
As the party that ruled Mexico for 70 years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party was instrumental in shaping Mexico's political landscape. With little in the way of competition among political parties, it operated as the political power broker, building corporatist structures over time that bound Mexico's many social and economic sectors together. This policy of inclusive politics played an important role in keeping Mexico relatively stable for decades. The rise of secondary parties and political competition, including the National Action Party on the right and the Revolutionary Democratic Party on the left, during the 1990s led to National Action Party candidate Vicente Fox's 2000 presidential win. This altered the political landscape in Mexico, introducing greater political competition and in many cases, political deadlock, as the parties competed for influence across Mexican society. 


 
Though Mexican politics is more pluralistic than before the National Action Party first won the presidency, key aspects of Institutional Revolutionary Party influence remain, such as its links to the country's powerful unions. These include the Mexican National Education Workers' Union, whose leader, Elba Esther, backed Pena Nieto ahead of the July election. They also include the powerful Petroleos Mexicanos oil workers' union, whose leader was recently elected to the Mexican Senate as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
 
Energy and Democratic Reforms

 
Beyond labor, the increase in dynamism in Mexican politics means that Mexican parties may be able to make significant changes on other major issues. Energy reform is the most important issue the country faces. Petroleum output, which funds between 30 percent and 40 percent of Mexico's federal budget and accounts for 16 percent of Mexico's export revenue, has been steadily declining. Oil production slipped from 3.8 million barrels per day in 2004 to 3 million barrels per day in 2011. Although exploration has increased, Petroleos Mexicanos will need significant foreign expertise and capital to find and develop fields, which most likely will be concentrated offshore. This could take years to yield results, leaving Mexico's government facing an uncertain fiscal future.
 
The main steps needed to reform Mexico's energy sector would entail revising the constitution, for which the Institutional Revolutionary Party would need to garner support from at least two-thirds of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies plus the approval of a majority of Mexico's state legislatures. But the Institutional Revolutionary Party did not win even a simple majority of federal legislature seats in the July elections. If it can obtain votes from the National Action Party along with those of two smaller parties (Mexico's Green Party and the New Alliance Party), constitutional approval at the federal level still could be possible. With 19 out of 31 governorships, the Institutional Revolutionary Party might also be able to push through the constitutional revision at the state level. Accomplishing both of these steps will not be easy, meaning the party probably will focus most of its efforts on non-constitutional legal reforms that require only a simple majority at the federal level.
 
Other more obscure, but equally important, reforms could be on the table, including measures loosening term limits. This would represent a major change to Mexico's political structure. By giving them a chance to win re-election, Mexican legislators might become more accountable to voters. It also would introduce more continuity to the political system, facilitating Mexico's transition to a democratic system for decades to come.
 
Whether any of these changes comes to pass depends on negotiations among a group of notoriously fractious parties. Still, with the electoral calendar cleared for the next three years and the Institutional Revolutionary Party holding the presidency, the next several years should see important shifts in how Mexico operates.
.

Read more: Mexico's Election Spurs Policy Shifts | Stratfor
Title: Death of Zetas leader
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 12, 2012, 09:16:15 AM
Mexico Security Memo: The Death of Los Zetas' Top Leader
October 10, 2012 | 1015 GMT
Stratfor
 
On Oct. 8, the Mexican navy reported that Los Zetas leader Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano was one of two men killed in a shootout Oct. 7 in Progreso, Coahuila state. After Progreso residents warned of organized crime activity, navy elements began patrolling the area and were attacked by armed men.
 
Less than 24 hours later, during the early morning hours of Oct. 8, the presumed body of Lazcano was stolen from a funeral home in Sabinas, Coahuila state. Local authorities reportedly had conducted preliminary forensics, including taking photographs and fingerprints. The fact that the navy allowed local authorities to conduct verification and did not protect the body is certainly anomalous. Also, Lazcano's biometrics according to the U.S. Department of Justice do not match those of the dead body. The Department of Justice reports that Lazcano is 5 feet 8 inches tall, but the Mexican navy said the body was 5 feet 2 inches tall. With discrepancies in reporting and the disappearance of the body, speculation over whether Lazcano is truly dead will likely ensue. However, given Los Zetas' resiliency after past leadership losses and the transition in top leadership from Lazcano to Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, there will not likely be any significant setbacks in Los Zetas' operations, regardless of whether Lazcano was killed.

Because ex-military personnel formed Los Zetas, members tend to move up in the group's hierarchy through merit rather than through familial connections, and members are groomed to step into leadership when the need arises. This contrasts starkly with the culture of other cartels, including the Sinaloa Federation. Because of its relative meritocracy, Los Zetas are somewhat more prepared for loss of significant leaders. The transition in leadership from Lazcano to Trevino demonstrates the group's efficiency in replacing top leadership. While it is still not certain whether Lazcano resisted Trevino's ascending to the top role within the organization, the transition did not hinder the organization significantly.
 
Whether Lazcano died during the shootout with the Mexican military, Los Zetas operations will continue as observed in recent months. The flow of illicit drugs into the United States from Mexico's northeastern region will continue, particularly in Los Zetas' most valued plaza of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. Los Zetas are still engaged in violent turf wars with the Gulf cartel and remnants of Velazquez's network in the northeast and with the Sinaloa Federation, the Knights Templar and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in the central states, most notably in Guadalajara, Jalisco state. Lazcano's death could escalate violence in Zetas-controlled territories, such as Coahuila state, should they retaliate for the loss of such an influential figure or perceive a betrayal from within the organization.
 
If the Mexican navy's claims are accurate, the death of Lazcano would solidify Trevino's top leadership role within Los Zetas. However, Lazcano's death will likely increase law enforcement and military pressure on Trevino. Having removed Lazcano, both Mexican and U.S. authorities will have the opportunity to increase focus on Los Zetas' top leaders, and Trevino is now the highest-profile target within the organization.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Print 2 0 5 3 .

Read more: Mexico Security Memo: The Death of Los Zetas' Top Leader | Stratfor
Title: No era Z42, pero un comandante que se muere
Post by: DDF on October 28, 2012, 03:22:55 PM
http://www.blogdelnarco.com/2012/10/no-era-el-el-z-42-el-abatido-en-zacatecas-era-el-comandante-king-kong/#more-16051
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 29, 2012, 05:32:08 AM
Editor's Note: In this interim report on Mexico's drug cartels, we assess important developments in the drug war during the third quarter of 2012 and explain what they could mean for the rest of the year.
 
Many of the broader trends discussed in our annual and quarterly cartel updates continued through the third quarter. In particular, the polarized nationwide conflict between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation apparently went on. This conflict could be complicated if the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, once under the control of the Sinaloa Federation, was to act independently. Los Zetas, now led by Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, continued to fight against other criminal organizations aligned with the Sinaloa Federation, namely the Knights Templar, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Gulf cartel. The Sinaloa Federation continued to defend its strongholds, including northern Sinaloa state and Jalisco state, from Los Zetas and Zetas allies. The third quarter saw no new turf wars, but incursions that began in previous quarters continued, and indicators of a potential challenge to the Sinaloa Federation in northern Sonora state emerged from an unidentified organization.
 
Northeastern Mexico saw significant upheaval during the past quarter due to several key events within Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel. These events included some of the most notable operations by Mexico's law enforcement and military since the December 2009 killing of top Beltran Leyva Organization leader Arturo Beltran Leyva. With just one quarter of 2012 remaining, overall levels of violence in Mexico look set to be lower than in 2011. January through August 2012 saw 14,070 homicides compared to 15,331 homicides during the same period in 2011, though 2010 saw just 11,942 reported homicides during the same period. Recent shifts involving Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar, however, could cause the rate of violence to increase during the fourth quarter.
 

The quarter will also see the inauguration of Mexico's next president, Enrique Pena Nieto, on Dec. 1. Pena Nieto has discussed plans to reduce overall violence by 50 percent in the first year of his presidency by creating a national gendarmerie, transferring military troops to the federal police and honing the military's focus on violent crimes. Whether those plans will be pursued remains to be seen, and any significant shifts in military and law enforcement policies probably will not occur until 2013.
 
The Rise of Trevino and Demise of Lazcano
 
During the third quarter, the ascendancy of Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, formerly the second in command of Los Zetas, to the top spot over Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano became public. Trevino likely assumed control over the course of the first half of 2012. In the first quarter of 2012, Trevino became the focus of anti-Zetas messages posted by rival cartels, particularly in Nuevo Laredo in March. Mexican media outlets -- some citing unnamed government sources -- began referring to Trevino as the new leader of Los Zetas during August. As Stratfor sources confirmed during the third quarter, Trevino had surpassed Lazcano to attain control of one of Mexico's pre-eminent cartels.
 
Government officials and media outlets began reporting on a rivalry between the two top leaders in July, a rift that inevitably would have significant repercussions for the security situation throughout Mexico. The third quarter did not see the kind of violence one would expect when two top cartel leaders were engaged in open warfare, causing Stratfor to discount claims of their rivalry.
 






.
 Adding to our doubts about the reports, narcomantas were posted in Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas states during June and July, after former Zetas plaza boss Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero split from Los Zetas to ally with Los Zetas' principle enemy in the northeast, the Gulf cartel. These banners called Lazcano and Trevino traitors to Zetas plaza bosses. This suggested that rivals, possibly including Velazquez, saw Trevino and Lazcano as enemies, contradicting media reports that the organization was split into just two factions.
 
Whether a split between Lazcano and Trevino existed, the death of Lazcano on Oct. 7 in Progreso, Coahuila state, solidified Trevino's position within Los Zetas. His killing marks the most notable demise of a criminal leader in Mexico in almost three years, and perhaps the most notable during the entire Calderon presidency.
 
For the remaining quarter of 2012, the flow of illicit drugs into the United States from Los Zetas' stronghold in northeastern Mexico will continue. The fourth quarter could also see increased violence. Lazcano's closest supporters will seek revenge for their leader's killing, whether against the navy elements who took part in his death or against any perceived as traitors who led Mexican forces to Lazcano.
 
Rival groups could attempt to capitalize on Lazcano's death through an information operations campaign designed to subvert Los Zetas' organizational structure by portraying the group as weakened or by sowing distrust by emphasizing claims that Lazcano was betrayed. Either way, Los Zetas remain engaged in violent turf wars with the Gulf cartel and remnants of Velazquez's network in the northeast as well as with the Sinaloa Federation, the Knights Templar and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in the central states, most notably in Guadalajara, Jalisco state.
 
Other Developments Regarding Los Zetas
 
Los Zetas experienced the most tumultuous quarter of all of Mexico's cartels. Former Zetas plaza boss Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero declared war against Trevino and Los Zetas and announced his alliance with the Knights Templar and the Gulf cartel. The resulting split drastically increased violence in Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi states. Although the Mexican navy arrested Velazquez on Sept. 26 in San Luis Potosi state, we expect the violence in the states affected by his split to continue while Los Zetas battle remnants of Velazquez's network.
 
Though other notable arrests occurred during the quarter, such as that of Salvador Alfonso "El Ardilla" Martinez Escobedo on Oct. 6 in Nuevo Laredo, none will significantly impact the organization. Authorities attribute a series of high-profile crimes to Martinez, including the August 2010 killing of 72 migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas state, the September 2010 killing of U.S. citizen David Hartley on Falcon Lake in Texas and the September 2012 prison escape in Piedras Negras, Coahuila state.
 
Countering these setbacks, military operations and other criminal groups' actions against Los Zetas' rivals have provided significant advantages to Los Zetas. The series of military arrests of mid- to high-level Gulf cartel leaders and the arrest of senior Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion leaders in Guadalajara stand out in this regard.
 
Gulf Cartel
 
During 2011, the Gulf cartel suffered from an internal rivalry between two factions known as Los Rojos and Los Metros, which suggested the group would decline in influence in 2012. Instead, a resurgence in activity directed against Los Zetas in the northeast during the second and third quarter suggested a revival in the group's fortunes. This rally led to significantly increased violence in the northeast, particularly in Tamaulipas state and Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.
 
But during September, a series of significant Gulf cartel arrests apparently stymied the group's recovery. Mexican authorities detained the Gulf cartel plaza boss for Monterrey. Federal police arrested Juan Gabriel "El Sierra" Montes Sermeno, a plaza boss overseeing Gulf cartel operations in southern Tamaulipas state. In addition, the Mexican navy detained Mario Cardenas Guillen, brother of former top Gulf leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen, and Jorge Eduardo "El Coss" Costilla Sanchez, leader of the Gulf cartel in Tampico, Tamaulipas state. Until the death of Lazcano, this was the most significant military success for 2012.
 
Whether the cartel will continue to operate as a cohesive organization following these rapid losses is uncertain. The arrests will likely prompt further violence in the fourth quarter, since Los Zetas may capitalize on the Gulf cartel's perceived weakness and refocus their efforts on contested turf like Monterrey, Ciudad Victoria and Matamoros. The arrests also may spark additional internal rivalries for control of the organization.
 
Sinaloa Federation
 
The Sinaloa Federation saw perhaps the least change among Mexico's cartels during the third quarter. Sinaloa continues to use other criminal organizations like the Gulf cartel in Nuevo Laredo and the Knights Templar and perhaps the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in the central states to assault and defend against their principle rival, Los Zetas. The series of Gulf cartel arrests during the third quarter will likely benefit Los Zetas at the Sinaloa Federation's expense in the northeast.
 
The Sinaloa Federation continues largely to control the lucrative drug corridor in Chihuahua state. It gained the dominant position there after a violent conflict that began in 2008 with the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization, also known as the Juarez cartel, for control over the plaza in Ciudad Juarez. Violence in Ciudad Juarez and the city of Chihuahua continues to decline as Sinaloa consolidates its control of the plaza. According to the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Public Security, Chihuahua state saw just 1,538 reported homicides from January to August 2012 versus 2,169 in the same period of 2011.
 
Even as the Sinaloa Federation largely appears to have gained control over Chihuahua state, it is still defending other important territories against Zetas incursions, namely Guadalajara. Sinaloa also faces an emerging challenge in northern Sonora state -- where much of the organizations' marijuana and other illicit drugs flow into the United States.
 
The Sinaloa Federation largely has controlled the northern half of Sonora state since seizing it from the splintering Beltran Leyva Organization in 2010. The first indications that the Sinaloa Federation faced a challenge in Sonora appeared in the northern half of the state in July, when the brother of Raul "El Negro" Sabori Cisneros, a former Sinaloa Federation lieutenant, was killed in a shootout between two rival groups of gunmen in Puerto Penasco. Indications of violence and tension associated with organized crime have since continued to emerge.
 
It still is not certain what has caused the recent violence in northern Sonora state. It could be the result of activity by local gangs or by Sinaloa Federation rivals like Los Zetas or splinter groups from the former Beltran Leyva Organization, which operate in adjacent territories such as southern Sonora and western Chihuahua states. Should a rival challenge the Sinaloa Federation for control of the trafficking corridor in Sonora state, the violence will likely continue.
 
Either way, it does not appear the Sinaloa Federation is at risk of losing any control at present. Northern Sonora state has a relatively sparse population, making widespread violence less opportune than in more densely populated regions. Because those communities are small, the violence would be more visible and more likely to impact the overall security environment of those areas.
 
The Sinaloa Federation did suffer some notable losses due to military and law enforcement operations in the third quarter. An Oct. 11 shootout between gunmen and the Mexican army in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, resulted in the death of Manuel "M-1" Torres Felix, a high-level hit man for both Sinaloa Federation leaders Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Guzman. While the impact of Torres' death remains uncertain, he likely would have been responsible for defending against challenges to the Sinaloa Federation in northern Sinaloa state from rival groups. We therefore will be looking for indicators of increasing violence and weakness on the part of the Sinaloa cartel.
 
Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion
 
The rapid territorial expansion of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion seen during the first half of 2012 appeared to stall during the third quarter. Although the group continued its ongoing turf wars with Los Zetas and the Knights Templar during the third quarter, no indications it enjoyed significant successes emerged. As noted during the second quarterly update, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion may be ending its alignment with the Sinaloa Federation. Additional indications of this shift appeared during the third quarter.
 
With Mexico's drug war defined at a national level by the Los Zetas-Sinaloa Federation conflict, many smaller criminal organizations in Mexico sought a working relationship with either Los Zetas or the Sinaloa Federation.
 
Of these smaller groups, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion has rapidly grown into a major criminal organization since 2011. It now operates along both the western and eastern coasts of Mexico in crucial locations for the transport of illicit drugs and shipments of precursor chemicals. Given its extensive territory, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion could carve out a niche as a separate major cartel on turf it originally secured with Sinaloa backing to aid Sinaloa operations.
 
The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion experienced increased law enforcement pressure in Jalisco state during the third quarter. Its response to the government's targeting organized criminals in Guadalajara and Ciudad Guzman demonstrated the organization's capability to mount coordinated violence over a wide geographic area. On Aug. 25-26, gunmen established at least 26 roadblocks by setting hijacked vehicles on fire in roadways throughout Jalisco state, including in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta and Ciudad Guzman, as well as locations in Colima state.
 
Jalisco state authorities said Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, a top leader of Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, managed to evade arrest due to the roadblock campaign. Even so, authorities attained some successes during their operations, including the arrest of four Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion members operating under Jose Javier Ramirez Chavez, a high-level leader in Ciudad Guzman. A week later, authorities in Ciudad Guzman detained Ramirez. The most notable arrests by Mexican authorities occurred Sept. 6 in Guadalajara, Jalisco state, when Ramon "El R-1" and Rafael "El R-2" Alvarez Ayala, two Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion leaders working directly with top leader Oseguera Cervantes, were detained.
 
Knights Templar
 
The Knights Templar continued their turf war with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in addition to their conflict with La Familia Michoacana and Los Zetas. These conflicts in Mexico's central states have led to increased violence, particularly in Guanajuato state.
 
The Knights Templar have become increasingly public about their conflict with Los Zetas, particularly in relation to Trevino. For example, a video message released on the Internet in August from top Knights Templar leader Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez discussed the organization's ongoing feud with Los Zetas.
 
While there have been no explicit indications of expanding violence between the two organizations, it is certainly possible that the Knights Templar will begin assaulting Los Zetas in the latter's strongholds during the fourth quarter. Authorities discovered several narcomantas Oct. 1 in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, ostensibly signed by the Knights Templar. If they are in fact planning an assault on Los Zetas in Monterrey, this would obviously affect the security situation there during the fourth quarter.
 
Authorities have targeted lower-level Knights Templar members in response to brazen acts of coordinated violence by the group. These include the arson attacks on installations and delivery trucks of Sabritas, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, during May in various parts of Michoacan and Guanajuato and the coordinated attacks against fuel stations Aug. 10 in Guanajuato state. In response, authorities detained at least 20 Knights Templar members Sept. 13 in San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato state, in connection to both series of attacks. Such arrests, however, will likely have a minimal impact on the group due to the low-level status of those arrested.
 
Other Groups
 
Many other lesser criminal groups have remained unchanged in their operational status, such as La Familia Michoacana, the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, La Barredora and the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization. While still operational in Mexico, these groups have a minimal impact on security compared to Mexico's main cartels.
 
La Familia Michoacana continued its turf war with the Knights Templar. Despite its efforts, La Familia Michoacana has never regained the status it lost when the Knights Templar split from them in January 2011.
 
Though the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization has mostly lost control of Ciudad Juarez and the city of Chihuahua to the Sinaloa Federation, the group remains operational outside both cities. In addition to facing new violence in northern Sinaloa and western Chihuahua along with its current allies, Los Zetas, the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization continues to suffer at the hands of law enforcement and military operations. Most recently, on Oct. 4 federal police captured La Linea leader Juan Carlos "El Sabritas" Sandoval Seanez and six other members of La Linea -- an enforcer group for the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization.
 
Outside of arrests, little activity was reported during the third quarter regarding La Barredora and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, splinter groups from the old Beltran Leyva Organization. Their operations appear to remain focused around Acapulco. On Oct. 1, authorities discovered dismembered human remains in Acapulco along with a narcomanta directed against the Independent Cartel of Acapulco's presumed leader, Victor Aguirre, ostensibly signed by the Gulf cartel. The incident might indicate a new conflict between the Gulf cartel and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco to watch for during the fourth quarter.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


Read more: Mexican Drug War Update: Fourth Quarter | Stratfor
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on October 29, 2012, 07:34:13 PM


The quarter will also see the inauguration of Mexico's next president, Enrique Pena Nieto, on Dec. 1. Pena Nieto has discussed plans to reduce overall violence by 50 percent in the first year of his presidency by creating a national gendarmerie, transferring military troops to the federal police and honing the military's focus on violent crimes. Whether those plans will be pursued remains to be seen, and any significant shifts in military and law enforcement policies probably will not occur until 2013.
 


I am certain they are taking Nieto's approach to a national gendarmerie very seriously.
Generally, many of the Municipal and Ministerial police are aligned with organized crime, especially the Municipales. They call them Polizetas and there is much truth to it.
As of late, they are changing all of the police and or agents here to being "Acreditables" which is trained more or less in SWAT tactics, even at the municipal level, but more importantly, each needing to put in their training at one of a few select military bases and pass extensive confidence tests in addition to polygraph tests.
At the end of that, they will be sent back to their respective bases, or if working at a State or Federal level, will be sent to one of three groups depending upon their level of education and or specialty; be it Operativos, Investigaciones, or Tacticos... the latter two requiring at least a Bachelors degree or Masters degree respectively.

There is much to be done in the way of combatting corruption, but it is easy to say that the selection process just got much steeper, and that even as this is being typed, there are former police officers being fired in droves; of which, I am certain when Nieto starts spending 60% of the budget on combatting this war, and that little of that money being reinvested in the economy, that the former agents and officers will seek work at the hands of the cartels. We will have to wait and see how that goes.

On other levels, the amount of cooperation between military, state, and federal agencies has been improving and often, the three even work on missions together.

Things are getting worse in Mexico, but at the same time, it is leading to Mexico becoming a better country with less lawlessness. It is the course that needs to be followed and IMO Nieto is correct in his approach.
Title: POTH: Zetas take over Coahuila
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 04, 2012, 11:28:55 AM


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-zetas-control-20121104,0,4077102,full.story
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 05, 2012, 08:09:29 AM
Violence Continues in Coahuila and Zacatecas States
 
Violence between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas continues in Zacatecas and Coahuila states. On Dec. 2, seven dismembered male bodies packed in six plastic bags were found on an abandoned property in the Obispado neighborhood of Torreon, Coahuila state, and another male body was found on Revolucion Boulevard. Additionally, attacks in Torreon against law enforcement have been increasing since October. The most recent incident occurred Nov. 30, when armed men killed two municipal police officers in Jardin neighborhood.
 





.
 
On Dec. 1 in Zacatecas, Zacatecas state, authorities discovered five male bodies in two separate locations along with messages at each location allegedly authored by the Gulf cartel, claiming responsibility for the homicides and threatening members of Los Zetas. While the Gulf cartel has suffered significant losses in 2012 through military operations and Los Zetas assaults in states such as Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, the Gulf cartel has had a resurgence farther west in Coahuila and Zacatecas states. This resurgence was due in part to its alliance with former Los Zetas' regional plaza boss of Zacatecas, Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero, and also likely the support of the Sinaloa Federation.
 
It is not likely either state will see a reduction in the current level of violence in the short term, since rival groups maintain their numbers of gunmen capable of carrying out violent acts. At the moment, it is not certain if either group has achieved the upper hand. Neither Coahuila nor Zacatecas state has been entirely controlled by one criminal organization before, so recent violence does not reflect an incursion by a criminal organization as much as an increased focus for control by one side.
 
New Police for Monterrey
 
Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, a city valued by drug traffickers as a transportation hub and source of local revenue, experienced a sharp increase in violence when Los Zetas split from the Gulf cartel in 2010. As the two organizations became rivals, Monterrey became a frequent battleground resulting in inter-cartel violence and increasing pressure on law enforcement. In addition to this pressure, like many cities in Mexico, law enforcement is also subject to corruption efforts by the two competing cartels.
 
On Nov. 29, Monterrey Mayor Margarita Arellanes announced the "new" municipal police in Monterrey, with freshly acquired recruits beginning operations. the existing municipal police force is simply undergoing new recruitment and competency exams and changing its name from "Police Regia" to "Police Municipal de Monterrey." Mexico's navy trained approximately 500 recent police recruits, none of whom were from Monterrey, for introduction into Monterrey's law enforcement.
 
Reforming Monterrey's police body will likely have some drawbacks for security in the city. Since the incoming recruits are intended to replace existing police in the city, many current police officers will become unemployed, presenting opportunities for both the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas to recruit new gunmen as part of their ongoing turf war. Additionally, the same environment, which can corrupt active duty police, will exist for any incoming recruits. Given the organization's jurisdiction, any benefits of the reformation would affect only the Monterrey municipality and not the remaining municipalities of the greater metropolitan area.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region and designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Coahuila and Zacatecas States See Sustained Violence | Stratfor
Title: A fight for Sierra Madre Occidental
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 12, 2012, 04:39:25 AM
Territorial Exchanges in Chihuahua State
 
On Dec. 7, a group of gunmen entered Guadalupe y Calvo, a small town in southwest Chihuahua state, and began a spree of violence that lasted through the weekend. Residents said the assailants, who reportedly killed at least 11 people, took control of the town by blocking its main roads and searched for people to execute inside homes. The gunmen reportedly belonged to a group that had broken away from the Sinaloa Federation. While the involvement of such a splinter group is uncertain, Stratfor believes the attacks were likely linked to an ongoing fight for control over Mexico's "Golden Triangle" -- a region of the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains responsible for high levels of drug production, particularly marijuana and opium -- in which Sinaloa has played a central role.
 
The incident in Guadalupe y Calvo reflected a dynamic that has become common in the Golden Triangle, where rival organizations have been struggling for control over towns and where several similar episodes of violence have occurred in recent months. On Aug. 16, for example, gunmen shot and killed the police chief of Guadalupe y Calvo. Two days later, the town's entire police force fled the area in response to additional threats by the gunmen, forcing the Mexican military and state law enforcement to intervene.
 






.
 
Much of the violence can be linked to the Sinaloa Federation's struggle for control in the Golden Triangle, in part because the organization is fighting several smaller groups in the region, most notably La Linea and Los Mazatlecos -- two groups allied with Los Zetas. While the culprits of the Dec. 7 attacks in Guadalupe y Calvo have not been identified, Stratfor believes that responsibility lies with one of these groups -- if not the Sinaloa splinter group.
 
For the Sinaloa Federation, the struggle highlights the difficulty the organization has had in maintaining control over regional transportation routes and drug production. And the prolonged nature of the regional conflicts indicates that Sinaloa's ongoing effort to uproot its rivals has been unsuccessful. Sinaloa's struggles could be perceived as insubstantial to the organization, since the organization still has one of the largest shares of the Mexican drug trade and has limited itself in the region to fighting Los Mazatlecos and La Linea. But given their relatively small size, the Sinaloa rivals rely heavily on revenues from drug production, and neither group can likely afford to stand down. Unless the Sinaloa Federation either escalates its efforts to remove its rivals or negotiates agreements with them, back-and-forth episodes of large-scale violence in southwest Chihuahua state will likely continue.
 
Murder of a Coahuila Mining Executive
 
On Dec. 7 in Sabinas, Coahuila state, authorities discovered the body of a mining business owner named Basilio Nino Ramos with a gunshot wound in his neck, signs of torture and his dismembered finger placed in his mouth -- a symbol used by cartels on victims believed to be informants, suggesting links to organized crime. Authorities have not named any possible culprits or motives for the killing, although the manners in which the victim was maimed and then left in a public area are common among killings by organized criminal groups.
 
While no evidence has been released clearly implicating Los Zetas in the murder, the cartel has allegedly been involved in Coahuila state's mining industry. Nino Ramos owned Minera La Mision, a coalmine operator in Muzquiz, Coahuila state, that has reportedly been one of several mining businesses under investigation by the Mexican attorney general's office on allegations of laundering money for the cartels. If the accusations are true, then Nino Ramos was probably in frequent contact with organized criminal groups to coordinate the illicit financial transactions and a plausible target for cartel-related violence.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region and designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: A Fight for the Sierra Madre Occidental | Stratfor
Title: Stratfor: Mexico Security Memo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 19, 2012, 02:34:02 PM


Stratfor
 
On Dec. 17, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and members of his Cabinet presented the new administration's plan for reducing nationwide violence and crime caused by Mexico's drug wars. Pena Nieto outlined six points, and within those points, he mentioned the creation of a national gendarmerie and the consolidation of state police forces under the federal command, neither of which was a surprising move.
 
By bringing the federal police under the control of the Interior Ministry, acquiring oversight of state police and substantially bolstering the ranks of federal law enforcement, Pena Nieto is addressing the challenges that arise for municipal and state law enforcement as they try to combat national level criminal groups without closer federal coordination. Increasing the number of federal police or establishing an additional law enforcement body also allows law enforcement in Mexico to better confront violent groups that act in several geographic areas. This could lead to greater intelligence sharing, funding and coordinated actions, though the outline lacked details, such as timelines and precise courses of action.
 





.
 
In 2010, there were approximately 32,000 federal police, 186,000 state police and 159,000 municipal police -- and correspondingly little federal coordination, creating significant challenges in law enforcement operations against nationally operating criminal organizations. Each state and municipal law enforcement body can confront nationally operating crime groups only within their respective geographic boundaries.
 
Increasing the federal government's coordination of law enforcement responsibilities at a state level will likely benefit the government's ability to deal with violence attributed to nationally operating organized criminal groups. But many of the problems afflicting Mexico's law enforcement remain -- primarily corruption and the lack of adequate funding or training.
 
Furthering the ability to coordinate law enforcement operations in Mexico would help the government confront violent groups on an inter-regional scale, but it would not solve these other outstanding issues. Additionally, the national gendarmerie or unified command has yet to be established and would probably not be operational in the next year. It is unlikely any tangible restructuring will take place in the short term since the process for establishing a command over state police has yet to be expressed in detail. Therefore, while plans to expand federal law enforcement oversight in Mexico could stem the violent actions of the cartels, the plans likely will not have an impact on security until after 2013.
 
Editor's Note: As an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, we now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, which provides more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. If you are interested in learning about this new fee-based custom service, please contact aboutmsm@stratfor.com.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Plans to Strengthen Law Enforcement Coordination | Stratfor
Title: Projections
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 09, 2013, 02:48:53 PM
http://vimeo.com/57022172
Title: WSJ: Mexico's masked vigilantes defy drug gangs
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 03, 2013, 11:35:11 AM
Mexico's Masked Vigilantes Defy Drug Gangs—And the Law .
By NICHOLAS CASEY
 
For years, villages in rural Mexico have been terrorized by drug gangs and organized crime groups. Now, armed militias are taking control--running patrols, raiding the homes of suspected mafia and detaining prisoners. WSJ's Nick Casey reports.
.
AYUTLA, Mexico—Masked men, rifles slung over their shoulders, stand guard on a lonely rural road, checking IDs and questioning travelers. They wear no uniforms, flash no badges, but they are the law here now.

A dozen villages in the area have risen up in armed revolt against local drug traffickers that have terrorized the region and a government that residents say is incapable of protecting them from organized crime.

 
Ranchers in Tecoanapa, near Ayutla, voted Sunday in favor of having local militiamen provide security.
..
The villages in the hilly southern Mexican state of Guerrero now forbid the Mexican army and state and federal police from entering. Ragtag militias carrying a motley arsenal of machetes, old hunting rifles and the occasional AR-15 semiautomatic rifle control the towns. Strangers aren't allowed entry. There is a 10 p.m. curfew. More than 50 prisoners, accused of being in drug gangs, sit in makeshift jails. Their fates hinge on public trials that began Thursday when the accused were arraigned before villagers, who will act as judge and jury.

Crime is way down—for the moment, at least. Residents say kidnapping ceased when the militias took charge, as did the extortions that had become the scourge of businessmen and farmers alike. The leader of one militia group, who uses the code name G-1 but was identified by his compatriots as Gonzalo Torres, puts it this way: "We brought order back to a place where there had been chaos. We were able to do in 15 days what the government was not able to do in years."

Yet a few shaken townspeople in Ayutla, the area's primary town, have stories of being arrested and held for more than a week before being deemed innocent and released. And one man was shot dead trying to escape the masked men at a checkpoint.

Village justice has long been part of life in rural Mexico. Now it's playing a growing role in the country's drug war. Across Mexico, from towns outside the capital to along the troubled border with the U.S., mobs have lynched suspected drug traffickers and shot those accused of aiding them. Last year a logging town in a neighboring state took up arms when traffickers of La Familia Michoacana, a drug cartel, attempted to lay claim to their forests.

The uprising around Ayutla, a two-hour drive from the resort city of Acapulco, differs from the others because it has started to spread locally. In the two weeks, bands in six other towns in Guerrero state have declared vigilante rule, including in Iguala, a city of 140,000. In the nearby Jalisco state, groups say they are considering similar action.

Some government officials are even siding with the militias, for now. Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre has met with the vigilantes and says state law gives villagers the right to self-rule. Ayutla's mayor, Severo Castro, says he welcomes the new groups. On a recent evening, he pointed toward a checkpoint blocks away and said the town is nearly crime-free for the first time in years.

"There are two police departments now," he said. "The ones in uniform and another masked one, which is much more brave."

That sentiment seems to be shared even among local police, who are still technically on duty but who now seem limited to the role of directing traffic around the central square, leaving the rest of the patrolling and police work to the militias.

Police Commander Juan Venancio, a broad-faced middle-aged man with a mustache, said local police are too afraid of organized crime to make arrests.

"We could arrest a gangster for extortion, but if we couldn't prove it, we'd have to let him go," he said. "But then what about our families? Do you think we're not scared they will take revenge on us if they are out? Of course we are scared."

In some ways, life is getting back to normal here after years of insecurity. Village rodeos attract young cowboys and girls in traditional dresses, and weddings stretch late into the evening. The same townspeople who were once extorted by drug gangs now bring melons and tamales to the militiamen standing guard at checkpoints.

Suspicion of the government and outsiders runs high here. During a visit by The Wall Street Journal last week to the nearby hamlet of Azozuca, rumor spread that the reporter's car was bringing state human-rights officials. An angry, stick-wielding mob of about 150 blocked the only road into town and didn't allow the reporter to enter.

"Get out of here! Don't take another step!" yelled a woman waving a wooden bat.

Remote villages in Guerrero, one of Mexico's most independent regions, had long complained that too few police looked after their towns. In 1995, the state passed a law allowing towns to form "community police" groups that worked much like neighborhood-watch organizations, permitting the groups to detain suspects and hand them over to authorities. But the laws didn't allow the groups to pass judgment on those accused.

By 2006, Mexico's drug war had begun to weaken its already-troubled institutions. Areas like Mexico City remained under tight control, but the power of the state in rural areas diminished. Some 65,000 Mexicans have been killed since 2006, but only a fraction of the killings have been solved—or even investigated, according to the government and legal experts.

"Mexico has a 2% conviction rate, and Mexicans have taken note of that," says Sergio Pastrana, a sociology professor at the College of Guerrero who has studied rural regions. "It's caused unrest and a determination among some to take the reins themselves."

Villagers in Ayutla say the town was never crime-free—bandits sometimes robbed horsemen riding the road, for example—but the specter of organized crime was something new.

Several years ago, a group known by villagers as Los Pelones—literally, the Bald Ones—entered Ayutla and began a racket which included both drugs and other crime, people here say.

Mr. Castro, the mayor, says his 19-year-old daughter was kidnapped two years ago and he paid a "large sum" for her release. Last July, the body of the town's police chief Óscar Suástegui was found in a garbage dump outside town. He had been shot 13 times. Authorities said it looked like the work of a criminal group. No arrests were made in either case.

Townspeople say Los Pelones moved into extortions last year, demanding protection money from those who ran stalls in the market adjoining Ayutla's central plaza. The payments were usually 500 pesos, or $40, a month per stall, according to several vendors, a large sum in the impoverished town.

As harvest season approached last fall, the group fanned out into the countryside, demanding monthly payments of 200 pesos, about $16, for each animal that farmers owned. Several farmers say the gang made a list of those who had agreed to pay and those who had not.

In November, a spate of kidnappings began. Gunmen in the village of Plan de Gatica captured the village commissioner, a kind of locally elected mayor, along with a priest in a nearby village who had refused to pay extortion fees for his church. A second commissioner was kidnapped in the village of Ahuacachahue in December. The three men eventually were released after ransoms were paid, villagers say.

When a village commissioner named Eusebio García was captured on Jan. 5, several dozen villagers from Rancho Nuevo grabbed weapons and formed a search party. The next morning, they found Mr. García in a nearby house with his kidnappers, who were arrested and jailed, say the militiamen.

"This was the turning point, the moment everything exploded here," says Bruno Placido, one of the leaders of the armed groups. "We had shown the power armed people have over organized-crime groups."

As word spread of Mr. García's release, farmers in villages around Ayutla also took up arms. Their plan: to descend into Ayutla, where they believed the rest of the Los Pelones gang was based. That night they raided numerous homes throughout Ayutla, arresting people they believed to be lookouts, drug dealers, kidnappers and hit men, and brought them to makeshift jails. Other villagers set up checkpoints across the town.

The vigilantes were now in charge. They instituted the curfew and declared that state and federal authorities would be turned away at checkpoints. Villagers were allowed to make accusations against others, anonymously, at the homes of militiamen.

The group ordered most schools shut down, saying Los Pelones might try to take children hostage in exchange for prisoners detained by the vigilantes.

"I hadn't seen anything quite like this before," says state Education Secretary Silvia Romero, who traveled to Ayutla after the initial uprising to negotiate for classes to resume. Some teachers agreed that suspending school was necessary until all top gang leaders were under lock and key. "The students were an easy target for the criminals," says teacher Ignacio Vargas.

Many schools have since reopened. The army, after negotiations, set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the region. Beyond that, the militiamen remain in control and no state or federal officials are permitted to enter the villages around Ayutla.

Townspeople interviewed recently said the masked men are ordinary farmers and businessmen, not rival criminals looking to oust Los Pelones. The mayor agrees. Still, Mr. Torres, the lead militiaman in Ayutla, acknowledged the risk of "spies from organized crime coming into our ranks." He said he encourages his men to turn in anyone seeking to join the vigilantes who might be linked to crime groups.

The militias are moving beyond the drug gangs to other alleged crimes and, in the process, are revealing some of the pitfalls of village justice.

On a recent day, two pickup trucks filled with masked men pulled up carrying bar owner Juan de Dios Acevedo. They alleged that Mr. Acevedo, 42, had been involved in the rape of a local woman. One of them pulled a shirt over his head while another bound his hands with rope. His mother and sister comforted him and cried.

As he was being bundled into one pickup, his mother fetched signed papers from the local prosecutor's office that said he had already been arrested for the same crime, and cleared by prosecutors. "This is a false accusation, and now I've been arrested for the second time," Mr. Acevedo protested.

The vigilantes were unmoved and took him away for questioning. Later that day, he was released unharmed.

A makeshift detention center run by villagers in El Mezón is home to two dozen men and women accused of being with Los Pelones. There is no budget to run the prison, villagers say. The prisoners eat donated tortillas and rice and sleep on cardboard on the floor. On a recent afternoon, seven men were clustered behind bars in a tiny, dark room that smelled of urine. It was hot and dirty. There were no visible signs of physical abuse.

The masked commander of the facility, who wouldn't give his name and declined to allow interviews with the prisoners, said the men are being treated well and will be given a chance to defend themselves in a public trial in the village. They won't be allowed lawyers, he said, and villagers will decide their sentences by a consensus vote.

Possible punishments include hard labor constructing roads and bridges in chain gangs, he said, although it will be up to the villagers, not the militia, to decide. He added that executions, which are not permitted under Mexican law even in murder cases, were not on the table.

"The village will be their judge," he said. "If the village saves you, you will be free. If not, then you are condemned."

Nightly raids of suspected drug traffickers have provided the militiamen with a clutch of high-powered weapons, including AR-15 rifles. It isn't clear how the men will be trained to use the weapons.

On Jan. 6, the night the checkpoints were erected, a man named Cutberto Luna was shot dead by the vigilantes, state authorities say. Mr. Torres, the Ayutla militia commander, says the man refused to stop at the checkpoint and opened fire on the men standing guard, who responded by firing back. He also alleges Mr. Luna was a "known leader of organized crime."

Members of Mr. Luna's family couldn't be located for comment. The state prosecutor's file on the case says Mr. Luna was a local taxi driver. The file makes no mention of organized-crime ties. No arrests have been made in the killing.

On a recent day, a group of militiamen in the village of Potreros discussed what lay ahead. A rancher in a nearby town was thought to have collected extortion money on behalf of the criminal gangs. Several militia members wanted to organize a raid to take back the money, then use it to buy ammunition. The men also discussed the merits of shooting on the spot criminals they believed to be guilty rather than taking them to village courts.

A vendor in the Ayutla town plaza is glad to have faced neither fate. He spent 14 days in the El Mezón jail but was released on Jan. 21, he said. The vendor said he was accused of helping an organized-crime member. In fact, he said, he was simply paying his 500 peso weekly extortion fee. He wasn't harmed in detention, he said, but got sick after he was given dirty water from a nearby pond to drink.

"Clearly I wasn't on the side of the bad guys," he said. "Still, I went to jail. The kind of psychological damage this does is great. Now I'm afraid they'll come back for me and cut off my finger or gouge out my eye."
Title: US halts rise of Mex general to Sec Def
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 05, 2013, 08:08:13 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/americas/us-stepped-in-to-halt-mexican-generals-rise.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130205&_r=0


As Mexico’s military staged its annual Independence Day parade in September, spectators filled the main square of Mexico City to cheer on the armed forces. Nearly 2,000 miles away in Washington, American officials were also paying attention.

But it was not the helicopters hovering overhead or the antiaircraft weapons or the soldiers in camouflage that caught their attention. It was the man chosen to march at the head of the parade, Gen. Moisés García Ochoa, who by tradition typically becomes the country’s next minister of defense.

The Obama administration had many concerns about the general, including the Drug Enforcement Administration’s suspicion that he had links to drug traffickers and the Pentagon’s anxiety that he had misused military supplies and skimmed money from multimillion-dollar defense contracts.

In the days leading up to Mexico’s presidential inauguration on Dec. 1, the United States ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Wayne, met with senior aides to President Enrique Peña Nieto to express alarm at the general’s possible promotion.

That back-channel communication provides a rare glimpse into the United States government’s deep involvement in Mexican security affairs — especially as Washington sizes up Mr. Peña Nieto, who is just two months into a six-year term. The American role in a Mexican cabinet pick also highlights the tensions and mistrust between the governments despite proclamations of cooperation and friendship.

“When it comes to Mexico, you have to accept that you’re going to dance with the devil,” said a former senior D.E.A. official, who requested anonymity because he works in the private sector in Mexico. “You can’t just fold your cards and go home because you can’t find people you completely trust. You play with the cards you’re dealt.”

A former senior Mexican intelligence official expressed similar misgivings about American officials. “The running complaint on the Mexican side is that the relationship with the United States is unequal and unbalanced,” said the former official, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke anonymously to discuss diplomatic and security exchanges. “Mexico is open with its secrets. The United States is not. So there’s a lot of resentment. And there’s always an incentive to try to stick it to the Americans.”

Wave of Violence

 Washington’s concerns about General García Ochoa — which several officials cautioned were not confirmed — come as both governments grasp for new ways to stem the illegal flows of drugs, guns and money across their borders.

Under Mr. Peña Nieto’s predecessor, Felipe Calderón, cooperation between the two governments had expanded in ways once considered unthinkable, with American and Mexican agents conducting coordinated operations that resulted in the capture or killing of several dozen important cartel leaders. But while Washington highlighted the record numbers of arrests, the stepped-up campaign created a wave of violence in Mexico that left some 60,000 people dead.

The devastating death toll has Mr. Peña Nieto, 46, a former governor, promising to move his country’s fight against organized crime in a different direction, focusing more on reducing violence than on detaining drug kingpins. But he has so far offered only vague details of his security plans, focusing instead on social and economic programs.

While Mr. Peña Nieto portrays himself as the leader of a new generation of reformers, he is also a scion of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years through a combination of corruption and coercion until it lost power in 2000. During its time in power, the party was known more for keeping the United States at arm’s length while attempting to strike deals with drug traffickers, rather than combating them head on.

Mr. Peña Nieto’s election has brought the PRI back to power, and since so many of those serving in his cabinet have one foot in the past, foreign policy experts who specialize in Mexico say it is not clear where the new government is headed.

“It could go either way,” said Eric L. Olson of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, speaking of future cooperation between Mexico and the United States. “Part of me says, ‘Let’s not assume it’s all going to go south.’ And there are things that are happening that give me hope. But the longer it goes without some clarity, the more doubts creep in.”


Page 2 of 3)
Those doubts have also crept to Capitol Hill. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he was withholding nearly $230 million in security assistance to Mexico through the so-called Merida Initiative amid concerns about whether the fight against organized crime is doing more harm than good.
 “Congress has been asked for a significant new investment, but it’s not clear what the Mexican government’s plans are,” Mr. Leahy said. “It’s premature to sign off on more of the same.”
General García Ochoa, 61, whose background is at once exemplary and enigmatic, personifies that quandary. On paper, he is a model officer. He earned two advanced degrees from Mexico’s most prestigious military academies, and founded the elite National Center for Counter-Narcotics Intelligence. He has been a student and an instructor in American military training programs. He has written three books, including one on the military’s role in the drug fight.
People who know the general said they were struck by his candid assessments of the fight against organized crime. He spoke openly about governmental corruption, a topic that has been considered taboo. And on at least two occasions over the past year and a half, the general’s friends said, he traveled secretly to San Antonio to meet with American intelligence officials — he didn’t feel safe meeting with agents in Mexico, they said — and gave names of military and civilian officials he suspected of providing protection to drug traffickers.
“He was genuinely worried that corruption was giving the military a bad name, and that if nothing was done about it, it could hurt relations with the United States,” said a person knowledgeable about the meetings. “The way he saw it, this next government has the chance to really change the way Mexico works with the United States. He didn’t want that chance to be missed.”
By then, General García Ochoa was already on the short list to become defense minister. And people who know him said he hoped American support would give him an advantage over other candidates.
What he did not know was that the United States was quietly advocating against him. Current and former American officials said they had put together a troubling portfolio of allegations against the general. In his role as director of military administration and acquisitions, he had been accused of skimming money and supplies from large defense contracts.
Reports in the Mexican news media last summer accused the general of approving payments totaling more than $355 million for sophisticated surveillance equipment, without reporting those payments to civilian authorities or providing an explanation of how that equipment would be used.
‘Mr. Ten Percent’
Behind the scenes, American officials had nicknamed the general “Mr. Ten Percent,” shorthand for their suspicions about the way he handled contracts. And two American officials recalled the general making a formal request for American assistance for the military’s helicopter unit, and then backing out of the arrangement when the United States asked to look at the books — including the unit’s financial, flight and fuel records.
“The United States is sending a lot of money down there,” said one senior American official, describing the concerns about the general. “We need to be sure that money is being used in the right way or we could lose a huge opportunity.”
The D.E.A. suspected the general had long ties to drug traffickers. Agents declined to discuss the specific nature of those links. Nor would they say whether their investigation against the general was continuing. General García Ochoa declined requests to be interviewed.
“There was a lot of information on him, and it was coming from multiple sources,” said a recently retired senior federal law-enforcement officer, referring to what he called the “serious concerns” about the general. “We never found any smoking guns, not enough to make a case.”

Page 3 of 3)
The New York Times obtained classified D.E.A. intelligence reports from the early years of the general’s career, when he founded the counternarcotics intelligence center. The reports, dated Dec. 15, 1997, allege that then-Colonel García Ochoa was one of several senior Mexican military officials involved with attempts to negotiate a deal with the country’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations.
 “It is highly likely,” said one report, “that military officials wanted to continue to profit from an ongoing relationship with the drug traffickers.”
The reports also allege that the colonel led a raid against the Juárez Cartel in which he deliberately allowed the kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes to escape, saying that the colonel “did not give orders to launch the operation until the car in which ACF was reportedly traveling had departed the area.”
Mexican officials declined requests to be interviewed for this article. American officials declined to comment publicly on their suspicions about the general. But they emphasized that whatever concerns they might have had about an individual general were hardly representative of the larger relationship between the two governments.
There have been significant strides in cooperation in recent years, including the first drones flying over Mexican airspace, the creation of the first joint intelligence center on a Mexican military base, operations staged by Mexican counternarcotics officers on the United States side of the border, and operations conducted by American federal law enforcement agents against money laundering in Mexico.
The United States has successfully shared delicate intelligence with the Mexican Navy, which led to the arrests of significant cartel leaders. And the number of exchanges between the Pentagon and the Mexican military has increased drastically, from 3 events in 2009 to nearly 100 last year, according to a report in Small Wars Journal, an independent online military publication.
“One of the most important bilateral relationships the United States has is with Mexico, and neither side is going to abandon it,” said another former senior D.E.A. official. “Yes, there are significant concerns, but when they come up you try to isolate them, limit their impact and move on.”
The American effort to prevent General García Ochoa’s promotion was just such an exercise in containment, with the Americans quietly moving to weed out Mexican officials suspected of corruption because they feared Mexican institutions would not be willing or able to do so on their own.
Misgivings Aired
After September’s Independence Day parade, senior American officials gathered in Mexico City for two days of meetings to assess their suspicions about the general, and to discuss whether or not to share those misgivings with their Mexican counterparts.
According to a Mexican official, the Americans eventually did share their concerns about the general, less than a week before Mr. Peña Nieto announced his cabinet appointments. The official said the American ambassador met in Mexico City with two senior aides to the incoming leader, including Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, who later became interior minister, and Jorge Ramírez Marin, a former national security adviser.
The official said Mr. Wayne, the ambassador, had discussed Washington’s concerns about the general, emphasizing that the allegations had not been corroborated.
“The timing was important,” the Mexican official said, “because Mexican presidents almost never replace the person they appoint as defense minister, so whoever was chosen would be involved with setting the terms of cooperation for the next six years.”
In the end, General García Ochoa did not get the job. Instead, it went to Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who Mexican officials said had become close with Mr. Peña Nieto when he served as governor of the state of Mexico and General Cienfuegos commanded the area’s military base.
As for General García Ochoa, he was dispatched to a military base in the northern border state of Coahuila, a hotbed of cartel-related prison breaks, police corruption and political assassinations.
Whether Washington played a central role in how things turned out for the general remains unclear. Meanwhile, a column in the Mexican newspaper El Universal debated whether his dangerous new assignment was a demonstration of the government’s confidence in him, or a demotion aimed at forcing him to consider an early retirement.
Whichever the case, the general made a hasty departure from the military’s headquarters in Mexico City. One person who knows him said he had emptied his office with the help of a handful of aides and dispensed with the usual farewell festivities.
On a day in December when defense ministers from across the hemisphere gathered for a summit meeting in Mexico City, the general was seen wearing civilian clothes, climbing into his personal car and driving away.
Title: Stratfor: New Conflict in Jalisco
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 08, 2013, 12:09:51 PM
Mexico Security Memo: A New Conflict in Jalisco State
 

February 6, 2013 | 1100 GMT

Stratfor
 
In the newest battlefront in violent Jalisco state, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion has begun fighting its former ally Los Coroneles, an ally of the Sinaloa Federation, along with Sinaloa's allies the Knights Templar and the Gulf cartel. The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion has become one of the larger organized crime networks in Mexico, with its operations spreading into several Mexican states. During the latter half of 2011 and through 2012, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion dominated criminal enterprises in Jalisco, defending Sinaloa Federation interests against incursions by rivals. The split is a significant blow to the Sinaloa Federation.
 
Like Los Coroneles, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion emerged from a Sinaloa faction led by Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal. The conflict between the two successor organizations strongly suggests the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion is a fully independent criminal organization. The new fighting has affected multiple regions of Jalisco state, including the eastern portion around Lake Chapala, the western half including Guadalajara and along the state's border with -- and into -- Michoacan state. Further complicating Jalisco state's cartel landscape, Gulf cartel gunmen have become active there, probably upon request of their ally the Knights Templar. The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion also has been engaged in multiple turf wars with the Knights Templar since at least February 2012.
 

Jalisco state, specifically the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, has long been a strategic base of operations for Mexican organized crime, serving as a transportation hub for drug traffickers. Mexican cartels also use the mountainous and rural areas of the state for the production of illegal drugs. Guadalajara remains critical to Sinaloa Federation operations, meaning Sinaloa's new conflict with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion will likely continue either directly or through Sinaloa proxies.
 
The new conflict between Los Coroneles and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion raises the question of what role Los Zetas -- who inevitably will be drawn in -- will play. Jalisco state began experiencing escalated levels of violence as early as 2011, when Los Zetas began making inroads at the expense of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion at the latter's inception. Activity attributed to Los Zetas in Jalisco has been limited during the first month of 2013. What strategy the organization will take in light of the influx of rivals thus remains unclear.
 
Los Zetas could align with Los Coroneles, the Knights Templar and the Gulf cartel, although so far Los Zetas have remained aligned to a lesser criminal organization known as La Resistencia, which derived from the former Milenio cartel. More beneficial for Los Zetas would be aligning with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in efforts to keep out the numerous other cartels seeking a foothold in Jalisco. An alignment with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in Jalisco state would be a substantial blow to the Sinaloa Federation, Gulf cartel and Knights Templar, the principal rivals to Los Zetas in their strongholds in northeastern Mexico. Nothing, however, suggests an alignment between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Los Zetas is imminent, though it is a possibility.
 
Whether Los Zetas continue to assault other criminal organizations in Jalisco state independently or whether they align with one of the other groups in the state, violence will likely continue in Jalisco and in neighboring Michoacan. Although an alignment would eliminate a separate conflict from the region, it would probably not reduce violence in Jalisco state since conflict between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar, Gulf cartel, Los Coroneles and Sinaloa Federation would likely replace it. Should Los Zetas remain separate and resume fighting in Jalisco, violence will likely escalate.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.
.

Read more: Mexico Security Memo: A New Conflict in Jalisco State | Stratfor
Title: Stratfor: The Pemex Explosion
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 08, 2013, 12:16:20 PM
second post

In Mexico, Rumors Surround the Pemex Explosion
 

February 3, 2013 | 1729 GMT





Print


 5 23 41 13








Text Size
 













Summary
 


ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images
 
The Pemex building in Mexico City on Feb. 1
 


Rumors indicate that an explosive device may have triggered the Jan. 31 explosion in the basement of the headquarters of Petroleos Mexicanos, better known as Pemex, in Mexico City. According to other unconfirmed reports, two other explosive devices were in the building that did not detonate. If these claims are true, they would finally offer clarity on the blast, which left at least 32 people dead and more than 100 injured. The official position of the Mexican government, as stated by Pemex Director General Emilio Lozoya, remains that the explosion appears to have been an accident but that the government is pursuing all lines of investigation.
 
Though the exact cause of the explosion is unknown at this point, the event could indicate a range of possible political challenges for the new administration, including criminal intimidation and political infighting. The reform of state-owned Pemex has formed the cornerstone of the administration of newly inaugurated President Enrique Pena Nieto. Mexico's declining oil production and exports have a direct impact on the national budget, which in any given year derives 30 to 40 percent of its revenue from Pemex. Reforms will aim to increase crude oil and natural gas production for both domestic consumption and export. As a result, for anyone looking to send a clear message to the new administration, Pemex is a natural target.
 


Analysis
 
Although Mexico's drug cartels are the most obviously powerful set of violent actors in Mexico, to date they have refrained from using terrorist-type tactics against the government. Their operations have remained largely within the bounds of criminal violence designed to facilitate the business of illicit drugs. Unlike the decision of Colombia's Medellin cartel to engage in politicized violence during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Mexican drug gangs have largely kept their operations from directly challenging Mexico City. Should the cartels escalate their actions to political violence, it could push the Mexican government to invite U.S. forces into the country to combat the threat, something these criminal organizations wish to avoid. It is possible that the Pena Nieto administration is engaging in back-channel negotiations with one or another of Mexico's criminal groups in an effort to stem the violence, an action that could shift the calculus of cartels. There is no evidence to suggest that such a change has occurred, but if further evidence comes to light suggesting the cartels were involved in the Jan. 31 explosion, it would indicate a significant change in Mexico's political and security situation.   
 
If the explosion was indeed an attack, the more likely explanation may be political infighting. The changes that the Pena Nieto administration wishes to implement will make Pemex more transparent and efficient and will most likely undermine entrenched interests in the company. Notoriously corrupt, Pemex has long been accused of gross inefficiencies and its employees of pervasive graft. As a result, any efficiency reforms to Pemex will likely cause many to lose their privileged access to Pemex funds. This is not to say that the organization is unaware that changes must be made. In fact, the company has attempted in recent years to make a number of changes to increase output. But recent discussions that the new Pemex leadership, appointed by the Pena Nieto administration, will lay off thousands of employees have put new strain on the company and on the leading Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has a close relationship with Pemex union leaders.
 
Nevertheless, the explosion was very large for a political message stemming from an internal power struggle, and it is possible that it was a complete accident; a natural gas leak or a blown transformer could have caused an explosion of this size. Indeed, many media reports have pointed to Pemex's poor maintenance record as a possible explanation. If that is the case, then the incident may have no significant political implications. However, as the rumors suggest, an attack would indicate a significant setback in the first months of the Pena Nieto administration.
.

Read more: In Mexico, Rumors Surround the Pemex Explosion | Stratfor
Title: Re: WSJ: Mexico's masked vigilantes defy drug gangs
Post by: DDF on February 10, 2013, 10:19:04 PM

AYUTLA, Mexico—Masked men, rifles slung over their shoulders, stand guard on a lonely rural road, checking IDs and questioning travelers. They wear no uniforms, flash no badges, but they are the law here now.

A dozen villages in the area have risen up in armed revolt against local drug traffickers that have terrorized the region and a government that residents say is incapable of protecting them from organized crime.

 
Ranchers in Tecoanapa, near Ayutla, voted Sunday in favor of having local militiamen provide security.
..
The villages in the hilly southern Mexican state of Guerrero now forbid the Mexican army and state and federal police from entering. Ragtag militias carrying a motley arsenal of machetes, old hunting rifles and the occasional AR-15 semiautomatic rifle control the towns. Strangers aren't allowed entry. There is a 10 p.m. curfew. More than 50 prisoners, accused of being in drug gangs, sit in makeshift jails. Their fates hinge on public trials that began Thursday when the accused were arraigned before villagers, who will act as judge and jury.
This has always been the only way law enforcement works effectively. Otherwise corruption exists and you can bet the locals know exactly what is going on and are there when things are actually happening. Police as a whole should cease to exist. They just aren't the best way. People being responsible for themselves is the best way.
This
Title: Guatamalan gunmen join Mexican turf war
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 23, 2013, 09:57:54 PM
Mexico Security Memo: Guatemalan Gunmen Join Mexican Turf War
February 13, 2013 | 1100 GMT



Stratfor
On Feb. 5, federal police detained at least five Guatemalans at a hotel in the Lomas del Lago neighborhood of Zacatecas, Zacatecas state. According to the Zacatecas state attorney general, the Guatemalans had recently arrived to the state in order to reinforce Los Zetas, one of the two principal cartels fighting for control over the state. Along with the arrests, authorities seized an unspecified number of assault rifles and grenades, indicating the Guatemalans intended to engage in violent acts on behalf of Los Zetas. On Feb. 4, authorities discovered the bodies of two Guatemalans accompanied by rifles in Monteczuma in neighboring San Luis Potosi state after responding to reports of a shootout. And on Jan. 20 in Valparaiso, Zacatecas state, authorities detained four Guatemalans and seized assault rifles after a confrontation between gunmen and federal police.


Mexican organized crime has long worked with Guatemalan organized crime, and Los Zetas have had links to Guatemala since operating as an enforcer arm for the Gulf cartel. These ties remained after Los Zetas separated from the Gulf cartel and pushed to expand operations further down the supply chain of illicit drugs.

Recent reporting suggests Los Zetas are partly relying on Guatemalans in their attempts to regain control over states where a Zetas faction led by Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero broke away to align with Los Zetas' principal rival in the region, the Gulf cartel. Velazquez's dissidence led to rising levels of violence in several Mexican states, most notably in San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas. Using Guatemalans to augment Los Zetas' forces is understandable since the organization suffered a substantial loss in operational capacity due to the breakaway faction.

As Los Zetas' need for gunmen increased, opportunities to recruit diminished because the organization likely had lost territory when Velazquez's faction splintered and probably did not trust the local population after such a betrayal. By recruiting Guatemalans, Los Zetas can bring in gunmen less likely to be compromised by rival cartels.

As long as Los Zetas retain operational ties in Guatemala, they will likely continue to use Guatemalans to make up for declining domestic recruitment. Guatemala has a large pool of unemployed military-age men to recruit from, and if Los Zetas face additional pressures, such as new incursions by rival cartels or another internal split, their recruitment of Guatemalans could increase. However, Guatemalans likely stand out from the local populations in which they operate in Mexico, which could lead to increased targeting by rival criminal groups and Mexican authorities.

Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.
Title: Re: Guatamalan gunmen join Mexican turf war
Post by: DDF on February 27, 2013, 10:41:24 PM

Lots and lots of activity and death in the last two days, specifically in regard to what you just posted.
Title: Taxis targetted in Cancun
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 20, 2013, 03:04:23 PM
Mexico Security Memo: Taxis Targeted in Cancun
 

March 20, 2013 | 1000 GMT

Stratfor
 
Fight for the Taxi Industry in Cancun
 
A group of gunmen killed seven people and wounded five others in a bar in Cancun on the evening of March 14. The incident began when gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles arrived at La Sirenita bar, located on 20 de Noviembre Avenue in Region 233 in the northern half of the city, and opened fire on a group of patrons. Three of the dead were leaders in a Quintana Roo state taxi union. On March 16, authorities detained two suspects involved in the March 14 shooting from a nightclub in the hotel zone of Cancun. According to one of the detained men, Hector "El Diablo" Cacique Fernandez, the suspects belong to Los Zetas and are responsible for collecting extortion fees in the city's hotel zone. The attack demonstrates that Mexican cartels have been using the city's taxi industry as a revenue source. Moreover, the current turf wars involving rival Mexican organized crime groups in Cancun -- including Los Pelones, Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion -- may lead to additional violence on taxi drivers as well as their union leaders.
 





.
 
According to Mexican media reports citing unnamed police officials, Los Zetas in Cancun are internally divided, and some members of the group are now working for the Gulf cartel. These alleged desertions reportedly revolve around both factions' attempting to control revenue earned by extorting taxi drivers working in the tourist destination. One source reported that although the detained suspects confessed to working for a Los Zetas plaza boss, they were in fact among the Zetas who had begun working for the Gulf cartel. However, no desertion by Los Zetas members in Cancun has been confirmed.
 
It would make sense for violence between the rival criminal groups to focus on taxi operators in the city, since Cancun's value for Mexican cartels comes from the city's popularity as a tourist destination and the income cartels can make from the tourists. Taxi drivers in Cancun have fallen victim to organized crime on several occasions, such as April 13, 2012, when gunmen in two trucks opened fire on a taxi in the Region 92 area of Cancun, killing two people in the cab and injuring a third. Two of the individuals inside the taxi were later identified as Los Zetas members. The April 13 attacked marked the beginning of a Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion incursion into the city.
 
If some members of Los Zetas operating in Cancun have split from the organization, and particularly if they joined sides with one of Los Zetas' primary rivals in the area, more attacks targeting taxi drivers involved in organized crime or simply paying extortion fees could follow. Desertion by Los Zetas members would likely weaken the group's hold in Cancun. Still, even if Los Zetas are not fracturing, their rivals could still attempt to take control of Los Zetas' operations, which could lead to increased overall violence in Cancun.
 
Gulf Cartel Infighting Hurting Operations
 
Tamaulipas state authorities announced March 17 that three gunmen were killed in clashes between cartel elements and security forces -- one in the Jacinto Lopez neighborhood of Reynosa, Tamaulipas state, and two along the highway between Reynosa and San Fernando, Tamaulipas state. These events follow a series of cartel-related violent incidents in the Reynosa area over the past week.
 
Recent violence in Reynosa is likely the result of warring factions within the Gulf cartel. It is not clear if this weekend's events were the result of an offensive by the Mexican military to engage and counter elements of the Gulf cartel or if military patrols happened to come across the cartel gunmen who then engaged in a shootout. Regardless, infighting within the Gulf cartel has escalated and may be affecting the group's trafficking operations in the city, as evidenced by several substantial drug seizures that have coincided with the escalating conflict.
 
On March 15, federal police discovered two underground warehouses in Reynosa, collectively containing more than five tons of marijuana and 167 kilograms (368 pounds) of methamphetamines. This seizure followed the March 13 discovery of four tons of marijuana, also in a warehouse in Reynosa. While such seizures are not uncommon in northern Tamaulipas, the frequency is atypical. However, such frequent seizures could be expected in a city where traffickers who were at one point working within the same network are now rivals. A prolonged conflict between Gulf cartel leaders in Reynosa could lead to traffickers alerting authorities to their rivals' operations -- in addition to increasing military operations as violence rises.
 
Should cartel-related violence, particularly violence attributed to internal Gulf cartel disputes, continue at the current heightened levels, Gulf operations in Reynosa may be further hindered by both their rival Gulf cartel operators as well as the military.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region and designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.
.

Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Taxis Targeted in Cancun | Stratfor
Title: Mexico: Bajio manufacturing
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 01, 2013, 02:33:28 PM
Summary
 


Demian CHAVEZ/AFP/Getty Images
 
Part of an aircraft assembled at the Bombardier plant in Queretaro, Mexico, in October 2010
 


Mexico's manufacturing sector has grown more sophisticated under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Manufacturers now produce higher value-added products, such as automotive, aeronautical and electronic products, and they are doing so in factories outside their traditional production region: the U.S.-Mexico border. As the country's economy has grown, a secondary manufacturing core has emerged in the central lowlands, also known as the Bajio. Located near the bulk of Mexico's educated workforce, the Bajio is safer than many border towns and is now connected more efficiently to suppliers in the United States and Asia and consumers in the United States and Canada. The manufacturing sector in this region will grow in importance in the years to come, though it will not replace the border region entirely.
 


Analysis
 
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mexico underwent a profound economic and political reorganization. The economy liberalized, culminating in NAFTA, and major state-owned companies privatized, transforming Mexico from a closed economic and political system into an export-oriented industrial economy.
 
As a result, trade increased between Mexico and the United States and a manufacturing belt sprung up at the countries' shared border. From 1990 to 2000, Mexican trade became even more closely tied to the United States. In 1990, the United States accounted for 69 percent of all Mexican trade; by 2000, it accounted for nearly 80 percent. Low-end factories, known as maquilas, sprang up in the border states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. These provided manufacturers with an abundant supply of low-wage labor, most of which came from elsewhere in Mexico.
 





.
 
But at the turn of the century, China's special economic zones became cost-competitive alternatives to Mexican factories. Mexico responded by making more valuable products. So even though clothing exports dropped 43 percent (from $7.6 billion to $4.3 billion) between 2002 and 2012, automotive exports increased by 152 percent ($27.9 billion to $70.3 billion) and electronic exports increased by 73 percent ($43.3 billion to $74.9 billion) over the same period. Asian alternatives notwithstanding, these Mexican products remained cost-competitive because of NAFTA.
 
A Systemic Shift
 
Mexico's central lowlands, which include Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi states, provide relative isolation from the endemic violence of the border, a large pool of qualified workers and incentives schemes to lure foreign direct investment.
 
To attract foreign investment, Bajio state governments in 2006 began building infrastructure and training facilities, selling real estate and providing a wide range of other benefits. Foreign multinational companies responded enthusiastically. Nissan has invested roughly $2 billion to build a new automotive plant in Aguascalientes state. Volkswagen, GM, Honda and Mazda have invested $550 million, $200 million, $800 million and $500 million, respectively, in their plants in Guanajuato state. Bombardier has invested $500 million and Eurocopter has pledged $550 million in operations in Queretaro state.
 
These numbers represent a systemic shift. In Baja California, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas states, there were 4 percent fewer factories in 2011 than there were in 2007. Farther south, in Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi and Jalisco states, there were roughly 12 percent more factories.
 
Investment has followed a similar trend. Total foreign direct investment in the Bajio increased from $7.2 billion in 1993-2002 to $16.3 billion in 2003-2012. By comparison, foreign direct investment in the border states over the same period increased from $32.9 billion to $55.2 billion. That is not to say factories are relocating from the border to the Bajio -- it is not a zero-sum game. Rather, new firms looking to enter the North American market, especially European and Asian automakers, increasingly are setting up in the Bajio.
 
Notably, the overall amount of manufactured exports from the Bajio is far lower than that of the border. However, the number of manufacturing firms and the amount of foreign direct investment are increasing at a faster rate in the Bajio than in the border states.
 
Developing the Bajio
 
The Bajio only became attractive to manufacturers after Mexico overhauled its transportation infrastructure. More and more raw materials are coming from Asia, and the majority of automobile exports are moved by rail. Thus, Mexico had to expand its Pacific ports and connect them by rail to the industrial base and to consumer markets.
 






.
 

The Pacific ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas are booming accordingly. Lazaro Cardenas, the only port in Mexico that can accommodate post-Panamax ships, is the fastest growing port in North America.
 
In addition, the railways connecting these ports to the United States have become much more efficient since being privatized in 1995. The entire length of the country's railway network has remained at approximately 26,700 kilometers (16,600 miles), but the amount of freight transported has doubled from 52.5 million tons to 108.8 million tons per year. Moreover, companies have moved more freight with far fewer employees.
 
Unlike the border states, the central lowland region is a part of Mexico's economic and political heartland. It hosts a large, educated population and its climate is the most temperate in the country. It is centrally located, with relatively easy access to ports on both coasts, the United States to the north and Mexico City in the south.
 
Geography has benefited the Bajio, as have improved transportation infrastructure, comparatively better security and efforts to attract investment. More manufacturing investment and output will bring Mexico's industrial core closer to Mexico City and populations in need of jobs. Bajio manufacturing will not replace manufacturing activity along the border, but it gives Mexico an opportunity to develop more evenly and sustainably.


Read more: In Mexico, a New Manufacturing Heartland? | Stratfor
Title: New Narco Reality
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 01, 2013, 02:47:12 PM
Second post


Mexico: The 'New Narco-Reality' Is Already Here
March 27, 2013 | 1620 GMT
Stratfor
 
By Scott Stewart, Vice President of Analysis, and Tristan Reed
 
Last week we read an article discussing the idea that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was somehow going to be able to create a "new narco-reality" in Mexico. The article theorized that if the Mexican government were to soften its investigation of drug crimes, the administration could defuse the situation and thus violence would decrease. The author of the article is not alone in exploring this line of reasoning. In fact, the article expresses a theoretical shift in approach we have often heard while discussing the problem of violence in Mexico with both Mexicans and interested foreigners.
 
Unfortunately, reducing the levels of violence is not quite that simple. The nature and origins of violence in Mexico severely constrain the Mexican government. Because of these constraints, merely lessening the government's prosecution of drug crimes will have little impact on the level of violence. Therefore, the theoretical argument will remain just that.
 
Nature and History
 
When analyzing the violence in Mexico it is helpful to put the violent incidents into one of three distinct categories: incidents that result from government action against the criminals, incidents that result from one criminal group attacking another and incidents that are the result of criminals attacking innocent citizens.
 
By reducing the tempo at which it prosecutes the drug war, the Mexican government could influence the number of incidents in the first category -- government action against cartel figures. Clearly these incidents can and do provoke a considerable amount of violence.
 
Tristan recently visited the street corner in Matamoros where Antonio Cardenas Guillen, also known as "Tony Tormenta," was killed by government troops in November 2010. Even though the incident occurred more than two years ago, the neighborhood still shows significant damage from the ferocious firefight that erupted between the military and Cardenas Guillen's bodyguards. The scene was reminiscent of the damage Tristan saw while in Iraq and Afghanistan and not something normally associated with a law enforcement operation, especially one within small arms range of the United States (the firefight forced an evacuation of the University of Texas at Brownsville campus). 
 
But, while quite dramatic, such operations are relatively rare. The government simply does not initiate the majority of violent incidents in Mexico and is not even involved in most of the violence. Many of the deadliest incidents in Mexico have no government involvement at all, such as the May 2011 ambush in Nayarit state in which 29 cartel gunmen were killed; the July 2010 ambush in Saric, Sonora, in which more than 20 cartel gunmen were killed; the August 2011 casino arson in Monterrey in which 52 people were killed; the killing of 72 migrants on a bus in Tamaulipas state in August 2010; and the hundreds of victims displayed in the dueling body dumps by Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel in each other's territory in 2011 and 2012. Even in the prolonged firefights in Reynosa in March 2013, there are reports that the government allowed the two warring criminal groups to fight for hours before getting involved in the fray.
 
Indeed, while the popular narrative is to ascribe the beginning of Mexico's cartel war to a campaign launched by former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, this is simply not the case. The escalation began well before Calderon was elected, and it was not government actions but a change in narcotics smuggling routes to the United States and competition over those routes between Mexican criminal groups that really sparked the escalation of violence.
 
This dynamic first became visible in the early 1990s when Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera and his Sinaloa Federation partners sent forces from Sinaloa state into Tijuana, Baja California state -- controlled at the time by the Arellano Felix brothers -- to buy stash houses and construct tunnels for moving drugs across the border. In response, the brothers tortured and killed Sinaloa operatives in Tijuana and even tried to assassinate El Chapo. The war between Sinaloa and the Arellano Felix brothers sparked a prolonged season of violence in Tijuana that eventually led Mexico's president at the time, Ernesto Zedillo, to dispatch Mexican soldiers to the city in 2000 in an attempt to quell the violence. 
 
A similar escalation occurred in Tamaulipas state in 2003, following the arrest of Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen, when El Chapo and Sinaloa made an attempt to seize control of the lucrative Nuevo Laredo plaza. This incursion caused a powerful counterattack by Los Zetas, and a bloody, protracted struggle erupted in the city. By mid-2005 law and order had completely broken down in Nuevo Laredo, and then-President Vicente Fox deployed the army to the city to reassert government control.
 
Currently in Tamaulipas, the federal police and the military control security, and the local police have been disarmed in some cities, such as Reynosa. In such an environment it will be impossible for the federal government to disengage without first rebuilding local and state police forces to provide security.
 
The bottom line is that since the federal government has not initiated most of the violence in Mexico, a decision by the government not to pursue drug investigations would do little to quell the violence.
 
Fracturing
 
Beyond this general history of cartel-initiated and cartel-driven violence, there is the changing nature of the Mexican cartels themselves. Perhaps the most significant of these changes has been the fragmentation that has occurred among the cartels. After many years of relative stasis, where there were a handful of large cartel organizations that controlled relatively large areas, the cartel groups and the territory they control have entered a dynamic period. In 2006 and 2007 it was possible for us to do an annual report that explained the main dynamics of the Mexican cartels, but due to the rapid changes in 2010 we felt compelled to do a mid-year update in May. By 2011, the quickly changing cartel landscape demanded that we provide quarterly updates as older organizations splintered and newer organizations rose from them. This process has shown no sign of stopping.
 
The trend toward fragmentation is partly a result of the Mexican and U.S. governments' policy of seeking to decapitate the cartel groups, but it is too simplistic to suggest that Mexican policy is the sole cause of this fragmentation. In many cases, the reasons are much more complicated. For example, the largest of these new fragment groups, Los Zetas, split from the Gulf cartel nearly seven years after the capture of Gulf cartel leader Cardenas and almost a year before the death of his replacement -- and brother -- Antonio Cardenas Guillen.
 
Los Zetas split from the Gulf cartel after they staged what was essentially a failed hostile takeover of the organization and the other leaders resisted their attempt -- and resented their greed and arrogance. This resulted in friction between the traditional leadership of the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas that then led to all-out war between the two organizations when a Gulf cartel gunmen killed a Zetas member.
 
It is true that the killing of Antonio Cardenas Guillen led to additional splintering of the Gulf cartel and to a bitter struggle for control of the organization in 2011 and 2012, but the organization was arguably weakened far more by Los Zetas' insurrection than it was by his death. Currently, the Gulf cartel is very weak and appears to be not a unified organization but a scattered collection of smaller groups fighting to retain control of Matamoros and Reynosa.
 
The proliferation of these smaller organized crime groups has also resulted in increased friction, and the increase in violence we have seen in places like Acapulco and Guadalajara in recent years is a direct consequence of this. The violence is not just occurring in one or two border towns; it is stretching over a large portion of the country and encompasses several states.
 
There are also some who cling to the idea that Pena Nieto can forge some sort of agreement with the cartels and return to the way that his predecessors in the Institutional Revolutionary Party used to deal with and accommodate the cartels in the past. However, given the current cartel dynamics, the situation in Mexico is very different than it was under former presidents, such as Zedillo and Carlos Salinas de Gortari. There simply are too many moving parts and too many cartel groups with which to deal.
 
Beyond Trafficking
 
Another constraint that prevents the Mexican government from taking a hands-off approach to the criminal cartels is that they are no longer simply drug trafficking organizations. They have evolved into something else. 
 
In the 1990s the cartels were mostly focused on trafficking Colombian cocaine to the United States and producing their own marijuana, black tar heroin and synthetic drugs that they then transported to the United States. However, over the past decade the costs of the protracted wars among the cartels and the impact that these wars have had on some groups' ability to produce or traffic drugs have led many groups to branch out into other crimes.
 
These other criminal endeavors include kidnapping, extortion, human smuggling and cargo theft. Los Zetas also make a considerable amount of money stealing oil from Mexico's state-run oil company and pirating CDs and DVDs. This other criminal behavior is what sparks many territorial fights in areas that are outside the traditional drug production areas and border crossings.
 
It is not necessary to entirely control a highway or transportation hub to push drugs through -- both U.S. and Mexican law enforcement struggle to even slightly interdict the overall drug flow, and a Mexican gang will not be any more successful. But when two opposing groups are using the same turf, and are selling drugs on the streets, extorting businesses or running kidnapping rings, then it's crucial that they keep competitors away so they do not harm profits. This increasing focus on local drug sales also means that drugs are becoming more of an acute Mexican problem rather than just a problem for the Americans.
 
This drift toward localized crime and drug distribution is one of the major causes of the current violence in states such as Morelos, Mexico, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Quintana Roo. This change has been reflected in law enforcement acronyms. The Mexican cartels are no longer referred to as DTOs, or drug trafficking organizations, but rather TCOs, or transnational criminal organizations, in recognition of the other crimes they are involved in.
 
A "new narco-reality" has already dawned in Mexico. The environment is vastly different from what it was in the 1990s, and there is no going back. The changes that have occurred to and among the Mexican cartels, and the amount of violence the organizations precipitate without government involvement, mean that it will be extremely difficult for the Pena Nieto administration to ignore the cartels' activities and adopt this theoretical hands-off approach.
.

Read more: Mexico: The 'New Narco-Reality' Is Already Here | Stratfor
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 03, 2013, 08:11:59 AM
Mexico Security Memo: Implications of a Gulf Cartel Consolidation
 

April 3, 2013 | 1030 GMT



Stratfor
 
The Ramirez Trevino Faction's Reputed Reynosa Victory
 
Protracted fighting among Gulf cartel factions for control of Reynosa may finally have concluded in a victory for faction leader Mario "El Pelon" Ramirez Trevino. Social media outlets corroborated by a Stratfor source maintain that Ramirez Trevino's faction has killed its principal rivals in Reynosa, Miguel "El Gringo" Villarreal and his associates.
 






.
 

According to Mexican media reports at the end of March, gunmen belonging to Ramirez Trevino's faction executed up to 60 of Villarreal's and his allies' relatives in the Tamaulipas cities of Miguel Aleman and Camargo. While we cannot verify these reports, such actions would be unsurprising given the intensity of fighting between Gulf cartel factions over the last month.
 
Rival Gulf leaders have fought for control of the overall group's lucrative criminal enterprises -- not surprisingly, to the detriment of its operations -- since at least 2010. A decisive victory by Ramirez Trevino in Reynosa would consolidate his control over Villarreal's former turf, allow him to remove any potential rivals within Villarreal's network and expand his overall control of Gulf cartel operations in northeastern Tamaulipas state -- possibly even reunifying the Gulf cartel under a single uncontested leader.
 
What sparked the escalated fighting in March remains unclear. Some accounts say that Villarreal was perceived as betraying other Gulf cartel leaders by maintaining a relationship with the now-deceased top leader of Los Zetas, Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano. Other accounts, such as an anonymous message circulating on social media outlets at the end of March, maintain Villarreal and his associates were working closely with the Sinaloa Federation -- prompting the Sinaloa Federation to sever ties with the Gulf cartel now that Ramirez Trevino has won out. Such rumors frequently are encountered when following Mexican organized crime, and the validity and the source of the information are rarely established. Nevertheless, the reports pinpoint a critical element in the future security climate of Tamaulipas state -- namely, the responding actions of cartels that have frequently interacted with Gulf cartel factions (whether as rivals or allies) in the wake of Ramirez Trevino's victory. Such groups could seek to subvert the newly formulated Gulf cartel, renew attacks in light of a further weakened state (from continued infighting) or even collaborate with any potential new factions within the Gulf cartel.
 
The Gulf cartel factions have become increasingly reliant on support in defending their territories in Tamaulipas -- to include Matamoros and Reynosa -- from Los Zetas incursions. Thus far, this support primarily has come from the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar. Given the rifts within the Gulf cartel, such alliances might have been with specific Gulf factions.
 
Although Ramirez Trevino apparently has secured control over Reynosa, this is likely to be temporary. Los Zetas, the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar all have an interest in trafficking drugs into the United States through the Gulf-controlled cities of Reynosa and Matamoros. And any of these organizations could challenge the Gulf cartel for control. Moreover, it is unclear whether Ramirez Trevino's faction is able to smuggle significant quantities of illegal drugs independent of a larger Mexican criminal organization such as the Sinaloa Federation or Knights Templar.
 
Should Ramirez Trevino indeed have expelled his rivals from Reynosa, violence will likely decrease from the heightened level seen in March. However, isolated individuals loyal to the defeated faction could remain, given the defeated faction's deep cultural and familial ties in Reynosa. Such a reduction in violence would probably be temporary, because Los Zetas will continue to vie for control of the city. Likewise, should Ramirez Trevino's recent actions in Reynosa anger the Sinaloa Federation or Knights Templar, either cartel might seek to oust him by sending its own forces or supporting a rival Gulf cartel faction. While Ramirez Trevino may have made progress in becoming overall Gulf cartel leader, perhaps even eliminating the infighting, the Gulf cartel is far weaker than before. As such, it will continue to be influenced by other Mexican cartels as they struggle for control of the lucrative plazas in northern Tamaulipas state.
.

Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Implications of a Gulf Cartel Consolidation | Stratfor
Title: ore signs of the Sinaloa Federation in Tamaulipas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 11, 2013, 06:09:27 AM
El Chapo's Name in Nuevo Laredo Again
 
Authorities discovered two narcomantas hanging from a pedestrian bridge early April 4 in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, ostensibly signed by Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, Los Zetas' principal rival. The message threatened Los Zetas leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales and promised to expel Los Zetas from Nuevo Laredo, the latter's most significant stronghold. The message also said "El H" supports Trevino, likely in reference to Hector "El H" Beltran Leyva. He leads a nationwide criminal network that splintered from the old Beltran Leyva Organization after the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva in December 2009.
 


Placing such threatening narcomantas in Los Zetas' stronghold may signal increased violence ahead in Nuevo Laredo and other cities in Tamaulipas state. More significant, the message probably reflects shifts in the state's criminal landscape following the end of Gulf cartel infighting. This shift is affecting other criminal groups vying for control of Gulf cartel territories, including Reynosa, Tamaulipas state.
 
Competition over the Reynosa plaza among Gulf cartel factions in March culminated in a victory for the faction led by Mario "El Pelon" Ramirez Trevino, which has consolidated control over the city. Unidentified Gulf factions are reportedly aligned with the Sinaloa Federation and its ally the Knights Templar. Due to this alignment, the two larger cartels will likely adjust their strategy in fighting Los Zetas depending on whether Ramirez Trevino's faction allied with the Sinaloa Federation and the extent to which his faction is able to fight Los Zetas. The April 4 narcomantas said Guzman offers his full support for the Gulf cartel. If the message is authenticated, it implies the Sinaloa Federation did in fact align with Ramirez Trevino.
 
If Ramirez Trevino has lost some capabilities by fighting Los Zetas in Tamaulipas state or if he has challenged a faction loyal to either the Sinaloa Federation or the Knights Templar, the Sinaloa Federation would likely have to use its own gunmen for incursions into Nuevo Laredo. The April 4 messages could reflect the Sinaloa efforts to take control of Nuevo Laredo using its own resources rather than those of the Gulf cartel.
 
Previous narcomantas in Nuevo Laredo signed "El Chapo" appeared March 26, 2012. At least seven dismembered bodies accompanied three narcomantas claiming the Nuevo Laredo plaza. Since Mexican cartels frequently use narcomantas to spread disinformation as part of information operations campaigns, a Los Zetas rival other than the Sinaloa Federation might have actually been behind those three narcomantas.
 
Regardless of who authored the April 4 narcomantas or whether the content was authentic, a response from Los Zetas -- including bodies accompanying narcomantas -- is likely. This could mean high causalities in Nuevo Laredo or any area where the Sinaloa Federation or the Gulf cartel operates, including Sinaloa state and the Gulf-controlled cities of Reynosa and Matamoros. Should the April 4 messages indeed mark a new Sinaloa campaign to take control of Nuevo Laredo, violence will likely escalate substantially as Los Zetas use all available resources to defend their stronghold.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region, designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: More Signs of the Sinaloa Federation in Tamaulipas | Stratfor
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 16, 2013, 12:09:35 PM
MEXICO - Violence recedes under Peña Nieto administration
On 10 April 2013, Governance Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong presented the results of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s first security evaluation, confirming a reduction in violence. According to Osorio Chong, between the periods of August to November 2012 and December 2012 to March 2013, homicides decreased 17 percent and kidnapping dropped by 25 percent.
Title: Rising violence in Cancun
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 18, 2013, 04:45:54 AM
The Gulf Cartel Enters a Tourist Hub
 
A series of drug-related killings in Cancun over the past week is the latest sign of an escalating turf war as the Gulf cartel tries to expand its presence in the popular tourist destination. Authorities on April 14 discovered the bodies of seven people, all apparently strangled, in the backyard of a residence in the 102 region of the city. The residence was reportedly used for retail drug sales. The high number of victims, once atypical for Cancun, comes a month after a March 14 attack on a bar in Cancun where seven people were killed.
 
While there are no indications that the current turf war in Cancun will directly affect bystanders or tourists not participating in criminal activities, the killings will likely place additional pressure on security forces in Cancun, possibly distracting law enforcement from preventing the kind of petty crimes more likely to affect tourists.
 





.
 
One possible explanation for the uptick in Gulf cartel activity is that a faction of Los Zetas in Cancun recently broke away from the parent organization and declared itself to be part of the Gulf cartel. Because the Gulf cartel is a far less cohesive and hierarchical organization than other cartels such as the Sinaloa Federation, the Gulf cartel operating in Cancun may or may not be coordinating with the factions in northeastern Mexico.
 
Regardless of how the Gulf cartel's presence grew to the point of driving the inter-cartel conflict in Cancun, any resulting violence will force municipal, state and federal authorities to redirect their focus. As part of the effort to reinforce security in Cancun, the Quintana Roo state government announced April 15 the deployment of 150 additional state police officers. Still, should violence continue to rise and put additional pressure on security forces, petty crimes more likely to affect bystanders or visitors such as theft or extortion may increase, which in turn could damage Cancun's main industry if enough tourists are deterred.
 
Threats Against Foreign Companies in Michoacan
 
On April 15, unidentified individuals distributed pamphlets, ostensibly signed "Knights Templar," in various areas of Apatzingan, Michoacan state. The message on the pamphlets warned commercial vendors as well as specific companies to stop delivering goods to Buenavista Tomatlan and Tepalcatepec, two municipalities west of Apatzingan near the Jalisco state border. Among the companies mentioned is PepsiCo subsidiary Sabritas, which was the target of coordinated attacks by the Knights Templar in May 2012.
 
The next day, narcomantas appeared in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state, as well as Apatzingan warning that the community police operating in Michoacan -- particularly Buenavista Tomatlan -- belong to the Knights Templar's principal rival in the region, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion.
 
It is still not clear whether the Knights Templar are the actual authors of the April 15 and April 16 messages, but, as noted above, the criminal organization has targeted companies such as Sabritas in the past. In addition to questions about the authorship of the narcomantas, it is unclear whether the message they contained about Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion infiltrating the community police in Buenavista Tomatlan is true. Even if those rumors are unfounded, the Knights Templar may believe them to be true, which could lead to continued attacks against individuals residing in the stated municipalities as well as businesses operating in the region. Therefore, the threats against vendors and multinational corporations such as Sabritas likely signal an intent to target businesses in the area and should not be disregarded.
 
Editor's Note: We now offer the daily Mexico Security Monitor, an additional custom intelligence service geared toward organizations with operations or interests in the region and designed to provide more detailed and in-depth coverage of the situation. To learn more about this new fee-based custom service, visit www.stratfor.com/msm.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Rising Violence in Cancun | Stratfor
Title: Balkanization leads to regional challenges
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 18, 2013, 06:16:12 AM
Second post of the morning

Mexico's Drug War: Balkanization Leads to Regional Challenges
April 18, 2013 | 0911 GMT

Stratfor
 
Editor's Note: This Security Weekly assesses the most significant cartel-related developments of the first quarter of 2013 and provides updated profiles of Mexico's powerful criminal cartels, as well as a forecast for the rest of this year. It's the executive summary of a more detailed report available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.
 
Balkanization of Cartels
 
Since the late 1980s demise of the Guadalajara cartel, which controlled drug trade routes into the United States through most of Mexico, Mexican cartels have followed a trend of fracturing into more geographically compact, regional crime networks. This trend, which we are referring to as "Balkanization," has continued for more than two decades and has impacted all of the major cartel groups in Mexico. Indeed the Sinaloa Federation lost significant assets when the organizations run by Beltran Leyva and Ignacio Coronel split away from it. Los Zetas, currently the other most powerful cartel in Mexico, was formed when it split off from the Gulf cartel in 2010. Still these two organizations have fought hard to resist the trend of fracturing and have been able to grow despite being affected by it. This led to the polarized dynamic observed in 2011 when these two dominant Mexican cartels effectively split Mexican organized crime in two, with one group composed of Los Zetas and its allies and the other composed of the Sinaloa Federation and its allies.
 






.
 

This trend toward polarization has since been reversed, however, as Balkanization has led to rising regional challenges to both organizations since 2012. Most notable among these is the split between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Sinaloa Federation. The Sinaloa Federation continues to struggle with regional crime groups for control in western Chihuahua state, northern Sinaloa state, Jalisco state and northern Sonora state. Similarly, Los Zetas saw several regional challengers in 2012. Two regional groups saw sharp increases in their operational capabilities during 2012 and through the first quarter of 2013. These were the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar.
 
The Beltran Leyva Organization provides another example of the regionalization of Mexican organized crime. It has become an umbrella of autonomous, and in some cases conflicting, groups. Many of the groups that emerged from it control specific geographic areas and fight among each other largely in isolation from the conflict between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation. Many of these successor crime groups, such as the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, Los Rojos and Guerreros Unidos are currently fighting for their own geographic niches. As its name implies, the Independent Cartel of Acapulco mostly acts in Acapulco, while Los Rojos and Guerreros Unidos mostly act in Morelos state.
 
The ongoing fragmentation of Mexican cartels is not likely to reverse, at least not in the next few years. Despite this, while Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation continue to face new rivals and suffer from internal splintering, their resources are not necessarily declining. Neither criminal organization faces implosion or a substantial decline as a transnational criminal organization as a result of rising regional challengers. Both Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation continue to extend their drug trafficking operations on a transnational level, increasing both their influence and profits. Still, they will continue to face the new reality, in which they are forced to work with -- or fight -- regional groups.
 
Los Zetas
 
In Hidalgo state, a former Zetas stronghold, the Knights Templar have made significant inroads, although violence has not risen to the level of that in the previously mentioned states. Also, the turf war within Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas states between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas that began when Los Zetas split from the Gulf cartel in 2010 continues.
 
In light of Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero's dissent from Los Zetas and the death of former leader Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano, Zetas leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales could face organizational integrity issues during 2013. Signs of such issues appeared in Cancun during the first quarter when some members of Los Zetas reportedly broke from the group and adopted the Gulf cartel name. Besides possible minor dissent, a seemingly new rival has emerged in Tabasco state to counter Los Zetas. A group called Pueblo Unido Contra la Delincuencia, Spanish for "People United Against Crime," carried out a series of executions in Tabasco state throughout the first quarter, but the group's origins and significance remain unclear. No indicators of substantial splintering among Los Zetas have emerged since the Velazquez split.
 
Sinaloa Federation
 
Regional organizations continued to challenge the Sinaloa Federation on its turf in western Chihuahua state, northern Sinaloa state and Jalisco state through the first quarter. Intercartel violence in mountainous western Chihuahua continues as the Sinaloa Federation fights La Linea for control of the region's smuggling routes and drug cultivation areas. Los Mazatlecos so far has maintained its control over northern Sinaloa cities, such as Los Mochis and Guasave. It also has continued violent incursions into southern areas of Sinaloa state, such as Mazatlan, Concordia and El Rosario with its ally Los Zetas.
 
Gulf Cartel
 
At the beginning of 2012, Gulf cartel territory appeared likely to be absorbed by larger cartels -- essentially signaling the end of the Gulf cartel. Support from the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar combined with fractures within Los Zetas allowed a Gulf cartel resurgence, leading to a renewed Gulf assault on Los Zetas in the northeastern states of Mexico. The resurgence ended with a series of notable arrests during the last quarter of 2012, such as that of former top leader Jorge Eduardo "El Coss" Costilla Sanchez. The arrests triggered additional Gulf cartel infighting, which peaked in March 2013.
 
The escalated infighting in the Gulf cartel, particularly in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state, highlighted the new state of the Gulf cartel: Instead of operating as a cohesive criminal network, the Gulf cartel now consists of factions linked by history and the Gulf label. The infighting began in 2010 after the death of former top Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas Guillen. The death of Cardenas Guillen split the Gulf cartel into two main factions, Los Rojos and Los Metros. By the first quarter of 2013, infighting had broken out between Los Metros leaders, such as Mario "Pelon" Ramirez Trevino, David "Metro 4" Salgado and Miguel "El Gringo" Villarreal. This suggests the Gulf cartel is further fractured and no longer consists of just two opposing sides. The Gulf cartel may begin acting as a cohesive network during the second quarter after the escalated infighting in March, though this cannot be definitely predicted.
 
From March 10 to March 19, Reynosa became the focal point for Gulf cartel infighting as Ramirez Trevino escalated his conflict against Villarreal. Ramirez Trevino reportedly expelled Villarreal's faction and its allies from the Reynosa plaza and killed Salgado. This could mean Ramirez Trevino has consolidated control over other Gulf cartel factions. If true, this would represent a substantial shift in organized criminal operations in northeastern Tamaulipas state, where the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar smuggle drugs, people and other illicit commodities through the border towns of Reynosa and Matamoros while Los Zetas maintain a constant interest in fighting for control of the stated cities.
 
As mentioned during the last annual update, Gulf cartel factions are increasingly reliant on Sinaloa Federation and Knights Templar support to defend the remaining Gulf cartel territory in Tamaulipas state from Los Zetas. This certainly remains true after the first quarter, although the recent shift from Gulf cartel infighting may signal a shift in intercartel dynamics. Since the Gulf cartel in reality consists of separate factions, there is likely a separate relationship between each Gulf cartel faction and the larger criminal organizations reportedly in alignment with them. With Ramirez Trevino now in charge of Reynosa, a city valued by both the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar, his existing relationship with the two organizations will likely influence their strategies for maintaining their interests in Gulf cartel-controlled areas. Additionally, it is not yet clear whether Ramirez Trevino suffered any substantial losses during the March fighting in Reynosa. If he did lose some capabilities fighting Los Zetas in Tamaulipas state, or if he has challenged a faction loyal to either the Sinaloa Federation or the Knights Templar, either organization would likely have to use its own gunmen for defending Gulf cartel-controlled areas or mounting their own incursions into Zetas territory, particularly Nuevo Laredo.
 
Intercartel violence in the Gulf cartel-controlled city of Reynosa will likely diminish compared to the first quarter of 2013 if Ramirez Trevino has indeed won. This reduction in violence will continue only as long as Ramirez Trevino is able to hold his control over Reynosa. Influence from external organizations, such as Los Zetas, the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar, could once again spark violence if Ramirez Trevino's efforts have harmed their trafficking operations through Reynosa or presented a new opportunity to seize control. What, if any, Gulf cartel infighting is ongoing is difficult to gauge.
 
Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion
 
The severing of the relationship between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Sinaloa Federation came to the forefront of conflicts in the Pacific states of Michoacan and Jalisco during the first quarter of 2013. The Sinaloa Federation relied on its alliance with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in defending the critical location of Guadalajara from Los Zetas and used the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion as an assault force into Los Zetas strongholds, such as Veracruz state.
 
Although evidence of the rift between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Sinaloa Federation began to appear in open-source reporting during the last half of 2012, the conflict between the two organizations only became clear when the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion went on the offensive in Jalisco state by attacking Sinaloa Federation allies Los Coroneles, the Knights Templar and the Gulf cartel.
 
With a now-fully independent Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, the polarization of warring cartels in Mexico has effectively ended. In addition to the existing conflicts between the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas, the Sinaloa Federation must now focus on reclaiming an operational hold over Jalisco state from the now-rival Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. The second quarter will continue to see a conflict between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Sinaloa Federation-aligned groups in Jalisco state as well as neighboring states like Michoacan.
 
Knights Templar
 
The Knights Templar experienced intensified conflict during the first quarter from their principal rival, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. In an effort to combat the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, the Knights Templar have allied with other Sinaloa Federation-aligned groups, the Gulf cartel and Los Coroneles, referring to themselves as "Los Aliados" to fight the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion within Jalisco. Violence as a result of this alliance against the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion has been most notable in the Guadalajara metropolitan area as well as towns lying on highways 15 and 90, which connect to Guadalajara.
 
In addition to the Knights Templar offensive into Jalisco state, the group is currently defending its stronghold of Michoacan state. The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion also has conducted violent assaults against the Knights Templar in Michoacan, particularly on routes leading from Jalisco state toward Apatzingan, Michoacan state. This assault has increased intercartel violence along the border of the two states as part of a tit-for-tat dynamic.
 
Citizens of Buenavista Tomatlan, Michoacan state, a municipality lying amid territory contested by the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar, have recently set up a community police force to counter Knights Templar operations in the municipality. As in some other areas of Mexico, this community police force is a volunteer force that assumed law enforcement responsibilities independent of the Mexican government. The community police, while established to thwart the Knights Templar, have created tension between the communities of Buenavista Tomatlan and the government. On March 8, the Mexican military detained approximately 34 members of the community police force that had been created in February in Buenavista Tomatlan.
 
The Buenavista Tomatlan arrests occurred after the community police took over the municipal police station March 4 and detained the municipal police chief, who the Mexican military later freed. Notably, the Mexican government claimed at least 30 of the detained community police belonged to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. If true, this suggests it has made territorial gains to the point of infiltrating the community police. However, there has been no confirmation on whether the accusations are true. Regardless, the community police force of Buenavista Tomatlan has placed its focus on stopping Knights Templar operations in the area, a focus that could only benefit the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion's war with its rivals.
.

Read more: Mexico's Drug War: Balkanization Leads to Regional Challenges | Stratfor
Title: Last night
Post by: DDF on April 18, 2013, 04:45:44 PM
Some guy took a video, this is what passerbuyers saw this morning. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=174640659358484&set=vb.100004376533846&type=2&theater
Title: Arrest of a Torreon Criminal Leader
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 24, 2013, 06:28:17 AM
Arrest of a Torreon Criminal Leader
 
Federal police have detained Daniel "El Danny" Garcia Avila, leader of the criminal organization Los Dannys, also known as Cartel del Poniente, in Zacatecas state, Mexican officials announced April 19. Los Dannys are a regional crime group operating in the Comarca Lagunera metropolitan area, which encompasses the cities of Torreon, Coahuila state; Gomez Palacio, Durango state; Lerdo, Durango state; and Matamoros, Coahuila state. While Garcia Avila's arrest could hurt Los Dannys, violence in the area is unlikely to abate.
 

Though much of the violence in Coahuila is related to a turf war between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation, increasing regional challenges from independent criminal groups like Los Dannys have made a substantial contribution. This regionalization of organized crime has increased the number of actors capable of contesting areas such as Torreon.
 
According to local authorities, Los Dannys have been responsible for a series of attacks against law enforcement officials in the area, in addition to other high-profile attacks. Whether the arrest of Daniel Garcia Avila will see Los Dannys' ability to operate diminish or whether another capable leader will step in remains unclear. Violence is likely to continue either way, since both Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation remain locked in combat for control of the region.
 
Violence in Tijuana
 
Authorities discovered the body of Edwin Jael Valencia Godinez, a leader within a Tijuana-based organized crime group under Jose Luis "El Guero Chompas" Mendoza Uriarte, on April 21 in Tijuana, Baja California state. His death follows the April 17 killing of Victor "El Sargento" Manuel Garcia, a leader of the local crime group Los Talibanes. The executions are part of a sharp increase in organized crime-related violence in Baja California state.
 
Violence in Tijuana and the rest of Baja California sharply declined after 2008 when the Sinaloa Federation largely bested the Arellano Felix Organization. Since then, the Arellano Felix Organization has maintained control of Tijuana, but in a subordinate role to the Sinaloa Federation. This relationship is by no means permanent. A new challenge to the Sinaloa Federation in Tijuana would not be surprising -- and would reflect another step in the Balkanization of Mexican organized crime.
 
Violence in Baja California state resulting from warring local criminal cells would harm Sinaloa Federation interests by drawing additional law enforcement attention to the lucrative border city of Tijuana. Indeed, unconfirmed Mexican media reports stated that Sinaloa Federation leader Ismael "Mayo" Zambada Garcia has ordered his lieutenants operating in Tijuana to halt the increase in violence. If correct, this shows a lack of control by Sinaloa Federation, since violence has not subsided. However, should the violence prove to be direct challenges to the Sinaloa Federation, then violence could intensify even more. Tijuana provides a critical port of entry into the United States, meaning the Sinaloa Federation would do everything it could to defend its operations in the area.


Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Torreon Leader Arrested, Violence in Tijuana | Stratfor
Title: Challenges to Knights Templar in Michoacan
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 09, 2013, 07:58:17 AM
Mexico Security Memo: Challenges to the Knights Templar in Michoacan

Stratfor

The conflict between the Knights Templar and the self-defense groups, also commonly referred to as community police, continues to escalate with violent acts and Knights Templar propaganda in Michoacan state near the border with Jalisco state. The Buenavista Tomatlan and Tepalcatepec municipalities have experienced the quickest increases in violence, extortion and embargos on local industries due to the ongoing conflict between Knights Templar and the self-defense groups.

On May 5, authorities discovered several narcomantas in Apatzingan, which is connected to both aforementioned municipalities by Highway 120 to the east. The messages denounced the self-defense groups, claiming they are associated with Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, the now-principal rival of the Knights Templar in states such as Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato and Guerrero. Regardless of any validity behind the messages, the focus on connecting the self-defense groups to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion shows an increasing urgency for the Knights Templar to defend their stronghold state from Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the expanding self-defense groups in Mexican communities.

The self-defense groups emerged in Buenavista Tomatlan in February as a response to escalating conflict between the Knights Templar and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. Since then, Knights Templar propaganda has shifted its focus from targeting Los Zetas to targeting the self-defense groups. During 2012, Los Zetas were the primary rival for the Knights Templar because they continually threatened Knights Templar routes to the United States through northeastern Mexico. But the conflict with Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion is a more immediate threat to the Knights Templar because of the former's proximity to the Knight's Templar stronghold in Michoacan. Moreover, the appearance of the self-defense groups brought additional challenges for the group.

Hot Spots This Week in Mexico map

In addition to propaganda and violent assaults, the Knights Templar have attempted to impose embargos on the municipalities that host self-defense groups in Michoacan. On April 15, unidentified individuals distributed pamphlets, ostensibly signed by the Knights Templar, in various areas of Apatzingan, Michoacan state. The message on the pamphlets warned vendors in general and some companies in particular to stop delivering goods to Buenavista Tomatlan and Tepalcatepec.

Regardless of the validity of the claims that self-defense groups are colluding with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, the groups augment the threat that the neighboring cartel poses to the Knights Templar. Additionally, the self-defense groups' ability to police their respective communities competes with the publicly stated intent of the Knights Templar to provide public services in the communities in which they operate. Should more self-defense groups also countering Knights Templar interests emerge in Michoacan, the cartel could expect to lose some freedom to maneuver in its local criminal enterprises within its stronghold.

It does not appear that the Knights Templar are in immediate danger of losing significant territory. However, it is likely the operations of self-defense groups in Michoacan state have favored the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in their current conflict with Knights Templar. Because of this, violence in Michoacan state, particularly west of Apatzingan, will likely continue at current levels and could further escalate if more self-defense groups emerge or if existing ones improve in their tactical capabilities.

Read more: Mexico Security Memo: Challenges to the Knights Templar in Michoacan | Stratfor
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 18, 2013, 11:19:17 AM
Mexico Security Memo: A New Conflict in Northern Sinaloa
Analysis
May 15, 2013 | 0730 Print - Text Size +

Stratfor
Analysis
Recent body dumps and targeted attacks in northern parts of Sinaloa state reveal an unfolding conflict among regional organized criminal groups with backing from some of Mexico's major cartels. Since April, media outlets have attributed at least two body dumps in Los Mochis, Ahome municipality's largest city, to a group calling itself La Mochomera. The group's origins and allegiances remain unclear, but the escalating violence in the state suggests that a new challenge to Los Mazatlecos -- the current dominant organization in Ahome -- is underway.
According to social media reports, La Mochomera is a remnant of the former Beltran Leyva Organization, a Sinaloa-based cartel that split in 2009. The group has reportedly been fighting Los Mazatlecos, another Beltran Leyva Organization remnant that wrested control of parts of northern Sinaloa state over the past year. In 2012, Los Mazatlecos emerged as a regional challenger to Sinaloa Federation in Sinaloa state, and the group operates in some of the few areas in the state outside of Sinaloa's control.
 
The ability of Los Mazatlecos to counter the far stronger the Sinaloa Federation has been partly a result of its cooperation with La Linea and Los Zetas, two of the Sinaloa Federation's principal rivals. Before the breakup of the Beltran Leyva Organization, Los Zetas allied with some of the cartel's leaders, including Alfredo Beltran Leyva. Since the split, Los Zetas have maintained a working relationship with many of the remnant groups, most notably Los Mazatlecos, whose operations in Sinaloa state have allowed Los Zetas to make occasional incursions into territories controlled by the Sinaloa Federation and afforded access to the Sierra Madre Occidental, a lucrative region for illicit drug production.
But the recent violence in Ahome indicates that La Mochomera is distinct from Los Mazatlecos. On April 20, authorities discovered six bodies inside an abandoned vehicle in Los Mochis, along with a narcomanta signed ostensibly by "El Dos Letras," presumably the nickname of the leader of La Mochomera. The message contained a threat to Ahome police chief Jesus Carrasco Ruiz and accused him of colluding with organized criminals. Then on May 4, authorities discovered another six bodies near Los Mochis and another narcomanta apparently signed by El Dos Letras. On May 9, a group of gunmen in Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, a community in Guasave municipality, ambushed a convoy ferrying the police chief to the city of Culiacan along Highway 15.
In light of the recent threats against Carrasco Ruiz and the Ahome police, the May 9 attack can likely be linked to the body dumps on April 20 and May 4. The ability to ambush an armored police convoy with a high number of gunmen suggests the involvement of a more substantial regional criminal group, rather than a local gang. Thus, La Mochomera could be receiving support from an outside organization looking to counter Los Mazatlecos. It is also possible that the new group splintered from Los Mazatlecos or perhaps is a Los Mazatlecos faction still working to defend the group's territory.
Stratfor has been unable to confirm whether the escalating conflict in northern Sinaloa state is indeed between La Mochomera and Los Mazatlecos as reported. If La Mochomera is aligned with or a part of Los Mazatlecos, then the recent violence could be the result of defensive operations against a rival, likely the Sinaloa Federation. If La Mochomera is challenging Los Mazatlecos, Los Zetas will likely respond to ensure its capabilities to conduct operations in the state and the Sierra Madre Occidental and to counter the Sinaloa Federation in the rival cartels' nationwide conflict. This would prolong high levels of violence for the foreseeable future.
Editor's note: As part of a refocusing of our Mexico coverage to include more analysis of the geopolitical, economic and energy-related issues affecting the country, Stratfor is discontinuing publication of our weekly Mexico Security Memo. We will continue to publish analyses pertaining to the security situation in Mexico, but we will do so when events warrant the coverage rather than simply once a week.
If you need access to more detailed intelligence and analysis on the security situation in Mexico, we will continue to offer a number of products and services specifically on that topic, including our Mexico Security Monitor, which you can subscribe to here. As always, we want your feedback. Please let us know what you think of our expanded coverage by sending an email to responses@stratfor.com.

Read more: Mexico Security Memo: A New Conflict in Northern Sinaloa | Stratfor


Understanding Pena Nieto's Approach to the Cartels
Security Weekly
Thursday, May 16, 2013 - 04:00 Print - Text Size +

Stratfor
By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's approach to combating Mexican drug cartels has been a much-discussed topic since well before he was elected. Indeed, in June 2011 -- more than a year before the July 2012 Mexican presidential election -- I wrote an analysis discussing rumors that, if elected, Pena Nieto was going to attempt to reach some sort of accommodation with Mexico's drug cartels in order to bring down the level of violence.
Such rumors were certainly understandable, given the arrangement that had existed for many years between some senior members of Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party and some powerful cartel figures during the Institutional Revolutionary Party's long reign in Mexico prior to the election of Vicente Fox of the National Action Party in 2000. However, as we argued in 2011 and repeated in March 2013, much has changed in Mexico since 2000, and the new reality in Mexico means that it would be impossible for the Pena Nieto administration to reach any sort of deal with the cartels even if it made an attempt.
But the rumors of the Pena Nieto government reaching an accommodation with some cartel figures such as Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera have persisted, even as the Mexican government arrests key operatives in Guzman's network, such as Ines Coronel Barreras, Guzman's father-in-law, who was arrested May 1 in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Indeed, on April 27, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest published a detailed article outlining how U.S. authorities were fearful that the Mexican government was restructuring its security relationship with the U.S. government so that it could more easily reach an unofficial truce with cartel leaders. Yet four days later, Coronel -- a significant cartel figure -- was arrested in a joint operation between the Mexicans and Americans.
Clearly, there is some confusion on the U.S. side about the approach the Pena Nieto government is taking, but conversations with both U.S. and Mexican officials reveal that these changes in Mexico's approach do not appear to be as drastic as some have feared. There will need to be adjustments on both sides of the border while organizational changes are underway in Mexico, but this does not mean that bilateral U.S.-Mexico cooperation will decline in the long term.
Opportunities and Challenges
Despite the violence that has wracked Mexico over the past decade, the Mexican economy is booming. Arguably, the economy would be doing even better if potential investors were not concerned about cartel violence and street crime -- and if such criminal activity did not have such a significant impact on businesses operating in Mexico.
Because of this, the Pena Nieto administration believes that it is critical to reduce the overall level of violence in the country. Essentially it wants to transform the cartel issue into a law enforcement problem, something handled by the Interior Ministry and the national police, rather than a national security problem handled by the Mexican military and the Center for Research and National Security (Mexico's national-level intelligence agency). In many ways the Pena Nieto administration wants to follow the model of the government of Colombia, which has never been able to stop trafficking in its territory but was able to defeat the powerful Medellin and Cali cartels and relegate their successor organizations to a law enforcement problem.   
The Mexicans also believe that if they can attenuate cartel violence, they will be able to free up law enforcement forces to tackle common crime instead of focusing nearly all their resources on containing the cartel wars.   
Although the cartels have not yet been taken down to the point of being a law enforcement problem, the Pena Nieto administration wants to continue to signal this shift in approach by moving the focus of its efforts against the cartels to the Interior Ministry. Unlike former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who was seen leading the charge against the cartels during his administration, Pena Nieto wants to maintain some distance from the struggle against the cartels (at least publicly). Pena Nieto seeks to portray the cartels as a secondary issue that does not demand his personal leadership and attention. He can then publicly focus his efforts on issues he deems critically important to Mexico's future, like education reform, banking reform, energy reform and fostering the Mexican economy. This is the most significant difference between the Calderon and Pena Nieto administrations.
Of course it is one thing to say that the cartels have become a secondary issue, and it is quite another to make it happen. The Mexican government still faces some real challenges in reducing the threat posed by the cartels. However, it is becoming clear that the Pena Nieto administration seeks to implement a holistic approach in an attempt to address the problems at the root of the violence that in some ways is quite reminiscent of counterinsurgency policy. The Mexicans view these underlying economic, cultural and sociological problems as issues that cannot be solved with force alone.
Mexican officials in the current government say that the approach the Calderon administration took to fighting the cartels was wrong in that it sought to solve the problem of cartel violence by simply killing or arresting cartel figures. They claim that Calderon's approach did nothing to treat the underlying causes of the violence and that the cartels were able to recruit gunmen faster than the government could kill or capture them. (In some ways this is parallel to the U.S. government's approach in Yemen, where increases in missile strikes from unmanned aerial vehicles have increased, rather than reduced, the number of jihadists there.) In Mexico, when the cartels experienced trouble in recruiting enough gunmen, they were able to readily import them from Central America.   
However -- and this is very significant -- this holistic approach does not mean that the Pena Nieto administration wants to totally abandon kinetic operations against the cartels. An important pillar of any counterinsurgency campaign is providing security for the population. But rather than provoke random firefights with cartel gunmen by sending military patrols into cartel hot spots, the Pena Nieto team wants to be more targeted and intentional in its application of force. It seeks to take out the networks that hire and supply the gunmen, not just the gunmen themselves, and this will require all the tools in its counternarcotics portfolio -- not only force, but also things like intelligence, financial action (to target cartel finances), public health, institution building and anti-corruption efforts.
The theory is that by providing security, stability and economic opportunity the government can undercut the cartels' ability to recruit youth who currently see little other options in life but to join the cartels.
To truly succeed, especially in the most lawless areas, the Mexican government is going to have to begin to build institutions -- and public trust in those institutions -- from the ground up. The officials we have talked to hold Juarez up as an example they hope to follow in other locations, though they say they learned a lot of lessons in Juarez that will allow them to streamline their efforts elsewhere. Obviously, before they can begin building, they recognize that they will have to seize, consolidate and hold territory, and this is the role they envision for the newly created gendarmerie, or paramilitary police.
The gendarmerie is important to this rebuilding effort because the military is incapable of serving in an investigative law enforcement role. They are deployed to pursue active shooters and target members of the cartels, but much of the crime affecting Mexico's citizens and companies falls outside the military's purview. The military also has a tendency to be heavy-handed, and reports of human rights abuses are quite common. Transforming from a national security to a law enforcement approach requires the formation of an effective police force that is able to conduct community policing while pursuing car thieves, extortionists, kidnappers and street gangs in addition to cartel gunmen.
Certainly the U.S. government was very involved in the Calderon administration's kinetic approach to the cartel problem, as shown by the very heavy collaboration between the two governments. The collaboration was so heavy, in fact, that some incoming Pena Nieto administration figures were shocked by how integrated the Americans had become. The U.S. officials who told Dana Priest they were uncomfortable with the new Mexican government's approach to cartel violence were undoubtedly among those deeply involved in this process -- perhaps so deeply involved that they could not recognize that in the big picture, their approach was failing to reduce the violence in Mexico. Indeed, from the Mexican perspective, the U.S. efforts have been focused on reducing the flow of narcotics into the United States regardless of the impact of those efforts on Mexico's security environment.
However, as seen by the May 1 arrest of Coronel, which a Mexican official described as a classic joint operation involving the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexican Federal Police, the Mexican authorities do intend to continue to work very closely with their American counterparts. But that cooperation must occur within the new framework established for the anti-cartel efforts. That means that plans for cooperation must be presented through the Mexican Interior Ministry so that the efforts can be centrally coordinated. Much of the current peer-to-peer cooperation can continue, but within that structure.
Consolidation and Coordination
As in the United States, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Mexico have terrible problems with coordination and information sharing. The current administration is attempting to correct this by centralizing the anti-cartel efforts at the federal level and by creating coordination centers to oversee operations in the various regions. These regional centers will collect information at the state and regional level and send it up to the national center. However, one huge factor inhibiting information sharing in Mexico -- and between the Americans and Mexicans -- is the longstanding problem of corruption in the Mexican government. In the past, drug czars, senior police officials and very senior politicians have been accused of being on cartel payrolls. This makes trust critical, and lack of trust has caused some Mexican and most American agencies to restrict the sharing of intelligence to only select, trusted contacts. Centralizing coordination will interfere with this selective information flow in the short term, and it is going to take time for this new coordination effort to earn the trust of both Mexican and American agencies. There remains fear that consolidation will also centralize corruption and make it easier for the cartels to gather intelligence.
Another attempt at command control and coordination is in the Pena Nieto administration's current efforts to implement police consolidation at the state level. While corruption has reached into all levels of the Mexican government, it is unquestionably the most pervasive at the municipal level, and in past government operations entire municipal police departments have been fired for corruption. The idea is that if all police were brought under a unified state command, called "Mando Unico" in Spanish, the police would be better screened, trained and paid and therefore the force would be more professional.
This concept of police consolidation at the state level is not a new idea; indeed, Calderon sought to do so under his administration, but it appears that Pena Nieto might have the political capital to make this happen, along with some other changes that Calderon wanted to implement but could not quite pull off. To date, Pena Nieto has had a great deal of success in garnering political support for his proposals, but the establishment of Mando Unico in each of Mexico's 31 states may perhaps be the toughest political struggle he has faced yet. If realized, Mando Unico will be an important step -- but only one step -- in the long process of institution building for the police at the state level.
Aside from the political struggles, the Mexican government still faces very real challenges on the streets as it attempts to quell violence, reassert control over lawless areas and gain the trust of the public. The holistic plan laid out by the Pena Nieto administration sounds good on paper, but it will still require a great deal of leadership by Pena Nieto and his team to bring Mexico through the challenges it faces. They will obviously need to cooperate with the United States to succeed, but it has become clear that this cooperation will need to be on Mexico's terms and in accordance with the administration's new, holistic approach.

Read more: Understanding Pena Nieto's Approach to the Cartels | Stratfor










U.S., Mexico: The Decline of the Colorado River
Analysis
May 13, 2013 | 0703 Print - Text Size +
 
A ring of bleached sandstone caused by low water levels during a six-year drought surrounds Lake Powell, a Colorado River reservoir near Page, Arizona David McNew/Getty Images
Summary
An amendment to a standing water treaty between the United States and Mexico has received publicity over the past six months as an example of progress in water sharing agreements. But the amendment, called Minute 319, is simply a glimpse into ongoing mismanagement of the Colorado River on the U.S. side of the border. Over-allocation of the river's waters 90 years ago combined with increasing populations and economic growth in the river basin have created circumstances in which conservation efforts -- no matter how organized -- could be too little to overcome the projected water deficit that the Colorado River Basin will face in the next 20 years.
Analysis
In 1922, the seven U.S. states in the Colorado River Basin established a compact to distribute the resources of the river. A border between the Upper and Lower basins was defined at Lees Ferry, Ariz. The Upper Basin (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) was allocated 9.25 billion cubic meters a year, and the Lower Basin (Arizona, California and Nevada) was allotted 10.45 billion cubic meters. Mexico was allowed an unspecified amount, which in 1944 was defined as 1.85 billion cubic meters a year. The Upper and Lower basins -- managed as separate organizations under the supervision of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation -- divided their allocated water among the states in their jurisdictions. Numerous disputes arose, especially in the Lower Basin, regarding proper division of the water resources. But the use of (and disputes over) the Colorado River began long before these treaties.
 
As the United States' territory expanded to the west, the Colorado River briefly was considered a portal to the isolated frontier of the southwestern United States, since it was often cheaper to take a longer path via water to transport goods and people in the early 19th century. There was a short-lived effort to develop the Colorado River as the "Mississippi of the West." While places like Yuma, Ariz., became military and trading outposts, the geography and erratic flow of the Colorado made the river ultimately unsuitable for mass transportation. Navigating the river often required maneuvering around exposed sand banks and through shallow waters. The advent of the railroad ended the need for river transport in the region. Shortly thereafter, large and ambitious management projects, including the Hoover Dam, became the river's main purpose.
Irrigation along the river started expanding in the second half of the 19th century, and agriculture still consumes more water from the Colorado than any other sector. Large-scale manipulation of the river began in the early 20th century, and now there are more than 20 major dams along the Colorado River, along with reservoirs such as Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and large canals that bring water to areas of the Imperial and Coachella valleys in southern California for irrigation and municipal supplies. User priority on the Colorado River is determined by the first "useful purposing" of the water. For example, the irrigated agriculture in California has priority over some municipal water supplies for Phoenix, Ariz.
Inadequate Supply and Increasing Demand
When the original total allocation of the river was set in the 1920s, it was far above regional consumption. But it was also more than the river could supply in the long term. The river was divided based on an estimated annual flow of roughly 21 billion cubic meters per year. More recent studies have indicated that the 20th century, and especially the 1920s, was a time of above-normal flows. These studies indicate that the long-term average of flow is closer to 18 billion cubic meters, with yearly flows ranging anywhere from roughly 6 billion cubic meters to nearly 25 billion cubic meters. As utilization has increased, the deficit between flow and allocation has become more apparent.
Total allocations of river resources for the Upper and Lower basins and Mexico plus water lost to evaporation adds up to more than 21 billion cubic meters per year. Currently, the Upper Basin does not use the full portion of its allocation, and large reservoirs along the river can help meet the demand of the Lower Basin. Populations in the region are expected to increase; in some states, the population could double by 2030. A study released at the end of 2012 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation predicted a possible shortage of 3 billion cubic meters by 2035.
The Colorado River provides water for irrigation of roughly 15 percent of the crops in the United States, including vegetables, fruits, cotton, alfalfa and hay. It also provides municipal water supplies for large cities, such as Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas, accounting for more than half of the water supply in many of these areas. Minute 319, signed in November 2012, gives Mexico a small amount of additional water in an attempt to restore the delta region. However, the macroeconomic impact on Mexico is minimal, since agriculture accounts for the majority of the river's use in Mexico but only about 3 percent of the gross domestic product of the Baja Norte province.
There is an imbalance of power along the international border. The United States controls the headwaters of the Colorado River and also has a greater macroeconomic interest in maintaining the supply of water from the river. This can make individual amendments of the 1944 Treaty somewhat misleading. Because of the erratic nature of the river, the treaty effectively promises more water than the river can provide each year. Cooperation in conservation efforts and in finding alternative water sources on the U.S. side of the border, not treaty amendments, will become increasingly important as regional water use increases over the coming decades.
Conservation Efforts Along the Colorado
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation oversees the whole river, but the management of each basin is separate. Additionally, within each basin, there are separate state management agencies and, within each state, separate regional management agencies. Given the number of participants, reaching agreements on the best method of conservation or the best alternative source of water is difficult. There are ongoing efforts at conservation, including lining canals to reduce seepage and programs to limit municipal water use. However, there is no basin-wide coordination. In a 2012 report, the Bureau of Reclamation compiled a list of suggested projects but stopped short of recommending a course of action.
A similar report released in 2008 listed 12 general options including desalinization, vegetation management (elimination of water-intensive or invasive plants), water reuse, reduced use by power plants and joint management through water banking (water is stored either in reservoirs or in underground aquifers to use when needed). Various sources of water imports from other river basins or even icebergs are proposed as options, as is weather modification by seeding clouds in the Upper Basin. Implementation of all these options would result in an extra 5 billion cubic meters of water a year at most, which could erase the predicted deficit. However, this amount is unlikely, as it assumes maximum output from each technique and also assumes the implementation of all proposed methods, many of which are controversial either politically or environmentally and some of which are economically unviable. Additionally, many of the methods would take years to fully implement and produce their maximum capacity. Even then, a more reasonable estimate of conservation capacity would likely be closer to 1 billion-2 billion cubic meters, which would fall short of the projected deficit in 2035.
The Potential for New Disputes
Conflict over water can arise when there are competing interests for limited resources. This is seen throughout the world with rivers that traverse borders in places like Central Asia and North Africa. For the Colorado River, the U.S.-Mexico border is likely less relevant to the competition for the river's resources than the artificial border drawn at Lees Ferry.
Aside from growing populations, increased energy production from unconventional hydrocarbon sources in the Upper Basin has the potential to increase consumption. While this amount will likely be small compared to overall allocations, it emphasizes the value of water to the Upper Basin. Real or perceived threats to the Upper Basin's surplus of water could be seen as threats to economic growth in the region. At the same time, further water shortages could limit the potential for economic growth in the Lower Basin -- a situation that would only be exacerbated by growing populations.
While necessary, conservation efforts and the search for alternative sources likely will not be able to make up for the predicted shortage. Amendments to the original treaty typically have been issued to address symptomatic problems. However, the core problem remains: More water is promised to river users than is available on average. While this problem has not come to a head yet, there may come a time when regional growth overtakes conservation efforts. It is then that renegotiation of the treaty with a more realistic view of the river's volume will become necessary. Any renegotiation will be filled with conflict, but most of that likely will be contained in the United States.

Read more: U.S., Mexico: The Decline of the Colorado River | Stratfor


Title: New anti-laundering law coming in 2014
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 05, 2013, 12:12:12 PM
 Money Laundering in Mexico: The Struggle to Track Illicit Gains
Analysis
July 5, 2013 | 0521 Print Text Size
Money Laundering in Mexico: The Struggle to Track Illicit Gains
Authorities seized more than $1 million and more than 41 million pesos on June 15, 2012. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/GettyImages)
Summary

In its fight against organized crime, the Mexican government is going after what is perhaps most valuable to criminal enterprises: their money and their bank accounts. On June 17, the government confirmed a new money laundering law that will help prevent cartels from washing their proceeds so easily. The law will take effect sometime around March 2014.

The new law will not bring an end to all money laundering operations in Mexico. Money launderers no doubt will adapt to and circumvent the new regulations. They may be able to use existing tactics less affected by the legislation, or they may exploit money laundering avenues outside those of their most reliable associates in the United States. However, improving the economy is a priority for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, and if he can at least make such operations more difficult for criminal organizations and the corrupt businesses with which they transact, he may be able to improve the image of his country's regulatory environment enough to attract more foreign investment to Mexico.
Analysis

Mexico's political and economic environment has long been conducive to money laundering. Rampant corruption and inefficient regulation and enforcement have prevented previous administrations from effectively redressing the issue. But the blame also lies partly in the sophistication of Mexico's money launderers, who employ a multitude of methods to make their earnings appear legitimate.
Methodology

Money laundering is broadly defined as the process by which illegally obtained earnings are made to appear legitimate. The oldest and simplest form of money laundering -- in Mexico as elsewhere -- is bulk cash smuggling. In Mexico this is done primarily in U.S. dollars. The advantages of smuggling are that it does not involve a third party or create a paper trail. Using this method, drug dealers sell their product in the United States and deposit the proceeds into U.S. banks. Otherwise, they smuggle the cash across the border and deposit it into Mexican banks.

They also use what is known as trade-based money laundering, which U.S. and Mexican intelligence agencies believe accounts for the highest percentage of laundered money in the world. In trade-based money laundering, criminals disguise money through seemingly legitimate commercial transactions. Transactions could take any number of forms: multiple shipments, phantom shipments or underreporting or overreporting shipments or payments. Frequently this technique involves the collusion of manufacturers and export/import firms, and typically it involves high-value goods that are subject to higher taxes and are in higher demand, such as electronics, luxury cars, textiles, precious metals and counterfeit goods.
Money Laundering in Mexico: The Struggle to Track Illicit Gains Read more: Money Laundering in Mexico: The Struggle to Track Illicit Gains

For example, a criminal with $1 million to wash will use a front or shell company to purchase $10,000 worth of, say, computers from an oversees computer company. The computer company, which is privy to the arrangement, will falsify an invoice to show $1 million worth of computers sold, after which it will ship the computers, take a commission and wire the remainder of the money -- in this case, $990,000 less the commission and merchandise -- to the original front company. The launderer can then sell the computers on the open or black market. Unlike conventional laundering practices, in which criminals sacrifice a portion of their earnings, trade-based money laundering enables criminals to recoup all their expenses by selling the merchandise. In some cases, they even turn a profit.

Trade-based money laundering has grown as global trade, including online commerce, has increased. It provides criminal organizations a relatively low-risk way to wash their funds. Countering this kind of activity requires a lot of coordination, funding and attention from authorities, who simply are unable to interdict in every instance of money laundering. Such challenges ensure that international trade-based money laundering will continue to grow.

Money Laundering in Mexico: The Struggle to Track Illicit Gains

Another preferred method of money laundering is the black market peso exchange. Mexican and Colombian criminal groups have long used this method because it is very difficult to detect and prosecute.

In these exchanges, Mexican criminals will smuggle drugs or other goods into the United States and sell them on the street for U.S. dollars. They then sell those dollars to a peso broker, who has connections in Colombia. The peso broker deposits the cash into the U.S. banking system in the form of structured deposits, making sure that these deposits do not exceed $10,000 -- the amount at which banks are required to file suspicious transaction reports to the U.S. government.

To avoid detection, the peso broker finds a Colombian importer that needs U.S. dollars and can purchase goods from U.S. exporters. The peso broker then uses funds from his U.S. bank account to pay the U.S. exporter on behalf of the Colombian importer. The U.S. exporter ships the goods to Colombia, where the Colombian importer sells the goods for pesos. These pesos are used to repay the peso broker. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, black market peso exchange moves an estimated $5 billion in drug proceeds from the United States to Colombia every year.
Allaying Investor Concerns

Mexico's new money laundering law is designed to counteract these and other methods. First introduced in 2010 by then-President Felipe Calderon, the law is meant to fight organized crime and corrupt business practices in part by limiting large cash transactions for expensive commodities, such as luxury cars, airplanes and real estate.

But because of the amount of money at stake and the corruption inside the Mexican government, pushback was inevitable. And given that so many small businesses in Mexico transact solely in cash, many Mexicans believed the law would hamper economic growth. Lawmakers debated and revised the law before it eventually went to Calderon for approval in October 2012.

Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 on a platform of solving Mexico's labor, education and banking problems. He hoped to divert attention from his country's troubled security situation by showcasing its economic potential. His administration has emphasized the country's economic vitality and has sought to safeguard existing and potential investors from corruption and organized crime. If administered properly, the new law may allay investors' concerns about conducting business in Mexico.

Specifically, the law is designed to reorganize public institutions within the Ministry of Finance, which ultimately will enforce the law, and develop an intelligence system to better identify and track potential and existing money launderers. It will also establish a Special Unit for Financial Analysis attached to the Attorney General's Office.

In addition to restricting the use of cash for high-end purchases, the law also will make it more difficult for criminals to transfer large amounts of cash. It will require Mexican businesses such as banks, money-remittance services, construction companies, lottery distributors, real estate firms and automobile manufacturers and dealers to better monitor suspicious transactions, often referred to as vulnerable activities.

All these organizations will be required to submit monthly reports of suspicious transactions to the Finance Ministry, but what qualifies as "suspicious" varies from business to business. For real estate transactions, the threshold is 8,025 times the minimum wage in Mexico City (roughly $40,000). For car, boat or airplane transactions, the threshold is 3,210 times the minimum wage in Mexico City (roughly $16,000). Credit issuers, financial institutions and individuals and businesses processing credit card transactions will be required to submit a report when a credit card user has spent equal to or more than 1,285 times the minimum wage in Mexico City (roughly $6,400).

According to a provision of the law, these reports must include the contact information of the individuals involved, an explanation of their business relationships, the goods or services provided in the transaction and the origin of the funds. Commonly known as the "know your customer" process, this provision refers to the due diligence that financial institutions and other regulated companies typically conduct to prevent identity theft, financial fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing. If nothing derails the law before 2014, most Mexican businesses will be required to participate in this process.

At the heart of the new law lies the need to stem the flow of laundered U.S. dollars into the Mexican economy. According to the U.S. State Department's 2012 Money Laundering Report, Mexican criminal organizations send between $19 billion and $39 billion to Mexico annually from the United States. These remittances are driven in large part by the proximity of the United States and its relatively robust economy.

The new law may indeed disrupt illegal financial operations in Mexico. But ultimately, its effectiveness will depend partly on the vigilance of Mexican businesses and financial firms, and criminals certainly will try to exploit those that do not enforce the rules strictly. In the meantime, Mexican criminal groups will continue to use reliable money laundering techniques as they search for new methods and new countries with which to partner. The U.S.-Mexican conduit will remain intact for the foreseeable future, but Mexican money launderers have already established ties with criminal enterprises in other countries -- notably in Europe and Central and South America. After March 2014, those connections could become even stronger.

Read more: Money Laundering in Mexico: The Struggle to Track Illicit Gains | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Title: !Hijole!
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 10, 2013, 05:26:54 PM
http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/07/10/no-longer-1-u-s-not-the-fattest-country-in-the-world-anymore/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: jcordova on July 11, 2013, 04:50:13 AM
Si Que nos gusta comer tacos y tortas  :-D. Me encantan....
Title: Popocatepetl
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 14, 2013, 09:30:01 PM
Popocatepetl, a volcano about 70 kilometers (43 miles) southeast of Mexico City, has been increasingly active during the past week after briefly calming down from an active period in May. On July 10, Popocatepetl registered 45 exhalation events of steam, gas and ash, with the cloud reaching a height of more than 2 kilometers. On July 6, the Mexican National Disaster Prevention Center raised the alert level to Yellow, Phase III -- the third highest of a seven-stage scale. There have been no evacuations recommended as of yet, although traffic is being monitored on key evacuation routes.

Ash and infrastructure disruptions from a large eruption of Popocatepetl could affect nearly 30 million people. Some population centers could be in the path of deadly mudslides, and volcanic ash could cause economic disruptions. The Mexico City international airport services roughly 65,000 travelers a day, and economic activity in Mexico City accounts for about 30 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product. Direct and indirect contributions from the aviation industry alone contributed an estimated 2 percent of Mexico's overall gross domestic product in 2011. On July 4-5, ash from Popocatepetl's continued eruptions caused the cancelation of dozens of flights at Mexico City's airport, primarily from airlines based in the United States; Mexican airlines were only temporarily halted.

Popocatepetl has been active in some form for the past 20 years, so some rumblings are not unusual for the region. However, this ongoing activity brings the risk of complacency that could create problems if an evacuation warning is issued. Predicting the specifics of such an event is difficult, and this volcanic activity does not necessarily imply an impending, larger eruption, but the underlying economic considerations and potential effects come to the forefront with any increase in activity.
Title: Stratfor: Zeta leader captured
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 16, 2013, 01:33:17 PM

Summary

The arrest of Los Zetas leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales marks the most significant capture involving a Mexican organized crime leader since 2008. On July 15, Stratfor sources confirmed Mexican and U.S. media reports saying that Trevino was arrested in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, and that he was being transferred to Mexico City. Reports indicate that he was arrested late July 14, though that has not been confirmed. At least one source claims Trevino's nephew was also arrested.

Trevino became the leader of Los Zetas, one of Mexico's most prolific and most territorial organized crime groups, sometime in 2012 shortly before then-leader Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano was killed by the Mexican navy. Trevino's arrest could change Mexico's criminal landscape substantially if Los Zetas begin to unravel in his absence.
Analysis

One reason behind Los Zetas' success is the group's ability to replace its leadership, even its senior-most leaders, relatively easily. In fact, Trevino succeeded Lazcano without any noticeable internal strife -- a rare occurrence among Mexican criminal groups.

This ability stems from the founding members, several of whom deserted from the highly trained Special Forces Airmobile Group unit of the Mexican army. Because ex-military personnel formed Los Zetas, members tend to move up in the group's hierarchy through merit rather than through familial connections. This contrasts starkly with the culture of other cartels, including the Sinaloa Federation. However, Miguel Trevino did not originate from the Mexican military like his predecessor, so it is possible that the group's culture may have changed somewhat.

It is unclear who will now try to keep the group together. Trevino's brother, Omar "Z-42" Trevino, will likely continue to maintain his role in criminal operations but it remains to be seen whether he has the capability or respect within the organization to replace his brother.

The places where cartel-related violence could rise as a result of Trevino's capture will depend on the ability of Los Zetas to replace their top leader as well as the strategies of Los Zetas' rivals. Should Trevino's arrest spark an internal struggle for succession, violence could rise in the states in which Los Zetas hold a substantial presence, including Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Coahuila, Veracruz, Hidalgo, and Tabasco states.

Los Zetas' rivals, such as the Sinaloa Federation, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, the Knights Templar and factions of the Gulf cartel, probably see this transition as a moment of weakness. They could attack Los Zetas in their strongholds or otherwise try to expel Los Zetas from their home territories.   

The intelligence from Trevino's arrest could be a boon to U.S. and Mexican officials. Unlike Lazcano, who was killed during his attempted apprehension, Trevino survived his arrest and thus could provide valuable intelligence either through interrogation or through the seizure of his personal belongings, including mobile phones, computers and paper records. These in turn could lead to the arrests of other high-ranking organized crime leaders.

Read more: Mexico: Will Los Zetas Unravel Without Their Leader? | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Title: Zetas lose their leader and community police proliferate
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 24, 2013, 08:29:33 AM
 Mexico's Drug War: Los Zetas Lose Their Leader and Community Police Proliferate
Security Weekly
Thursday, July 18, 2013 - 04:24 Print Text Size
Stratfor

Editor's Note: This Security Weekly assesses the most significant cartel-related developments of the second quarter of 2013 and provides updated profiles of Mexico's powerful criminal cartels, as well as a forecast for the rest of this year. It's the executive summary of a more detailed report available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.

By Tristan Reed

Mexico Security Analyst

Mexican authorities arrested Los Zetas' top leader, Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, roughly 27 kilometers (17 miles) southwest of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state, on July 15. Trevino's is the most significant capture in Mexico's drug war in recent years. The fate of Los Zetas and the response of Los Zetas' rivals has accordingly become uncertain moving into the third quarter. Indicators will emerge during the third quarter providing clarity on what to expect for security and cartel operations throughout Mexico.

Beyond the Trevino arrest, the second quarter also saw continued expansion of community-organized militias, commonly referred to as self-defense groups or community police, a trend we identified in the 2013 first quarter update. In Michoacan state, militia activity was so pronounced that Mexico City deployed the military and federal police to reassert government authority. The proliferation of these groups increasingly affects not just the Mexican government's strategy for combatting crime and violence, but also the strategies of Mexico's transnational criminal organizations.
Los Zetas

It is too early to gauge the extent to which Trevino's arrest will impact Los Zetas' operations. Whether a Los Zetas member is capable of filling the leadership vacuum will determine the impact. In the meantime, each of Los Zetas' rivals will likely revise their current strategies in fighting Los Zetas depending on their respective geographic reach and perceptions of Los Zetas' moment of weakness in the wake of the loss of their leader.

One reason behind Los Zetas' success has been the group's ability to replace its leadership, even its most senior leaders, relatively easily. Trevino himself succeeded former leader Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano sometime during 2012 -- albeit prior to Lazcano's death during a military operation in October 2012 -- without any noticeable internal strife, a rare occurrence among Mexican criminal groups.

This ability stems from founders' military pedigree. Because ex-military personnel formed Los Zetas, members tend to move up in the group's hierarchy based on merit rather than familial connections. Unlike his predecessor, Trevino did not have a military background, so it is possible that the group's culture has changed somewhat, dulling its facility for smooth leadership transitions.

It is unclear who will try to keep the group together. Trevino's brother, Omar "Z-42" Trevino, will likely continue to maintain his role in criminal operations. His position was significantly boosted by his brother's ascent to the top spot, but it remains to be seen whether he has the capability or respect within the organization to replace his brother.

Violence will likely follow Trevino's capture in some parts of Mexico. The location and the scale of that violence depends on how resilient Los Zetas and its component cells are as rivals move to capitalize on what they see as a moment weakness.

Another potential impact of the arrest of Trevino will fall on Los Zetas' national strategy. The group has boasted cohesive network spanning more than half of Mexico, from which it has planned assaults on the territories of rivals such as the Sinaloa Federation. This was on display in Sinaloa state via a strategy that depended on coordination with the remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization, which maintain a substantial presence in Sinaloa, and on Los Zetas' ability to stage gunmen and operations outside Sinaloa state. If Los Zetas cannot maintain the same level of cohesion as a whole, such strategies may dissolve.

In the third quarter, several indicators will reveal the impact Trevino's has on Mexican security and on Los Zetas' continued viability. These include shifts in violence within Zetas territories such as Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Coahuila, Veracruz, Hidalgo and Tabasco states. Another indicator likely to emerge during the third quarter will be information operations campaigns by Los Zetas' rivals. While cartel propaganda, most commonly seen in narcomantas, is often disinformation, the messages' topics often demonstrate the priorities of the cartel behind the narcomanta.
'Community Police'

Vigilantism and non-government militias have long been seen throughout Mexico. The phenomenon of community police goes back at least to 1995, by which time an institutionalized collective of militias, the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities, had a well established presence in parts of Guerrero state. Self-defense groups began to expand into communities throughout Guerrero and Michoacan states in early 2013, a year that has seen the role of community police in Mexico's domestic security issues expand rapidly.

In Michoacan, the militias appear to form within the confines of distinct communities. The groups remain largely disconnected, though they share the goal of confronting organized crime organizations and, at times, of countering government interests. In Guerrero, the presence of self-defense groups is much greater given their longer history there and given that state laws grant special recognition to them, particularly to those in indigenous communities.

Two separate and sometimes conflicting bodies coordinate self-defense group operations in Guerrero state: the Union of People and Organizations of Guerrero state and the Regional Coordinator of Community Authority. These groups, which call themselves community police, follow their own procedures for administering justice in their areas of operations and engage in talks with the state government. Regardless of the institutional system, both groups have been actively expanding their reach in Guerrero state through promoting the establishment of community police in new locales. This expansion has brought intermittent moments of tension with the state and federal governments due to the demonstrations and roadblocks that have accompanied it, as well as because of the increasing interactions between community police and organized crime during the second quarter of 2013.

As the Regional Coordinator of Community Authority and the Union of People and Organizations of Guerrero state community police have historically operated with limited funding, their members have largely served as volunteers armed primarily with hunting rifles and shotguns.

By contrast, the recently formed self-defense groups in Michoacan reportedly are equipped with assault rifles, tactical gear and sport utility vehicles. Self-defense groups in Michoacan also have targeted organized criminal groups -- specifically the Knights Templar, which apparently has inflicted the most harm on the people of Michoacan -- much more actively. Groups in the Buenavista Tomatlan, Tepalcatepec and Coalcoman municipalities of Michoacan state were founded during the first and second quarters of 2013 to confront the Knights Templar, which have dominated regional criminal activity since its split from La Familia Michoacana in 2010. In response, the Knights Templar disseminated propaganda denouncing Michoacan's self-defense groups and has violently attacked them. This forced the Mexican government to deploy federal security forces, including Federal Police and the military, in May to quell the rising violence and reassert government authority in the affected communities. The troops are currently maintaining an increased operational tempo in Michoacan state and likely will continue to do so through the next quarter.

Community police groups reflect the social consequences of prolonged violence and Mexico City's inability to enforce the rule of law in rural regions that historically are difficult to govern. In most cases, residents in communities with active self-defense groups rely primarily on those groups to maintain public order, undermining Mexican government authority. This has lead to tensions between the communities and government authorities. Sometimes, these tensions spark demonstrations and even low-level violence, occasionally blocking important transportation routes along southwest coastal highways and interior roads throughout Michoacan and Guerrero states. Such blockades can last several days, with the self-defense groups ultimately winding up in negotiations with federal troops and multiple levels of government.

The expansion of self-defense groups also has led to increased conflict between them and Mexican cartels, particularly the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar. Michoacan's self-defense groups emerged amid a turf war between these two cartels. Notably, the self-defense groups have formed along roads connecting Jalisco and Michoacan. These are the same roads through which the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Knights Templar stage incursions into one another's territories. Thus the self-defense groups have not only directly impacted Knights Templar's operations but also inadvertently aided the efforts of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion in its incursions into Michoacan state.

Self-defense groups would not be in a position to confront organized criminal groups without some level of financial and other material support. While self-defense groups in Guerrero have in the past operated on a modest budget with the help of the community and occasional support from the government, the possibility remains that they have new benefactors -- perhaps including organized criminal groups. In June, business leaders in Chilpancingo, Guerrero state, met with Union of People and Organizations of Guerrero state representatives in an attempt to strike a deal to jointly combat extortion, an increasing problem as violence worsens. Such agreements do not yet appear to include financial support, something that could elevate the tactical capabilities -- and further the geographic expansion -- of the Union of People and Organizations of Guerrero.

Despite a stated intent to combat organized crime, self-defense groups could collude with organized criminal groups. Mexican military officers have made multiple accusations that self-defense groups in Michoacan state and self-defense groups emerging in July in the Costa Grande region of Guerrero state (unaffiliated with either the Regional Coordinator of Community Authority or the Union of People and Organizations of Guerrero state) are linked to organized crime. Likewise, the Knights Templar has actively spread propaganda through narcomantas and online media alleging that their principal rival, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, is behind the expansion of self-defense groups. There have been no further reports of links between self-defense groups and organized crime, and Mexican authorities apparently have not followed up on such accusations.

As exemplified by the May deployment of federal troops to Michoacan, self-defense groups have added additional complexity to Mexico's security environment, forcing the federal government to adjust its strategy. The Mexican government wishes to contain the expansion of self-defense groups, since they pose a threat to governmental authority. Thus far, the current government strategy has been to substantially increase military and law enforcement presence in exchange for self-defense groups' limiting their activity. This strategy will only yield temporary results, however, until the violence carried out by organized crime groups can be stamped out.

Specifically in Michoacan and Guerrero states, self-defense groups will likely continue to expand into some rural communities during the third quarter. As a result of continued expansion, confrontations between self-defense groups and organized crime could increase. Should violence with organized crime continue to escalate or tension between self-defense groups and the Mexican government rise as result of the groups' continued expansion, additional federal troop deployments to either Michoacan or Guerrero states could occur during the third quarter.

In addition to consequences resulting from their expansion, self-defense groups will continue to impact the conflict between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar in Jalisco, Michoacan and Guerrero states. Since the fourth quarter of 2012, this conflict has become more active, with the groups mounting continued incursions into their rivals' strongholds in Jalisco and Michoacan states and violence occurring in Guerrero state. To more effectively combat the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, the Knights Templar aligned with a Gulf Cartel faction and Los Coroneles (a organized crime group derived from now-deceased Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel Villareal's network) to form Los Aliados. Thus far, Los Aliados have had little impact on the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion's hold over Jalisco. Due in part to the contest between self-defense groups and the Knights Templar in Michoacan state, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion has made inroads into Michoacan state, particularly in towns along highways linking Michoacan and Jalisco. The conflict between the two criminal organizations has increased violence, particularly in Jalisco and Michoacan states but also in Guerrero state.

Read more: Mexico's Drug War: Los Zetas Lose Their Leader and Community Police Proliferate | Stratfor
Title: The Mythical El Chapo; Michoacan
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 02, 2013, 02:33:37 PM
By Scott Stewart

Stratfor analysts spend a lot of time reading intelligence, including huge numbers of media reports. This is something I jokingly refer to as "electronic waterboarding" when talking to new analysts: The intelligence flow is more than any brain can absorb, and until you become accustomed to managing the onslaught of information, you can feel as though you are drowning intellectually. But once you learn to manage it, a heavy flow of information can be very useful in spotting anomalies and patterns and in charting and predicting changes in dynamics. It is also quite helpful in allowing an analyst to pick out conventional wisdom and even myths that are propagated by the media and sometimes deeply held by a population.

Analytically, the problem is that buying into a popular narrative or commonly held myth can be quite dangerous. This is because such concepts can not only shape the way you perceive and categorize information as you read through the flow, but also serve to radically skew your analysis of a situation or dynamic. Indeed, conventional wisdom, disinformation and myths have long proved to be the bane of sound analysis. Intellectually buying into these types of concepts has led to the construction of faulty intellectual frameworks that in recent years have resulted in deeply flawed analyses regarding, for example, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the purported links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

But deceptive narratives, disinformation and myths do not apply just to Iraq or Saddam. One of the places where they are running rampant today is in Mexico, and perhaps no figure has more myths and disinformation associated with him than Joaquin Guzman Loera, also known as El Chapo, the leader of the Sinaloa Federation.
Myth and Reality in Mexico

This is not the first time Stratfor has attempted to address the El Chapo myth. In November 2012, I wrote an analysis discussing how a commonly held belief that El Chapo was somehow less violent than his competitors is patently false. Indeed, a historical review of inter-cartel violence in Mexico shows that it was the aggressiveness of El Chapo and his Sinaloa cartel compatriots in their efforts to seize smuggling corridors from competing organizations that started successive cartel wars in Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, Juarez and Veracruz. Yet, despite this clear history, the myth somehow endures, and it is not unusual to read media accounts in which analysts and academics who study Mexico's cartels discuss how El Chapo and the Sinaloa cartel are more businesslike and less violent than their competitors. I often wonder what the remnants of the Arellano-Felix Organization (also know as the Tijuana cartel) or the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization (also known as the Juarez cartel) think when they read such claims.

There is another myth we would like to address. Since the July 15 arrest of Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, the leader of Los Zetas, there has been an increase in the circulation of the persistent myth that El Chapo's organization has somehow been spared in the Mexican government's efforts to decapitate and splinter the cartels. This is purportedly a sign that El Chapo has reached some sort of deal with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and his Institutional Revolutionary Party to spare the Sinaloa Federation from government attention. But this is clearly not supported by the facts.

Certainly, connections between the various cartels in Mexico and politicians at the local, state and even federal levels are longstanding and very well documented. However, while such connections can provide some degree of shelter and a great deal of intelligence regarding police and military operations, they by no means have been useful in completely shielding cartel figures from the government.

For example, the cartel leader who built arguably the best intelligence network within the Mexican government was Alfredo Beltran Leyva. Even though some of the Beltran Leyva Organization's alleged informants have been released from prison in recent months -- including former Mexican drug czar Noe Ramirez Mandujano and former army Gen. Tomas Angeles Dauahare -- due to questions about the credibility of a witness who testified against them, the cartel still possessed an extensive and impressive network of agents of influence and human intelligence sources. Yet this expansive network could not prevent Beltran Leyva himself from being arrested in January 2008, one of his brothers, Arturo, from being killed in December 2009 or another, Carlos, from being arrested two weeks later.  

Clearly, agents of influence and intelligence sources cannot provide universal protection from the government. This is because while corruption is widespread in Mexico, it is not homogenous at any level, and collusion does not imply exclusive or consistent support. Some politicians are on the payrolls of multiple cartels, and while one member of a political party or government institution can be in the employ of a certain cartel, their colleagues may be on the payrolls of others.

Because of this, agents of influence and information sources in the Mexican government have not been able to provide absolute protection to El Chapo and the Sinaloa Federation. For example, the Beltran Leyva Organization was a part of the Sinaloa Federation until after Alfredo Beltran Leyva's arrest, when rumors that El Chapo had betrayed Alfredo compelled Arturo Beltran Leyva to break away from, and declare war on, the Sinaloa Federation. It has never been clear if the rumors of the betrayal were true or if they were part of an information operation employed by former President Felipe Calderon's administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to divide and decapitate the cartels. Either way, the rumor was taken as fact, and the loss of the Beltran Leyva Organization was a big blow to the Sinaloa Federation.

El Chapo's group lost not only the Beltran Leyvas' intelligence and logistics networks but also their guns. The brothers had been dispatched to Nuevo Laredo when Sinaloa was attempting to wrest control of the plaza from the Gulf cartel following the arrest of Gulf leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen in 2003. After Alfredo's arrest, those same forces that had become battle-hardened after warring with Los Zetas for control of Nuevo Laredo began to attack their former Sinaloa Federation allies. They even killed El Chapo's son, Edgar Guzman Beltran, in Culiacan in May 2008. To this day, certain remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization, including an enforcer group known as Los Mazatlecos, pose a potent threat to the Sinaloa Federation throughout Sinaloa state.

A similar dynamic played out following the July 2010 death of Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal, the leader of a Sinaloa Federation faction based in Guadalajara. The organization splintered into several factions, some of which are now at war with the Sinaloa Federation after blaming El Chapo for betraying Coronel. These factions are also battling each other for control of Guadalajara. In this case, not only did the Sinaloa Federation lose significant revenue from the methamphetamine produced by Coronel's organization (Coronel was known as the "King of Crystal"), but Guadalajara has now become a hotly contested city rather than a Sinaloa stronghold. The largest of the Coronel factions, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which is at war with the Sinaloa Federation, has become one of the fastest-growing cartels in the country in terms of territory, and it poses a significant threat to the remaining Sinaloa factions headed by El Chapo, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia and Juan "El Azul" Jose Esparragoza Moreno, along with their allies in the Knights Templar and the Gulf cartel.

Speaking of El Mayo and El Azul, it is important to recognize that the Sinaloa Federation does not operate as a single hierarchical organization under El Chapo. While El Chapo gets most of the media attention, El Mayo and El Azul are also members of the triumvirate that guides the cartel's activities. Sinaloa's structure as a network of separate groups has helped the federation weather the loss of the Beltran Leyva and Coronel organizations. This also means that even if El Chapo is removed from the equation, his organization would likely continue, as would the factions led by El Mayo and El Azul -- though there is always the risk that the fall of such an apex leader could lead to the type of balkanization we have seen affect the Beltran Leyva and Coronel organizations.
Sinaloa Losses to Government Operations

Whether or not El Chapo and his triumvirate partners betrayed Alfredo Beltran Leyva and Coronel to the government, it is still not accurate to maintain that the Sinaloa Federation has not been affected by the campaign to splinter and decapitate the cartels. Besides losing two powerful organizations from its network, the Sinaloa Federation also has lost a number of key individuals, including:

    Ines Coronel Barreras: El Chapo's father-in-law and an important smuggler in Sonora. Arrested with his son in April 2013.
    Jonathan "El Fantasma" Salas Aviles: A key Sinaloa lieutenant and hit man. Arrested in February 2013.
    Jose Angel "El Changel" Coronel Carrasco: A prominent figure in Sinaloa illicit drug production operations in the area known as the Golden Triangle near the borders of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango states. Arrested in January 2013.
    Jesus Alfredo "El Muneco" Salazar Ramirez (El Muneco): A key lieutenant for El Chapo who oversaw production and trafficking of illicit drugs in Sonora and Chihuahua states. Arrested in November 2012.
    Jose Manuel "El M1" Torres Felix: A key lieutenant for El Mayo reportedly in charge of his security team. Killed in a shootout with the Mexican military in October 2012.
    Jose Antonio "El Jaguar" Torres Marrufo: A leader of the Gente Nueva enforcer group. Arrested in February 2012.
    Noel "El Flaco" Salgueiro Nevarez: A leader of the Gente Nueva enforcer group. Arrested in October 2011.
    Jesus Vicente "El Vicentillo" Zambada Niebla: The son of El Mayo. Arrested in March 2009 and extradited to the United States to stand trial.

It is also significant to recognize that this list does not count the personnel lost in confrontations with opposing cartels or arrested in other countries; these are just some of the key Sinaloa members lost to the Mexican government. Again, it is hard to understand how anyone can argue that Sinaloa has not been affected by government operations -- or that those arrested or killed were just low-ranking cannon fodder given up to provide an appearance that the government is attacking Sinaloa.

Interestingly, the myth that El Chapo reached an agreement with the government is nearly as old as it is immune to facts. I can clearly recall that when President Felipe Calderon came into power in December 2006, there were whisperings and rumors of some sort of familial link between Calderon and El Chapo and that Calderon and his National Action Party had somehow reached a deal with El Chapo that would protect the Sinaloa Federation from government action. As the partial list above shows, this was not the case. The Calderon administration did go after the Sinaloa Federation, as is Pena Nieto.

That the rumors span two administrations headed by presidents from opposing political parties -- and that the myths fly in the face of the facts -- highlights the dangers that such narratives pose to analysts. These myths shape the way facts are perceived and memorized -- or ignored. In this way, they introduce what is known as cognitive bias into an analysis of a situation or phenomenon. This cognitive bias can then lead the analysis astray -- and recent press articles demonstrate that a great deal of cognitive bias is still floating around regarding El Chapo.

Read more: The Mythical El Chapo | Stratfor

==========================================

 vice admiral of the Mexican navy, Carlos Miguel Salazar, was killed in an ambush on July 27 in northern Michoacan state. Just two days later on July 29, the police chief of the Lazaro Cardenas municipality in southern Michoacan was also found executed. It is still unclear at this point whether the two assassinations are part of an intensifying campaign to target higher-level officials, but it nonetheless does signal an increasingly precarious security environment. Unlike other places in Mexico currently experiencing high levels of violence, something in Michoacan has struck a nerve with the government and is compelling a more concerted military intervention.

In the days and weeks to come, we can expect to see increased violence in Michoacan as local vigilante groups press for protection, organized crime groups entrench their positions, and the federal government attempts to restore order to this notoriously lawless region. Ultimately however, the military deployment will prove to only be a temporary solution to a much more deeply rooted problem.

Two main developments led to the militarily intervention in Michoacan:

• Self-defense militias have emerged, threatening to further destabilize an already explosive region. These militias formed to provide protection against the leading organized crime group in the region -- the pseudo-religious Knights Templar. There are also claims that the vigilante groups are supported by the Knights Templar rival Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion as a means to make inroads into the strategic trafficking corridor. Regardless of how these groups emerged, or by whom they are supported, they have caused violence to spike and compelled the military to come in and prevent a further escalation.
• Michoacan is important because it is home to the strategic port of Lazaro Cardenas and it lies in close proximity to Mexico’s political and economic core. In terms of non-oil volume, Lazaro Cardenas is Mexico’s largest port. It is also North America’s fastest-growing port, and Mexico’s only port capable of handling post-Panamax sized vessels. The port is connected by modern, efficient road and rail infrastructure to the country’s emerging manufacturing core in the states of Guanajuato, Queretaro and Mexico State. It also lies between Mexico’s two largest cities, Mexico City and Guadalajara. Increasing violence in Michoacan has the ability to seriously affect commerce and economic activity.

As the flow of illicit goods often follows regular commercial routes, this transportation artery from the port to the core is essential territory for both the organized crime groups and the national government. Neither side can allow the other to make considerable inroads.

But why is the government leaning on the military and not the local public security officials? While many states in Mexico suffer from wide-scale political corruption, Michoacan is among the worst. Some seven out of 10 municipalities are reportedly infiltrated by organized crime. As a result, relying on the state-controlled law enforcement bodies has become problematic.

Michoacan’s mixture of vigilante militias, organized crime and corruption has led to some concern that the state is spiraling out of control. Because of the port and the close proximity to Mexico’s core, this is not an option for the government, which will do everything in its power to prevent an already unstable region from further deteriorating. However, there are no easy fixes in Michoacan, and the military’s presence will likely only be a temporary solution to a deeper, more fundamental problem.

Read more: Mexico's Military Intervenes In Michoacan | Stratfor
Title: Major Energy Sector Reform from PRI
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2013, 12:18:49 PM

Summary

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is expected to submit his party's landmark proposal for energy reform to Mexico's Congress in the coming week, culminating nearly a year of speculation and intrigue. Despite the controversy over the reforms, which proved troublesome for many previous administrations, Pena Nieto and the Institutional Revolutionary Party will enact measures capable of revolutionizing Mexico's energy sector. Unlike previous attempts, this energy reform package has the support of Mexico's largest opposition group, the National Action Party. The second-largest opposition group, the Democratic Revolutionary Party, is too weak to seriously hinder the bill's passage. While lawmakers will debate the finer points of the reforms, as well as any subsequent pieces of legislation, Mexico will soon see the most transformative adjustment to its energy sector in more than half a century -- even as it sees some public unrest in response to the bill.
Analysis

In December 2012, Mexico's three major parties agreed in the Pact for Mexico to reform the energy sector. But the promise was intentionally vague, leaving ample space for tri-partisan cooperation. Now, eight months later, Mexico's ruling party is poised to announce its proposal for reforming the country's struggling energy sector.

On one end of the spectrum, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party supports the most limited energy reform, focusing solely on improving Petroleos Mexicanos, commonly known as Pemex, from within. It does not advocate changing the constitution's Article 27, which prohibits concessions in the energy sector. This kind of reform would make the company more profitable but would not address the country's most pressing issue: the need to expand hydrocarbon exploration and production from the comparatively easy and inexpensive Bay of Campeche into the more difficult, more capital-intensive deep-water plays in the Gulf of Mexico and in the shale deposits in the northeastern basins.

Mexico's Main Oil and Natural Gas Regions

On the other end of the spectrum, the right-of-center National Action Party previously has supported more comprehensive proposals, including the idea of partially privatizing Pemex. Given the nationalist fervor surrounding Mexico's oil -- a fervor whose roots can be found in the post-Mexican Revolution period -- this proposal is highly controversial and stands little chance of acceptance. While there is a broad consensus on the need to allow more private partnerships and promote competition, a consensus has yet to be reached on privatizing Pemex or on allowing private firms to own the oil itself.

In the middle of these two extremes lies the proposal the ruling party is likely to put forth. The Institutional Revolutionary Party has suggested numerous times that it is interested in a transformative, structural reform, but one that stops short of privatizing Pemex. This is widely understood to mean improving Pemex operationally, introducing more attractive contracting models and perhaps even breaking Pemex's and the Federal Electricity Commission's monopolies. How the ruling party will go about doing this is still unknown. In theory it could implement tax reform, pension reform or subsidy reform. Otherwise it could require Pemex to have a certain stake in any offshore project, or it could give Pemex certain lucrative areas for exploration. But essentially, this middle-ground proposal allows the country to address declining hydrocarbon production without ceding control over its most lucrative natural resource and associated state-owned enterprise.
Obstacles to Reform

Pushing through the desired reforms likely will require a constitutional amendment -- many reforms passed under the current administration have. But to amend the constitution, the Institutional Revolutionary Party would have to partner with another party to secure the two-thirds majority in the federal legislature and a simple majority of all state legislatures. The National Action Party is the most logical choice because it has been trying for 12 years to reform the energy sector. Its proposal is transformative, while the Democratic Revolutionary Party's ideas are essentially more of the same.

In late July, the National Action Party proposed a reform that would change articles 25, 27 and 28 of the constitution. In Article 25, the party introduces environmentally friendly qualifiers, likely to curry favor with Mexico's Green Party and satisfy the Pact for Mexico promise to make Pemex a central force in the fight against climate change. In Article 27, it proposes scrapping the prohibition of concessions, thereby creating the opportunity for increased foreign investment. In Article 28, it proposes breaking the monopolies in the energy and electricity sectors, thus allowing private firms to compete all along the production chain: exploration and production, distribution, refining and retail. This would relieve some of the burden on Pemex to operate certain sections of the supply chain at a loss and enable the firm to focus on its more profitable activities in the upstream sections.

The proposal also calls for the creation of a Mexican Petroleum Fund to manage petroleum proceeds. Moreover, it would allow the National Hydrocarbon Commission and the Energy Regulatory Commission to grant concessions to the private sector in the upstream and the downstream/electricity sectors, respectively. The National Action Party also proposes keeping Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission as state-owned companies but removing them from the federal budget and granting them operational autonomy, as well as a 10-year plan to reduce the federal government's dependence on Pemex for tax revenues. This ensures a soft landing and gives the government time to develop other sources of fiscal revenue.

None of this directly contradicts the broad outline of what the ruling party is expected to propose. It addresses the need to make Pemex more efficient, and it grants the government the ability to form new contracting models -- effectively breaking Pemex's and the Federal Electricity Commission's monopolies. There is no privatization of Pemex, and there is nothing to suggest that the oil will cease being the property of the Mexican nation. Details are still scarce, but recent reports suggest that the government will find a way to give foreign firms the juridical certainty and the profit margins needed to incentivize risky, capital-intensive endeavors without transferring ownership of the resource itself. So while the Institutional Revolutionary Party's proposal will differ from the National Action Party's, those differences likely will be surmountable.
Growing Support for Pena Nieto's Plan

Pena Nieto has used the past eight months to consolidate support for the reform from within his party. In the last week of July, the Mexican government came to a wage increase agreement with the powerful oil workers union and had talks with some 18 Institutional Revolutionary Party governors whose support will be critical for passage of the constitutional reform. Unlike the National Action Party before it, the Institutional Revolutionary Party has been bringing all of the major interest groups on board before releasing the proposal, suggesting that once it is released it will be debated and approved relatively quickly, possibly by year's end. Recent delays in releasing the proposal suggest the government is addressing disagreements pre-emptively rather than waiting until later on to address internal concerns.

With few major disagreements between the National Action Party and the ruling party on the proposal, and with the major pillars of the ruling party apparently in favor of the reforms, Pena Nieto's efforts now are more of a public relations campaign than anything else. The opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party is trying to characterize the reform as a brazen and undemocratic privatization. By contrast, the Institutional Revolutionary Party has vociferously denied that the reforms will privatize Pemex and change the ownership status of the country's oil reserves.

Privatization is a highly ambiguous term in the context of Mexico's energy sector reforms. The Democratic Revolutionary Party equates privatization to allowing foreign and private firms to gain concessions, and the other two major parties equate privatization to allowing private investment in Pemex. Ultimately, the task for the Mexican government is to forge a proposal that significantly addresses problems facing the energy sector while convincingly arguing that the reform is not tantamount to privatization.

The Democratic Revolutionary Party has announced that it will hold a non-binding national referendum in half of Mexico's states on Aug. 25 and in the other half on Sept. 1. (The referendum coincides with the start of Congress's regular session.) The party also has planned a national demonstration on Sept. 8. These measures portend a fractious September, though the Democratic Revolutionary Party's ability to impede the passage of the bill is doubtful. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former presidential candidate for the party, managed to bring some 30,000 people out to protest an energy reform in 2008, but the Democratic Revolutionary Party's popularity has since waned, as has the popularity of Lopez Obrador, who has left his former party.

The Democratic Revolutionary Party can protest the bill but only at the risk of appearing obstructionist. In the meantime, the Institutional Revolutionary Party and National Action Party will go on to pass one of Mexico's most transformative reforms in decades. 

Read more: Mexico: On the Brink of Major Energy Reform | Stratfor

Title: Stratfor: Mexico 4Q
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 11, 2013, 07:25:10 PM
By Tristan Reed

Mexico Security Analyst

Editor's Note: This Security Weekly assesses the most significant cartel-related developments of the third quarter of 2013 and provides updated profiles of Mexico's powerful criminal cartels, as well as a forecast for the rest of this year. It is the executive summary of a more detailed report available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.

Despite the high-profile arrests of Los Zetas' top leader, Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, on July 15 and Gulf cartel leader Mario "El Pelon" Ramirez Trevino on Aug. 17, the third quarter much like the second quarter experienced a continuation of existing trends in organized crime. Tit-for-tat cartel conflicts continued, but Mexico's various organized criminal groups largely controlled the same territory they did at the beginning of the quarter. The third quarter did see intermittent periods of escalated violence by rival groups seeking territory. These included the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion's conflict with the Knights Templar in Michoacan, Guerrero, Guanajuato and Jalisco states and the Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel's conflict with Los Zetas in northern and central Mexico.

While no criminal organization in Mexico suffered any substantial losses in capabilities or territory in the third quarter, the fourth quarter will likely see variations in this trend, particularly as cartels adjust to the arrest of Mario Ramirez Trevino. The Velazquez faction will become the widest-operating branch of the Gulf cartel and the most active challenger to Los Zetas for control of the northeast. As Stratfor noted during our first quarterly update, the Velazquez faction was formerly led by the now-captured Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero, a former regional boss for Los Zetas, which split from Los Zetas around March 2012 and later returned to operating under the Gulf cartel name. The Velazquez faction continues to operate unhindered by the arrest of Ivan Velazquez on Sept. 26, 2012.

There are a variety of reasons for the relatively stable cartel dynamics in Mexico during the third quarter. For one, it has been less than three months since Miguel Trevino was detained by the Mexican navy and less than two since Mario Ramirez's detention. Miguel Trevino's brother, Omar Trevino, appears to have assumed leadership over Los Zetas, and -- notably -- there has been no significant challenge to his new role. Mario Ramirez's arrest will certainly alter the dynamic within the umbrella of the Gulf cartel, particularly as it relates to Gulf allies such as the Knights Templar and the Sinaloa Federation, and Gulf rivals, such as Los Zetas. Any changes related to dynamics within the Gulf cartel have yet to be reflected in open source reporting.

Also, the balkanization of Mexican organized crime has shifted the focus of all criminal organizations from planning new incursions to addressing existing challenges within their territory. The Sinaloa Federation continues to combat regional rivals in northwestern Mexico, including northern Sinaloa, southwestern Chihuahua, and northern Sonora state. Los Zetas continue their fight to regain complete control over much of Zacatecas state after Velazquez Caballero's split in 2012. Los Zetas also continued to engage in violent attacks against the Gulf cartel in the rest of northeastern Mexico and against the Knights Templar (and possibly Gulf cartel) in Tabasco state, although these offensives have not accomplished any real gains. The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar continued to focus on their traditional strongholds in southwestern Mexico, trading tit-for-tat incursions into one another's territories.

Moreover, many of the changes in cartel dynamics reported in the third quarter actually occurred during the first quarter. For example, Stratfor first identified the arrival of a new challenger to Los Zetas into Tabasco state operating under the name People United Against Crime (commonly referred to by its Spanish acronym, PUCD), but during the second and particularly third quarter it became apparent that People United Against Crime are really just pre-existing Zetas rivals operating under a new label (most likely the Knights Templar or its allies, the Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel). And it came to light in the third quarter that Los Zetas have entered the Ciudad Juarez area in northern Chihuahua, though they actually began building their presence at least as far back as the first quarter.

Areas of Cartel Influence in Mexico, Fourth Quarter 2013

In contrast to the minimal disruptions in the overall cartel landscape in Mexico in the past two quarters, the fourth quarter will likely see substantial changes. The Gulf cartel will likely feel the effects of Mario Ramirez's capture, which will shift the balance of power in Tamaulipas state and thus invite another offensive by Los Zetas or further control by Gulf allies, particularly the Knights Templar. Meanwhile, should Omar Trevino be capable of retaining the organization's ability to stage significant incursions into Sinaloa Federation territory, Los Zetas efforts in Ciudad Juarez could spark a new turf war in Chihuahua state.
Overall Violence

Los Zetas

After the July 15 capture by the Mexican navy of top Zeta leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, his brother Omar "Z-42" Trevino ascended to the top position within the criminal organization. Thus far, it does not appear that anyone within Los Zetas has publicly challenged Omar Trevino.

Many of the challenges to Los Zetas by rivals during the second quarter continued into the third quarter. While efforts by the Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel to seize Zetas territory were renewed in part because of Miguel Trevino's capture, primarily affecting Zacatecas state and southern Tamaulipas state, the renewed fighting is only a continuation of the dispute that began after the former leader of the Velazquez faction, Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero, split from Los Zetas around March 2012. Elsewhere, Los Zetas have been unable to mitigate challenges for territorial control in some regions, a trend that emerged before Miguel Trevino's arrest.

Tamaulipas and Zacatecas states remain the most critical areas to follow in assessing the integrity and capability of Los Zetas, particularly Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. This is due to the value of Nuevo Laredo to Los Zetas' operational capabilities and to the Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel being the most active and closest rival of Los Zetas in geographic proximity to Nuevo Laredo. While the Velazquez network operates along the entire eastern coast of Mexico, its center of operations remains in northern and central Mexico, including Zacatecas, Coahuila and San Luis Potosi states; its reach extends into southern Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon states (specifically Monterrey) thanks to its ties to other Gulf cartel factions.

With the exception of Zacatecas during September, however, there have been no indications that such violence has yet posed a substantial threat to Los Zetas operations in the aforementioned states. The lack of change in criminal activities in Nuevo Laredo, including inter-cartel violence, has been most notable in the Los Zetas-Gulf cartel competition. This suggests Los Zetas' rivals have yet to find the opportunity to mount another incursion against them.

Los Zetas have thus far maintained their capabilities in terms of drug smuggling and other criminal activity plus the ability to defend against their rivals despite the loss of their top leader, and the organization continues to operate deep into rival territory. During the third quarter of 2013, it became apparent that Los Zetas have been operating in the Sinaloa Federation-controlled territory of northern Chihuahua state, most notably in Ciudad Juarez, via its allies La Linea and Los Aztecas (both former enforcer groups of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization, better known as the Juarez cartel). Los Zetas are funding and training both groups, but they have yet to operate in an offensive manner in Ciudad Juarez at present.

However, Los Zetas have been using the area for their trafficking operations into the United States, particularly southeastern Ciudad Juarez. In exchange for support, Los Zetas can operate in areas still controlled by La Linea around Ciudad Juarez, helping to avoid an overt conflict with the Sinaloa Federation. Stratfor has received reports that Los Zetas have attempted to avoid drawing attention to their presence by eschewing violent acts. Although Los Zetas' presence in the area only became apparent in the third quarter, it had begun prior to the arrest of Miguel Trevino.

Although Los Zetas do not overtly appear to have suffered any substantial losses in operational capabilities since Miguel Trevino's arrest, uncertainties persist about whether his brother, Omar Trevino, can successfully manage one of the two largest criminal organizations in Mexico. These uncertainties make it difficult to forecast Los Zetas' strategy and the potential challenges that could lead to a degraded security climate in its own and rival territories. Should the Gulf cartel in Zacatecas state make progress in its territorial dispute with Los Zetas, rivals to Los Zetas would likely vie for territory closer to Nuevo Laredo, probably leading to an increase in violence. Additionally, should Los Zetas try to use their established presence in Ciudad Juarez to attempt a takeover from the Sinaloa Federation, violence in Chihuahua would likely increase drastically.

Gulf Cartel

The Gulf cartel suffered yet another substantial blow to its leadership during the third quarter with the capture of its most powerful leader, Mario "El Pelon" Ramirez Trevino, on Aug. 17. This arrest will likely lead to further tumult within the Gulf cartel, which had already devolved from a cohesive criminal organization into an umbrella group with factions loyal to individual leaders but operating on a transnational level.

The fall of Ramirez will likely propel the Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel to become one of the most powerful Gulf cartel factions in the northeast during the fourth quarter, barring any unforeseen captures or deaths at the hands of Mexican authorities. This is because the Velazquez faction maintains the widest geographic reach in Mexico under a cohesive network. The leadership of the Velazquez faction since the arrest of Ivan Velazquez in September 2012 remains something of a mystery, though likely successors include two of his brothers, Daniel "El Talibancillo" Velazquez Caballero and Rolando "El Rolys" Velazquez Caballero.

The most significant change resulting from Ramirez's capture during the fourth quarter will likely be yet another reshuffle of allegiances and roles among Gulf cartel factions in addition to Ramirez's replacement. This will include another split within the Gulf cartel umbrella, assimilation at some level of Gulf cartel cells into existing factions or an external organization such as the Knights Templar and even Los Zetas, and an increased presence of the Knights Templar or the Sinaloa Federation in Tamaulipas state, both of which have thus far propped up the Gulf cartel in its conflict with Los Zetas. Of the current Gulf cartel factions, the Velazquez faction will become the most formidable rival of Los Zetas in the northeast.

Knights Templar and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion

While the northeastern states of Mexico are typically the most fluid in terms of cartel dynamics and security due to the Zetas-Gulf cartel conflict, violence as a result of the ongoing dispute between the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar turned southwestern Mexico, particularly Guerrero, Michoacan and Jalisco states, into the most active in terms of inter-cartel violence.

As stated during our first quarterly update of 2013, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion has made a substantial bid to wrest control of the Knights Templar stronghold of Michoacan state. With community police in southwestern and northern Michoacan state a contributing factor, inter-cartel violence escalated dramatically during the third quarter and will likely continue at present levels or even escalate further during the fourth quarter.

This has placed the Knights Templar on the defensive, something made apparent by their escalated aggression against authorities during the third quarter and the shifting of the focus of their propaganda from Los Zetas to both the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the community police. Despite this, the Knights Templar probably will not lose substantial territory in Michoacan state nor lose their ability to resist the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion incursion during the fourth quarter. The Knights Templar are simply firmly planted in Michoacan. The conflict will continue to pose a substantial security threat throughout the state.

Sinaloa Federation

With the exception of Los Zetas in Ciudad Juarez, little has changed during the third quarter regarding the Sinaloa Federation. As Stratfor has noted, the Sinaloa Federation has been dealing with regional conflicts within its territory in the northwest. This includes the golden triangle region (encompassing northern Sinaloa, northwestern Durango and southwestern Chihuahua), northern Sonora state and southern Chihuahua state. These conflicts continued over the third quarter and will likely remain on course throughout the fourth quarter. None of the existing conflicts will present any serious challenge to the Sinaloa Federation's territorial control or criminal operations during the fourth quarter.

As mentioned above, Los Zetas have built up a presence around Ciudad Juarez during 2013, potentially marking a new criminal aggressor in Ciudad Juarez. The city already has seen a turf war between the Sinaloa Federation and the Juarez cartel and its allies, La Linea and Los Aztecas, since 2008. Thus far, Los Zetas' presence in Ciudad Juarez has largely been nonaggressive, and they have apparently limited their operations to trafficking drugs into far western Texas.

The Sinaloa Federation lost a prominent lieutenant overseeing the region, Gabino "El Ingeniero" Salas Valenciano, on Aug. 8 when Salas died in a firefight with the Mexican army. While no public reports suggest that Los Zetas are attempting to take advantage of his death by striking against Sinaloa interests, it is clear that Salas' death has triggered some conflict between La Linea and the Sinaloa Federation. On Sept. 22, gunmen opened fire on a family celebrating a local baseball game in Loma Blanca, a community located in southeastern Ciudad Juarez. Ten people died in the attack. While the identity and motive of the shooters remain unknown, some Mexican news agencies have attributed the killing to La Linea. Soon after the shooting, authorities discovered messages in at least eight locations in Ciudad Juarez attributing the shooting to La Linea. Notably, the messages were signed "the people of Gavino (sic) Salas."

While such messages cannot alone confirm the identity of the attackers or suggest a motivation, they do suggest at least a momentary escalation of violence between the Sinaloa Federation and La Linea. Such a renewed violent campaign could present a moment of opportunity to persuade their allies to attempt to wrest Ciudad Juarez from the Sinaloa Federation -- a scenario that would certainly lead to a sharp uptick in violence through Ciudad Juarez and possibly much of northern Chihuahua.

Title: Hezbollah
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 19, 2013, 08:15:54 AM
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/hezbollah-tattoos-increasing-found-us-prison-inmates
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on October 29, 2013, 02:04:01 PM
Interesting. I think we were talking about this a couple of years ago. Looking into it.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 07, 2014, 08:12:34 AM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2534496/Mexican-vigilante-gunmen-disarm-local-POLICE-rid-town-feared-Knights-Templar-drug-cartel.html
Title: Mexicans starting to reject disarmament
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 16, 2014, 10:08:33 AM
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/16/mexican-vigilantes-against-drug-cartels-reject-disarming-in-standoff-with/?intcmp=latestnews
Title: Stratfor: Balkanization continues in the NE and NW
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 18, 2014, 08:24:28 AM
 Mexico's Drug War: Balkanization Continues in the Northeast and Northwest
Security Weekly
Thursday, January 16, 2014 - 04:04 Print Text Size
Stratfor

Editor's Note: This week's Security Weekly summarizes our annual Mexico drug cartel report, in which we assess the most significant developments of 2013 and provide updated profiles of the country's powerful criminal cartels as well as a forecast for 2014. The report is a product of the coverage we maintain through our Mexico Security Memo, quarterly updates and other analyses that we produce throughout the year as part of the Mexico Security Monitor service.

By Tristan Reed
Mexico Security Analyst

Organized crime in Mexico diversified and contorted in 2013. This resulted from the balkanization of Mexico's transnational criminal organizations, in which even groups with a national (and in some cases, international) reach such as Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation focused more on fighting rivals near their strongholds rather than on offensives further afield.

While the nationwide conflict between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation played a smaller role in organized crime-related turf wars compared to 2012, the two criminal organizations and the separate challenges from rivals they face will still play a central role in shaping security in their respective areas of operations throughout 2014. Los Zetas remain the most powerful and widely operating crime group in northeastern Mexico. But they are not immune to challenges from various rivals in their region, such as factions of the Gulf cartel, most of which enjoy support from the Knights Templar or the Sinaloa Federation.

Meanwhile, the Sinaloa Federation continues to maintain its territorial base and level of drug trafficking operations in northwestern Mexico in the face of rivals, particularly criminal groups originating from the old Beltran Leyva Organization. Leadership losses during the last quarter of 2013 mean the Sinaloa Federation will have to scramble to adapt -- or face another internal division and possibly even substantial territorial gains by regional rivals, both of which could sharply raise levels of inter-cartel violence in the northwest.
Reorganization in the Northeast

2014 will see substantial changes in northeastern Mexico, which since 2010 has been the center of operations for -- and thereby the center of conflict between -- Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel. The arrest in 2012 of Gulf cartel leader Jorge Eduardo "El Coss" Costilla Sanchez, which contributed to further Gulf cartel infighting, and Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero's split from Los Zetas blurred the dividing lines between the two groups. Leaders operating under both names have shifted allegiances to their rivals and even to outside groups like the Knights Templar and the Sinaloa Federation. The eventual outcome of such realignments remains to be seen. One possible scenario includes the creation of a new crime group in the northeast consisting of elements from Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel operating in tandem with the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar. Alternatively, Los Zetas or the Knights Templar could absorb some Gulf cartel factions. Either scenario could lead to new dynamics in former Gulf strongholds in states including Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila.

Los Zetas split from the Gulf cartel in 2010, causing northeastern Mexico to experience one of the most active and violent criminal conflicts in the country ever since. After the split, the two groups immediately began to fight in several states throughout Mexico, particularly Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and Coahuila. By 2011, it became apparent that Los Zetas had largely bested their former employer in much of the territory the Gulf cartel controlled prior to the split. By 2012, the Gulf cartel had suffered further losses at the hands of Los Zetas, Mexican authorities and, most of all, from infighting. Such losses initially suggested the Gulf cartel, once among the most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico, would soon unravel.

However, the Gulf cartel criminal brand name has persisted even though the group is no longer a cohesive criminal organization. Instead, the Gulf cartel now comprises a collection of groups mostly based in Tamaulipas that all use the same name. Despite this fractured nature, groups operating under the Gulf name face constant threats from Los Zetas and the military. This is because some drug traffickers operating under the Gulf cartel name are able to move significant quantities of illegal drugs into the United States through ports of entry primarily located in Reynosa and Matamoros with the help of outsiders like the Sinaloa Federation and the Knights Templar, hence drawing attention from Los Zetas and the government.
Areas of Cartel Influence in Mexico, Fourth Quarter 2013
Click to Enlarge

All Gulf cartel factions -- whose exact dividing lines remain unclear -- seem to operate primarily from the Tamaulipas cities of Reynosa, Tampico and Matamoros. The Velazquez faction, which had the widest reach during 2013, is an exception: It is based in Zacatecas and operates in Tamaulipas, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Leon, Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Jalisco and Tabasco states. The faction emerged after Velazquez, a regional leader for Los Zetas based in Zacatecas, declared war against now-detained Los Zetas top leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales at the beginning of 2012.

Just prior to Velazquez's own arrest in September 2012, he adopted the Gulf cartel name and aligned with other Gulf cartel factions and the Knights Templar (which already cooperated with some Gulf cartel factions). Now led by his brothers Rolando and Daniel, the Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel is Los Zetas' most active rival. Following the arrest of the most powerful Gulf cartel leader, Mario "Pelon" Ramirez Trevino, the Gulf cartel umbrella began experiencing additional internal rifts, but the Velazquez faction has maintained its status as the strongest faction.

Though not based in Tamaulipas, it operates on the U.S.-Mexico border in Tamaulipas state and wants to wrest control of Nuevo Laredo from Los Zetas, given the opportunity. The Velazquez faction tried unsuccessfully to seize the city from Los Zetas in March 2012 under the guise of the Sinaloa Federation. Without a strong leader like Ramirez to oversee the Gulf cartel factions in Tamaulipas, the Velazquez faction will likely continue to fill the void in 2014. It will use its existing relations with other Gulf cartel factions to establish a stronger front in combating Los Zetas in Tamaulipas state, with the specific goal of taking Nuevo Laredo. This could create escalated levels of violence in Reynosa in 2014 as Los Zetas attempt to defend themselves against such incursions.

With new Gulf cartel infighting, new Los Zetas leadership and the persistent threat of the Knights Templar and the Velazquez faction to Los Zetas in Tamaulipas state, other Gulf faction leaders will have to decide where to place their allegiance. Each Gulf cartel faction has its own distinct relations with external groups including Los Zetas. As Gulf cartel factions compete against one another -- a process that naturally has weakened them -- these separate relations with other criminal groups will increasingly diverge as each faction seeks to ensure its respective survival. This could result in some aligning with Los Zetas or strengthening ties with the Velazquez faction or even the Knights Templar.

The Knights Templar use the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros to traffic humans and drugs into the United States. The Michoacan-based criminal organization began in 2012 to help some Gulf cartel factions defend their territory against Los Zetas. As the Gulf cartel continued to suffer at the hands of infighting and military operations, factions' reliance on the Knights Templar increased. Notably, the Knights Templar has not sought to propagate its brand name in northeastern Mexico the way it has in southwestern Mexico. It will maintain its presence in northeastern Mexico in 2014 as it tries to ensure that its transportation routes into the United States remain open.

Although Velazquez's war against Miguel Trevino created divisions in Los Zetas in states including Coahuila, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas and Quintana Roo, Los Zetas' hold over its territories in Tamaulipas state and Nuevo Leon has not weakened. Meanwhile, Miguel Trevino's detention has had little impact on Los Zetas' operations and territorial control. Miguel Trevino's brother, Omar "Z-42" Trevino, now runs Los Zetas.

Continued Gulf cartel infighting even helped bolster Los Zetas' presence in Tamaulipas state in 2013, when Los Zetas' activity in Reynosa -- a traditional Gulf stronghold -- increased. Los Zetas subsequently began transporting drugs and undocumented migrants through Reynosa. Los Zetas entered Reynosa without much overt violence, suggesting either the Gulf cartel factions in Reynosa were not as concerned with Los Zetas as they were with other rival Gulf cartel factions or that a Gulf cartel leader in Reynosa possibly allowed Los Zetas to enter.

Given that Los Zetas have Omar Trevino to build and maintain relationships with other leaders of criminal networks while the Gulf cartel factions in Tamaulipas state have no real replacement for Mario Ramirez Trevino, Los Zetas will likely expand into other areas of Tamaulipas state in a similarly tranquil fashion. Matamoros, a valuable port of entry into the United States where Gulf infighting is emerging, is one of the most likely areas for this to happen during 2014. But Los Zetas will face a challenge from the increasingly expansive Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel in Matamoros and beyond, something that creates the potential for increased violence in 2014.
The Sinaloa Federation

As our 2013 cartel annual report anticipated, the Sinaloa Federation, like Los Zetas, the Knights Templar and the Gulf cartel, faced numerous regional challenges. The Sinaloa Federation found these challenges in states such as Sinaloa, Sonora and Chihuahua, and they persisted throughout 2013. In fact, they grew substantially in the last month of 2013, when the Sinaloa Federation experienced several key losses of high-level leaders at the hands of unidentified gunmen and the government. On Dec. 11, an unknown assailant gunned down Jesus Gregorio "R-5" Villanueva Rodriguez in Sonora state. Gonzalo "Macho Prieto" Inzunza Inzunza was killed Dec. 18 in a targeted operation by the Mexican navy, also in Sonora state. Then on Dec. 30, Dutch authorities at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport arrested Jose Rodrigo "El Chino Antrax" Arechiga Gamboa. All three individuals operated directly beneath top-tier Sinaloa leaders such as Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera or Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, and their responsibilities included defending Sinaloa's territory in Mexico's northwest.

Regional crime groups such as Los Mazatlecos in northern Sinaloa state, La Linea in western Chihuahua and southeast of Ciudad Juarez, and a remnant of the Beltran Leyva Organization led by Trinidad "El Chapo Trini" Olivias Valenzuela in Sonora state all have challenged Sinaloa Federation operations, contributing to violence in the region. Moreover, Los Zetas quietly began to operate just southeast of Ciudad Juarez, a city which the Sinaloa Federation has largely overtaken from its rivals in the Juarez cartel. While Los Zetas have not yet begun to operate violently near Ciudad Juarez, as Stratfor noted in the fourth quarter cartel update, the group has been propping up lower-level crime and enforcer groups that fall under the Juarez cartel umbrella, namely Los Aztecas and La Linea. With continued rival challenges, the introduction of Los Zetas into northern Chihuahua state, and a series of leadership losses, the Sinaloa Federation could well face a tougher year in 2014 than it did in 2013.

While the possibility exists that the Sinaloa Federation will continue to hold all its territory with no further challenges in 2014, Sinaloa leadership losses in 2013 plainly invite a stronger and more violent push for control by its rivals. While the Sinaloa losses could embolden the cartel's rivals and spark turf wars throughout northwest Mexico, a Sinaloa split would likely prove even more problematic. Each of the three Sinaloa Federation operators that were either arrested or killed in December led their own criminal network under the Sinaloa umbrella and each controlled its own operations and members. The loss of all three might prompt subgroups to suspect treachery by other Sinaloa Federation leaders (whether top-tier leaders like Guzman or Zambada or those of other Sinaloa subgroups), raising the risk of infighting.

The Sinaloa Federation's top leaders have extensive experience dealing with organizational splits dating back to the days of the Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s, which fragmented into regional plazas after U.S. law enforcement pressure triggered multiple conflicts between Guadalajara leaders. More recently, the Sinaloa Federation saw its organization in Jalisco state suffer an organizational break when Sinaloa lieutenant Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal died in 2010, eventually sparking considerable violence in the state. Prior to Coronel's death, the 2008 arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva and 2009 death of his brother, Arturo -- the top leaders of the old Beltran Leyva Organization, itself an offshoot of the Sinaloa Federation -- also contributed greatly to increased violence in northwestern Mexico. This history makes another Sinaloa split plausible, a scenario that would conform to the trend of the ongoing balkanization among Mexico's organized criminal groups. And that would increase the number of criminal groups operating in states such as Sonora, Sinaloa and Baja California, thereby increasing the likelihood of violence there.

Editor's Note: This Security Weekly assesses the most significant cartel-related developments in Mexico over the past year and provides a forecast for 2014. It is the executive summary of a more detailed report available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.

Read more: Mexico's Drug War: Balkanization Continues in the Northeast and Northwest | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 18, 2014, 08:32:17 AM
second entry of the morning


Summary

The emergence of self-defense groups in Michoacan state in February 2013 has greatly complicated the nature of armed conflicts in the region, where violence had previously stemmed primarily from competition between rival criminal organizations. The self-defense militias have been expanding into a coordinated body and now operate in more than a dozen municipalities. Their primary goal is to combat the Knights Templar, the dominant criminal group in the state, while taking charge of public security in each town they enter, at times by disarming local police.

The expansion of the militias, along with the increase in violence related to them and the Knights Templar, has triggered several recent deployments of federal troops to the economically important state, which is home of the strategic port city of Lazaro Cardenas and near Mexico's political and economic core. However, already struggling to contain violence related to Mexico's drug cartels elswhere in the country, Mexico is trying to subdue Michoacan's self-defense groups, limit their expansion and preserve federal authority in the state will be tightly constrained.
Analysis

From Jan. 10-12, militia members entered multiple towns in the Michoacan municipalities of Paracuaro and Mugica as part of a continued "clear-and-hold" strategy, in which the self-defense groups attempt to remove Knights Templar elements and recruit new members from the local populations to take action against the cartel. The arrival of the militias triggered several clashes with the Knights Templar. The Mexican army was then deployed to disarm the militia members, but many refused to surrender their weapons. Supportive residents began blocking military advances along streets in both municipalities, eventually drawing gunfire from the military that reportedly left as many as 12 people dead. The clashes marked a substantial escalation in tensions between the Michoacan militias and federal troops, indicating the self-defense groups will not be easily persuaded to abandon their offensive. 
The Rise of the Self-Defense Groups

For nearly a year, the government has been making repeated attempts to address the deterioration of security in Michoacan state that has resulted from the ongoing violence between the self-defense groups and the Knights Templar, as well as the groups' territorial expansion. In November 2013, for example, the military took control of Lazaro Cardenas. And on Jan. 14, the government deployed a large contingent of federal troops, including military and federal police elements, to take control of public security from local law enforcement in the Michoacan towns of Apatzingan and Uruapan. Particularly concerning to the Mexican government is the persistent growth of the groups, which now pose an established threat to government authority in Michoacan and are unlikely to disband without a substantial commitment of federal troops.

The self-defense groups initially emerged in a small number of rural towns in southwestern Michoacan state in response to years of extreme violence and crime wrought by competing criminal organizations. In less than a year, the militias have proliferated, expanded both their size and territorial reach, and evolved into a coordinated body. As a result, self-defense groups now control towns in at least 15 municipalities in the state. The groups appear to have steady funding sufficient to arm members with assault rifles, tactical gear and vehicles and coordinate operational logistics across an area that now spans roughly 190 kilometers (120 miles) -- though the exact sources of their funding remains unclear. And the focus of the militia operations has evolved from combatting established organized crime elements to supplanting government authority in public security matters, even by disarming local police if necessary.

The rise of the self-defense groups reflects the social consequences of the prolonged violence and the government's inability to enforce the rule of law in rural regions that historically have been difficult to control. The government in Mexico City has long been concerned about the threat of insurrections in regions outside the capital, where the lawless environment has enabled militant groups to challenge the government at various times in the country's history. This is, in part, why Mexican military doctrine focuses almost entirely on the country's interior. And since before the Mexican revolution, the government has encouraged residents in rural communities to maintain the rule of law by forming militias known as the rural guard, which have operated as auxiliaries to the military. In the early 2000s, the municipalities where the current self-defense groups emerged were home to rural guard militias tasked with combatting Los Zetas incursions. However, unlike the rural guard, the current militias thus far have been unwilling to submit to the government's authority.
Military Constraints and the Risk of Conflict

The Mexican government does not want an armed struggle with the self-defense militias; such a conflict would open a new battlefront for the military, which is already stretched thin by operations in other regions of the country that have been particularly hard hit by organized crime-related violence. Similarly, self defense groups would not welcome a direct confrontation with the federal government, since they could not hold their ground against a substantial Mexican military campaign, their recent successes notwithstanding.

Still, conflict seems likely if the government does not see a peaceful settlement as possible and the military continues to fail in its own campaign against the Knights Templar. The government cannot allow the militias to continue to expand and supplant its authority while provoking violence with criminal groups. For their part, the militias have not indicated a willingness to cease operations until the cartel has been neutralized.
The Evolution of Mexico's Cartels

Several states outside Michoacan rely strongly on federal troops for public safety, particularly in the north. Any military operation undertaken in Michoacan would need to fit into Mexico's national strategy to avoid undermining security elsewhere. On Jan. 12, for example, some 250 federal police officers in Nuevo Leon state who had been participating in Operation Northeast, a joint security operation targeting organized crime in northeastern Mexico, were transferred to Michoacan. The transfer will not significantly affect levels of violence in the northeast or in Michoacan, but removing troops from ongoing operations, rather than tapping into garrisoned forces, may reflect personnel constraints facing the government.

The government's worst-case scenario involves federal troops attempting to wage a territorial conflict with the self-defense groups while still attempting to combat rival criminal groups such as the Knights Templar and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. Such a conflict could stifle economy activity in Michoacan state, possibly disrupting the flow of goods from the port at Lazaro Cardenas.

Militia leaders and supporters have repeatedly vowed to support the government if the Knights Templar is dismantled, indicating that the government still has room to maneuver and peacefully assert control over the self-defense groups through a negotiated disarmament. But even if a settlement were reached, federal troops would still need to find a way to deal with organized crime groups in Michoacan to truly restore security. This task has long bedeviled authorities, so the risk of a renewed militancy would probably remain.

Read more: Mexico's Mounting Challenge With Self-Defense Groups in Michoacan | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Title: Autodefensas en Michoacan, anuncian revolucion nacional
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 21, 2014, 03:51:58 AM
http://aristeguinoticias.com/1808/mexico/autodefensas-michoacanos-anuncian-revolucion-nacional/

145,513
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 21, 2014, 05:12:36 PM
second entry of the day:


21 January 2014
MEXICO – Army deployed to Michoacán

On 13 January 2014, Governance Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong announced the deployment of the army to trouble spots in Michoacán, in order to disband burgeoning self-defense groups. The state has been assailed by a wave of violence stemming from skirmishes between self-defense groups and the Knights Templar cartel. On 15 January 2014, U.S. State Department officials expressed extreme concern over the violent and lawless situation in Michoacán state, offering technical aid to the government.
Title: Michoacan in search of a Mexican Second Amendment
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 09, 2014, 05:43:24 AM

Vigilantes line up during a program to register their weapons and create a rural police in Paracuaro in Michoacan state, Mexico, last Monday. The government has proposed incorporating some vigilantes into a rural police force and giving them formal training. Reuters
 
MEXICO CITY—Hundreds of vigilantes in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán, escorted by the military and federal police, on Saturday moved into the city of Apatzingán, the main bastion of the Knights Templar criminal organization.

The vigilantes, working alongside federal forces, set up checkpoints on roads in and out of Apatzingán in search of members of the Knights Templar.

Francisco Castellanos, a local journalist in Apatzingán, said that as of midafternoon Saturday, the operations had been carried out without reports of clashes or shots being fired.

The heavily armed vigilantes, known locally as self-defense groups, had been expanding and taking control of a number of towns and municipalities in largely rural areas of Michoacán state to kick out the Knights Templar. Named after a medieval order of warrior monks, the Templars evolved from trafficking in marijuana and methamphetamines to extortion, kidnapping and murder. The Templars' abuses and the government's inability to stop their reign of terror sparked a reaction, mostly by lime and avocado growers, cattlemen and shopkeepers, many of them former U.S. migrants, (!!!) who organized vigilante organizations to take back control of the towns from the organized crime group.

A year ago, the vigilantes ran the Templars out of two towns in the Tierra Caliente, a swath of rich agricultural land, gathering strength from their victories. The movement continued to spread. The growing danger of open armed conflict between the two organizations led the Mexican government to step up the presence of troops and federal police in the state. In January, federal forces took control of Apatzingán as the vigilante groups were planning to move in.

A government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the federal government didn't see Saturday's moves as an "advance" of the self-defense groups or an "occupation" of Apatzingán. He said the cooperation between federal forces and the local communities, including self-defense members, is essential for the government to recover lost trust in the state.

The international focus on the proliferation of self-defense groups and growing violence in Michoacan has embarrassed the Mexican government, which has emphasized its efforts to reform the country's economy, including opening up Mexico's energy industry to private investment.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto last month appointed as special envoy a close political ally, Alfredo Castillo, who became Michoacan's de facto acting governor with special powers to implement economic and security measures. Mr. Castillo was ordered to dismantle the Templar organization and disarm the self-defense groups.

Last week, the government announced an ambitious plan to spend $3.4 billion to boost the Michoacán economy, and improve the state's social services. The vigilante groups had said disarming would leave their communities open to revenge attacks by the Templars. But late last month, they reached agreement to form into rural and town police forces.

Alejandro Hope, a security expert with the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank, questioned the wisdom of allowing the vigilantes to enter Apatzingán after the government had sought to contain their advance.

"If the federal forces were already there, why did they [the vigilantes] have to go in?" he said.

Write to  Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 17, 2014, 04:54:04 AM
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/11/cartel-hitman-testifies-to-800-murders-daily-quotas-at-kingpin-trial/
Title: El Chapo arrested
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 22, 2014, 04:01:38 PM

Analysis

The Mexican military and U.S. authorities captured a top leader of the Sinaloa Federation, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, in an unnamed hotel in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, sometime during the night of Feb. 21. Guzman, who has long eluded authorities, faces several federal drug trafficking indictments and is on the Drug Enforcement Administration's most-wanted list. Reportedly, the hotel had been under surveillance for five weeks prior to the arrest, but Guzman had arrived in Mazatlan only days earlier, fleeing military operations in Culiacan.

El Chapo was partly responsible for the expansion of the Sinaloa Federation into the territories of rival Mexican transnational criminal organizations, commonly referred to as cartels. He also helped oversee the expansion of Sinaloa Federation operations beyond Mexico, most notably drug trafficking routes into Europe and Asia. Since December, however, the Sinaloa Federation has suffered from a series of substantial arrests, impacting the cartel wing led by Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia. The cartel has also faced rising challenges in its areas of operations by regional crime networks as well as other transnational criminal organizations. The tempo and success of operations targeting top Sinaloa Federation leaders will severely hamper the cartel's ability to defend its operations in northwestern Mexico, possibly leading to substantial violence in several areas as rival criminal organizations seek to exploit the cartel's new vulnerabilities.
Mexican Cartels: Sinaloa Federation

Like most of Mexico's major transnational criminal organizations, the Sinaloa Federation is led by a collection of crime bosses, each with their own network, operating under a common banner. In addition to Guzman, other notable top-tier leaders include Zambada and Juan Jose "El Azul" Esparragoza Moreno. These  leaders guide the Sinaloa Federation's overall strategy and activity throughout Mexico, as well as its transnational operations. With Guzman now in custody, the remaining top bosses, along with several less-prominent leaders, will look to maintain the Sinaloa Federation's control over Guzman's network. This could spark a wave of violence throughout northwestern Mexico if internal shifts evolve into intra-cartel conflict.

A more likely source of violence -- one that could occur alongside an internal Sinaloa Federation feud -- would be a push by the Sinaloa Federation's rivals for control over drug trafficking operations in current Sinaloa Federation territories, including Baja California, Sonora, Durango, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa states. Should Guzman's arrest effectively create opportunities for rivals to pursue territorial gains at the expense of the Sinaloa Federation, Stratfor would expect to see an increase in inter-cartel violence on some scale, as well as a military response to contain or even preempt possible violence, in any area of the aforementioned states.

Read more: Mexico: El Chapo's Arrest Poses New Risks of Violence | Stratfor

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 24, 2014, 03:06:44 AM
NY Times

MAZATLÁN, Mexico — They reacted here with utter disbelief. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo, drug kingpin to the world, the Robin Hood of Sinaloa, had been arrested in his home state, in the resort town that is a loyal fief of his empire?

“It was too easy,” said a young woman of model height, her back to the sea, her eyes fixed on the 12-story condominium where Mexican marines and United States agents grabbed him early on Saturday morning. “No shootout, no final stand?”

The takedown this weekend of the world’s most wanted man — the chief executive of what experts describe as the world’s most sophisticated narcotics enterprise, the Sinaloa cartel — upended long-held assumptions about the impunity of Mexican mobsters.

It also overturned long-lowered expectations of what was possible in the game of cat and mouse, or government versus outlaws, that has defined the drug war here.

Mr. Guzmán, after all, seemed untouchable, relying time and again on intimidation, bribery and local accommodation — even pride — to help him keep his freedom and his power.
Launch media viewer
Mr. Guzmán after his arrest. Mario Guzman/European Pressphoto Agency

But the giant known as Shorty fell with an odd humility, awakened shirtless by the authorities before 7 a.m. on Saturday. He neither died in a blaze of glory nor managed another daring escape; persistence carried him away.

The details of the operation, recounted by American and Mexican officials and witnesses here (most requested anonymity for their own protection) show that Mr. Guzmán’s arrest, after countless near misses and narrow escapes, came down to a tight bond between the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Mexican navy, some well-kept secrets, and a fair amount of luck.

Even as security cooperation between Mexico and the United States continued to be hampered by distrust at the highest levels of government, American agents and Mexican marines worked together for weeks, until the moment of capture here when they crashed through the door of a fourth-floor apartment overlooking the Pacific.

It began with a meeting a few weeks ago. The D.E.A. presented a body of intelligence information to Mexican navy officials, including calls and contacts from cellphones used over the last few months. The Americans had worked closely before with the marines on successful operations but were not certain that their counterparts would take on the mission. Mexican security forces were focused on another problem — the battle between the Knights Templar cartel and self-defense groups in Michoacán — and President Enrique Peña Nieto had made clear that the economy was his priority. Officials said there were local obstacles, too. Many Sinaloans considered Mr. Guzmán as a kind of favorite rebel son. His cartel has deep roots across the state, with many arguing that his operation is relatively benign in comparison to some newer groups that rely more on extortion and kidnapping.

“It’s an old model of organized crime that’s not predatory on the local population,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and former Mexican intelligence officer whose mother grew up in Sinaloa. Still, he added, “For all the talk of Chapo as a good narco, this is the person who was responsible for some of the worst violence — for the drug war in Tijuana and Juárez. That’s thousands of deaths.”

Mr. Guzmán, though, seemed so immune to consequence that some here in Mazatlán had even come to believe he might be protected, or at least tolerated, by elements of the Mexican and American governments. “We thought he was clean,” one businessman said.
Neil Patrick Harris prepares for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"

    Talent you won't forget
    Within "Twelfth Night," a delirious one-man show


But the marines, compelled by the intelligence gathered through wiretaps and informants — especially tips suggesting that Mr. Guzmán was showing up again in Culiacán and Mazatlán — agreed to move. They “surged up,” one American official said, at a base near Cabo, the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula, a short race across the water to Mazatlán and the rest of Sinaloa.

Starting roughly a month before Mr. Guzmán’s capture, they began to sweep methodically through Culiacán, the Sinaloa state capital. They knocked down doors and recovered weapons, armored cars, drugs, cash.

The drug operators scurried. On Feb. 13, three men were arrested on the road to Mazatlán, including a man called “19,” believed to be the new head assassin for one Mr. Guzmán’s senior officers, Ismael (Mayo) Zambada. On Feb. 17, another senior leader was captured with 4,000 hollowed-out cucumbers and bananas filled with cocaine.

A half-dozen others followed and with each arrest and seizure, Mexican officials made sure to emphasize that they were seeking Mr. Zambada. The true nature of the operation never leaked — in part because of Mr. Guzmán’s legend. No one seemed to suspect that he would come down from his secret hiding spots in the mountains of Sinaloa, or further afield, in Guatemala or wherever else.

And how much would it matter if he did? Experts suspected he had delegated much of the day-to-day work, and drugs have been moving north from this fertile region since World War II, when the American government needed opium for its wounded soldiers. With demand for heroin surging yet again, no one doubts that the trade — “the life,” as some here call it — will go on.

But with momentum building in Culiacán, American officials said that the Mexican marines began to believe they might actually get the target that had slipped their grasp so many times before.

A small team of American agents with the D.E.A. and the United States Marshals Service were embedded with the Mexican marines, American and Mexican officials said, and in their ranks, too, confidence was rising, and mixing with impatience. As days dragged to weeks, there was a sense that Mexican officials wanted to wrap things up — especially after a raid led to what appeared to be a near miss.

Working on information from some of Mr. Guzmán’s bodyguards, Mexican marines and American agents raided the home of his ex-wife on Thursday. After struggling to batter down the steel-reinforced door, according to the Mexican authorities, they were too late: instead of finding their prey, they discovered a secret door beneath a bathtub that led to a network of tunnels and sewer canals that connected to six other houses.

The search continued, but the earlier arrests and intelligence were pointing south, to Mazatlán — one of Mexico’s first resorts.

Mr. Guzmán was not known to spend much time here; local businessmen with a lifetime of knowledge about Sinaloa’s connections to the community said there were no known Chapo sightings, or serious rumors, over his many years in power.

The building he chose, called the Miramar, was built about a decade ago, they said, and was filled with a mix of vacationers — Mexicans and American and Canadian retirees — who came and went through the year. Before dawn on Saturday morning, it seemed to be just another place to enjoy the view. But about 12 hours earlier, an intercepted phone call to Mr. Guzmán’s cellphone had already triggered the command to move. In the dark of night, neighbors heard knocks on the doors, according to interviews via apartment intercom. American officials said the teams did not know which apartment he was in. Then came a crash.

By the time retirees down the block heard helicopters — “I was waiting to hear the gunfire,” one Canadian woman said — it was over.

Mr. Guzmán was arrested with one other man, Mexican officials said. Some reports said that the authorities also found a woman in the apartment and photos of the room show two pink children’s suitcases on a bed, suggesting Mr. Guzmán was with his wife and twin 2-year-old daughters who were born in Los Angeles County. But American officials said they were surprised by what was not there: a cache of weapons. Not a single shot was fired.

Local residents cast doubt on the operation for that exact reason. “Everyone thinks it was a negotiated capture,” said one local business leader.

That it happened just a few days after President Obama visited Mexico, during a week when official figures showed the economy grew by only 1.1. percent, has only added to the skepticism. Even after photos and forensic tests, many here, young and old, don’t believe that the man with the mustache trotted out for the cameras on Saturday — and now confined to a high-security Mexican prison, officials said — is really the one they call Chapo.

“It’s a fantasy,” said Ofelia Aguilar, 52, walking through a shantytown called Santa Monica, still filling up with families who have been forced to flee the lawlessness of the Sinaloan countryside where Mr. Guzmán grew up. “It has to be someone else. I just don’t believe it.”
Title: Concerns over Vigilante SD groups
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 25, 2014, 08:39:31 AM
For our foreign readers, know that this comes from Pravda on the Hudson, which has a distinct bias against people being armed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/world/americas/vigilantes-once-welcome-frighten-many-in-mexico.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140225
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 04, 2014, 01:49:56 PM
http://www.epicdash.com/mexican-drug-lords-home-raided-even-incredible-horrifying-ever-imagined/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on March 05, 2014, 04:27:04 PM
Gnarliest thing I've seen yet... a 13 year old kid working as an assassin for the cartel, caved the guy's head in with a hammer, took out his brains, and filled it with chopped tomatoes. Nothing surprises me anymore.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on March 05, 2014, 04:29:15 PM
That, or arresting one of my own partners for working as an assassin in the cartel.  It all goes on. I get a sense of not fearing anything anymore, because you know, you're already dead and no one, not even the law is untouchable, and well.. life is cheap. GM.... I'm still not dead.
Title: POTH: Vigilante detained in vigilantes deaths
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 18, 2014, 12:58:06 PM

Opponent of Mexico’s Cartels Is Detained in Vigilantes’ Deaths

By DAMIEN CAVEMARCH 12, 2014

Photo
Hipólito Mora, who is from the southwestern state of Michoacán, has become well known in Mexico in connection with the vigilante movement. Credit Ulises Ruiz


MEXICO CITY — Hipólito Mora often said that he started the first self-defense group in the Mexican state of Michoacán to end the boundless cruelty of the Knights Templar cartel — the killing, the extortion, and the monopolistic control it exerted over local lime growers.

Now, a little over a year later, Mr. Mora, 58, whose ever-present cowboy hat and national commentary have made him the public face of Mexico’s vigilante movement, is accused of the very same offenses.

He was detained on Tuesday as a suspect in the death of two men working with a rival self-defense group, Mexican authorities said, heightening fears that what began as a citizen push for peace is now morphing into another layer of violent conflict over money and power in a region that has been out of control for years.

“Mora’s arrest tells us about the risks of vigilantes, acting according to their own standards,” said Rául Benítez Manaut, a security analyst at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. But, he added: “They are in a state where justice is a very relative thing; they are used to living in a context where justice dos not exist.”

The arrest is already being questioned by Mr. Mora’s allies. On the Facebook page that has become the group’s main forum, several people defended him, contending that he was a victim of a conspiracy because he had accused many of the other self-defense groups — including the group with the two men who were found dead Saturday in a burned-out pickup truck — of being infiltrated by the Knights Templar and other drug gangs.

“The arrest of Hipólito Mora is a mistake,” said Father Gregorio López, a local Roman Catholic priest. “He is the only one not corrupted by criminals.”

Mr. Mora and his men in the village of La Ruana have long had a testy relationship with the self-defense forces in the neighboring town of Buenavista, which are led by Luis Antonio Torres Gonzalez , known as “El Americano.” In December, Mr. Mora could often be heard on his cellphone arguing with the Buenavista leadership over deals they had made related to local lime groves.

Those groves, the heart and cash register of the local economy, have been crucial in Michoacán’s self-defense movement from the beginning. In December, Mr. Mora said he decided to form his group in early 2013 after a lime-packaging plant controlled by the Knights Templars refused to accept limes picked by his son. The cartel, he said, had gone too far, extorting pickers and limiting how much was packaged for export in order to drive up prices.

The goal of his self-defense group, he said, was to create a better, more just economy for his town and others. In mid-December, when a government helicopter arrived in a La Ruana pasture to take Mr. Mora to Mexico City to speak with top government officials, he carried in his shirt pocket a list of requests, including money for a university.

By that time Mr. Mora was already a well-known symbol of what he calls “the movement,” with his comments found almost daily in Mexican newspapers. But his fame soared a few weeks later when President Enrique Peña Nieto announced a $3.4 billion plan in Michoacán for job creation, education, health, infrastructure and pensions.

The government plan included efforts to work with self-defense groups, and together they have had some success against the Knights Templar. Vigilante groups control about 15 of Michoacán’s townships, and high-profile arrests and killings of gang suspects have risen.

On Sunday, Mexican authorities said they had killed Nazario Moreno González, the head of the Knights Templar cartel, also known as the Templarios.

But with some success and its spoils, the rivalry between Mr. Mora and Mr. Torres seems to have intensified. A few months ago, Mr. Mora always waved when Mr. Torres drove by in his black Range Rover — seized from a Knights Templar leader, Mr. Mora said.

More recently, Mr. Mora has suggested that too many of Mr. Torres’s colleagues have questionable loyalties. Critics of Mr. Mora have accused him of holding onto lime groves taken from the Knights Templar, rather than returning the land to its rightful owners. Both men have rejected the accusations.

Mexico’s broader question of which groups are clean, and which are criminal, has been impossible to answer. American officials say they believe some groups are receiving weapons and support from different drug gangs, but that it is hard to prove where groups fall on the spectrum of honest to corrupted.

The conflict between Mr. Mora and Mr. Torres is simply the most obvious sign of the problem. On Monday, the Mexican government sent hundreds of police and soldiers to La Ruana to try to mediate between the two men.

“We cannot permit this kind of confrontation to occur,” said Alfredo Castillo, the federal government’s envoy to Michoacán. On Wednesday, he added that Mr. Mora refused to turn over members of his group suspected of the killings, and that there was evidence suggesting Mr. Mora knew about them in advance and may have consented.

Experts warn that the longer the battle between vigilantes goes on, the greater the risk of increased violence and frustration with the government’s inability to establish a lasting peace.

“The government should be very careful,” said Mr. Benitez, the security analyst. “They can’t start arresting vigilantes indiscriminately, because people expect them to arrest Templarios, not vigilantes.”

Paulina Villegas contributed reporting.
Title: Substantial changes in Michoacan
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 17, 2014, 07:17:09 PM
Editor's Note: This week's Security Weekly summarizes our quarterly Mexico drug cartel report, in which we assess the most significant developments of the first quarter of 2014 and provide a forecast for the second quarter of the year. The report is a product of the coverage we maintain through our Mexico Security Memo, quarterly updates and other analyses that we produce throughout the year as part of the Mexico Security Monitor service.

By Tristan Reed
Mexico Security Analyst

During the first quarter of 2014, Mexican authorities managed to kill or capture a substantial number of high-level leaders of Mexican organized criminal groups, including top Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera on Feb. 22 at a hotel in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state. In an unusually high tempo of operations, the Mexican military managed to capture several other Sinaloa leaders who operated under Guzman or Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia, another top-tier Sinaloa Federation leader. By the beginning of 2014, the Sinaloa Federation was already struggling to adapt to a series of significant leadership losses during the last quarter of 2013. Its losses during the first quarter of 2014 thus compound its pre-existing problems.

Meanwhile, the efforts of federal troops and the self-defense militias in Michoacan resulted in the death or capture of the bulk of the Knights Templar's top-tier leaders. Since the second half of January 2014, three out of four of the most prominent Knights Templar leaders have been eliminated, as have many of their lieutenants.

The arrest of Guzman is not likely to alter any of the trends during the second quarter addressed in our 2014 annual cartel report. By contrast, the massive losses for the Knights Templar in such a short period will likely trigger substantial shifts in organized crime dynamics in Michoacan, including the expansion of old or the creation of new, smaller criminal groups into the void left by the Knights Templar. Given that the Knights Templar were expanding domestically and internationally up to the end of 2013, the impact of successful federal operations against the group could be felt beyond southwestern Mexico. This is particularly likely in northeastern Mexico, where the Knights Templar helped the Gulf cartel defend its territory from Los Zetas. If this evolution does not occur during the second quarter, it probably will later in 2014.
Michoacan

Federal authorities could not have racked up such rapid successes against Knights Templar leaders during the first quarter were it not for the presence of self-defense militias in Michoacan state. The self-defense militias first emerged in February 2013 and have since expanded their operations to more than 26 of Michoacan's 113 municipalities (and over half the state's geographic area). Even so, Mexico City has decided it cannot tolerate the existence of well-armed and widely operating militias willing to supplant government authority.

At the end of 2013, self-defense militias in Michoacan had already expanded into nearly a dozen municipalities as part of a strategy of ejecting the Knights Templar from specific areas and then holding onto the newly won territory. With the expansion, the militias challenged government authority in many towns by taking charge of public safety, often detaining local law enforcement authorities whom the militias viewed as having links to the Knights Templar. The growing presence of the militias presented yet another substantial security challenge for Mexico City in the state, particularly as the militias expanded around the transportation routes surrounding the port city of Lazaro Cardenas. Rising levels of organized crime-related violence, the continued expansion of well-armed militias into much of the state and disruptive violence such as the Oct. 27 attacks on Federal Electricity Commission installations in Michoacan prompted several deployments of federal police and the Mexican military to Michoacan throughout 2013 (in addition to drawing international media coverage of Michoacan's security woes).
Cities With Self-Defense Groups
Click to Enlarge

In January 2014, Mexico City created the Commission for Security and Integral Development in Michoacan, led by Alfredo Castillo, to oversee its security strategy in Michoacan, coordinate federal and state security forces and purportedly address political, social and economic issues in the state. One of the commission's first actions was to bring the various militias, operating in a coordinated manner, into an agreement with the federal and state government Jan. 27. Among other things, the self-defense groups agreed to integrate with federal troops by joining the Rural Defense Corps, a longtime auxiliary force of the Mexican army. In addition, the agreement provided Mexico City with greater oversight over the inner workings of the militias and their leadership. However, no substantial integration of militia members into the Rural Defense Corps had occurred by the end of the first quarter.

By contrast, the agreement did succeed in fostering a great deal of cooperation between the militias and federal troops with regard to targeting the Knights Templar. The combined efforts of the self-defense militias and federal troops against the Knights Templar yielded substantial gains. The day of the agreement, federal troops captured Dionisio "El Tio" Loya Plancarte, the first of the top Knights Templar leaders to fall in the first quarter. On March 9, the Mexican military killed Nazario "El Chayo" Moreno Gonzalez, the founder of the Knights Templar, in Tumbiscatio, Michoacan state. Moreno's death occurred as a result of substantial militia operations in the city just days before. On March 31, top leader Enrique "El Kike" Plancarte Solis was killed during a military operation in Colon, Queretaro state. Of the Knights Templar's best-known leaders, only Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez remains at large.
Municipalities With Self Defense Groups
Click to Enlarge

Significantly, the spread of the militias in Michoacan has greatly hindered the group's mobility in the state. This greatly diminished the operational capabilities of the Knights Templar during the first quarter, lessening its hold over profitable criminal activities in the state. And this in turn has created a power vacuum, allowing smaller independent crime groups, including the remnants of the Knights Templar, to emerge. (The second quarter will likely see these lower-tier groups continue to emerge.)

In the weeks following the March 31 death of Plancarte, the federal commission overseeing Michoacan's security developments called for the disarmament of the militias because, the commission said, the Knights Templar had largely been defeated. Self-defense militia movement spokesman Jose Mireles rejected calls to disarm, citing the persistence of the Knights Templar under Gomez and other lower-level bosses.

The federal government then set a deadline of May 10 for the militias to voluntarily disarm or face forced disarmament. In response, the militia movement threatened blockades. Various militias could erect these, presumably on major roads in Michoacan, should the federal government not satisfy militia demands. These include the release of 100 incarcerated militia members, the killing or capture of remaining Knights Templar members in the state, the restoration of the rule of law in Michoacan and the recognition of the self-defense militias' right to exist.

The commission and militia leaders from 20 municipalities struck a new deal April 14. Though the agreement followed a recent ultimatum by the federal government that the militias voluntarily disarm by May 10 or have federal troops forcibly disarm them, the new deal's 11 points do not call for a total disarmament. Instead, the militias accepted an offer to be incorporated into a Rural State Police body beginning May 11. Under the terms of the deal, self-defense militias will turn in "high-caliber" weapons. The deal calls for all remaining militia arms to be registered with the federal government. The April 14 agreement also allows militia members to join the Rural Defense Corps, just as the agreement signed Jan. 27 did.

According to Security and Integral Development Commissioner Alfredo Castillo, the agreement means that self-defense militias in Michoacan will disappear by May 11. Whether the agreement will actually produce that outcome remains unclear, given that it allows the self-defense militia members to continue to bear arms and does not specify just how the militias will be formally integrated into government-controlled security forces. Moreover, divisions within the militia movement could threaten the viability of the April 14 agreement.

The April 14 agreement highlights the federal government's intent to halt the expansion of vigilante groups in Mexico. The challenge to governmental authority apparently has been deemed greater than the benefits the militias bring of reducing the need for military involvement in the fight against drug-trafficking organizations.

To this end, Mexico City has sought to bring the militias to the bargaining table. But implementing any deal will face a challenge from increased divisions among the militias. Although at present the militias mostly act in concert, the movement comprises various militias operating in towns among dozens of municipalities.

Internal discord has already emerged, albeit currently isolated to a few personalities within the militias. Since the beginning of 2014, various self-defense militia leaders have accused one another of belonging to organized crime and have said that organized crime is infiltrating their groups. Though such claims are impossible to verify, their existence underscores concerns among self-defense militias that their members may be interested in taking over criminal enterprises left by the power vacuum that emerged from the Knights Templar's decline. If these concerns become reality, the government will face an even more fractured militia landscape during negotiations for their incorporation into federal forces.

If the broader movement fractures during the second quarter, the likelihood of any negotiated settlement between the militias and the government greatly diminishes, given the lack of any coordinated leadership. However, divisions within the militia movement would pose a diminished threat to Mexico City. If the movement remains largely intact yet fails to honor the April 14 agreement, it is possible that Mexico City would still delay any efforts to disarm the militias during the second quarter. This would provide more time for the militias to fragment, thus reducing their collective ability to challenge state authority while obviating the need for any military confrontation. However, such a decision would risk further proliferation of the militias, bringing in more weaponry and bolstering their ranks. The longer Mexico City allows the militias to expand without any permanent resolution that brings the militias fully into the fold or disarms them, the greater the threat militias will pose to government authority.

In the second quarter, the fracturing of organized crime in Michoacan will likely lead to more organized crime-related violence as these smaller groups move, hampering federal and state government bids to improve security in the state. And although Knights Templar operational capabilities in Michoacan have declined, the group will still retain a substantial presence in the state during the second quarter. Violence between rival criminal organizations and between criminal organizations and the self-defense militias will combine with the continued presence of the Knights Templar to keep the state unstable.

Editor's Note: The full version of our quarterly cartel update is available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.

Read more: Mexico's Drug War: Substantial Changes Seen in Michoacan | Stratfor
=====================
elf-Defense Groups in Mexico's Michoacan State
Media Center, Image
April 17, 2014 | 1057 Print Text Size
Self-Defense Groups in Mexico's Michoacan State
Click to Enlarge

Since the second half of January 2014, three out of four of the most prominent Knights Templar leaders have been eliminated, as have many of their lieutenants. Federal authorities could not have racked up such rapid successes against Knights Templar leaders during the first quarter were it not for the presence of self-defense militias in Michoacan state. The self-defense militias first emerged in February 2013 and have since expanded their operations to more than 26 of Michoacan's 113 municipalities (and over half the state's geographic area). With the expansion, the militias challenged government authority in many towns by taking charge of public safety, often detaining local law enforcement authorities whom the militias viewed as having links to the Knights Templar.

Mexico City has decided it cannot tolerate the existence of well-armed and widely operating militias willing to supplant government authority, which led to the government and militia leaders from 20 municipalities striking a new deal April 14 to resolve their status. Though the agreement followed a recent ultimatum by the federal government that the militias voluntarily disarm by May 10 or have federal troops forcibly disarm them, the new deal's 11 points do not call for a total disarmament. Instead, the militias accepted an offer to be incorporated into a Rural State Police body beginning May 11. Under the terms of the deal, self-defense militias will turn in "high-caliber" weapons. The deal calls for all remaining militia arms to be registered with the federal government. The April 14 agreement also allows militia members to join the Rural Defense Corps, just as a previous agreement reached Jan. 27 did.

According to Security and Integral Development Commissioner Alfredo Castillo, the agreement means that self-defense militias in Michoacan will disappear by May 11. Whether the agreement will actually produce that outcome remains unclear, given that it allows the self-defense militia members to continue to bear arms and does not specify just how the militias will be formally integrated into government-controlled security forces. Moreover, divisions within the militia movement could threaten the viability of the April 14 agreement.

Title: NYT: Mayor of Lazaro Cardenas arrested
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 30, 2014, 05:13:01 AM
Mexico: Mayor Detained in Organized Crime Investigation

By PAULINA VILLEGASAPRIL 29, 2014


The mayor of Lázaro Cárdenas, the city with Mexico’s second-largest port, has been detained as part of an investigation into allegations that he is involved in organized crime, as Mexico struggles to regain control of a region under the thumb of a powerful criminal gang. The gang, the Knights Templar, had so infiltrated the port, in the Pacific Coast state of Michoacán, that the military took it over last year. The arrest of the mayor, Arquímedes Oseguera, on Monday came a day after five people were killed on the outskirts of Lázaro Cárdenas when vigilante groups clashed with gunmen who they suspected were criminals. Mexico this week plans to begin to disarm the vigilantes and restore state authority.
Title: Slippin' into darkness: Plata o Plomo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 23, 2014, 08:54:33 PM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2637789/Threatening-cartel-billboards-warning-police-choose-silver-lead-come-complete-hanging-mannequins-appearing-Texas.html

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/05/20/Former-Border-Patrol-Union-Only-Cartels-Benefit-From-Border-Monument
Title: Armed Mexican Troop Incursions
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 17, 2014, 03:49:19 PM
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/17/feds-armed-mexican-troops-police-jump-border/
Title: Regulators harassisng money transfers
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 07, 2014, 10:29:58 AM
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/immigrants-from-latin-america-and-africa-squeezed-as-banks-curtail-international-money-transfers/?_php=true&_type=blogs&emc=edit_th_20140707&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
Title: PAN's status in jeopardy?!?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 15, 2014, 04:10:50 PM
15 July 2014
MEXICO – Audit puts PAN party’s status at risk

National Electoral Institute (INE) data released on 11 July 2014 from June shows that the National Action Party (PAN) has just 222,928 members, after discovering that 48,704 registrations were duplicates. This puts PAN at risk of losing its status as a national political party, as electoral law dictates that a recognized national political party have a minimum number of members equivalent to 0.26 percent of the population, or approximately 219,608 citizens. The INE will now crosscheck the registrations of the other political parties and, if necessary, request that citizens express their final preference.
Title: Glenn Beck visits the border
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 21, 2014, 12:46:50 PM
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/07/21/it-is-a-horrifying-place-to-be-glenn-reflects-on-his-visit-to-the-rio-grande-river-with-louie-gohmert/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 21, 2014, 07:17:30 PM
second post of the day

ditor's Note: This week's Security Weekly summarizes our quarterly Mexico drug cartel report, in which we assess the most significant developments of the second quarter of 2014 and provide a forecast for the third quarter. The report is a product of the coverage we maintain through our Mexico Security Memo, quarterly updates and other analyses that we produce throughout the year as part of the Mexico Security Monitor service.

By Tristan Reed
Mexico Security Analyst

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto aggressively pursued a strategy of targeting top organized crime leaders throughout Mexico in the second quarter -- and not just in Michoacan, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, the states that the country's major criminal groups call home.


In Michoacan, Mexico City achieved substantial success against organized crime in the first half of 2014. Self-defense militias and Mexican authorities have dismantled most of the senior leadership of the Knights Templar. Only Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez remains at large.

Federal forces also continued to inflict significant leadership losses on organized crime groups in Sinaloa, particularly the Sinaloa Federation. The arrest of top Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera on Feb. 22 capped the government's successes in Sinaloa. The Mexican military on June 23 also arrested Fernando "El Ingeniero" Sanchez Arellano, one of the primary leaders of another criminal group in Sinaloa (despite its brand name), the Tijuana cartel.

Mexico City announced a renewed campaign against organized crime in Tamaulipas on May 13, highlighting its intent to crush the leaderships of all organized crime groups in their respective domains. Successes mounted just days after the announcement: Already, federal forces have arrested or killed several significant Gulf cartel and Los Zetas bosses. And at least so far, the campaign against organized crime in Tamaulipas has not distracted the government from its pursuit of crime bosses elsewhere.

Successfully targeting crime bosses in Mexico does not ensure improved security over the long term. It also does not guarantee the collapse of any group. For example, the arrest of Zetas leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales on July 15, 2013, did not appear to meaningfully affect Los Zetas' capabilities or operations.

Opportunities for new crime bosses to emerge or expand their control will remain as long as vast quantities of highly profitable drugs are flowing through criminal territories and other highly profitable criminal activities are proliferating. If Mexico City is to translate its recent successes into enduring security improvements, it will have to continue to pressure crime bosses and strengthen the government institutions that maintain the rule of law.

Economic Incentives

It is more than just a desire to end the drug-related violence that motivates Mexico City's recent campaigns against organized crime in Tamaulipas, Sinaloa and Michoacan. The Mexican government is also protecting its own economic interests. Not only do Mexican criminal groups traffic drugs into the United States, but they are also increasingly engaged in the theft of hydrocarbon products, as well as illegal mining and illegal logging.

In Michoacan, the Knights Templar had enjoyed an increasing share of shipments of illegally mined ore to China until the second quarter. Meanwhile, the theft and sale of hydrocarbon products by these groups has grown throughout Mexico. Criminal groups in Tamaulipas in particular have an extensive reach into Mexico's energy resources: Groups have stolen gasoline from Petroleos Mexicanos' pipelines, trucks and even directly from refineries, then sold it on the street for less than half the official price.

Organized crime's exploitation of Mexico's hydrocarbon resources is one of the principal forces pushing the new campaign in the northeast. As Stratfor noted in its second quarterly cartel update, the recent surge in violence in Tamaulipas was mainly because of the collapse of the Tampico Gulf cartel faction and the continued Gulf cartel factional fight for control of Reynosa. However, Mexico City has thus far targeted virtually all organized crime groups based in Tamaulipas -- from Los Zetas to the various Gulf cartel factions -- and government operations have extended into Guanajuato, Mexico, Nuevo Leon and Veracruz states.

The long-term consequences of Mexico's high-value target campaign are difficult to forecast. Security improvements -- where there have been any -- as a direct result of military and law enforcement operations in the most violent areas of the country have been modest. Those operations have, however, accelerated the trends Stratfor underlined in its 2014 cartel annual update.

In northwestern Mexico, the series of arrests of high-level Sinaloa Federation leaders has further balkanized organized crime in states such as Sonora, Baja California and Sinaloa. In north-central Mexico, La Linea has re-emerged in Chihuahua without resorting to the levels of violence seen when the Sinaloa Federation initially pushed into the state and challenged it. The picture in Mexico's northeast is still hazy, especially given the recent operations in Tamaulipas. Nonetheless, the combination of escalated turf wars among Gulf cartel factions and the government's targeting of crime bosses from Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel will accelerate the organizational shifts Stratfor noted in its 2014 cartel update.

Changes in Tamaulipas and the Northeast

The collapse of the Tampico faction of the Gulf cartel during the first quarter, leaving no major group in control of organized crime in the city of Tampico, marked the beginning of substantial shifts in organized crime in the northeast. In addition to Tampico, Reynosa and Ciudad Victoria saw renewed organized crime violence. Gulf cartel factions fought each other for control of Reynosa, and Los Zetas continued to face off with security forces in Ciudad Victoria. However, because Tampico lies on drug smuggling routes into the United States and is a hub for the theft of hydrocarbon products, it is almost a given that a group such as Los Zetas or another Gulf cartel faction will vie for control. Competing groups could launch a direct incursion, or they could sponsor one of the old Tampico faction's successor groups.

Areas of Cartel Influence in Mexico



As Stratfor detailed in the first quarterly update, a shift of control in Tampico could affect the landscape of organized crime in all of northeastern Mexico. We did not, however, predict the sweeping federal operations targeting all major criminal groups in Tamaulipas that began in May. Sharp increases in violence and subsequent military operations are not new to Tamaulipas. Since 2003, the state has experienced a series of bloody criminal turf wars followed by substantial military and law enforcement operations. The turf wars reflect the state's value to organized crime. Given its location on the Lower Rio Grande, Tamaulipas offers access to U.S. ports of entry where contraband can be smuggled into the United States. This has made Tamaulipas one of the major regional bases for organized crime in Mexico. The various major groups based there, namely, Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel factions, collectively operate in roughly half of the country.

The operations that reshaped the security environment in Tamaulipas in the second quarter will continue at least into the third quarter. Fighting between gunmen and military forces has increased in multiple areas of Tamaulipas, particularly Reynosa, Tampico and Ciudad Victoria, though the increased troop presence in hot spots in the state has diminished intercartel violence.

The wide net Mexico City has cast in targeting crime bosses from groups based in Tamaulipas reveals that the government's ambitions go beyond simply quelling cartel violence in the state. Numerous Tamaulipas crime bosses have been caught, many after fleeing the state. The number of crime bosses fleeing Tamaulipas only to be arrested in their new refuges stands out. These include Gulf cartel boss Juan Manuel "Juan Perros" Rodriguez Garcia, apprehended May 25 in Nuevo Leon state; Los Zetas leaders Juan Fernando "El Ferrari" Alvarez Cortez and Fernando "Z-16" Magana Martinez, both apprehended in May in Nuevo Leon; Luis Jimenez Tovar, Los Zetas' plaza boss for Ciudad Victoria, arrested July 3 in Leon, Guanajuato; and Gulf cartel boss Juan Zarate "El Sheyla" Martin Chavez, apprehended June 18 in Mexico state. The high volume of fugitives from Tamaulipas suggests that the crime bosses fear this security operation more than major ones in the past, such as the operation launched against Los Zetas in 2011 and the one targeting the Gulf cartel in 2012.

Violence stemming from the turf wars between rival criminal groups in Reynosa and Tampico slowed in the last few weeks of the second quarter, supplanted by fighting between authorities and criminal gunmen. While organized crime groups will continue fighting one another in Tamaulipas, the heightened number of federal troops and aggressive targeting will continue to limit their ability to fight one another in the third quarter.

It is highly likely that more Gulf cartel and Los Zetas leaders will fall this quarter, though it is uncertain whether Mexico City will apprehend the senior leaders of Los Zetas, such as leader Omar "Z-42" Trevino Morales, brother of former leader Miguel Trevino Morales. The faction of the Gulf cartel based in Matamoros, a town where the family of former Gulf leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen still has considerable power, has weathered the federal operations the best. As a result, this faction could expand its reach onto the turf of other Gulf factions in the second half of the year.

Editor's Note: The full version of our quarterly cartel update is available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 23, 2014, 06:45:26 AM
Mexico Unveils New Police Force
Scaled-Down Unit Aims to Protect Mine and Farm Operations
By Dudley Althaus and José de Córdoba
WSJ
Aug. 22, 2014 3:57 p.m. ET

Members of the newly formed gendarmerie march in unison during an inaugural ceremony at the Federal Police headquarters in Mexico City. Associated Press

MEXICO CITY—Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto inaugurated a new unit of the federal police force—a scaled-down version of what was initially planned as a larger, independent gendarmerie—that aims to protect key parts of the economy, like mining operations and farms, from drug gangs.

The new 5,000-strong force, modeled after similar units in France, Spain, Chile and elsewhere, was a key element of Mr. Peña Nieto's public security strategy during his 2012 presidential campaign. Having criticized former President Felipe Calderón's use of the army and navy to take on drug gangs, Mr. Peña Nieto and his team envisioned a new 40,000-strong force, with recruits drawn largely from the military, which would answer to civilian authorities and allow the army to return to the barracks.

The smaller force will instead be another unit of the Federal Police. Critics said the new force was too small and would leave the bulk of the fight against the cartels to Mexico's army and navy.

The original plan for the gendarmerie was opposed by the military, which spearheaded the bloody, unresolved campaign against organized crime, according to some analysts. Tens of thousands of Mexican troops still patrol the country's hot spots, including many of the states just south of the U.S. border.

"It was planned to be a very ambitious police force, separate from the federal police as well as the army. But there was a lot of infighting between the army, the navy and the federal police," said Raúl Benítez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

That left Mr. Peña Nieto's team struggling with how to fulfill a campaign promise without losing face, some analysts said.

"This is a police force in search of a mission," said Alejandro Hope, who served as a senior official in Mexico's civilian intelligence agency under Mr. Calderón. "It has a political logic, not a security one."

Gendarmes combine civilian policing with military discipline and organization. They act as a national police in France, its former colonies and other European countries as well as in Chile, Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.

As many as 100,000 Mexicans have died or disappeared since late 2006 as rival criminal gangs battle one another and security forces for territorial domination. The violence has eased this year in many former hot spots; government statistics show a 15% drop in murders so far this year compared with the same period in 2013.

Even in its reduced form, Mexico's gendarme force will increase the number of federal officers involved in actual field operations by nearly a fifth, said Monte Alejandro Rubido, who as National Security Commissioner oversees the federal police. The gendarmes will be a seventh division of the now 41,000-strong force.

The idea is to provide "greater quantitative and qualitative reaction capacity to the federal police," Mr. Rubido said. "The goal is public peace…to protect family, school and work spaces."

Mr. Rubido cited key farm areas in Tamaulipas state, bordering Texas, and in west central Michoacán state as two examples of where gendarmes might deployed should producers be threatened by those states' vicious gangs. He also pointed to a recent rash of kidnappings in the tourist town of Valle de Bravo, near Mexico City, as the sort of problem the gendarmes will handle.

The new force won't be used to protect particular companies, Mr. Rubido said, but will provide security for regions where murder, extortion, kidnapping and theft have disrupted economic and community life.

Mexico's gendarmes have undergone both law enforcement and military training aimed at forging a "sense of discipline, of corps, of belonging," Mr. Rubido said. Rank-and-file officers are young men and women—the average age is 28—with slightly older commanders drawn from federal police ranks, he said.

Half the new officers have completed high school and a fifth have university degrees. The officers' net monthly starts at $1,100, which Mr. Rubido said "isn't a bad salary by the police standards in our country."

Apart from their operational duties, the gendarmes are intended to bring in "new blood to refresh the daily work of the federal police," Mr. Rubido said.

The federal police are widely considered the best trained and most trustworthy of Mexico's civilian security forces. But they account for less than a 10th of the 440,000 police officers nationwide, most of whom serve with undertrained, outgunned and often corrupt municipal and state forces, according to Mr. Benítez and other analysts.

The new force would prove a step forward if it is "able to create a niche space where you have noncorrupt police," Mr. Benítez said. "It will depend on the commanders chosen to head the Gendarmería."
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on August 26, 2014, 01:57:49 PM
Mexico Unveils New Police Force
Scaled-Down Unit Aims to Protect Mine and Farm Operations
By Dudley Althaus and José de Córdoba
WSJ
Aug. 22, 2014 3:57 p.m. ET


The smaller force will instead be another unit of the Federal Police. Critics said the new force was too small and would leave the bulk of the fight against the cartels to Mexico's army and navy.

The original plan for the gendarmerie was opposed by the military, which spearheaded the bloody, unresolved campaign against organized crime, according to some analysts. Tens of thousands of Mexican troops still patrol the country's hot spots, including many of the states just south of the U.S. border.


A couple of things; the author/s doesn't/don't know a whole lot or intentionally wrote a biased article.

The military is less than pleased because it will be taking about 40 million dollars (the amount to spent on the Gendarmería), and they're bent.

The military and Fuerzas Federales and Fuerzas Estatales will all be forking over people to man it. It isn't operational yet but will be in full swing within a year.

Not every state gets to send troops. We here are sending 1500 elements with additional elements coming from three other states.

This is a very good thing. I am very much looking forward to this.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 27, 2014, 07:52:03 AM
Good input DDF.
Title: Corruption in education
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 02, 2014, 11:26:42 AM


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/world/americas/billboard-drives-home-extent-of-corruption-as-schools-suffer.html?emc=edit_th_20140902&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
Title: Pena Nieto's State of the Union
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 03, 2014, 06:30:49 AM
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's state of the union address Tuesday offered key insights into Mexico's direction over the next few years. Among the high points of the speech were reforms in the Mexican energy sector that ended the state's monopoly on hydrocarbons production. Pena Nieto's speech also touted reductions in the nation's homicide rate over the past year.

With the legislative hurdles cleared, Mexico will use the next few years to implement reforms achieved in 2013 and 2014. The energy reform in particular portends an increase in Mexican oil output and government revenue over the next decade. Mexico will also continue using federal authorities, including the newly formed gendarmerie, to counter the violence generated by organized crime. However, these are short-term political moves in Mexico's larger geopolitical narrative, in which Mexico's economic future will remain inextricably connected to the United States, and Mexico City will continue searching for ways to mitigate ongoing competition between drug trafficking organizations.

To a large degree, Pena Nieto will focus his presidency on maintaining the steady economic growth of the past 20 years. Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, Mexico's real gross domestic product climbed by about $383 billion to more than $1 trillion. This growth, which placed Mexico second in Latin America in terms of GDP and 15th in the world, primarily rose due to the advantages gained by Mexico's proximity to the United States. Mexico has defined its economic strategy around these advantages, which include short transport distances to the world's largest consumer market and Mexico's relatively low wages compared with the United States -- low wages that have spurred investment into manufacturing (with the United States being a leading investor) for decades. NAFTA accelerated this trend, and nearly 80 percent of Mexican exports worth some $300 billion went directly to the United States in 2013. Although Mexico is attempting to eliminate tariff barriers with like-minded trading partners in the burgeoning Pacific Alliance, its trade flows will remain overwhelmingly focused on its neighbor to the north.

What is a Geopolitical Diary? George Friedman Explains.

This long-term economic focus northward will define Mexico's immediate economic moves. Over the next several years, Mexico will continue building out its natural gas pipeline network to take advantage of the U.S. role as a major natural gas producer and supply Mexico's growing industrial base and electricity generation. Because the pipelines that import U.S. natural gas into Mexico are operating near full capacity, Mexico will add three additional pipelines to its grid over the next two years. Mexican state-owned energy firm Petroleos Mexicanos is planning five additional pipelines in upcoming years. Together, these lines will add nearly 55.9 billion cubic meters per year to Mexico's existing pipeline import capacity.

Mexico will also focus heavily on implementing the centerpiece of its reform drive, namely, energy reform. Much of Pena Nieto's political legacy rests on successfully securing meaningful foreign investment into Mexico's oil sector. To this end, the government will auction 169 oil blocks in May 2015. There are growing indications that Pemex is willing to make the necessary moves to restructure the firm to become more competitive. A successful auction is unlikely to bear fruit until several years down the road, but it would set Mexico's deteriorated oil sector on the path toward recovery.

Pena Nieto will also continue dealing with the ongoing violence from Mexico's drug war, an unwelcome inheritance from his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. Mexico remains one of the last destinations in the cocaine supply chain to the lucrative U.S. market, and this role will not change soon. Despite rising cocaine traffic through the Caribbean, the vast majority of cocaine shipments from South America still pass through Mexico -- and thus into the hands of the numerous drug trafficking organizations competing there for dominance over supply routes northward. This violence, which spiked sharply in the years after Calderon sent federal forces directly after drug trafficking organizations in 2006, has remained a challenge for the Mexican government. The government will continue to try to contain the violence associated with criminal competition, and the U.S. interest in stemming the flow of drugs through the U.S. border is unlikely to wane in the coming years.

Despite a major U.S. interest in countering drug flows north, Mexico will likely enjoy significantly less success on the security front. There are simply too many people within criminal organizations and institutions benefiting from the drug trade for its effects to be reduced through law enforcement pressure alone. Although several major drug traffickers were captured during Pena Nieto's term, including Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera and Los Zetas leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, the elements remain in place for continued cartel wars across Mexico. The lucrative profit margins available to Mexican drug traffickers will keep spurring competition over supply routes and gateways into the United States. Though the names of individuals and organizations involved in the trade over the next several years will change, the overall dynamic of drug trafficking organizations exporting cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the United States will not. With local police forces highly penetrated by narcotics traffickers, Pena Nieto will continue to rely on the military and other federal security bodies to stem ongoing violence, but setting up lasting law enforcement institutions will prove elusive.

Despite its lasting role in the drug trade, Mexico's future for the remainder of Pena Nieto's tenure looks bright. Reductions in U.S. consumer demand notwithstanding, the country is well-positioned to continue to benefit from high levels of foreign direct investment and trade with the United States. If successful, the energy reform will provide significant revenue flows for both the central government and private firms by the decade's end. Overall, Mexico is set to continue its trajectory toward securing its position as a Latin American economic power.

Read more: The Mexican President's State of the Union Suggests a Bright Future | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Title: Stratfor: Groups splinter as bosses fall
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 17, 2014, 05:48:17 AM
ditor's Note: This week's Security Weekly summarizes our quarterly Mexico drug cartel report, in which we assess the most significant developments of the third quarter of 2014 and provide a forecast for the fourth quarter. The report is a product of the coverage we maintain through our Mexico Security Memo, quarterly updates and other analyses that we produce throughout the year as part of the Mexico Security Monitor service.

By Tristan Reed
Mexico Security Analyst

The Mexican government continued its string of arrests of high-level crime bosses during the third quarter of 2014. Since Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in 2012, leaders of crime syndicates from across Mexico have been falling to federal troops with unusual frequency, including top-tier bosses from Sinaloa, Michoacan and Tamaulipas states, beginning with the arrest of Los Zetas top leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales in July 2013. It has become clear that the Pena Nieto administration is leaving no organized crime group free from government pressure. This trend will dominate the evolution of Mexico's organized crime landscape in the fourth quarter.
Significant Arrests

With the exception of Trevino, troops focused primarily on northwestern crime bosses operating under the Sinaloa Federation's umbrella in the last half of 2013 and well into the first half of this year, most notably with the February arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera. Over the past three months, federal forces turned their sights to an alliance consisting of the Juarez cartel, Los Zetas and remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization, a grouping poised to supplant the declining Sinaloa Federation.

On Aug. 9, federal troops captured Enrique Hernandez Garcia, a Beltran Leyva Organization operator and the reported point of contact for the three allied cartels. Hernandez's brother, Francisco (aka "El 2000") is a high-level Beltran Leyva member who played an integral role in providing support to Beltran Leyva Organization remnant groups in Sonora state using gunmen from Los Zetas and the Juarez cartel. Federal troops in northern Sinaloa state also aggressively pursued the Beltran Leyva Organization successor group Los Mazatlecos in the third quarter.

But the alliance's most noteworthy leaders, such as top boss Fausto "El Chapo Isidro" Meza Flores, managed to evade capture until Hector "El H" Beltran Leyva was arrested Oct. 1 in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato state. Hector, the brother of Beltran Leyva Organization founders Alfredo and Arturo Beltran Leyva, was the most senior Beltran Leyva Organization operator to be captured or killed since the December 2009 death of Arturo during a firefight with Mexican marines. Federal forces built on this success by capturing Juarez cartel chief Vicente Carrillo Fuentes on Oct. 9 in Torreon, Coahuila state.

Federal forces also proceeded with operations in Tamaulipas state during the past quarter, where they continued to find substantial success in targeting leaders of the various Gulf cartel-aligned gangs. Farther south, federal troops are actively pursuing the Knights Templar in Michoacan state, though that group is a shadow of what it once was, with Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez its sole remaining top leader.

Each time a high-level leader is captured or killed, the question of succession naturally arises. The consequences of each succession vary widely from group to group. For example, the arrest of Trevino had a low organizational impact on Los Zetas, while massive, violent organizational splits occurred within the Beltran Leyva Organization and the Sinaloa Federation after the January 2008 arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva. Since the arrests of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and Hector Beltran Leyva happened less than a month ago, the extent of the fallout from each remains to be seen. Regardless of how things play out, the typically cohesive structures of Mexican cartels will continue to dissolve, creating a balkanized organized criminal landscape.
The Gulf Cartel Splinters

The Gulf cartel is perhaps the most obvious example of this devolution. Before 2010, the cartel was one of the two most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico, along with the Sinaloa Federation. Either directly or through alliances, it controlled nearly half of Mexico.

In 2010, however, Los Zetas split from the Gulf cartel, leaving the latter with just a portion of its former territory. By 2011, the Gulf cartel had split into two competing factions: Los Rojos and Los Metros. The following year, after several leadership losses at the hands of federal troops, the cartel broke down further into at least three factions in Tamaulipas, while a Los Zetas splinter group known as the Velazquez network emerged, rebranding itself as the "Gulf cartel."

The original Gulf cartel has continued to fragment to the extent that numerous, oft-competing groups -- all of them largely referred to as factions of the Gulf cartel -- sometimes can be found operating in the same neighborhood of a given city. Despite this decentralization, under the management of these various factions, organized criminal activity in Tamaulipas state has continued apace.

In the second and third quarters of 2014, two of the factions collapsed into subfactions. The Gulf cartel faction in Tampico fell apart between April and May, sparking a sharp increase in violence in southern Tamaulipas state prior to the start of sweeping security operations in May. Later, after several leadership losses, the Rio Bravo faction -- one of two factions competing for control of Reynosa -- effectively collapsed. Its rival, which operated in towns just west of Reynosa with ties to the Velazquez network, also suffered several leadership losses at the hands of rival groups and the authorities. Now, organized crime-related violence in Tampico and Reynosa resemble conflicts between powerful street gangs more than past conflicts between Mexican transnational criminal organizations.

If government pressure persists, Mexico's other criminal organizations -- even cartels such as Los Zetas that have retained considerable power and a cohesive structure -- will meet the same splintered fate as the Gulf cartel. For these groups, fragmentation is a natural result of prolonged and consistent government pressure. Not all splits will spark new conflicts, however, since newly independent subgroups may decide to cooperate, as has been the case with some Beltran Leyva Organization subgroups and Gulf cartel factions like those in Matamoros and Tampico. Moreover, even though Tamaulipas state now contains numerous distinct criminal groups, the opportunities for illicit profit that gave rise to the Gulf cartel in the first place will remain. The successor groups will continue the criminal operations.
Setbacks for Sinaloa, Opportunities for Rivals

Though the Sinaloa Federation's current woes began to emerge in 2012, the decentralization of the cartel did not become obvious until 2014. The cartel has not devolved into competing crime groups in the same fashion as the Gulf cartel, but Sinaloa's regional crime bosses have increasingly demonstrated their autonomy from top-tier leaders in areas such as Sonora and Baja California states, particularly Tijuana.

As Stratfor predicted in an Aug. 12 Mexico Security Weekly, the breakdown of the Sinaloa Federation has created opportunities for crime bosses under the Juarez-Los Zetas-Beltran Leyva Organization alliance to absorb territories or criminal operations, through either violent takeovers or business deals with individual Sinaloa lieutenants. Such was the case in southern Sonora state in 2012, when Sinaloa lieutenant Sajid Emilio "El Cadete" Quintero Navidad waged war on another Sinaloa lieutenant, Gonzalo "El Macho Prieto" Inzunza Inzunza, before then allying with Trinidad "El Chapo Trini" Olivas Valenzuela, the leader of a Beltran Leyva Organization remnant group.
Fourth-Quarter Forecast

The Juarez-Beltran Leyva Organization-Los Zetas alliance will begin adjusting to the arrests of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and Hector Beltran Leyva in the fourth quarter. Possible reactions include withdrawal from the alliance or further splits within its constituent parts. Rather than substantial adjustments like these during the fourth quarter, however, the members of the alliance are more likely to work to hold together. This could see subgroups such as La Linea of the Juarez cartel and Los Mazatlecos of the Beltran Leyva Organization become the alliance's points of contact for their respective groups. Should the arrests of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and Hector Beltran Leyva diminish the overall capabilities of their respective criminal organizations, Los Zetas may take charge of the general direction of the alliance given that the cartel has, by far, the widest reach of any of the three members.

The likelihood of increased violence resulting from the third-quarter arrests alone is slim. While there is a small chance that these captures will weaken the alliance -- or create that perception among its rivals -- no rival organizations are currently capable of mounting an interregional offensive. The Sinaloa Federation, for example, is too fragmented. Northwest Mexico, Chihuahua state and the Bajio region are the areas most likely to see a deterioration of security related to the shift in alliance dynamics this quarter. But any resulting violence probably will be isolated to areas where regional crime bosses operating under an umbrella group like the Sinaloa Federation will face off with alliance-affiliated bosses for control of relatively small territories. Any such fighting in the fourth quarter is unlikely to draw in Mexico's larger entities.

The Mexican government will continue pursuing criminal leaders throughout the country in the fourth quarter. It has become increasingly apparent that the Pena Nieto administration is intent upon continuing to flatten the structure of organized crime as a whole in Mexico. This means that more, albeit much less powerful, criminal bosses will emerge nationwide. New security concerns can arise with such a trend, since there will be more leaders fighting one another and participating in criminal activities targeting business interests and bystanders. But the crime bosses behind such violence will be far more vulnerable to government pressure than their predecessors, given the relative weakness of the new crop -- though to keep them in check the government will need to help Mexican states strengthen their public safety institutions.

Editor's Note: The full version of our quarterly cartel update is available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.

Read more: Mexico's Drug War: Criminal Groups Splinter as Bosses Fall | Stratfor
Title: Stratfor: Normalista Unrest
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 31, 2014, 08:48:56 AM

Summary

The legislature of the Mexican state of Guerrero approved an interim governor Oct. 26 to replace former Gov. Angel Aguirre, who resigned Oct. 23 amid rising political tumult following the disappearance in Iguala of 43 teaching college students known as normalistas. Aguirre's own political party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution, pushed him to resign to protect its political fortunes in its stronghold of Guerrero. As Aguirre was resigning, masked protesters in Mexico City prepared to take over the television station of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where they later broadcast a video demanding that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto locate the missing normalistas, whom the protesters alleged municipal police kidnapped on the orders of the mayor of Iguala.

The unrest in Guerrero is the latest manifestation of Mexico City's historical struggle to control the territories on its southwestern periphery, including Chiapas, Michoacan, Guerrero and Oaxaca states. The deserts, mountains and plateaus that begin outside Mexico City make for a large geographic territory difficult to control and integrate economically, leading to a substantial socio-economic divide between the core and the periphery, especially in Mexico's southwestern states. Their proximity to Mexico's core increases Mexico City's sensitivity to unrest there, given the risk of demonstrations spreading to the capital. Whether the current unrest will cause significant disruptions outside Guerrero remains to be seen. But either way, it has shined a spotlight on Mexico's ongoing struggles with political corruption, organized crime-related violence and the disparities between the urban core and rural periphery, publicity that could frighten off investors and disrupt Mexico City's security strategy.
Analysis

The Sept. 26 incidents began when a group of normalistas from the Raul Isidro Burgos rural normal school in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, reportedly traveled to Iguala to steal buses to use in a demonstration on the anniversary of the Oct. 2, 1968, massacre of student demonstrators in Mexico City. According to the attorney general of Mexico, the mayor of Iguala ordered the municipal police to halt the normalistas. At some point, the police opened fire on two separate groups in Iguala that they thought consisted of normalistas and allegedly kidnapped 43 of them. The detainees were subsequently turned over to the Guerreros Unidos, a criminal group with which the mayor of Iguala and his wife reportedly have links. Shortly thereafter, normalistas began demonstrations in the state capital, Chilpancingo, and soon began garnering support from the broader teaching sector in the country's southwest, which was behind disruptive teacher protests in Mexico City in 2013.
Bad Publicity

The most immediate challenge to Mexico City -- unwanted attention on the insecurity within its borders -- is less serious than the struggle to control its periphery, but it is unwelcome nonetheless. Given the advent of energy reform, Mexico is now eagerly awaiting the foreign investment needed to jump-start its energy sector, but it fears that violence and unrest could scare off onshore investment. Though nationwide violence has gradually declined since its peak between 2010 and 2012, the always-restive Mexican southwest contains some of the highest levels of criminal violence in the country and the weakest local governments.

The emergence of the self-defense militias in Michoacan state and their war with the Knights Templar criminal group have served as a strong reminder to outsiders of the persistent difficulties of enforcing the rule of law in southwestern Mexico. The Sept. 26 incidents have done so as well.
Mexico's Geopolitical Subregions
Click to Enlarge

The unrest scaring off investors could get even worse if community-organized police, anti-government militants or the rural teachers of Mexico's powerful national teachers' unions join forces with the normalistas.
Community Police

The federal government has struggled to assert its authority over much of the rural areas of Guerrero state, and the state government has had even more difficulty. Because of the federal and state governments' inability to provide sufficient public safety to rural Guerrero, large geographic portions of the state populated by rural indigenous communities contain community police forces, civilian militias currently organized under one of two coordinating bodies that serve as de facto public safety institutions for the rural communities.

Guerrero's community police are not inherently anti-government. Their demands often include calls for a greater federal security presence in their respective areas, and they often dialogue and coordinate with the state and federal governments. Community police efforts focus on preventing organized crime from preying on community members, but unlike Michoacan's self-defense militias, they have not mounted military-style campaigns.

Even so, there are strong ties between Guerrero's community police and the rural teaching sector, including normalistas. In the 2013 teacher protests, Guerrero's community police assisted in the logistics required to transport teachers from Oaxaca and Guerrero to Mexico City. Continued unrest in Guerrero could draw community police into demonstrations, encourage a geographic expansion of their operations, or trigger a new armed conflict between organized crime and community police -- all of which would further threaten stability and Mexico City's authority in Guerrero. Still, the community police will be hesitant to do anything that would provoke a strong military response from Mexico City.
Insurgents

The poor economies, weak governing institutions and relative isolation from the core in Mexico's rural southwest have also created an environment suitable for various insurgencies that Mexico City has had to deploy military forces to quell at various times. Since the 1990s, several low-level Marxist guerrilla groups have emerged in Guerrero state. The most notable is the Popular Revolutionary Army, to which a number of attacks against federal troops and hydrocarbon pipelines during the 1990s and 2000s were attributed.

Whether any of these groups -- which have not given signs of meaningful activity since at least 2007 -- continue to operate remains uncertain, but normalistas in Guerrero share ideological affinities with them. Several communiques purportedly from the Popular Revolutionary Army and its suspected splinter groups have been disseminated in Mexican media outlets backing the normalistas and condemning the Guerreros Unidos. Aside from the communiques, however, no indicators of a new wave of guerrilla attacks in Guerrero have emerged.
Teachers' Unions

A more realistic threat to Mexico City arising out of the Sept. 26 unrest is that the broader educational sector will join forces with the normalistas. The lack of central authority in the southwestern states has given institutions including teachers' unions a significant degree of autonomy, freedom they jealously guard from government encroachment. The educational reforms Pena Nieto signed into law in February 2013 were taken as an existential threat to this autonomy. Resistance to the reform culminated in disruptive demonstrations in Mexico City whose participants primarily hailed from southwestern states and included normalistas from Guerrero.

Anti-government sentiment among southwestern teachers' unions remains strong, and could well expand once more in support of the normalistas. If it did, the demonstrations could reach the point of disrupting daily activity outside Guerrero, as did the 2013 teacher protests.
Iguala and Pena Nieto's Security Strategy

One of the key parts of the Pena Nieto administration's national security strategy has been transforming organized crime-related violence and public safety in general from a national security issue to a law enforcement issue. This move has involved transitioning away from using troops to patrol the streets under the reasoning that the military is a poor substitute for law enforcement and attracts unwanted attention to the country's security woes.

Mexico City will therefore be hesitant to expand the role of federal troops in Guerrero. But the growing unrest -- which has led to substantial destruction of government facilities in the state -- will likely necessitate an expanded military presence in Guerrero, undermining Pena Nieto's current security strategy.

How much the military presence in Guerrero state expands ultimately depends upon how much the unrest grows. While the pro-normalista demonstrations in Guerrero will likely see continued (and even stronger) support from the education sector and even from groups like the community police, the duration of this support will be limited by the participating groups' separate agendas. Either way, the unrest sparked by the Sept. 26 incidents has served as a stark reminder of Mexico's geopolitical challenges.

Read more: Normalista Unrest Highlights Mexico's Geographic Challenge | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Title: WSJ: Mexico's Rule of Law Crisis
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 17, 2014, 01:36:59 PM
by
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Nov. 16, 2014 6:18 p.m. ET
95 COMMENTS

What do the September disappearance of 43 university students from the custody of local police in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, and new allegations of federal corruption in the awarding of public infrastructure contracts have in common? Answer: They both show that Mexico still has a huge problem enforcing the rule of law.

The two developments have sparked a political crisis that could sink Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) President Enrique Peña Nieto ’s ambitious reform agenda if he doesn’t take quick and decisive action to restore confidence.

Until now the president has been able to ignore Mexico’s legendary lawlessness. He has been riding an international wave of excitement around the opening of the energy sector, with few questions asked. But unless he wants to make common cause with the hard left—which thinks it has him on the ropes because of the missing students—he needs to admit his mistakes, purge his cabinet and make the rule of law job No. 1.

According to a 17-page report issued Wednesday by the Mexican Embassy in Washington, the missing students were political activists. They had entered the town of Iguala in Guerrero to “forcefully borrow two private buses” for a journey to Mexico City for demonstrations.

The embassy says police opened fire on the students and that in the melee that ensued six civilians died. The students arrested were handed to a local crime cartel. Gang members allegedly confessed to killing the young men and burning their bodies. The governor of Guerrero has resigned. The mayor of Iguala, his wife, 36 municipal police officers and more than 35 other individuals are under arrest.

The governor and the mayor are both from the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). But teachers unions and the hard-left former mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador are now trying to destabilize the Peña Nieto government by linking it to the disappearance of the students. Last week the militants seized town halls, attacked government buildings, blocked roads and burned cars in at least three states.

The good news is that few issues have united Mexican civil society like the disappearance of the students and the violent response of the extreme left. There is little sympathy for Mr. López Obrador. The public’s top priority is the rule of law.

To re-establish the rule of law at a time when criminals have so much power is a tall order. U.S. drug policy and the American appetite for narcotics have conspired to overwhelm law enforcement in many places in Mexico. Mr. Peña Nieto can make a start if he demonstrates that the state can handle this investigation with transparency. But he will have to go much further.

To show that Mexico is committed to ending impunity and to improving public security, the president should use his influence to push for the full implementation of the new criminal code mandating that all federal and state judicial systems move, by 2016, to the oral accusatorial system, away from Mexico’s traditional written, inquisitional system.

Monterrey lawyer Ernesto Canales founded the civic group Renace (Spanish for “rebirth”) in 1994 to work for this reform in his home state of Nuevo León. In an interview in New York in the spring he told me that the change will “mean an increase in substance over formality in public trials and an increase in transparency. It will also raise the odds that judges actually know what’s going on in their courtrooms.”

Sounds important. Yet congressional approval of the federal regulations necessary to complete the reform is moving at a glacial pace, and the judiciary is in no hurry to comply. Many of the 32 states have yet to make the transition.

Everyone knows why: The oral system will challenge the traditional use of the criminal-justice system as a profit center for the state. In that tradition the accused can either pay or do time. Culpability is beside the point, and there is no need for competitive police salaries, forensics or transparent protocols to ensure accountability and communication among municipal, state and federal authorities.

This works well for the establishment, and Mr. Peña Nieto has not wanted to spend the political capital to change things. Becoming the champion of a reform that originated with civil society is now his best option to restore his credibility.

The president also has to deal with the drip, drip of allegations that his government is in the habit of trading contracts for kickbacks. Investors might forgive real or perceived transgressions if he fires his discredited ministers and agrees to a new bidding process for infrastructure contracts that puts his team at arm’s length. The center-right National Action Party (PAN), which wants to see the successful opening of the energy market, may be willing to help if it can be assured that the PRI will keep its hand out of the cookie jar.

That’s a lot to ask of the PRI, but Mr. Peña Nieto’s promise to transform Mexico depends on it.

Write to O’Grady@wsj.com
Title: Mexico's normalista protests threaten to spread
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 24, 2014, 02:43:35 PM
Summary

Violent protests calling for the return of 43 students missing from Iguala, in Guerrero state, and criticizing the government's perceived insensitivity and mismanagement of the case will continue in Guerrero and in other parts of Mexico. Though the demonstrations do not pose an immediate threat to the central government, they could undermine local governments and the federal government's authority at the local level.

The federal government's reach is particularly weak in Mexico's southwest. There are large geographic areas in several states in the region where communities enjoy partial autonomy, making it easier for citizens to challenge federal authority altogether. The unrest in Guerrero is fostered by feeble state and municipal institutions, which, in a cyclical process, become impaired even further with each additional bout of disorder. Mexico City fears it could lose all authority in the region except for military and federal police operations. While this fear is valid, it is unlikely that such a high degree of unrest would spread to the capital unless organizers achieve a massive increase in coordination and in civil participation.
Analysis

On Nov. 10, demonstrators in Acapulco overpowered federal riot police and overran the airport, blocking all of its entrances. On Nov. 12, students from Mexico's traditionally left-wing rural teaching colleges — known as normalistas — blocked the entrance to the international airport in Morelia, forcing those already inside to use the building's back door. Soon after, students in Mexico City announced that they would hold even more protests Nov. 20 to support the missing normalistas.

Large demonstrations linked to the missing normalistas have taken place all over the country, but the most violent protests have been focused in the southwestern states, including Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Unrest in the southwestern region has shown little sign of abating, posing a considerable threat to state and municipal governments in the area. Protesters have repeatedly torched government buildings throughout the southwest region to demonstrate against what they see as an ineffective and corrupt government. They say Mexico's judicial system and its security forces, especially at the local level, have struggled to implement democratic reforms after being shaped by 70 years of semi-authoritarian rule.
Protests Could Spread

For now, coordination between organizers in southwestern states and those in Mexico City and in other parts of the country has been limited, but that could change. Demonstrators from the southwest — affiliated with the normalistas and teachers' unions — have organized three groups of protesters to tour the country and converge on Mexico City for Nov. 20 protests. If the normalista and teachers' groups are able to cooperate with the Mexico City organizers and significantly escalate the demonstrations, the Mexican government will find it difficult to manage prolonged unrest in multiple areas using non-violent means. However, the different tactics and approaches employed by the organizers may make such cooperation difficult.
Mexico's Normalista Protest Threaten to Spread
Click to Enlarge

Protests in Mexico City have differed in character and intensity from those in the southwest. The demonstrations in Mexico City have been organized and carried out primarily by student groups from various universities in the city. Though these protests have attracted by far the most participants of any normalista-linked demonstrations outside of Guerrero, they have mostly been peaceful, with the exception of a few incidents. In contrast to the demonstrations in the southwest, it is clear that most of the protesters in Mexico City do not condone violence or vandalism and that a radical minority is responsible for the violence that has occurred in the city. In fact, on Nov. 8, demonstrators stopped masked individuals attempting to vandalize the exterior of the attorney general's headquarters in Mexico City.

The Mexican government is intentionally being light-handed in its dealings with protesters, and authorities released all but one of the activists arrested for vandalizing the attorney general's offices. With the arrival of protesters from the southwest in Mexico City, however, officials will be on high alert for violent tactics mirroring those used in the southwest.

Mexico City is well equipped to deal with large demonstrations, which are a regular occurrence in the city, and the government is well aware that violently repressing them will only exacerbate tensions and add impetus to the protests. Thus, Mexico City is working to avoid confrontation at all costs. The violent repression of the infamous Tlatelolco protests in 1968 is still fresh in the minds of Mexicans, especially those in the capital city, and the irony that the missing normalistas were raising funds to attend a demonstration commemorating the anniversary of the massacre is not lost on the public.
Is Guerrero the Next Michoacan?

Despite President Enrique Pena Nieto's efforts to surmount the country's security problems through economic reforms and increased coordination of security forces, the federal government is struggling to maintain its authority. Mexico is seeing rising unrest among an increasingly disillusioned population, especially in southwestern states. The emergence of autodefensas, or civilian militias, in Michoacan is the most extreme recent example of such a challenge to the federal government. Although the Mexican government has contained that movement — partly by incorporating the groups into the state apparatus — the resulting tenuous security environment requires continued intervention by the federal government and adds to the general unrest in the region.

The primary participants in the Guerrero demonstrations have been Guerrero state normalistas and members of a local teachers' union. The two groups likely have organizational ties and have been aligned in their protests against a 2013 federal education reform, making them natural partners in the current round of protests. The groups have proven themselves capable of coordinating large demonstrations and clearly intend to draw further attention to their cause by creating as much disruption to state governance and daily life as possible. So far, their only demands are the return of the missing normalistas and justice for the students and their families. However, the organizers could angle for negotiations with state and federal leaders in the future to increase their influence in regional politics.
Mexico's Geographic Challenge

Overt challenges to government authority in the southwestern states will give rise to a number of economic and security issues, and Mexico City will attempt to defuse the situation by arresting cartel leaders and local politicians in Iguala. The mayor and his wife are charged with masterminding the disappearances. Both are currently in federal custody, but the city's police chief, also allegedly involved, is still on the run. The federal government has been unusually open about the existence of collusion between local officials and criminal elements in this case, and it must make a convincing effort to rid the state of corrupt politicians and establish alternative rule to prevent the rise of armed civilian groups. To this end, the government will expand military and federal police operations in the southwest, but this expansion of security operations can only be maintained for a limited time before Mexico City must resort to alternative tactics.

Although protests are likely to continue in the coming weeks, the demonstrations are unlikely to pose an existential threat to Mexico City's government. However, the pressure on the central government could mount significantly if protesters in Mexico City and the southwest are able to coordinate their organizing efforts and garner increased public participation.

Throughout the country, the federal government must balance its security measures to create the impression that it is in control, but without cracking down on citizens in a way that would invite accusations of authoritarianism. If the security response in Guerrero is too weak, armed citizen groups could emerge to fill the void. However, if the response is too strong, it will add to discontent and encourage additional protests. There will be more high-profile arrests in connection to the students' disappearances, and reforms to local governments and security forces will also be made. The key factor to watch will be any coordination between organizing groups during the Nov. 20 protests. Such cooperation could signal a significant shift in tactics and incite a different response from the government.

Read more: Mexico's Normalista Protests Threaten to Spread | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
Title: A new way to think about Mexico's organized crime
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 15, 2015, 11:13:06 AM

Share
Mexico's Drug War: A New Way to Think About Mexican Organized Crime
Security Weekly
January 15, 2015 | 09:00 GMT Print Text Size

Editor's Note: This week's Security Weekly is a condensed version of our annual Mexico drug cartel report, in which we assess the most significant developments of 2014 and provide a forecast for 2015. The report is a product of the coverage we maintain through our Mexico Security Memo, quarterly updates and other analyses that we produce throughout the year as part of the Mexico Security Monitor service.

By Tristan Reed
Mexico Security Analyst

Since the emergence of the Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s as one of the country's largest drug trafficking organizations, Mexican organized crime has continued to expand its reach up and down the global supply chains of illicit drugs. Under the Guadalajara cartel and its contemporaries, such as the Gulf cartel, led by Juan Garcia Abrego, a relatively small number of crime bosses controlled Mexico's terrestrial illicit supply chains. Crime bosses such as Miguel Angel "El Padrino" Felix Gallardo, the leader of the Guadalajara cartel, oversaw the bulk of the trafficking operations necessary to push drugs into the United States and received large portions of the revenue generated. By the same token, this facilitated law enforcement's ability to disrupt entire supply chains with a single arrest. Such highly centralized structures ultimately proved unsustainable under consistent and aggressive law enforcement pressure. Thus, as Mexican organized crime has expanded its control over greater shares of the global drug trade, it has simultaneously become more decentralized, as exemplified by an increasing number of organizational splits.

Indeed, the arrest of Felix Gallardo in 1989 and of colleagues such as Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo a few years prior led to the breakdown of the Guadalajara cartel by 1990. Thanks to geographic factors, however, Mexican organized crime was destined to increasingly dominate the global illicit drug trade, soon even eclipsing the role Colombian drug traffickers played in supplying cocaine to the huge and highly lucrative retail markets in the United States. As international law enforcement effectively dismantled the powerful Colombian cartels and stymied their maritime trafficking routes through the Caribbean in the 1980s and 1990s, Mexican crime groups became the cornerstone for any trafficking organization wishing to profit from the high U.S. demand for illicit drugs. Given that the United State's only land border to the south is shared with Mexico, Central and South American organizations had no choice but to cooperate with Mexican crime groups if they wished to transport drugs northward over land and across the nearly 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) U.S. border, an area with a centurieslong history of smuggling.

The remnants of the Guadalajara cartel took advantage of the regional geography to expand their own smuggling operations, leading to the creation of seemingly new criminal organizations such as the Juarez cartel (led by the Carrillo Fuentes family), the Tijuana cartel (led by the Arellano Felix family) and what would eventually become known popularly as the Sinaloa Federation (led by a number of traffickers, most famously Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera). Operating as autonomous crime syndicates, the fragments of the Guadalajara cartel expanded their respective supply chains and overall share of the illicit drug markets in the United States and overseas. But the continued Balkanization of Mexican organized crime that began with the collapse of the Guadalajara cartel would accompany the collective expansion of Mexican crime groups up and down the illicit drug supply chains across the globe.

By 2010, the criminal landscape in Mexico differed greatly from that in 1989. Numerous crime groups, some with small but critical niches, controlled drug trafficking operations in Mexico. Even so, a few cohesive crime groups still dominated the Mexican drug trade, particularly the Juarez cartel, the Tijuana cartel, the Gulf cartel and the Sinaloa Federation. Each group sought to expand its share over the drug trade, hoping to achieve the pre-eminence of their collective predecessor, leading to violent turf wars. Each group, however, faced internal divisions, leading to further Balkanization in parallel to the turf wars.

2010 marked a rapid acceleration in crime group decentralization, with each of the four dominant groups suffering a series of internal splits. This phenomenon also afflicted their eventual successors, giving rise to the present exceptionally complex map of crime groups. As Stratfor highlighted in its April 2013 cartel quarterly update, the trend of Balkanization will not likely end even if specific crime groups such as Los Zetas momentarily defy it by continuing to expand. Now in 2015, this trend has created an organized criminal landscape where it is no longer sufficient to monitor Mexican organized crime by focusing on individual groups. Instead, one must focus on the regional umbrellas that lead the vast majority of Mexican crime groups. We have therefore had to change the way we think and write about Mexican organized criminal networks, a change made visible in the radical alterations we have made to our popular cartel map.
The Regions

In 2014, as has been the norm each year since 2010, Mexican organized crime underwent substantial devolution because of continued turf wars and pressure by law enforcement and the Mexican military. The regional challenges and leadership losses the Sinaloa Federation experienced in 2013 continued, particularly with the arrest of top leader Guzman Loera. Along with leadership losses, the lower-tier structures of the Sinaloa Federation — such as the subgroups operating in Chihuahua, Sonora and Baja California states — exercised increasing autonomy from the cartel's remaining top-tier crime bosses. Meanwhile, at the beginning of 2014, the remaining Gulf cartel factions in Tamaulipas state devolved further into numerous gangs. Some cooperated in the same cities, while others waged particularly violent campaigns against one another. In Michoacan state, the Knights Templar were all but dismantled, with Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez the sole remaining founding leader. Numerous crime groups, all based in the same Tierra Caliente region of southwestern Mexico from which the Knights Templar (and the La Familia Michoacana organization it once fell under) emerged, filled the void that opened in Michoacan as a result of the rapid decline of the Knights Templar.

Though continued Balkanization of Mexican organized crime creates an increasingly confusing map, three geographic centers of gravity of cartel activity exist at present: Tamaulipas state, Sinaloa state and the Tierra Caliente region.
Mexico's Drug War: A New Way to Think about Mexican Organized Crime
Click to Enlarge

With the Mexican organized crime landscape continuing to suffer new fractures, it is marked now by newly independent groups headed by leaders who previously had participated in the same criminal operations as their new rivals. Many of these new crime bosses were born and raised in the same communities — in many cases even sharing family ties — and thus leveraged similar geographic advantages in their rise in power.

The Guadalajara cartel exemplifies this trend. Despite its name, which it received because its leaders had hideouts in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco state, nearly all of its leaders hailed from Sinaloa state. The cartel also relied on the geography of Sinaloa state to expand its illicit profits, which largely came from the concentration of marijuana and opium poppy cultivation in the Sierra Madre Occidental and from coastal routes for drug trafficking. The city of Guadalajara provided cartel leaders a large cosmopolitan area in which to hide while they rapidly expanded their international operations. When the cartel split, successors such as the Tijuana and Juarez cartels were in fact managed by criminal leaders originating from Sinaloa who continued to leverage some aspect of the state's geography, if they were not in fact still tied to communities there.

Until the early 2000s, Sinaloa-based organized crime dominated the vast majority of organized crime activities in Mexico, particularly drug trafficking routes. Only the Tamaulipas-based Gulf cartel remained as a major independent group, using drug trafficking routes along Mexico's east coast to push drugs into the United States through Nuevo Laredo, one of the most lucrative trafficking points in Mexico. Tamaulipas-based organized crime soon expanded its geographic reach, first via the Gulf cartel and then through Los Zetas, which split from the Gulf cartel in 2010. This trend led to a seemingly polarized criminal landscape by 2011, with organized crime in Mexico breaking down along a Sinaloa-Tamaulipas divide. By 2012, the Sinaloa- and Tamaulipas-based criminal camps each faced internal divisions, with individual groups in each region beginning to form alliances with groups in the other. Nonetheless, the behavior and evolution of each group was still driven by geography more than any form of ties to groups in the opposing region.

Thus, when Los Zetas split from the Gulf cartel in 2010, despite becoming known as a new or independent crime group, the collective operations and trends of Tamaulipas-based organized crime did not change: The same players were in place managing the same criminal activities. Similarly, the ongoing expansion of Tamaulipas-based organized crime — countering the spread of Sinaloa-based organized crime — did not stop, but instead it continued under Los Zetas' banner. It should be noted that the Gulf cartel, which had been immediately weakened relative to Los Zetas, did in fact ally with the Sinaloa Federation. But even so, with Los Zetas the most powerful Tamaulipas-based crime group, the Sinaloa Federation continued facing immense competition for territory from the east.

Within a given regional criminal camp, alliances and rivalries can form overnight with immediate effects, while crime bosses can quickly switch sides without necessarily causing a shift in operations. For instance, the now-detained Tamaulipas-based crime boss, Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez, first emerged within the Gulf cartel as a member of Los Zetas, then still a Gulf subgroup. When Los Zetas broke away, Velazquez sided with it. In 2012, however, Velazquez and his faction went to war with then-Los Zetas top leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, allied with some Gulf cartel factions and publicly rebranded his network as a part of the Gulf cartel. In Cancun, Quintana Roo state, where the Velazquez network oversaw local criminal activities, Los Zetas members overnight became Gulf cartel members without any preceding conflict.

In 2012, the main Sinaloa- and Tamaulipas-based crime groups suffered from ongoing internal fights and leadership losses at the hands of government troops. After the Velazquez network split from Los Zetas, Mexican marines killed top Zetas leader Heriberto "El Lazca" Lazcano Lazcano during an operation. Meanwhile, the Sinaloa Federation faced growing challenges in its own northwest dominion from other Sinaloa-based groups such as Los Mazatlecos and a resurgent La Linea, and certain regional crime groups outside Sinaloa state that supported the Sinaloa Federation began fighting one another, including Los Cabrera and Los Dannys in Torreon, Coahuila state. The struggles in both regional crime camps in 2012 permitted the emergence of a third dominant regional camp based in Tierra Caliente, home to groups such as the Knights Templar, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, La Familia Michoacana and Guerreros Unidos.

Tierra Caliente, which means "hot lands," is a rural lowland area surrounded by mountainous terrain that was initially heavily valued by drug traffickers for marijuana cultivation, though for several years now it has produced primarily methamphetamines and heroin. The value of the region for organized crime increased along with the growth of the port of Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan, making the state a key bridge between Mexico's coast and the interior — and a key port for smuggling narcotics and chemical precursors used in regional drug production.

Most groups in Tierra Caliente originated in the 1990s, when regional organized crime was but an extension of criminal groups based in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas states. In the early 2000s, Sinaloa- and Tamaulipas-based groups, most notably the Sinaloa Federation and the Gulf cartel, began a series of nationwide turf wars that included bids for control over the Tierra Caliente region. Two prominent groups emerged from the wreckage: the Milenio cartel, which operated under Sinaloa Federation crime boss Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal, and La Familia Michoacana, which was supported by the Los Zetas branch of the Gulf cartel. (La Familia Michoacana first referred to itself as La Empresa.) The conflict between these groups reverberated throughout the Tierra Caliente region, ushering in other turf wars that continue today.

But the relative weakening of Sinaloa and Tamaulipas organized crime in 2012 enabled Tierra Caliente-based groups to expand — both domestically and internationally — independently as they exploited the substantial geographic advantages of the Tierra Caliente for their criminal operations. Though numerous turf wars between regional groups continued after 2012, as a whole, Tierra Caliente-based organized crime expanded geographically thanks to the efforts of groups such as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Knights Templar. Turf wars that emerged or escalated within Tierra Caliente in 2012, most notably the Knights Templar against the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Guerreros Unidos against Los Rojos, have become some of the most violent disputes in Mexico, either directly or indirectly causing the Mexican government's greatest security concerns in 2015.
2015 Forecast

The Mexican government had notable success targeting the top leadership of various criminal groups in 2014. Several senior bosses from each of the principal regional organized crime camps in Mexico were captured or killed during targeted operations involving federal troops. These successes accelerated the Balkanization of each camp while greatly shifting the balance of power among individual crime groups. The results of the government's efforts in 2014 will lead to a reorganization of each regional camp in 2015, as well as maintaining, if not accelerating, the tempo of the decentralization of organized crime in Mexico. It is likely that Balkanization will lead to new regional camps in 2015 as crime groups in geographic areas formerly controlled by outside crime bosses become entirely independent, focusing on and leveraging their own respective areas.

It should be noted that while each regional camp may experience substantial fragmentation in 2015 and lose control over criminal activities in specific geographic areas — such as the production of illicit drugs, extortion, fuel theft and kidnapping — this will not equate to an overall decline in international drug trafficking. In fact, each regional camp in Mexico will likely continue to expand its respective international drug supply chains to overseas markets such as Europe and Asia, as well as control of operations in South America.
Organized Crime in Sinaloa State

Sinaloa-based organized crime bore the brunt of targeted government operations in 2014, with the February capture of top Sinaloa Federation leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state, being the highest-profile incident. Each of the major Sinaloa crime groups suffered losses among its senior leadership. On June 23, authorities captured one of the top leaders of the Tijuana cartel, Luis Fernando Arellano Sanchez, in Tijuana. On Oct. 1, the Mexican army captured Hector Beltran Leyva, the leader of the Beltran Leyva Organization, at a restaurant in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato state. On Oct. 9, federal troops captured the top leader of the Juarez cartel, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, in Torreon, Coahuila state.

In addition to these arrests, numerous lieutenants for these leaders and for other high-ranking Sinaloa crime bosses fell at the hands of authorities as well. Interestingly, none of the stated arrests altered the broader trends surrounding each group or triggered internal rifts that would likely have led to substantial escalations in violence, though organizational challenges such as those experienced by the Sinaloa Federation since 2012 were likely magnified. This dynamic suggests that the continued decentralization of each group had lessened the criticality of each major crime boss within his respective organization.

Barring unexpected leadership losses or internal splits within the Tierra Caliente- or Tamaulipas-based crime groups, Sinaloa-based organized crime will likely experience the most fragmentation in 2015. Over the past two years, the Sinaloa Federation has seen its subgroups act increasingly independent from the top-tier leadership, leading to internal wars — independent of the top leadership — among subgroups in areas such as the Golden Triangle and the surrounding region, as well as the Baja California Peninsula. Similarly, the arrest of Carrillo Fuentes and his key lieutenants in 2014 could trigger leadership changes in 2015 where the remnants of his organization fall under the control of crime bosses based strictly in Chihuahua state. Such fragmentation would mean that new regional criminal camps, likely based in Sonora, Chihuahua or Baja California states, would emerge from the geographic areas currently controlled by the Sinaloa camp.
Tamaulipas Organized Crime

The Gulf cartel as it was prior to 2010 no longer exists. Instead, two crime groups — Los Zetas and the Velazquez network — now largely dominate Tamaulipas-based organized crime. The former is now the most widely operating cohesive crime group in Mexico. The crime groups calling themselves the Gulf cartel and operating in areas of Tamaulipas retained by the old Gulf cartel after the 2010 split with Los Zetas are (with the exception of the Velazquez network) in fact a collection of numerous independent groups, all of which operate more like powerful street gangs than the far-reaching transnational criminal organization that was their former parent organization.

Though the rapid expansion of Los Zetas slowed significantly in 2012 as a result of internal feuds, the growing independence of Tierra Caliente-based organized crime and government operations, the group has largely continued to defy the Balkanization experienced by every other crime group in Mexico. This has been largely thanks to a sudden shift in its overall expansion strategy that emerged at the end of 2012, when the cartel began relying more on alliances than violent seizures of territory. Crime groups from other regional camps, such as some of the Beltran Leyva Organization successor groups and the Juarez cartel (and its former enforcer arm, La Linea), have given Los Zetas access to the supply of illicit drugs and to drug trafficking routes in territories held by Sinaloa-based groups. Since the Gulf cartel gangs in Tamaulipas state likely rely on revenues gained from allowing drugs to be trafficked through their territory and are significantly less powerful than Los Zetas, it is likely that at least some of these groups are now cooperating with Los Zetas. Such cooperation could even include the gangs purchasing narcotics from Los Zetas.

Los Zetas' expansion will likely resume in Mexico in 2015, with the presence of Los Zetas operators and activities emerging in the western half of Mexico. Despite this expansion, Los Zetas will not be saved from the Balkanization trend, meaning another significant split could emerge in 2015 — though the exact timing is difficult, if not impossible, to forecast — with portions of Los Zetas competing with one another, either economically or militarily. Though organizational splits do not necessitate violent competition, Los Zetas' extensive network of alliances with other regionally based crime groups, as well as the immense territory directly under the cartel's control, increases the likelihood of any major split triggering violent turf wars. Where violence erupts depends entirely on where the organization splits internally.

Editor's Note: The full version of our annual cartel report is available to clients of our Mexico Security Monitor service.

Read more: Mexico's Drug War: A New Way to Think About Mexican Organized Crime | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook




196471
Title: El quien no transa no advanza
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 21, 2015, 10:19:03 AM
http://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico-leader-under-new-scrutiny-1421801571

by Juan Montes
Jan. 20, 2015 7:52 p.m. ET
12 COMMENTS

IXTAPAN DE LA SAL, Mexico—A few weeks after taking office as governor of the State of Mexico in late 2005, President Enrique Peña Nieto purchased a property in an exclusive golf club from a businessman who helped transform this sleepy town into a popular resort known for its Roman-style thermal baths.

Roberto San Román Widerkehr, the seller of the weekend residence and developer of an exclusive golf club here, also founded a local construction firm which went on to win more than $100 million in public-works contracts during Mr. Peña Nieto’s time as governor from 2005 to 2011, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Since Mr. Peña Nieto became president in 2012, Mr. San Román’s firm has won at least 11 federal contracts, government records show, becoming a national player with business in several states. Before Mr. Peña Nieto came to power, the company had never won a contract directly from the federal government.

Mr. Peña Nieto’s spokesman denied any relation between the private transaction and the contractor’s success with government contracts. The San Román family didn’t respond to requests to comment. Mr. San Román died in 2010 after which his son took over the business.

But the transaction is another example of the extensive personal links between politicians and businessmen from Mr. Peña Nieto’s home state that led to accusations by politicians and others of influence peddling that are roiling his administration. The public outcry risks distracting the government from implementing economic overhauls and damaging his party’s support before midterm elections in June.
Several leading politicians from the State of Mexico, like the president, have homes at the Gran Reserva golf club. The red line above shows Mr. Peña Nieto's home. ENLARGE
Several leading politicians from the State of Mexico, like the president, have homes at the Gran Reserva golf club. The red line above shows Mr. Peña Nieto's home. Google

The Mexican leader has been on the defensive since November, when a team of Mexican investigative journalists revealed that a prominent government contractor from the State of Mexico, Juan Armando Hinojosa, built and held the title to a presidential family mansion in Mexico City.

It later emerged that Mexico’s finance minister, Luis Videgaray, also bought a home in another exclusive State of Mexico golf resort—along with a loan to finance the purchase—from Mr. Hinojosa, whose companies have won hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of public-works projects during Mr. Peña Nieto’s time as state governor and during his current administration.

The president’s office and Mr. Videgaray have denied any impropriety. Mr. Peña Nieto’s office said the leader’s wife bought the family mansion with her own earnings.

Mr. Hinojosa has declined to comment about either transaction and hasn’t made any public remarks on the matters.

Mr. Peña Nieto disclosed the transaction, at the Ixtapan Country Club Gran Reserva, when he purchased the 23,000-square-foot property, complying with requirements for Mexico’s public officials to file annual asset declarations. But the identity of the seller was unknown until now.

Presidential spokesman Eduardo Sánchez said the president bought the $372,000 home at market prices and the transaction didn’t represent any conflict of interest. “The relationship of Mr. Peña Nieto with some members of the San Román family goes back several decades,” Mr. Sánchez said, adding that the president bought the home as a weekend getaway in a town known for its balmy weather.

Local historians say that the San Románs form part of a dynasty that has played a prominent role in the development of Ixtapan de la Sal ever since Mr. San Román’s father obtained a federal concession in the 1940s to build a hotel and spa at the springs, 75 miles southwest of Mexico City.

Over generations, many members of the San Román family promoted the tourist and real-estate development of a town that became a preferred weekend destination for residents of Toluca, the state capital.

The club’s adjacent neighborhood is unofficially known as “Colonia de EPN”, the initials of the president’s name, part of a local tradition to name neighborhoods, roads and bridges after public servants and benefactors. The town’s main avenue is named Arturo San Román Chávez, in honor of the family’s patriarch who turned the springs of Ixtapan as one of Mexico’s most popular water parks.

The San Románs have long been close to senior members of Mr. Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Former Governor Alfredo del Mazo González, who has family ties with Mr. Peña Nieto, was for a time a shareholder of Inmobiliaria Club de Golf Ixtapan, the real-estate firm controlled by the San Románs, according to commercial records.

The State of Mexico, the country’s most populous, is a bastion of support for the PRI, which has never lost a gubernatorial election there since its creation in 1929. Business and politics have also been closely linked in the state. Mr. Peña Nieto has been friend of the San Románs for decades, Mr. Sánchez said. Members of the San Román family also attended Mr. Peña Nieto’s wedding in 2010.

At the golf resort, the cheapest house for sale—with 2,260 square feet—is on the market for $241,000 (3.5 million pesos), said a resort saleswoman. The cheapest plot of land of 4,305 square feet—is on sale for $88,000.

The San Románs, who founded their construction firm, Constructora Urbanizadora Ixtapan SA, in late 1998, rely on public contracts for the bulk of the company’s portfolio, according to its website. The company won some minor contracts in the State of Mexico under Mr. Peña Nieto’s predecessor.

Business picked up during Mr. Peña Nieto’s 2005-2011 term as governor, when it won $107 million in public works contracts across the state, including several roads and highways and part of a contract to build two hospitals in the towns of Amecameca and Chimalhuacán, according to government records.

It also won a contract to build a parking lot at the Toluca airport in the state capital. The federal government held a 25% stake in the company that operated the Toluca airport.

During Mr. Peña Nieto’s federal administration, the construction firm has won 11 federal contracts worth around $40 million. Six of those were no bid contracts. The company has been expanding its business to states far from Ixtapan de la Sal and the State of Mexico, such as Baja California Sur or Querétaro.

The spokesman for the president, Mr. Sánchez, said there was no favoritism involved and said all public tenders are awarded through a transparent process.

Write to Juan Montes at juan.montes@wsj.com
Title: Tarahumara ultra marathon cancelled for fear of narco gangs
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 07, 2015, 07:22:04 AM
In Mexico, an Extreme Race in the Shadow of Extreme Danger
Caballo Blanco Ultramarathon Is Canceled Over Threat of Drug Violence
NT Times
By SARAH LYALLMARCH 6, 2015
Photo

Josue Stephens, one of the organizers of the Caballo Blanco ultramarathon last week in Urique, Mexico, realized something was amiss when he was warned not to drive along the coastal route because so many people had been killed there recently. When he finally got to Urique, he saw armed men in bulletproof vests swarm into the local police station, take everyone’s guns and throw two officers into the back of a truck before barreling away.

“The craziest part was that there was a woman huddled outside the police station yelling: ‘Don’t take him! He’s my son! He didn’t do anything!’ ” Stephens recalled.

The threat of violence had always simmered in the background of the race, held every March in the Copper Canyon region in northwestern Mexico, known for its great natural beauty, its fields of poppies and marijuana plants, and the drug cartels that hold the local population in thrall. This year the violence finally came to town.


Last Saturday, after increasingly alarming episodes involving gunshots, grenades, terrified and often AWOL local officials, angry drug gangs, heavily armed government troops and an incident in which a town official was pulled from his truck and made to walk for hours back to town, Stephens and the other organizers made an extreme decision: They canceled the race the night before it was scheduled to start.


“We didn’t know what was safe,” Stephens said. “If there is any gunfighting, if runners see people getting stopped on the side of the road and abducted, if the military is outside having a huge gunfight — we’ll have 700 runners spread out over this huge section, and it’s very likely someone will get hurt.”

By Sunday, the organizers had evacuated most of the foreign runners and themselves. Emboldened by the presence of government troops, several hundred people, most of them locals, stayed and ran a shortened version of the course, taking care to avoid places that had apparently been declared no-go areas. But the future of the race, one of the high spots on the yearly calendar for ultrarunners, is in doubt.

“Things are up in the air,” Stephens said. “We don’t know.”

The race was begun in 2003 by the ultrarunner Micah True, taking its name from his nickname, Caballo Blanco, or White Horse. He saw it as a way to draw attention to the plight of the Tarahumara, impoverished subsistence farmers in and around the Copper Canyon, in the Sierra Madre Occidental. Long-distance running is a way of life for the Tarahumara, and they are renowned for their prowess.

Ultrarunners are an unusual breed of extreme athletes, competing in races that can go 100 miles or longer, often in deserts and other unlikely places. True died in 2012 while running in New Mexico, but the 50-mile Caballo Blanco race has become legendary in the rarefied world of superlong-distance runners, who are drawn to it because of the exotic location and the pure joy they say they feel from running alongside the Tarahumara.

Foreigners have taken part since 2006. This year, Stephens said, the race drew about 100 international runners, about 200 people from around Mexico and 400 or so Tarahumara, who compete in homemade sandals fashioned from tire treads. The race serves in part as a fund-raiser that provides many of the Tarahumara with money and food for months.
Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

“The race has come into its own — it’s a kind of phenomenon, like Burning Man,” said Chris McDougall, whose book “Born to Run,” about True and the Caballo Blanco race, helped draw international attention to the event and turned True into something of a celebrity.

Participants have certainly had misgivings before. Among other things, the marathon route takes them through marijuana and poppy fields controlled by local drug lords (they are told to ignore the crops and keep running).

“This has always been a concern,” said Will Harlan, who won the race in 2009 and who helps organize nonprofit work in the region. “Every time I go down there, there’s military checkpoints or rumors of violence or previous violence or violence that occurs just after we leave.”

The stories he has heard illustrate how little power local officials have in the face of the drug cartels in the region. “It’s gotten progressively worse — police being kidnapped and beheaded,” Harlan said. “At one point in a cadre of police, the leader was killed and the rest were stripped naked and forced to walk back to town.”

It never got that bad in Urique. But with rumors swirling of gunfire and grenades, of would-be racers being stopped on the road by armed gangs and of local officials who claimed nothing was going on when it clearly was, the organizers canceled the race. Even that led to trouble, though, as Urique’s mayor declared that a truncated, unofficial version would go on after all, foreigners or not.

“Everybody was saying it will definitely happen next year,” said Israel Archuletta, an ultrarunner who stayed to race that Sunday. “The government was so upset because of what this negative publicity will do as far as tourism and the local economy, and I’m pretty sure they’d ensure that it will never happen again.”

Things do not seem to have quieted down altogether. Cecilia Villalobos, Urique’s head of tourism, said by phone that the town had gone into “a psychosis situation” on Feb. 27, when widespread gun violence was reported in a nearby village.

She agreed with the organizers that the race needed to be canceled, she said. But she added that she had been overruled by Urique’s mayor, who told her that since the violence had happened not in Urique but in a place four miles away and no one had been killed, the runners would be safe now that government troops had arrived.

“We have great love for this event, which means a lot more than just a race,” Villalobos said. “It is the single most important and biggest event in the Sierra Tarahumara, and a lot of people benefit from it every year — transport people, merchants, restaurants, hotels, even street vendors.”

Everyone agrees that the situation has brought disastrous publicity to an enterprise that has been mostly characterized by idealism and good intentions. It has also caused runners to re-evaluate previous episodes they had discounted. A couple of years ago, for instance, officials told Stephens that the then-mayor and his deputy had been killed in a car accident.

“But then I talked to people who found the bodies, and they were missing their heads,” Stephens said. “I said, ‘Hey, they were not in a car accident; it sounds like it was made to look like a car accident.’ But the official line was that there was no danger.”

That has generally been the official line, and for good reason.

“It was always Caballo Blanco’s fear,” Harlan, the former winner, said, referring to True. “The year I won, the reporters asked about violence, and he said, ‘Don’t tell them that it’s scary here because then no one will come, and the Tarahumara will be left for dead in a war zone.’
Title: WSJ: Independent candidate in Nuevo Leo looking strong
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 23, 2015, 10:31:42 AM
New Candidate Jolts Mexican Politics
A maverick former mayor is mounting a competitive bid as Mexico’s first independent gubernatorial candidate

Dudley Althaus
Updated May 22, 2015 10:03 a.m. ET


MONTERREY, Mexico—A maverick former mayor known as El Bronco is mounting a serious bid to become Mexico’s first independent candidate to win a governorship, buoyed by voter mistrust of the country’s traditional political parties.

Waging a social media campaign on a shoestring—paid for largely with the crumpled bills supporters press into his hands on the stump— Jaime Rodríguez is shaking up politics in Nuevo León, the conservative northern border state that includes the industrial powerhouse of Monterrey, and jolting politicians nationwide.

An opinion poll published Friday in El Norte, Monterrey’s leading newspaper, puts Mr. Rodríguez ahead of his rival from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the June 7 vote. The PRI has ruled Nuevo León for 80 of the past 86 years.

Mr. Rodríguez’s unlikely bid has emerged as one of the most watched in a midterm election for all 500 seats in Mexico’s lower house of Congress, nine governors and hundreds of state legislators, mayors and city councils.

Polls suggest that the PRI and its allies are likely to retain a slight majority in Congress. But that doesn’t mean all is well for Mexico’s ruling party.

Mr. Rodríguez, a rancher, businessman and thrice-married father of six, represents a new page in Mexican politics: the rise of independent candidates running against the traditional parties, something that was illegal until a 2014 political overhaul passed by Congress.

“This is making the political parties tremble because a candidate without a party, a structure or resources is giving them a fight,” Mr. Rodríguez, 58, said in an interview.

June’s vote takes place amid mounting voter frustration with underworld violence, a lackluster economy and corruption scandals that have hit all three major parties, especially the PRI.

President Enrique Peña Nieto and his finance minister have come under the scrutiny of Mexican and international media for property deals they made with government contractors. They both deny any wrongdoing. Civic groups have accused family members of Nuevo León’s current PRI governor, Rodrigo Medina, of illicit enrichment through dirty land deals. They deny wrongdoing.

“We have a cancer which has to be eradicated and that’s corruption,” Mr. Rodríguez said to whoops and applause at a recent stop in Monterrey’s wealthiest suburb. “I don’t want to be just one more governor, I want to change the system.”

Only 9% of Mexicans say they trust their political parties, according to a recent survey by Mexico City-based pollster GEA ISA. Only one in five is satisfied with the country’s democracy, the lowest rate anywhere in Latin America except Honduras, according to a 2013 survey of attitudes in the region by the respected Latinobarómetro firm.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, the former head of the national election agency, said he expected an independent to mount a presidential bid in 2018 national elections.

“It’s a classic kind of anti-party and antiestablishment moment,” political analyst Federico Estévez said. “The public’s mood is against the powers that be.”

Mr. Rodríguez, whose nickname El Bronco reflects his untamed style and rural roots, peppers conversations and speeches with salty language more commonly heard in fields and on factories floors than the campaign trail. While emphasizing a pro-business bent, he says he intends to improve conditions for the working poor. He elicits his biggest cheers, however, when he talks about attacking graft and corruption.

“Sooner or later you get tired of all the lies,” said Guadalupe García, a 52-year old saleswoman who was passing out literature for Mr. Rodríguez at a mountainside rally recently. “I was always with the PRI, but all the things they promise in campaigns never are fulfilled. We need something different.”

The El Norte poll published Friday gives Mr. Rodríguez 31% support versus 26% for PRI rival Ivonne Álvarez, with the conservative National Action Party’s candidate, Felipe de Jesus Cantú, at 20%.

Mr. Rodríguez got a boost Thursday when another independent candidate, Fernando Elizondo, dropped out and endorsed Mr. Rodríguez. Mr. Elizondo, who was interim state governor in 2003, was polling about 4%.

Despite his narrow lead in most polls, Mr. Rodríguez still faces a difficult fight. Political power in Nuevo León recently has been shared only between the PRI and National Action. Both parties have strong political machines and loyalists whose votes prove particular crucial in elections with low turnouts.

The established parties are also heavily favored by rules that regulate independent bids at both the federal and state levels. Nuevo León’s election commission said it gave Mr. Rodríguez’s campaign only about $25,000 in public campaign funding compared with some $2 million each for his two rivals. His campaign has been apportioned 16 free television spots compared with hundreds allotted to his two rivals under federal election laws.

Consequently, Mr. Rodríguez has campaigned largely via social media, particularly on Facebook, where has more than 440,000 followers. He polls particularly well among younger and more affluent voters.

“People are disillusioned with politicians, all of them. People are very tired of the corruption,” said Eduardo Elizondo, Mr. Elizondo’s brother and son of a former Nuevo León governor.

This disillusionment has rattled some of the political elite in Monterrey and beyond.

Underscoring the importance the PRI accords the Nuevo León race, the party has dispatched some of its top political operatives to advise Ms. Álvarez’s campaign and will culminate its nationwide campaign effort at a rally in Monterrey.

PRI national leader César Camacho has accused Mr. Rodríguez of incompetence and has joined other critics in saying he is surpassing legal campaign spending limits. “We want legality and fairness to continue being the constant in the Nuevo León election,” Mr. Camacho said in a recent news conference.

Mr. Rodríguez has rejected such accusations from PRI officials and others as desperate attempts to hobble his rise in the polls.

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderón, a lifelong National Action member, likened Mr. Rodríguez to Venezuela’s late populist Hugo Chávez, whose 1998 presidential election destroyed traditional politics in that country and launched a socialist revolution that continues to roil it.

“Chávez also was very charismatic, very untamed and quite a bully,” Mr. Calderón said in a recent visit to Monterrey in support of his party’s gubernatorial hopeful.

Mr. Rodríguez quipped in response that Mr. Calderón must have been “drunk” or “hung-over” when he made the comparison. Mr. Calderón retorted via Twitter that the comment proved his point about Mr. Rodríguez’s intolerance.

Mr. Rodríguez seems an unlikely revolutionary. He spent more than three decades in the PRI, serving as a party boss, state bureaucrat and federal congressman before making his name as the crime-fighting mayor of Villa de García, a violent Monterrey suburb. He bolted the party in September, saying he was fed up with party politics.

Much of Mr. Rodríguez’s attraction to voters rests on his tough-on-crime reputation.

Mr. Rodríguez has said that one of his sons, who was killed in a road accident six years ago, crashed while fleeing gangsters, and that his young daughter had to be rescued from a kidnapping. Gunmen killed his newly appointed police chief soon after Mr. Rodríguez took office as mayor in 2009, after which he survived two assassination attempts himself.

Mr. Rodríguez took on organized crime with a network of citizen informants who reported gangland activity via tweets, texts and Facebook posts. He purged his police force of officers believed to have criminal ties. He said as governor he would employ the same tactics, some of which have since been adopted by state agencies and civic groups.

“I am not Superman,” Mr. Rodríguez said at a small rally last week in a working-class Monterrey suburb. “But I can be the Lone Ranger.”

Write to Dudley Althaus at Dudley.Althaus@wsj.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 03, 2015, 10:06:52 AM
PRD candidate for Congress killed in Valle de Chalco, Mexico Security | Mexico | 02-Jun-2015
The Prosecutor’s Office of Mexico State (Edomex) confirmed that PRD Congressional candidate Miguel Angel Luna Munguia was killed by a group of at least three armed individuals on 2 June 2015 inside his campaign headquarters in colonia Xico, Valle de Chalco. Luna received five shots to the head and chest and while he was preparing for the campaign closure with other PRD candidates. Party leaders stated this was a direct attack against Luna, since just one supporter, Tonatiuh Gutierrez, was injured out of the additional five people present during the attack.

Striking teachers take over INE offices in Oaxaca and burn ballot papers Security | Mexico | 01-Jun-2015
On 1 June 2015 hundreds of members of Section 22 of the SNTE (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, National Union of Education Workers) burned down an INE (Instituto Nacional Electoral, National Electoral Institute) distribution center located in Juchitan, Oaxaca. The teachers set paper and boxes and then the INE offices on fire as part of a boycott organized by the Union against the upcoming elections on 7 June. Similar events took place at the INE’s District office elsewhere in Oaxaca, in Santo Domingo Tehuantepec. The teachers were also reported to be holding up fifteen delivery trucks from private companies and blocking access to Pemex’s plant near the municipality of Santa Maria El Tule. The teachers went strike on 1 June 2015, keeping over 1.5 million students in Oaxaca out of school.

Suspected financial operator from Sinaloa cartel captured in Zapopan Security | Mexico | 01-Jun-2015
A spokesperson for Mexico’s Federal Police stated on 1 June 2015 that the agency captured Juan Antonio Díaz Hurtado, suspected financial operator for the Sinaloa cartel. Police apprehended Díaz Hurtado in colonia Prados de Guadalupe, Zapopan, Jalisco in a non-violent operation. He is wanted for extradition to the United States on charges of money laundering related to drug trafficking and has bank accounts in his or his companies’ names in Chicago, New York and Minneapolis.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 05, 2015, 01:13:25 PM
Summary

The legislature of the Mexican state of Guerrero approved an interim governor Oct. 26 to replace former Gov. Angel Aguirre, who resigned Oct. 23 amid rising political tumult following the disappearance in Iguala of 43 teaching college students known as normalistas. Aguirre's own political party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution, pushed him to resign to protect its political fortunes in its stronghold of Guerrero. As Aguirre was resigning, masked protesters in Mexico City prepared to take over the television station of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where they later broadcast a video demanding that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto locate the missing normalistas, whom the protesters alleged municipal police kidnapped on the orders of the mayor of Iguala.

The unrest in Guerrero is the latest manifestation of Mexico City's historical struggle to control the territories on its southwestern periphery, including Chiapas, Michoacan, Guerrero and Oaxaca states. The deserts, mountains and plateaus that begin outside Mexico City make for a large geographic territory difficult to control and integrate economically, leading to a substantial socio-economic divide between the core and the periphery, especially in Mexico's southwestern states. Their proximity to Mexico's core increases Mexico City's sensitivity to unrest there, given the risk of demonstrations spreading to the capital. Whether the current unrest will cause significant disruptions outside Guerrero remains to be seen. But either way, it has shined a spotlight on Mexico's ongoing struggles with political corruption, organized crime-related violence and the disparities between the urban core and rural periphery, publicity that could frighten off investors and disrupt Mexico City's security strategy.
Analysis

The Sept. 26 incidents began when a group of normalistas from the Raul Isidro Burgos rural normal school in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, reportedly traveled to Iguala to steal buses to use in a demonstration on the anniversary of the Oct. 2, 1968, massacre of student demonstrators in Mexico City. According to the attorney general of Mexico, the mayor of Iguala ordered the municipal police to halt the normalistas. At some point, the police opened fire on two separate groups in Iguala that they thought consisted of normalistas and allegedly kidnapped 43 of them. The detainees were subsequently turned over to the Guerreros Unidos, a criminal group with which the mayor of Iguala and his wife reportedly have links. Shortly thereafter, normalistas began demonstrations in the state capital, Chilpancingo, and soon began garnering support from the broader teaching sector in the country's southwest, which was behind disruptive teacher protests in Mexico City in 2013.

Bad Publicity

The most immediate challenge to Mexico City — unwanted attention on the insecurity within its borders — is less serious than the struggle to control its periphery, but it is unwelcome nonetheless. Given the advent of energy reform, Mexico is now eagerly awaiting the foreign investment needed to jump-start its energy sector, but it fears that violence and unrest could scare off onshore investment. Though nationwide violence has gradually declined since its peak between 2010 and 2012, the always-restive Mexican southwest contains some of the highest levels of criminal violence in the country and the weakest local governments.

The emergence of the self-defense militias in Michoacan state and their war with the Knights Templar criminal group have served as a strong reminder to outsiders of the persistent difficulties of enforcing the rule of law in southwestern Mexico. The Sept. 26 incidents have done so as well.

(The unrest scaring off investors could get even worse if community-organized police, anti-government militants or the rural teachers of Mexico's powerful national teachers' unions join forces with the normalistas.)
Community Police

The federal government has struggled to assert its authority over much of the rural areas of Guerrero state, and the state government has had even more difficulty. Because of the federal and state governments' inability to provide sufficient public safety to rural Guerrero, large geographic portions of the state populated by rural indigenous communities contain community police forces, civilian militias currently organized under one of two coordinating bodies that serve as de facto public safety institutions for the rural communities.

Guerrero's community police are not inherently anti-government. Their demands often include calls for a greater federal security presence in their respective areas, and they often dialogue and coordinate with the state and federal governments. Community police efforts focus on preventing organized crime from preying on community members, but unlike Michoacan's self-defense militias, they have not mounted military-style campaigns.

Even so, there are strong ties between Guerrero's community police and the rural teaching sector, including normalistas. In the 2013 teacher protests, Guerrero's community police assisted in the logistics required to transport teachers from Oaxaca and Guerrero to Mexico City. Continued unrest in Guerrero could draw community police into demonstrations, encourage a geographic expansion of their operations, or trigger a new armed conflict between organized crime and community police — all of which would further threaten stability and Mexico City's authority in Guerrero. Still, the community police will be hesitant to do anything that would provoke a strong military response from Mexico City.

Insurgents

The poor economies, weak governing institutions and relative isolation from the core in Mexico's rural southwest have also created an environment suitable for various insurgencies that Mexico City has had to deploy military forces to quell at various times. Since the 1990s, several low-level Marxist guerrilla groups have emerged in Guerrero state. The most notable is the Popular Revolutionary Army, to which a number of attacks against federal troops and hydrocarbon pipelines during the 1990s and 2000s were attributed.

Whether any of these groups — which have not given signs of meaningful activity since at least 2007 — continue to operate remains uncertain, but normalistas in Guerrero share ideological affinities with them. Several communiques purportedly from the Popular Revolutionary Army and its suspected splinter groups have been disseminated in Mexican media outlets backing the normalistas and condemning the Guerreros Unidos. Aside from the communiques, however, no indicators of a new wave of guerrilla attacks in Guerrero have emerged.

Teachers' Unions

A more realistic threat to Mexico City arising out of the Sept. 26 unrest is that the broader educational sector will join forces with the normalistas. The lack of central authority in the southwestern states has given institutions including teachers' unions a significant degree of autonomy, freedom they jealously guard from government encroachment. The educational reforms Pena Nieto signed into law in February 2013 were taken as an existential threat to this autonomy. Resistance to the reform culminated in disruptive demonstrations in Mexico City whose participants primarily hailed from southwestern states and included normalistas from Guerrero.

Anti-government sentiment among southwestern teachers' unions remains strong, and could well expand once more in support of the normalistas. If it did, the demonstrations could reach the point of disrupting daily activity outside Guerrero, as did the 2013 teacher protests.
Iguala and Pena Nieto's Security Strategy

One of the key parts of the Pena Nieto administration's national security strategy has been transforming organized crime-related violence and public safety in general from a national security issue to a law enforcement issue. This move has involved transitioning away from using troops to patrol the streets under the reasoning that the military is a poor substitute for law enforcement and attracts unwanted attention to the country's security woes.

Mexico City will therefore be hesitant to expand the role of federal troops in Guerrero. But the growing unrest — which has led to substantial destruction of government facilities in the state — will likely necessitate an expanded military presence in Guerrero, undermining Pena Nieto's current security strategy.

How much the military presence in Guerrero state expands ultimately depends upon how much the unrest grows. While the pro-normalista demonstrations in Guerrero will likely see continued (and even stronger) support from the education sector and even from groups like the community police, the duration of this support will be limited by the participating groups' separate agendas. Either way, the unrest sparked by the Sept. 26 incidents has served as a stark reminder of Mexico's geopolitical challenges.
Title: Re: Mexico - Elections this year
Post by: DDF on June 10, 2015, 08:02:09 PM
Noteworthy:

Ricardo Monreal won in the Capitol - from the Worker's Party (Partido de Trabajo). He is credited with the entrance of the Zetas in Fresnillo, Zacatecas and has far too much personal info on them and their operations, even from a politician (referencing his book - Esquradas de Muerte 'Death Squads', about the police military and cartels here)

His brothers David and Saul have accumulated much money, and one of them almost won. It is stated that their money comes directly from the cartels.

Candidates killed this election - 21.
Title: Stratfor: A Cartel's Rise and Fall
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 28, 2015, 08:27:31 PM
Summary

Earlier this year, the Mexican government vowed to dismantle the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, one of Mexico's most powerful crime syndicates. Eventually, the government's efforts will destroy the cartel, and smaller autonomous networks will emerge from its wake. But it is unclear when cracks will begin to appear. For the time being, the cartel will remain the fastest-expanding crime group in Mexico. In 2015, it has been consolidating control in Baja California state, fighting in San Luis Potosi state and beginning to expand into Zacatecas state.

This expansion reflects the gradual breakdown of organized crime in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas states since 2010 that has made way for the spread of groups from the rural region known as Tierra Caliente, including the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, into other parts of Mexico. As with all organized crime networks facing persistent law enforcement pressure, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion is doomed to one day decentralize. More broadly, however, its current expansion will cement the status and influence across Mexico of criminal groups that originated in the Tierra Caliente region.

Analysis

In Baja California state, the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) has allied with crime groups derived from the Arellano Felix Organization (also known as the Tijuana cartel or the Cartel de Arellano Felix) to seize control of the Tijuana plaza, the Tijuana-based investigative journal Zeta reported June 15. The CJNG and other organized crime groups from Tierra Caliente are not new to Tijuana, as they have long operated in the border city under the control of Sinaloa-based groups. The CJNG itself has maintained a presence in Tijuana since beginning its rapid expansion as an independent organization in 2012. If the report is accurate, the cartel is apparently seeking to end the dominance that Sinaloan groups have had around Tijuana since at least the 1980s.

Meanwhile, in San Luis Potosi state, the CJNG appears to be attempting to wrest control of towns from several other drug trafficking operations: the Velazquez network (also known as Los Talibanes or the Gulf cartel) and possibly Los Zetas. The cartel's expansion into the state makes sense. Controlling the highways and population centers in the towns would facilitate its trafficking activities to the United States, particularly through areas of northeastern Mexico such as Monterrey.
Interactive
Areas of Cartel Influence in Mexico

The CJNG is also operating in Zacatecas state, near the border with Jalisco, 11th Military Zone Cmdr. Gen. Antelmo Rojas Yanez said June 19. Though there is no indication that the cartel has yet expanded into the cities of Zacatecas, Guadalupe or Fresnillo, the state's main population centers, the group will likely try to do so. The two main groups operating in those locations, the Velazquez network and Los Zetas, have been weakened over the past year by frequent and successful federal troop operations. As in San Luis Potosi state, dominance of Zacatecas provides control over trafficking routes running north to the United States. The value of these routes was demonstrated by Mexican officials' estimation that Los Zetas earned roughly $1.3 million per month from its activities in Zacatecas when the state was uncontested.

Prior to 2010, most crime groups that emerged from Tierra Caliente worked as subsidiaries of powerful Sinaloa- and Tamaulipas-based syndicates such as the Gulf cartel and the Sinaloa Federation. The CJNG, in fact, originates from the organization led by a Sinaloa Federation lieutenant, Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal, who was killed by federal troops in July 2010. After continuous infighting and years of aggressive pursuit by the military and law enforcement, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas groups began to lose control of organized crime in Tierra Caliente, leading to the expansion of independent groups such as La Familia Michoacana, the Knights Templar and the CJNG itself. Though La Familia Michoacana and the Knights Templar are now shadows of their former selves, their expansion left a lasting presence of Tierra Caliente-based criminal elements in Guanajuato, Mexico and Queretaro states, as well as in most regions in southern Mexico. And though the CJNG, still the most powerful and cohesive Tierra Caliente group, will eventually face a defeat at the hands of federal troops, Tierra Caliente organized crime will have a lasting presence wherever the CJNG expands before it is dismantled.
Title: Stratfor: Prognosis for Pemex Union and Teacher Union
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 01, 2015, 05:12:29 PM
Analysis
Forecast

    Energy and education reforms will have an immediate impact on two of Mexico's most potent trade unions.
    The National Oil Workers Union and the National Education Workers Union will suffer diminished power and influence.
    This will push organized labor to adapt once again to Mexico's changing social and economic policies.

In the coming months, Mexico will meet key milestones for implementing two of the sweeping reform packages passed by the current administration: energy and education reform — signifying major blows for the country's most powerful unions. First, on July 15, Mexico's national energy regulator will officially open the country's oil and natural gas deposits to foreign capital — the first 14 energy exploration blocks will be up for public bidding by foreign as well as domestic firms. Meanwhile, in September, Mexico's schools will begin implementing teacher evaluations — a critical component of education reform — despite repeated threats from dissident members of the national teachers' union.

The developments are merely the most recent advances of two reform initiatives implemented by the Mexican government in recent years. Though the two packages differ greatly in scope and effect, together they herald substantial changes in the Mexican labor sector, effectively reducing the influence of two of Mexico's most powerful unions. This is nothing new. Amid the socioeconomic reforms of the past decades, organized labor has played an ever-diminishing role in Mexican politics, and if these upcoming policy initiatives are any indication, that trend is not likely to be reversed.
The Unions' Political Rise

Organized labor in Mexico was once a powerful political force. For much of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's first 71 years of rule, national unions such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers served as part of a corporatist system to contain social unrest in the country. The harmony between the party and labor organizations allowed workers to voice dissent and advocate for better wages without affecting production or profitability. At the same time, the unions' partnerships with the ruling party granted them considerable power to stamp out potentially competing, independent unions and make exclusive collective bargaining agreements with state and private enterprises. The National Oil Workers Union and the National Education Workers Union enjoyed oversight over two of Mexico's most critical sectors, which afforded them considerable influence.

A degree of power was also transferred to individual union bosses. When the unions anticipated threatening economic or political reforms, increasingly influential leaders in both the National Oil Workers Union and the National Education Workers Union occasionally led short battles against the government. Under those circumstances, the ruling party often responded with a divide-and-conquer strategy. For example, in 1989, members of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (also known as CNTE), a dissident faction within the union, advocated to oust the larger union's leader, Carlos Jongitud Barrios. Then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari allowed demonstrations to take place, and eventually Elba Esther Gordillo — an ally of the Institutional Revolutionary Party — was appointed leader of the National Education Workers Union. The event further cemented the union's power and its dissenting opinion of wider union leadership within the larger entity.

It was not the first time the president had been forced to manage labor disputes. Salinas had previously faced off with National Oil Workers Union leader Joaquin "La Quina" Hernandez Galicia, who had expressed negative sentiments about Salinas' presidency, opposing any potential legislation privatizing the energy sector. Eventually the military arrested Hernandez in his home, neatly doing away with the challenge to Salinas and his reform agenda.
The Weakening of the Unions

As Mexico's political system began to open in the 1990s, the relationship between the country's powerful unions and the central government began to evolve in response to growing opposition to the Institutional Ruling Party. In 2000, the party lost its first presidential election in its 71-year lifetime to National Action Party member Vicente Fox. With the National Action Party in power, unions were forced to work with the opposition. Consequently, this led the National Oil Workers Union to increasingly threaten strikes throughout the year. But the government soon instigated a corruption investigation, implicating the union's boss, Carlos Romero Deschamps. As a result of looking into whether the union had filtered funds from Petroleos Mexicanos into the Institutional Revolutionary Party's presidential campaign, the union's strike failed to materialized.

When current Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was elected in 2012, the unions' sensed an ally. However, by this time the Institutional Revolutionary Party had regained its dominance through an alliance with the opposition. Moreover, the party intended to pass several socioeconomic reform packages, some of which — including energy and education reform — would further erode union power and drastically reshape their respective sectors. Factions in the National Oil Workers Union and the National Education Workers Union became increasingly vocal in their opposition to the reforms. However, National Oil Workers Union leaders — including Deschamps, who is also an Institutional Revolutionary Party senator — felt they had little choice but to cooperate, despite growing unrest within the union ranks. The administration's relationship with its labor was clarified on Feb. 26, 2013, when National Education Workers Union leader Elba Esther Gordillo was arrested, the day after Pena Nieto signed education reform into law. The arrest effectively ended the National Education Workers Union's opposition to education reform, leaving only the dissident and increasingly militant CNTE to protest.

So far, the CNTE has put up a public but largely ineffective fight against the reforms. Its efforts to block implementation have generated the most unrest and media attention in the country. But when the dissident group called to block June 7 elections, it failed to generate the necessary participants to carry out its threat. Now, the National Education Workers Union, one of the largest labor organizations in Latin America, must now answer to federal oversight partly through upcoming teacher evaluations. 

Like their counterparts in the education sector, energy unions are seeing their influence decline in the face of reform. Mexico's energy resources begin to officially open up to foreign investment next month, and the National Oil Workers Union is more disadvantaged than ever during its current round of negotiations for the next collective bargaining agreement (effective Aug. 1). It lacks the power to stop the widely-rumored mass layoffs within Petroleos Mexicanos, should they occur as a result of budget cuts. Moreover, Mexico's 2012 labor reforms banned exclusive closed-shop agreements, meaning the National Oil Workers Union likely will encounter growing competition from small, independent unions in the sector.

Though the relationship between the country's organized labor and the Institutional Revolutionary Party has remained largely unchanged since the party's inception, Mexico's social, political and economic reforms have long been weakening the influence of labor unions on the political system. Now the trend only continues, as new education and energy reforms will gradually erode more of their power and political clout.

Labor groups such as the National Oil Workers Union and National Education Workers Union will likely maintain their close ties to the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Nonetheless, as Mexico's socioeconomic environment continues to evolve, the role of organized labor in that evolution will continue to decline.

Title: Mexico's Drug War
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 11, 2015, 03:04:03 PM
http://www.mexicosdrugwar.com/
Title: Chapo Guzman escapes and threatens Donald Trump.
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 13, 2015, 12:15:38 PM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3159344/There-s-no-jail-big-midget-Mexico-s-billion-dollar-drugs-lord-gloats-Twitter-escaping-prison-shower-block-tunnel.html
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on July 14, 2015, 06:47:04 PM
He was allowed to escape to combat Nuevo Generacion.

The first time that he was allowed to escape, was to combat the Zetas.

There are human rights issues at work most likely (which is to say, if I had to guess, some people don't have to have human rights attorneys scrutinizing them so closely, but that's just what I think).

Title: Chapo Guzman
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 16, 2015, 04:59:23 PM
http://shoebat.com/2015/07/14/the-mexican-drug-cartel-el-chapo-butchers-christians-in-mexico-and-now-is-bringing-his-terrorist-family-into-america-to-get-u-s-citizenship/
Title: Current Events In Zacatecas
Post by: DDF on July 18, 2015, 03:31:21 PM
http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=410963
Title: Data says murder rate declining a lot
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 22, 2015, 10:01:50 AM
http://www.southernpulse.info/sp-pulses/homicide-rate-in-mexico-declines-according-to-official-2014-inegi-statistics
Title: Clash in Michoacan between federales and militia group
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 22, 2015, 10:03:29 AM
second post

http://www.southernpulse.info/sp-pulses/clash-in-michoacan-mexico-results-in-two-civilian-deaths-and-numerous-injuries
Title: Mugged in the DF
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 06, 2015, 04:03:13 PM
https://news.vice.com/article/i-got-mugged-in-mexico-city-and-going-to-the-police-just-made-shit-worse?utm_source=vicefbus
Title: Re: Mugged in the DF
Post by: DDF on October 12, 2015, 02:57:55 PM
https://news.vice.com/article/i-got-mugged-in-mexico-city-and-going-to-the-police-just-made-shit-worse?utm_source=vicefbus

We're not corrupt, have never taken any money, many cart their balls around in wheelbarrows (unless you're accustomed to working with a partner that may well cut off your head) and working here, unless you have actually done it, will always be a mystery that manuy think they could handle, but just talk out of their a.s.... mostly, we just don't like whiny, 1st world types or pot smoking liberals.

Mexico? Don't like it? Don't come.  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: G M on November 01, 2015, 08:31:10 PM
That, or arresting one of my own partners for working as an assassin in the cartel.  It all goes on. I get a sense of not fearing anything anymore, because you know, you're already dead and no one, not even the law is untouchable, and well.. life is cheap. GM.... I'm still not dead.

Milagro!
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on November 02, 2015, 09:45:12 AM
Milagro!

It's probably the lack of real life practice you all get up there, that we're lacking here.

Where's that James Bond clip you posted a few years back when I need it?

Tell my little brother C Dancing Dog that I said hello. If they had actually let me in to attempt to become a SEAL, you'd all be eating your words. It's a fact. Unfortunately, we'll never know.

ps. You're certainly eating yours from a few years ago. It makes me chuckle a bit.
Title: Sean Penn interviews El Chapo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 09, 2016, 09:09:30 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/world/americas/el-chapo-mexican-drug-lord-interview-with-sean-penn.html?emc=edit_na_20160109&nlid=49641193&ref=cta
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on January 10, 2016, 10:45:46 AM
That's disgusting.... Hollywood elite chumps coming over here wanting to be a part of something that they are so far away from.

Somewhere in Beverly Hills section of Gringolandia, Penn is eating a "California Wrap" or some other trendy food, smoking cigarettes and running around with a red, Starbucks coffee cup, acting like he's a real life James Bourne.

Charlie Sheen and the fat, White, man bun sporting DiCaprio were just here, Sheen buying a ranch not far from here.

One can only hope they get to see the other side of Mexico.

Their presence here is offensive.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on January 10, 2016, 11:24:48 AM
Pd:

A Los que gustan, vamos a pelear aqui en Marzo si quieren.

If any of you flatfoots want to, we're having a shin dig here in the Capitol in March.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 11, 2016, 02:42:45 PM
https://www.facebook.com/TiempoMilitar/videos/956038584484180/
Title: El Chapo's capture; why cartels are killing mayors
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 17, 2016, 08:13:03 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/americas/mexico-el-chapo-sinaloa-sean-penn.html?emc=edit_th_20160117&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/why-cartels-are-killing-mexicos-mayors.html?emc=edit_th_20160117&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193 
Title: Stratfor: consequences of low oil prices for Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 21, 2016, 08:06:47 PM

Share
Mexican Security: The True Casualty of Low Oil Prices
Analysis
January 21, 2016 | 09:16 GMT Print
Text Size
A drilling tower of an exploration oil rig working for Mexico's state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), in the Gulf of Mexico. (OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images)
Forecast

    As global oil prices fall, Mexico may have to make cuts to sensitive areas, including to security funding, which would delay essential anti-crime reforms.
    The manufacturing sector, which primarily supplies the United States, will remain crucial to future economic growth.
    Increasing energy trade between the United States and Mexico will make energy supply in Mexico more reliable, contributing to growth in the Mexican manufacturing sector.

Analysis

Mexico has long had a privileged position in Latin America. Its proximity to the United States — the largest consumer economy in the world — has contributed to the growth of a robust domestic manufacturing industry, which has become the bedrock of the Mexican economy. Manufacturing has made Mexico the third-largest U.S. trading partner and has propelled its economy to the rank of second largest in Latin America. Still, as in all oil-producing countries, the drop in global oil prices will hurt the country's financial position, possibly jeopardizing its security reforms. But overall, the country will manage the price drop relatively well.

Despite relatively low growth compared to previous years, Mexico will continue to make economic progress and will lead in regional manufacturing for the foreseeable future, largely because of its close economic ties to the United States. Nearly 80 percent of Mexican exports are destined for U.S. markets, and almost half of these exports are higher-value products, such as vehicles and electronic goods. Manufacturing growth is sustained by rising natural gas flows from the United States, which have propelled the rapid expansion of Mexico's electric grid by making energy availability more reliable.

Unsurprisingly, the commercial linkages created between the two countries over the decades, particularly since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, have also accelerated capital flows into the country. Mexico received about $28.5 billion in foreign direct investment in 2015. The same year, remittances from Mexican nationals working in the United States totaled nearly $22 billion — the most since 2009. During the current Mexican president's term, the country has also opened additional avenues for foreign investment into sectors formerly closed to large inflows of foreign capital, and it has made major changes to its regulatory regime in the hydrocarbons and electricity sectors to break state monopolies, many of which have become costly and uncompetitive.

But Mexico's public finances are still strained, the victim of the steady decline of the price of oil and the taxes oil generates, which has reduced government income and forced Mexico City to find options for covering the budgetary shortfall. Its economic and energy reforms will not have tangible benefits for several years as well. For now, the financial burden posed by the two state enterprises that dominate the energy and electricity sectors — Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Federal Electricity Commission, respectively — will remain. Pemex reported a loss of some $10 billion in the third quarter of 2015 — a bleeding of revenue that is expected to continue as oil prices drop even further. It is clear: No matter Mexico City's past prudence, if oil prices stay low, they will eventually hurt the government's bottom line.

Still, Mexico has enough revenue that any future challenges will not pose an existential threat to the country's financial stability. Its already healthy manufacturing base will expand to fulfill steadily rising U.S. consumer demand. Moreover, because of an oil hedge secured last year, Mexico's oil exports for 2016 are guaranteed at $49 a barrel — well above current prices. But the hedge is not permanent insurance. If oil prices remain low, any future hedge will likely be lower, reducing oil revenue further. Stripped of that revenue, which accounts for 20 percent of the federal government's income, Mexico City will be forced to find ways to make up the difference, selling debt abroad or even auctioning assets from state-owned enterprises, including Pemex.

Any challenges the government faces in the near term will arise not from acute political or economic instability, but from making these unpopular decisions to remain solvent. Mexico City could even cut security spending further, which would delay key parts of its security plan. Some security cuts have already been made: Federal security funding to states was cut by $160 million in 2016 — nearly a fifth of the total the year before. If more funding is cut, it could harm Mexico City's attempts to create lower-level institutions to deal with insecurity, an important component of the long-term security strategy to shift from using the army and federal police to deal with crime. It is increasingly unlikely that the federal budget will create additional forces anytime soon, even on the national level.

Overall, Mexico's next few years will be quite bright. Its economy will continue benefiting from foreign investment to fund manufacturing initiatives to supply the U.S. domestic market. The growing energy trade between the United States and Mexico will also ensure secure electricity supply that will further drive manufacturing growth. But security concerns will persist, as funding for anti-crime measures becomes less reliable.
Title: Stratfor: Cartels will continue to erode in 2016
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 25, 2016, 03:11:54 PM

Special Report: Mexico's Cartels Will Continue to Erode in 2016
Analysis
January 25, 2016 | 09:15 GMT Print
Text Size
Los Zetas leader Omar "Z-42" Trevino Morales is taken into custody in Mexico City on March 4, 2015. (OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images)
Analysis

Mexican authorities have recaptured Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, and the media have had a field day, but, as with his escape, Mexico's cartel landscape remains pretty much unchanged. Fissures and infighting among drug cartels are redefining the drug trade — and the fight against it. As indicated in our 2015 Cartel Annual update, Stratfor categorizes Mexican organized criminal groups by the distinct geographic areas from which they emerged, and it is clear that the trajectories of Mexico's three regional organized crime umbrellas — Sinaloa state, Tamaulipas state and Tierra Caliente — are set.

Since the demise in the late 1980s of the Guadalajara cartel, which controlled drug trade routes into the United States through most of Mexico, Mexican cartels have been dividing into more geographically compact, regional crime networks. This trend, which we call "Balkanization," has continued for more than two decades and has affected all of the major crime groups in Mexico, including Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Federation, which until recently were the two most powerful cartels in Mexico. Indeed, the Sinaloa Federation lost significant assets when the organization run by Beltran Leyva split away from it and when Ignacio Coronel's death led to the emergence of several groups, including La Resistencia and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). And Los Zetas itself is a product of Balkanization: It was formed when it split from the Gulf cartel in 2010. Though the Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas have fought hard to resist fracturing even further, and have even been able to grow because of the phenomenon, they have not been able to stop the divisions altogether, and the trend will continue into 2017. In fact, no criminal group will be immune to downsizing and decentralization.

Tierra Caliente's Rise

Before 2012, Sinaloa- and Tamaulipas-based crime groups completely dominated Mexican organized crime, but since then this polarization has given way to the Balkanization of the cartel landscape. Still, until 2015, organized crime derived from the two main rival camps dominated drug-trafficking and other criminal pursuits. But this has changed with the rise of Tierra Caliente-based crime, particularly the CJNG, and has completely changed the security dynamic in Mexico, shifting the focus to the southwest. Mexico's security forces have responded by targeting their efforts on Guerrero, Jalisco and Michoacan states, but Tierra Caliente's reach stretches much farther. Most of the criminal turf wars across the country can be traced back to Tierra Caliente.

The CJNG has continued to expand its operations into areas historically controlled by Sinaloa- and Tamaulipas-based groups, including Tijuana, where control by the various groups associated with the Sinaloa cartel and the Arellano Felix Organization has all but broken down. CJNG has pushed to fill the void left in the city and to wrest control of it from Sinaloa-based crime bosses, contributing to an increase in 2015 of violence related to organized crime. There are also indications that CJNG now has operations in San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas states, where the Velazquez network and Los Zetas have fought each other for power since 2012. CJNG continues to fight against both Los Zetas and Gulf cartel factions in Veracruz, Tabasco and Guanajuato states.

The CJNG is particularly adept at leveraging the breakdown of other crime groups, and Mexico's security forces have taken notice. In 2015, Mexico City renewed its efforts to combat the criminal organization, but these efforts were initially stymied by the wave of unrest in Mexico's southern states spurred by a protesting teachers' union, rampant criminal violence and the September 2014 forced disappearances of students in Guerrero state. After Mexico's June elections, when the unrest began to settle, however, federal troops achieved notable successes by capturing high-level leaders of the CJNG, including Ivan Cazarin Molina, a lieutenant of CJNG top leader Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, and Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho's son and an important lieutenant.

Despite the arrests, Mexico City still faces a challenging battle against CJNG in 2016. CJNG's expansion and territorial conflicts with other crime groups have not slowed since the start of 2016. Because of CJNG's cohesion and its particular affinity for coordinated attacks over a wide geographic area — a tactic shared by other Tierra Caliente groups — confrontations between federal troops and CJNG gunmen tend to escalate violently. In May, CJNG gunmen shot down an army helicopter during an operation to capture El Mencho in Jalisco state, killing six federal soldiers on board.

As with all organized crime networks facing persistent law enforcement pressure, the CJNG is bound to one day decentralize. Although the CJNG has so far been largely unmoved by Mexico City's campaign, the group will likely continue to face leadership losses in 2016, such as the Jan. 2 arrest of Elvis Gonzalez Valencia, a financial operator and brother of the now-detained top leader of the CJNG-aligned Los Cuinis, Abigael "El Cuini" Gonzalez Valencia.

The CJNG could continue to expand and remain a cohesive criminal organization throughout 2016, but at least some indicators of internal rivalries and other organizational splits should emerge by the end of 2016 if federal troops continue to successfully target the group's leadership. Nevertheless, the CJNG's expansion along the Gulf coast into Mexico's northwest will result in a lasting legacy, just as the geographic expansion of the Gulf cartel up until 2008 left territories for Los Zetas to inherit after it split from the group in 2010. So while we expect a decline in CJNG power in 2016, Tierra Caliente-based crime groups can be expected to collectively expand into 2017.

Sinaloa's Continual Decentralization

When Guzman escaped prison for the second time in July 2015, international attention on the Sinaloa cartel was certainly raised, placing considerable pressure on Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to recapture the crime boss and to clamp down on violence in the country. However, Guzman's escape was just one issue facing Mexico's security forces and was eclipsed by widespread unrest, including teacher protests in southern Mexico and by the expansion of CJNG outside of Jalisco and Michoacan states. The fact is, Guzman's sudden freedom had little effect on the continued breakdown of Sinaloa-based organized crime, and his recapture on Jan. 11 will likewise not alter the existing criminal trends in 2016.

In fact, before his recapture, organized crime-related violence in Sinaloa state suggested that internal conflicts were emerging within Sinaloa-based crime groups, including in Guzman's own criminal network. A firefight in December between rival gunmen in Badiraguato, Sinaloa state — the municipality where Guzman was raised — resulted in the deaths of eight people, one of whom was identified as a lieutenant for Guzman's brother, Aureliano Guzman Loera. Uncorroborated reports from Sinaloan media outlets say the conflict resulted from a familial dispute involving Guzman, though the information cannot be verified. Regardless, Guzman's freedom clearly has not slowed the internal divisions that continue to arise within Sinaloa-based organized crime.
Tamaulipas' Loss of Leadership

Los Zetas began 2015 with efforts to consolidate territory lost to the Velazquez network (also known as Los Talibanes) in several areas, including Zacatecas state. However, losses at the hands of Mexico's military and other law enforcement bodies have apparently triggered new organizational splits within Los Zetas, contributing to internal fighting in Veracruz, Tabasco and Oaxaca states that will likely persist into 2016. Although the exact breakdown of these divisions is murky, the violence is real, and the disunity makes it unlikely that Tamaulipas-based organized crime will expand into any areas not already dominated by its various associated groups.

Mexico City began its latest campaign against Tamaulipas-based organized crime in May 2014, taking out several leaders of Los Zetas and the other various Gulf cartel gangs based in the state. Mexican security forces successfully captured numerous Los Zetas leaders throughout the year, including top leader Omar "Z-42" Trevino Morales in March. While many of the group's crime bosses captured during the first half of 2015 were based out of northeast Mexico (such as Trevino), federal troops later shifted their focus to Los Zetas crime bosses based farther south, particularly in Veracruz and Tabasco. In November, authorities in Queretaro captured Alejandro "El Picoreta" Castro Alfonso, a Los Zetas regional crime boss overseeing Los Zetas operations in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Puebla, Chiapas, and Campeche states.

Federal troops have also continued to pressure Los Zetas' parent organization, the Gulf cartel, with arrests. In April, authorities in Cancun captured Juan Daniel "El Talibancillo" Velazquez Caballero, one of the top leaders of the widest operating Gulf cartel group, the Velazquez network, and brother of Velazquez network founder Ivan Velazquez Caballero. On Oct. 16, authorities captured Angel Eduardo "El Orejon" Prado Rodriguez in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state. Prado Rodriguez was the top leader of the dominant Gulf cartel group in Matamoros that suffered considerable losses from rival Gulf cartel groups aligned with the Velazquez network during the first half of 2015.

As expected, the fighting among competing Gulf cartel groups in Tamaulipas state has not resulted in significant consolidation of territory by one Gulf cartel group over the others. In fact, the efforts of the various groups in Tamaulipas diminished toward the end of 2015 as measured by violent conflict. However, the considerable number of leadership losses Los Zetas experienced throughout 2015 and the rumored organizational splits that have emerged within the group could fuel conflicts between Los Zetas and rival Gulf cartel gangs in 2016, as Los Zetas' rivals attempt to leverage emerging weaknesses.

As forecast in our second cartel quarterly update, the substantial number of Los Zetas leaders captured in the first quarter of 2015 did give rise to organizational splits in Los Zetas' southern area of operations, including in Veracruz and Oaxaca states, rather than in Nuevo Laredo, the area most often cited when talking about infighting in Los Zetas. The violence in these southern states indicates a likely internal conflict for control of Los Zetas' southern operations.

On Nov. 28 in Cosolapa, Oaxaca state, an area controlled by Los Zetas, authorities discovered the dead bodies of eight people accompanied by a message denouncing a Los Zetas crime boss operating in central Veracruz near the border with Puebla state. Unconfirmed reports from Mexican media outlets and social media accounts have speculated that the incident resulted from feuding Los Zetas crime bosses. Though the reason behind the Nov. 28 killings remains uncertain, Tabasco state's secretary of public security confirmed that opposing groups of Los Zetas were fighting in Tabasco and Veracruz states.

Precisely where the emerging divisions within Los Zetas lie is unknown, though some Los Zetas leaders, like Castro Alfonso, reportedly were involved in the dispute. But given that the conflict crosses state lines, the dispute will likely directly impact Jose Maria "El Charly" Guizar Valencia, a Los Zetas leader based in southern Mexico and a possible contender against Tamaulipas-based bosses for leadership of Los Zetas operations. We expect these power contests that emerged in the latter half of 2015 to expand geographically in 2016, possibly even escalating in northern Mexico should the broader conflict involve both Los Zetas based in Tamaulipas and Los Zetas based in and around Veracruz and Tabasco states.

As Los Zetas' leaders vie for control of the group, Gulf cartel groups based in southern Tamaulipas state and the Velazquez network could try to leverage the emerging divisions and any resulting loss of ability to defend territory in 2016. Should these divisions broaden to affect the Los Zetas organization as a whole, however, another significant reorganization of Tamaulipas-based crime can be expected in 2016. Such a reorganization, if it were to occur, would likely involve the realignment of some Los Zetas splinter groups with some of the various Gulf cartel groups, particularly the Velazquez network, given its more recent organizational ties to Los Zetas. An expansion of Tierra Caliente-based crime, particularly Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, into Los Zetas territory is more certain in 2016. Given CJNG's continued expansion and its existing foothold in Los Zetas territories, including Veracruz, Los Zetas will likely face more violent conflict with CJNG in 2016 in their long-standing strongholds.
From Drugs to Fuel

In 2016 organized crime-related violence will remain a significant issue, albeit somewhat less severe. At the same time, the continued expansion of fuel theft nationwide will be an increasingly pressing concern for Mexico City. In November 2015, Petroleos Mexicanos reported a 55 percent increase in the number of illegal taps on its pipelines between January and November 2015 compared to the same time period in 2014 (5,091 compared to 3,286). Roughly 27,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel were sold daily on the black market in 2015.

Beyond the economic cost, fuel theft presents Mexico with a host of security concerns. Theft often leads to corrupt officials, pipeline explosions and leaks, and, most significantly, violent conflict over territory. Recognizing the potential for huge profits through access to the pipelines, criminal groups frequently clash for control of this access.

Both Petroleos Mexicanos and Mexico City have taken a number of measures to stymie the rise of organized crime's involvement in the energy sector. Since 2014, Pemex has invested $229 million to improve its ability to monitor its extensive infrastructure and has slightly modified its own supply chains, including phasing out the transportation of finished gasoline through its pipelines to deter fuel theft. Meanwhile the Mexican government has increased its efforts to crack down on crime groups responsible for stealing and selling stolen fuel. Since May 2014, federal troops have pursued crime bosses regardless of their involvement in organized crime-related violence and regardless of their criminal affiliation throughout Tamaulipas state. (Tamaulipas-based groups are still the primary offenders in fuel theft.) Most recently, in December, Mexico's lower house approved changes to laws regarding the theft and sale of fuel, extending the possible prison sentence for fuel theft to up to 25 years.

But current efforts are unlikely to slow organized crime's expansion into fuel theft, at least through most of 2016, because there is still considerable incentive for further expansion. Additionally, combating organized crime's fuel theft activity is as challenging as combating organized crime as a whole. Nevertheless, Mexico City is being pressured to ramp up its efforts to reverse the trend. In 2016, Mexico City will likely further focus its federal troops on targeting crime bosses overseeing criminal activities in the energy sector, particularly those operating in Veracruz, Tabasco and Guanajuato states. However, budgetary constraints will limit its options.

Mexico City's Plan

Although Mexico's many transnational criminal organizations and powerful street gangs continued to wage violent conflict against one another in 2015, nationwide the number of homicides in 2015 was largely comparable to 2014. And homicides have dropped each year since 2012. In 2014, there were 29,828 homicides from January to November compared to 29,920 in 2015. The lack of a substantial rise in reported homicides is largely thanks to major criminal turf wars moving away from heavily populated urban locations. Moreover, although leading to more criminal groups, the continued Balkanization of Mexican organized crime has led to smaller groups with fewer resources and geographic reach that are less capable of sustaining high-profile violent acts in the face of pressure by federal troops. For example, in northern Tamaulipas, competition between Gulf cartel gangs in Rio Bravo and Matamoros led to a sharp increase in violence in the first quarter of 2015, though it abruptly dropped when federal troops focused on the warring crime groups.

As Mexican organized crime continues to decentralize, the nationwide conflicts between competing crime groups such as Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel will continue to fade as turf wars become more isolated in smaller geographic areas. In other words, apparent divisions and subsequent turf wars in areas such as northern Baja California and southern Baja California Sur states do not necessarily serve as indicators of escalating violence elsewhere. In Chihuahua state, for instance, there has been a substantial drop in homicides each year as turf wars have significantly diminished in former focal points of violence, including in Juarez. Violent turf wars between La Linea and the Sinaloa cartel in rural areas of western Chihuahua continue, but security has improved, and there has been a reduction in violence in places such as Juarez despite persistent competition between crime groups. Partly because of the decline in turf wars in urban areas, homicide figures for Chihuahua in 2015 were half what they were in 2012, with 1,184 homicides from January to November 2015 compared to 2,479 in 2012.

The decentralization of organized crime-related violence will likely continue in 2016. Even Los Zetas and the CJNG will inevitably face the same breakdown as all other major crime groups. Homicides in Mexico could begin to escalate in 2016 as internal conflicts within Los Zetas and its rivalries with other crime groups grow and as CJNG faces continued pressure from Mexico City. But such an uptick — if it occurred at all — would be unlikely to last.

Though the first half of Pena Nieto's administration is complete, the president still has not created a unified state police model to replace municipal police, a major part of his security strategy, the Mando Unico. Ultimately, the intent is to be able to implement a national security strategy over some 1,800 municipal law enforcement bodies and to help reduce the corruption that is often present among municipal police. However, not all states have adopted the model because of various logistical and political obstacles, and even in the few states that have implemented the strategy, not all municipalities are necessarily involved. One of the primary political obstacles is that the Mexican Constitution grants municipalities responsibility for security. As a result, the Pena Nieto administration attempted in 2015 to reform Article 115 of the constitution so that the state government would take over public security and the federal government would be able to bypass both state and municipal governments if a municipal government is found to be corrupt.

However, the push for constitutional reform quietly failed during 2015 because of lack of support in the legislative bodies. Though this effort could be revived in 2016, the chances of it passing are slim: The cooperation among Mexico's political parties that defined the beginning of Pena Nieto's term and that led to a number of important reforms has long since eroded.
Title: Stratfor: Why Mexican Security is a work in Progress
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 27, 2016, 10:32:03 AM

Why Mexican Security Is a Work in Progress
Analysis
January 26, 2016 | 09:00 GMT Print

    Despite security reforms implemented by President Enrique Pena Nieto, weak local institutions will continue to be a problem, including for the next president of Mexico.  As political parties prepare for general elections in 2018, the urgency and political cooperation needed to pass security legislation will dissipate.  The fracturing of organized criminal groups, rather than the buildup of security forces, will eventually determine the levels of violence in Mexico.

Analysis

As Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's term approaches its halfway mark, progress on security issues has stalled. During his first years in office, the president laid out an ambitious security strategy, which included the creation of new police forces and security institutions to reduce the role of the Mexican military in maintaining public order. Three years later, the reforms are still not fully implemented, and the constitutional reform to take security out of the hands of local police forces is stuck in Congress.

The gridlock does not indicate that Mexico is forever incapable of creating consistent local security institutions. It does, however, indicate that the move away from military enforcement will be slow, especially as the upcoming 2018 general elections stymie political cooperation. In the meantime, public safety and security in Mexico will largely be shaped by the continual breakup of criminal groups into smaller factions, which diminishes organized crime's ability to launch violent territorial conflicts on a national scale.

The Problem of Security Forces

Though past Mexican governments have always used the military to conduct counternarcotic operations, it was the administration of President Felipe Calderon from 2006 to 2012 that extensively deployed the armed forces in a public security role. Thousands of troops were sent to areas where criminal organizations were active. Since then, the military has been the primary tool for directly targeting criminal groups and for conducting public security operations in areas where local authorities are simply too corrupt or ineffective to do so. Depending on the area, the federal police and other federal, state and municipal police forces often partner with the armed forces.

However, there are problems with having the armed forces lead the fight against criminal groups, and the practice has addressed only a part of Mexico's overall security problems. Using the military has frequently created immediate political problems, such as damaging allegations of human rights violations. Moreover, while the armed forces could reliably confront and weaken cartels, military operations did not reduce criminal violence. For the most part, the military was efficient when it came to battling cartels and killing or arresting high-value targets, but the cumbersome armed forces were simply unable to conduct criminal investigations for prosecution, resolve lower-level crimes or be a permanent law enforcement presence in troubled areas.

Unsurprisingly, the Calderon strategy arose from a lack of options; a similar lack of options meant Pena Nieto could only affirm Mexico's reliance on its military. Local security forces, primarily represented by municipal police forces, were historically weak and often complicit in criminal activity. In specific areas, such as Tamaulipas, Michoacan and Guerrero, the military entirely supplanted some of these police forces, which were often disbanded and many members of which were arrested. It is clear: Military deployments often resulted in immediate security gains, but they were not a long-term solution to Mexico's security problems. So when Pena Nieto took office, he touted using local institutions capable of improving public security in dangerous regions as a better policy than persistently applying military force alone.

To this end, in 2013 Mexico began expanding a paramilitary police force known as the gendarmerie, formed from an existing body within the federal police. A new federally directed system known as the Mando Unico was also implemented, under the umbrella of the Interior Ministry, and replaced locally controlled municipal police with state-led forces. However, each force is not without its flaws. Financial limitations and concerns over corruption in the gendarmerie will likely limit its ability to expand significantly anytime soon. The Mando Unico model has spread in an inconsistent manner since 2010 as well. Different states and even municipalities have voluntarily approved the scheme on a case-by-case basis, but only about 20 percent of municipalities are currently covered under the model.

Beyond the Current President

Thus, a solution to the issue of poor local security institutions will be a problem for the next president. In December 2014, the Mexican president introduced a constitutional reform initiative that would have placed all public security forces exclusively under federal and state command. More than a year later, discussion on the amendment has stalled. Despite the progress Mexico City has made with the gendarmerie and the states that have fully adopted the Mando Unico, such local forces are either not numerous enough or effective enough to be relied upon entirely.

The pace of implementing Mando Unico across the rest of the country may also soon be subject to Mexico's political calendar. Because Mexican presidential and legislative elections are coming up in 2018, politicians are already forming alliances and jockeying for presidential candidacies, making it more difficult for Pena Nieto to negotiate constitutional reform, let alone to get legislative consensus to pass it through Congress. The opposition National Action Party and the Party of the Democratic Revolution are actively seeking to oppose the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in several governor races as well as in the eventual presidential race. And unlike energy reform, which preserves future federal government revenue from hydrocarbons taxation, reforming police forces to combat localized security threats is simply not viewed as an urgent priority for Mexico.

Ultimately, although the current administration wants to reduce violence by overhauling local police forces, it will be the changing patterns of criminals and their activities, along with any institutional buildup, that will largely determine future levels of violence in the country. Mexico is the main land bridge for northbound cocaine and is a major producer of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana. Consequently, criminal competition in the drug trade and the violence that comes with it will be around for years to come. As criminal groups attack each other in turf wars and are in turn attacked and weakened by the army and police, they will split into smaller units, unable to carry out widespread cartel warfare as they had before. If the spread and success of Mando Unico forces leads to more effective local police, Mexico's overall homicide rate and the prevalence of violence in problem areas will eventually fall. But that is a long-term trend, and one that is likely to play out well beyond Pena Nieto's time in office.
Title: How to hack an election
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 02, 2016, 06:26:44 PM
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/
Title: Cheech & Chong
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 05, 2016, 12:36:34 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_LMUZ8PZ9s
Title: Mexico-US Water Issues
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 13, 2016, 06:49:29 AM
Analysis

Editor's Note: This is the 15th installment of an occasional series on water scarcity issues around the world.

When determining borders, a river is often the clearest delineation between sovereign nations. But that clarity abruptly ends when countries must decide how to use the water that the river provides. Even managing rivers that do not determine borders, but rather travel through multiple countries, is precarious at best. The Rio Grande, which partly establishes the U.S.-Mexico border, is no exception. It has been and will continue to be vital to economic growth in the region, especially in Mexico, where the river and its tributaries are crucial to supporting new opportunities for manufacturing and energy.

But growing demands and environmental pressures will increase tension over water resources in the coming decades. Unlike the waters of the Colorado River, which originate entirely in the United States, the watershed of the Rio Grande is more evenly split between the United States and Mexico. Although Mexico depends on the water resources far more than the United States does, both nations are vulnerable to increasing water stress, making it difficult for them to meet anticipated water treaty obligations.
Exceptional Management

The Rio Grande is more than just the main river that runs along the Mexican border of Texas, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. Its upper reaches stretch as far north as Colorado, though the majority of the basin area in the United States lies in New Mexico. Because of a combination of factors — such as high evaporation rates in the arid region, diversions for agricultural production in New Mexico and invasive plant species — a portion of the Rio Grande effectively dries up before being replenished at its confluence with the Rio Conchos. The Rio Conchos runs entirely through Mexico's territory, beginning in the mountains of Chihuahua and Durango and moving through the Chihuahuan Desert, and it accounts for roughly 14 percent of the Rio Grande's total watershed. On the U.S. side, one of the Rio Grande's primary tributaries, the Pecos River, runs through New Mexico before joining up again with the larger river farther south.

Yet the cooperation between the United States and Mexico over the river systems of the Colorado and the Rio Grande (or Rio Bravo, as it is known in Mexico) is in some ways exceptional by international standards. Treaties signed in the first half of the 20th century clearly dictate the volumes of flow guaranteed to each country, and those agreements have successfully forestalled many past disputes. Specifically, the river's use is governed in two separate sections, with Fort Quitman, Texas, acting as the dividing point for legislation and management.

It was not until the late 19th century that legal disputes over the use of the Rio Grande began. At the time, U.S. courts determined that the country had no legal obligation to deliver any water downstream. A 1906 case, however, determined that roughly 74 million cubic meters per year would be delivered to Mexico from the northwestern parts of the river but stipulated that the amount could be reduced in drought years. There were reductions in roughly a third of the years between 1939 and 2015. In fact, Mexico has not received the full allotment since 2012, and as little as 6 percent of the full amount was delivered in 2013.

Along the southeastern portion of the Rio Grande, downriver from Fort Quitman, the allotments are governed by the 1944 water treaty, which requires Mexico to receive two-thirds of the water from its tributaries and to deliver the remaining third to the United States. These deliveries are somewhat flexible because the amount (just over 430 million cubic meters per year) is tracked in five-year blocks, and one year's deficit can be accounted for in the next year if necessary. Even if a deficit spans the entire five-year block, as was the case for much of the 1990s as well as from 2010 to 2015, it can still be compensated for in the following five-year span. Mexico even made up its accumulated deficit of 325 million cubic meters within the first few months of 2016. Still, the uncertainty over consistent volumes of delivery sometimes leads to calls for political action, especially for consumers in Texas.

In addition to the two countries' shared surface water, Mexico and the United States share about 20 underground aquifers. Though these resources support the populations and economies of the border region, unlike surface water, no international treaty governs their use. Much like surface water, however, there is significant overexploitation and a decline in water quality. Consistent overuse ultimately threatens the viability of the aquifer systems.
Demand Factors

When these agreements were signed in the early 20th century, less was known about the hydrology of the region, and the Rio Grande's limited water resources were likely over-allocated based on above-average yearly flows. Furthermore, demand is growing, not shrinking. Agriculture is the primary consumer of the basin's water, but expanding populations that could reach nearly 20 million people by 2020, the rapid rise of manufacturing capacities in Mexico (following North American Free Trade Agreement) and energy production on both sides all play a role in increasing water stress in the region.

Mexican manufacturing capacity, especially in the automotive sector, may be slowing after having swelled between 2008 and 2014. But buoyed by the increasing number of nearby U.S. consumers, high-end manufacturing will soon determine Mexican economic growth, and water consumption by the sector will only rise.

Manufacturing growth has also propelled the rapid expansion of Mexico's electrical grid and, in turn, the demand for energy: Mexico continues to rehabilitate its energy sector to revive production levels. And while the full benefits of Mexico City's recent energy reforms have yet to be seen, the energy sector will likely increase its water consumption (including for hydraulic fracturing) at sites located in the Rio Grande Basin. Moreover, Mexico will not be the only country drawing from the Rio Grande or aquifers to support energy production. Agriculture is the primary consumer of water in Texas, but the Eagle Ford shale formation crosses the Mexican border, and production on the U.S. side has already increased water use in several river basins over the past decade, a pattern that will likely continue.

All of these factors contribute to current estimates that upper portions of the river will decrease by as much as a third by the end of this century, and lower portions will accumulate a deficit of more than 830 million cubic meters per year. The gap between supply and demand will grow, as will tension along the border. The treaties, signed decades ago, have been sufficient and their terms largely met until now. But overuse of water resources and environmental stress continue to rise, and basin conditions are poised to prevent amiable management of the water system in the long term. Efforts from both the private sector and governments will instead likely focus on implementing technological adaptations, including waterless hydraulic fracturing and water recycling, to mitigate water stress. Nevertheless, dwindling water supplies could hamper manufacturing growth and energy production in the basin, especially for Mexico. Moreover, Mexico's likely failure to meet delivery quotas will only ramp up tensions with the United States in the coming decades.

    Part 1: Yemen's Looming Water Crisis
    Part 2: U.S. Agriculture Wilts During California Drought
    Part 3: South Africa's Water Needs Will Be Costly
    Part 4: Indonesia's Disjointed Islands Make Water Scarcity a Problem
    Part 5: Mesopotamian Vitality Falls to Turkey
    Part 6: Water Use Reform Will Be Difficult for Fractured India
    Part 7: Sao Paulo Drought Could Benefit Brazil
    Part 8: Industrial Expansion Will Strain Mexico's Water Resources
    Part 9: China's Appetite Will Strain Australia's Water
    Part 10: Why Canada Cannot Export Its Water
    Part 11: The Sea Is a Relief for Spain's Water Problems
    Part 12: Central America: How a Drought Affects Migration
    Part 13: Algeria: A Desert Nation Fighting to Maintain Water Supplies
    Part 14: Southern Africa's Options Are Drying Up
Title: Mexico Vehicle Restrictions boost sales of
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 01, 2016, 11:01:28 AM
http://www.southernpulse.info/sp-pulses/mexico-city-vehicle-restrictions-boost-sales-of-bulletproof-cars-motorcycles?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=SPI+Networked+Intelligence+Newsletter&utm_campaign=Networked+Intelligence+Newsletter+1+June+2016
Title: no circula impulsa compra de motos y bicicletas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 01, 2016, 11:03:19 AM
Segundo del dia (second post of the day)

http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/economia/hoy-no-circula-impulsa-compra-de-motocicletas-y-bicicletas.html?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=SPI+Networked+Intelligence+Newsletter&utm_campaign=Networked+Intelligence+Newsletter+1+June+2016
Title: Stratfor: Ten years and counting
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 11, 2016, 05:46:50 PM
Analysis

By Reggie Thompson

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Operation Michoacan, and to many, the start of Mexico's deadly war on drugs. But a decade later, the country's prospects for security and peace don't seem much better than they did when the massive crackdown on Mexican cartels began in 2006.

Most people point to Felipe Calderon's presidency as the moment when things began to go wrong for Mexico. In the face of rising crime, and under mounting pressure from the United States to stem the flow of drugs across its southern border, Calderon sent 5,000 soldiers and federal police officers into the streets of Michoacan state, firing the first shots of what would become a long and bloody struggle. But it is neither fair nor accurate to pin the blame for the conflict that ensued on a single decision. Crime-related violence plagued Mexico long before Calderon took office, albeit at a lower level than in the years that followed his declaration of war on the country's cartels. Moreover, Calderon was not the first president to deploy Mexico's armed forces against drug lords and their assets; he was just the first to do so on such a tremendous scale.
Cartels in the Crosshairs

Operation Michoacan signaled the beginnings of a concerted effort by Mexico City to tackle organized crime. Though day-to-day security tasks normally fell to local police agencies, corruption had become so pervasive at the lower levels of Mexican law enforcement that their federal counterparts — the army, marines and federal police — had to step in to maintain law and order in some areas. Under Calderon's orders, some 45,000 troops were deployed throughout Mexico each year to combat crime, more than twice the average manpower that Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, had dedicated to the same cause. Upticks in arrests and killings of cartel members began to noticeably disrupt trafficking activities as crime groups' capabilities steadily eroded.

But the military's success came at a price. As Mexican crime groups came under greater pressure from law enforcement, they began to fight back against the government and among themselves, vying for the trafficking routes, recruits and resources that were left. Violence skyrocketed in several of the cities and regions that were vital to the drug trade and other illegal activities.
Treating the Symptoms

Ten years on, the future of Mexico's security environment looks no more promising than it did at the start of Calderon's campaign. Still, the intervening decade has brought some positive changes. From a tactical perspective, public safety has visibly improved in the areas that the government targeted because of their rampant violence, such as Ciudad Juarez and parts of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Meanwhile, most of the large cartels that once controlled swaths of Mexican territory have splintered as military operations have left them leaderless and riven by infighting.

What has not changed is Mexico's proximity to the massive market for drugs that lies just north of its border. Despite the heavy blows Mexican officials have dealt to major drug trafficking organizations, the smaller fragments left in their wake have picked up where their predecessors left off. Driven by persistently high demand for the drugs they have to offer, Mexican traffickers have kept supply chains to the United States and beyond running, even as state security forces try to shut them down. Though the power of individual crime groups has faded in the face of continued law enforcement efforts, the scope, location and intensity of violence has ebbed and flowed over the years, rather than declining permanently.

This reality is unlikely to change so long as there are profits to be made. Since the United States and its foreign partners began cracking down on cocaine smuggling routes through the Caribbean in the 1980s, Mexico — situated between Central America and the United States and blessed with well-developed transportation infrastructure — has proved ideally suited to serve as a land bridge for northbound drugs. Though the use of cocaine has sharply declined since the mid-2000s, heroin and methamphetamine have taken over bigger and bigger shares of the U.S. drug market, and both are increasingly produced and transported by Mexican cartels. The emerging preference for heroin and methamphetamine has even hiked up profit margins, since the cartels do not have to buy these drugs from South American producers.
A War With No End in Sight

With foreign demand propping up Mexican crime, it is unlikely that Mexico City will retreat from its drug war anytime soon. The country's cartels pose a threat to national security that is far too great for the government to address on its own. Consequently, Mexico City will continue to rely on Washington's help, in the form of security training and intelligence sharing, to target cartel members and criminal networks. Perhaps even more important, Mexico's enduring effort to quash drug trafficking across its borders is a fundamental part of its relationship with the United States. Any attempt to scale down its operations against cartels would immediately meet with pushback from Washington.

Lacking other means of going after the country's criminal groups, Mexico's government will keep tasking federal forces with protecting the Mexican public. Over the past three years, Mexico City has tried to create new law enforcement bodies to bridge the gap between the military and local police, since soldiers do not have the writ or capacity to conduct criminal investigations and combat low-level crime. But forming and implementing these organizations will take years, leaving Mexico City with little choice in the meantime but to count on the military to protect its citizens from the criminals in their midst.

In all likelihood, Mexico's decadelong drug war will continue for decades to come. Fueled by geography and the economics of the illegal drug trade, trafficking and violence will remain a thorn in Mexico's side and a blemish on U.S.-Mexico relations. Though crime may not linger at the heights the country has seen over the past 10 years, Mexican cartels are central to the global drug market, and for now they have made it clear that they are here to stay.
Title: un periodista espanol paso tres meses en el cartel de Sinaloa
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 07, 2017, 04:01:06 PM
https://magnet.xataka.com/asi-lo-hemos-vivido/un-periodista-espanol-paso-tres-meses-en-el-cartel-de-sinaloa-esto-es-lo-que-vio
Title: Will the Wall Make Cartels Great Again?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 10, 2017, 05:24:41 AM
https://warontherocks.com/2017/02/the-border-wall-making-mexican-drug-cartels-great-again/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 11, 2017, 10:33:57 PM
https://www.facebook.com/nayaritenlinea.mx/videos/10154208666502256/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on February 19, 2017, 10:30:19 AM
Right next to here.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 25, 2017, 08:31:00 AM


The acrid political atmosphere between the United States and Mexico created by the issue of immigrant deportation dominated the visit to Mexico City by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and John Kelly, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The shifting U.S. stance toward immigration enforcement will play a significant part in shaping Mexico's domestic political landscape and will affect future relations between the two countries.

The most recent dispute between Mexico City and Washington revolves around memos written by Kelly to his department and made public Monday concerning how to implement executive orders issued by President Donald Trump that give authorities greater latitude to deport foreigners who break U.S. immigration law. Under Kelly's instructions, the United States could send those people to the contiguous country nearest to their point of detention — meaning Mexico in tens of thousands of cases — until their immigration hearings were resolved, although he said people whose cases were decided would be transported directly back to their home countries.

What is a Geopolitical Diary?

The policy outlined by Kelly, who at a press conference Thursday promised to prioritize the deportation of criminals and take a cooperative approach with Mexico in the matter, opens the door to increased deportation of Mexican-born migrants. This will create a number of headaches for authorities in Mexico City. Adding thousands of deportees to the ranks of the unemployed is certainly an unappealing prospect for Mexican officials, who are already dealing with federal budget cutbacks spurred by slumping oil prices. But increased deportations of Mexican citizens also could damage the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ahead of the 2018 presidential race by creating the impression among voters that the PRI's leaders are weak in the face of unfavorable U.S. policy. This could drive up support for opposition parties such as the PRI's traditional foe, the National Action Party (PAN), or the upstart National Regeneration Movement (Morena), founded by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The prospect of voters flocking to Morena is a major concern for Mexico's business and political elite. The private sector knows what to expect from PRI or PAN, but Morena has never held power. Lopez Obrador is not exactly a political outsider: He was previously mayor of Mexico City under the Party of the Democratic Revolution and twice ran unsuccessfully for president. But 2018 could produce a different result for him; polls indicate that he has the support of around a third of the electorate, and the current tussle with the United States could add to his popularity. But even as Lopez Obrador has publicly signaled a shift to the center by meeting with business leaders, economic and regulatory risks abound concerning his election. For example, he has repeatedly vowed to slow the pace of the country's 2013 energy reforms, which opened exploration and production in Mexico's oil and natural gas sectors to private foreign investment. Most recently, a Lopez Obrador spokesman said that if elected, the Moreno leader would halt Mexico City's oil and gas licensing rounds and review existing agreements. Lopez Obrador most likely made the promise in the hopes of bolstering support in areas hit hard by the downsizing of state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos and then riding a wave of nationalism to the presidency.

While his shot at the energy reforms may merely represent populist rhetoric intended to appeal to voters already angry with the government, it suggests that if Lopez Obrador assumes office, he would use his presidential powers to slow the pace of private capital entering Mexico's energy sector. This in turn raises the specter of political gridlock and infighting at a time when Mexico can ill afford it. With the United States pushing the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), such a divisive energy issue could be in front of Mexico's congress at the same time it might need to address changes in the trade status with the United States, a priority that congressional infighting could delay.

But aside from the political difficulties that changes in U.S. immigration policy could create, another angle of the issue has raised concerns in Mexico City. Accepting deported migrants from other countries (mostly those from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) without any promise of assistance from the United States would put Mexico in a difficult position. Though Mexico would accept its own citizens, the establishment of communities of largely jobless, sometimes criminal migrants from other nations (many of whom would never leave Mexico) would create long-term difficulties for the country. The number of Central Americans attempting to enter the United States illegally has surged, and the economic pressures that influence them to cross Mexico's southern border are not diminishing. That, combined with the Mexican administration's fears of a voter backlash if it acquiesces to the DHS directive, makes it no surprise that Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said Mexico would not entertain cooperating on that portion of the new orders, although Mexico could face U.S. pressure to give in.

Discussions on security issues, particularly on ways to counter illegal migration and organized crime, will continue parallel to the NAFTA discussions, slated to begin in June. Before then, one of the main tools Mexico will use to shape negotiations on security and economic matters will be the threat of refusing to help the United States rein in illegal migration. Mexico has already suggested that it would reduce security cooperation if the United States pushes for changes to NAFTA that are unfavorable to Mexico. But putting that threat into practice will be a risky proposition for Mexico. The Trump administration can retaliate by cutting off most U.S. government assistance, a threat set up by the language of the DHS memos instructing agencies to identify any sources of aid to Mexico.

The ultimate intent of such a policy seems to be to pressure Mexico to accept U.S. demands, whether to agree to the suggestion that Mexico fund a border wall between the countries or to concede points in NAFTA negotiations. A reduction in Mexico's security cooperation with the United States, whether on intelligence gathering or migrant interdiction, could lead to retaliation from Washington, which could replace NAFTA with a bilateral trade agreement. The demise of NAFTA would result in more uncertainty for Mexico, which would find itself in the difficult position of negotiating a bilateral trade deal at a time when political relations with the United States are at an ebb.

Mexico's government would probably want to divorce security cooperation from the economic talks, but doing so may no longer be possible. As the negotiations go on, long-standing security issues such as migration and drug trafficking (and Mexican cooperation on those issues) will intersect with the purely economic aspects of Mexico's relationship with the United States. Mexico would clearly be at a disadvantage in NAFTA negotiations, but for now, Mexico City will wait to see what constraints limiting the White House's ability to act on NAFTA present themselves. The future of NAFTA is uncertain, even among Washington policymakers, and Mexican leaders likely hope that uncertainty will give way to a renegotiation of the pact, rather than to a rapid deterioration in economic and political ties.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 26, 2017, 08:25:26 AM
https://www.facebook.com/uniradioinforma/videos/1487013984642714/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 15, 2017, 11:38:22 AM
Mexican attorney general confirms discovery massive clandestine graveyard in Veracruz



3/14/17 | Mexico | Security — The Mexican state of Veracruz Attorney General’s office confirmed the discovery of 250 skulls in a clandestine graveyard in the state of Veracruz on 14 March 2017 (El Economista). Authorities believe the site was a cemetery for a narcotrafficking cartel’s victims since the territory was once controlled by Los Zetas, but had been the subject conflict after penetration by the Jalisco Nuevo Generación cartel beginning around 2011 (El Economista). Veracruz Attorney General Jorge Winckler believed many more remains could be uncovered and revealed the site could be the largest known clandestine cemetery in the world. Winckler also noted the looting of public funds during the Javier Duarte administration have led to a lack of resources for forensic help in identifying victims (Proceso).



Violence flares in Oaxaca and Sinaloa, Mexico



3/12/17 | Mexico | Security — Authorities in Sinaloa reported on 12 March at least fourteen murders occurred from 10 to 12 March 2017 in the municipalities of Navolato and Culiacán (Excelsior). The wave of killings comes as a surprise to state authorities as a decrease in violence was expected in central areas of the state following the confirmation of the death of Julio Óscar Ortiz alias El Kevin, a man linked to the sons of ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán (Excelsior). Authorities in the state of Oaxaca also reported at least nine murders, including one soldier during the same time period (El Universal).


Mexican police forces arrest Sinaloa cartel operative in Tijuana



3/12/17 | Mexico | Security — Mexican authorities confirmed the capture a Cártel de Sinaloa operative, Octavio Leal Hernández alias El Chapito Leal, in Tijuana, Baja California on 10 March 2017 (Milenio). Leal Hernández was wanted in connection with violent acts and drug trafficking in Tijuana and was arrested along with six others (El Sol de Tijuana). El Chapito Leal was a lieutenant in part of the criminal group linked to the Cártel de Sinaloa led by brothers Alfonso and René Arzate García, alias El Aquiles and La Rana. Leal Hernández had been arrested previously in 2012 but was released from prison in 2015 (El Sol de Tijuana and Milenio).


Title: Very hard line bill proposed
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 17, 2017, 11:28:58 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/world/americas/mexico-trump-pena-nieto-wall-drug-war.html?emc=edit_th_20170317&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Cecilio Andrade on March 27, 2017, 08:17:45 AM

El 17,18 y 19 del presente mes de Marzo se impartió con grandes y exitosos resultados los siguientes cursos en el campo de Las Mesas  organizados por PST Capacitaciones.

Curso uno: Tiro a Distancias Extremadamente Cortas.
(https://scontent.fgua2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17353190_1530025377060681_8233281129147244612_n.jpg?oh=ae123ee8b622853580f8640d9d6495b9&oe=596E419A)

Curso Dos: Tiro con Vehículos.
(https://scontent.fgua2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17362800_1531023586960860_6844472814573351117_n.jpg?oh=93f7cc3f9a465cf2a882b007f1638cfd&oe=59626FE6)

Curso Tres: Tiro Para Oficiales De Protección.
(https://scontent.fgua2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17353493_1531962993533586_8153285038872036328_n.jpg?oh=1183458162348b4905ab2b7d4da97c33&oe=596878F4)

¿Lo mejor?

La calidad personal extrema de los alumnos, independientemente de su capacidad técnica y habilidades previas.

Ellos son los protagonistas.

Gracias.
Title: AMLO y Mars Aguirre
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 28, 2017, 09:51:46 PM
http://www.sdpnoticias.com/pitorreo/2017/03/27/amlo-invita-a-mars-aguirre-a-convertirse-en-lider-juvenil-de-morena
Title: Mexican state Attorney General arrested by US
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 31, 2017, 10:07:46 AM
https://bluelivesmatter.blue/mexican-attorney-general-edgar-veytia/
Title: Zac.
Post by: DDF on April 19, 2017, 06:18:51 AM
Came home to another dead body right next to my house....again, and then this here last night... far from the only one I've seen here now. Starting to lose count.

https://www.facebook.com/accesozac/videos/1809837469032501/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 19, 2017, 08:34:40 PM
 :-o :-o :-o
Title: Se disputa la plaza en Zacatecas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 13, 2017, 10:50:30 PM
https://www.elsoldezacatecas.com.mx/zacatecas/en-zacatecas-tres-nuevos-carteles-se-disputan-la-plaza
Title: Musulman frances apunala un sacerdote
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 16, 2017, 09:26:06 AM
http://agenciacatolicamx.blogspot.mx/2017/05/un-musulman-frances-apunala-un.html
Title: Juez del juicio de "El Chapo" esta' asasinado
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 23, 2017, 05:22:41 PM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/us-world/border-mexico/article/Judge-presiding-over-El-Chapo-s-case-shot-in-9980271.php
Title: SIC Kali Gathering
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 25, 2017, 03:15:09 PM
https://sicdbma.wixsite.com/sic-kali/sic-kali-gathering
Title: Voceros - Televisa
Post by: DDF on July 06, 2017, 08:21:20 PM
Apostado por pedida de PGC

Voceros de Zacatecas

https://www.facebook.com/noticierostelevisa.zacatecas/videos/829591367206942/?pnref=story

Melina Gonzalez
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 06, 2017, 08:25:46 PM
Gracias DDF.
Title: Stratfor: Presidents come and go
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 13, 2017, 12:13:53 PM


    Articles

    Regions & Countries

    Topics

    Themes

A serious challenge from populist politician Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador awaits Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in next year's presidential election. That's what polling data and the close results of the June 4 gubernatorial election in Mexico state suggest as Lopez Obrador looks ahead to a third presidential run in July 2018 after second-place finishes as the candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution in 2006 and 2012. Now leading his own party, the National Regeneration Movement, Lopez Obrador is in a statistical tie in recent polls with the PRI and National Action Party candidates.

While a Lopez Obrador victory would be historic, his ability to make sweeping changes in keeping with his populist rhetoric will be greatly constrained. Even if Lopez Obrador wins the presidency, Mexico's political and economic path will remain relatively stable.

As we've discussed the possibility of a Lopez Obrador victory with our contacts in Mexico, we've noticed that many of them believe he would seek to undertake a dramatic change in the way the government deals with Mexico's powerful criminal drug cartels. The idea is that as president, Lopez Obrador would seek to address Mexico's violence problem by cutting a deal with cartel leaders, and on the campaign trail, he has promised to end the deployment of military forces in the country. Such a deal would allow traffickers to operate in the country as long as they did so without violence. While the concept may sound possible in theory, there are simply too many obstacles to permit such a dramatic shift in policy.
A Look at History

The idea that a Mexican presidential candidate would place more emphasis on stopping violence in Mexico than on stopping the flow of narcotics to the United States is not new. Indeed, we heard similar talk during the 2006 and 2012 elections. Here is a quote from a Stratfor analysis I wrote in June 2011:

    One of the trial balloons that the opposition parties, especially the PRI, seem to be floating at present is the idea that if they are elected they will reverse [President Felipe] Calderon's policy of going after the cartels with a heavy hand and will instead try to reach some sort of accommodation with them. This policy would involve lifting government pressure against the cartels and thereby (ostensibly) reducing the level of violence that is wracking the country.

The people who believe such a shift is possible base their belief on a mistaken historical narrative. This holds that Mexican organized crime groups were controlled by the ruling PRI and were largely nonviolent until President Ernesto Zedillo, who was elected in 1994, abandoned the party's deal with the cartels after a corruption scandal enveloped his predecessor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. When Zedillo unleashed the military on the cartels, this myth goes, violence spiked.

This rendition of events is deeply flawed. There were indeed close ties between the cartels and PRI figures at all levels of the Mexican government as well as between the cartels and powerful figures in other political parties. The cartels also fostered deep corruption into every level of law enforcement in Mexico. However, quite simply, the PRI did not control the cartels. Rather, the inverse was true. The cartels had a significant amount of control over some politicians and portions of the government.

The cartels were too rich and powerful to be corralled in this manner. In the 1980s, interdiction efforts forced an increasing amount of cocaine trafficking away from Caribbean routes and through Mexico. The vast wealth connected to the cocaine trade made the Mexican cartels far more powerful than they had ever been. It also caused them to become more protective of the source of their wealth. One of the first widely publicized manifestations of this protectionist streak was seen in the 1985 kidnapping, torture and murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Enrique Camarena. While his death caused the United States to focus heavily on Mexico's powerful Guadalajara cartel and pressure the Mexican and regional governments to follow suit, cartel violence was not a new manifestation: The cartels assassinated rivals and journalists well before 1985.

After Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo and other leaders of the Guadalajara cartel were arrested in the wake of Camarena's murder, Gallardo's primary lieutenants assumed responsibility for the various areas where they operated. This resulted in the creation of the Tijuana cartel (Arellano Felix organization), the Juarez cartel (Carrillo Fuentes organization) and a group of cartels led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, Ismael Zambada and others, known as the Sinaloa Federation. Tensions quickly flared between Guzman and the Arellano Felix brothers over control of smuggling routes — and profits — resulting in a bloody turf war that began in 1989 and wracked northwestern Mexico in the early 1990s. One of the high-profile side effects of their battles was the May 1993 murder of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo and six other people at the Guadalajara airport. It is believed that a Tijuana cartel hit team sent to assassinate Guzman accidentally killed the Catholic Church leader. After Posadas' murder, Mexican law enforcement began to dramatically step up operations against both the Tijuana cartel and the Sinaloa Federation. This heat caused Guzman to flee to Guatemala, where he was arrested in June 1993.

In the early 1980s, many cartel figures served as their own enforcers, but as tensions escalated among competing gangs over control of the cocaine trade, violence escalated as the Tijuana cartel and others began to employ teams of police officers and street gang members to serve as enforcer units. Competing gangs formed similar enforcer groups. Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, the leader of the Gulf cartel, upped the ante by hiring a unit of special forces soldiers, and Los Zetas were formed. Again, rival cartels followed suit and hired their own groups of soldiers to counter the power of Los Zetas, leading to the militarization of cartel enforcer groups. The introduction of paramilitary forces brought along with it military weapons, and cartel enforcers graduated from using pistols, shotguns and submachine guns to regularly employing fully automatic assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades.

A careful review of cartel history makes it clear that cartel violence in Mexico was a significant security problem well before Zedillo came into office in 1994. In fact, Salinas in his inaugural address in December 1989 noted that "narcotics trafficking has become a grave risk to the security of the nation." It was cartel violence, and corruption within law enforcement agencies, that led Zedillo to put the military into the fight against the cartels. They were not the cause of the violence, and taking the military off the streets will not end the violence that is plaguing Mexico — especially when there is no other force to replace them.

Besides, like the violence between the Tijuana cartel and Sinaloa Federation that led to the Posadas assassination, a substantial percentage of the violence in Mexico is spawned by cartel-on-cartel attacks and is not initiated by the government.
The Impact of Balkanization

Another severe constraint on the Mexican government's ability to reach some sort of arrangement with the cartels is that the cartel landscape has changed dramatically. Two main groups — the Guadalajara and Gulf cartels — controlled most drug trafficking in Mexico in the 1980s. Even a decade ago, there were only a handful of groups controlling most of the activity. But today, infighting caused by greed and suspicion, as well as decapitation caused by the arrest or killing of cartel leaders, has led to the Balkanization of Mexico's cartels. This fracturing has caused us to change the way we think about and analyze these groups. Instead of a monolithic Sinaloa Federation, dozens of organized crime groups have splintered from it. Likewise, what was the Gulf cartel is now a constellation of geographic gangs that are often at odds — and at war — with one another. Even if the Mexican government wanted to pursue deals to end the violence, and even if each group in this array of criminal gangs was willing to entertain such an offer, it would be impossible to reach any sort of comprehensive peace agreement with this many parties.

The 2011 analysis quoted above referred to campaign rhetoric from PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto. However, after he won election in 2012, Pena Nieto has not been able to dramatically reverse course as he proposed on the campaign trail. In fact, he has struggled to enact many of the more gradual changes he proposed, such as "mando unico," or unified state command over police forces and the creation of a gendarmerie, or paramilitary police force, to replace the military force deployed against the cartels. Without a replacement, it is impossible to pull the military out of the fight because to do so would create a security vacuum in the areas where the military is deployed. This would be socially and politically unacceptable.

Speaking of politics, the Mexican Congress also serves as a severe constraint on the power of the president to enact reforms. Without congressional support, the president could make only limited changes, and lawmakers would resist making any radical shifts in cartel policy.

This means that, much like immediate predecessors Pena Nieto, Calderon and Vicente Fox, Mexico's next president will not have much freedom to change the country's cartel policy.
Title: Stratfor: Cartels fuming at new US policy screening 100% of trucks
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 02, 2017, 12:21:05 PM
Drug Cartels Fuming at New U.S. Policy Screening 100% of Mexican Cargo Trucks

AUGUST 01, 2017

In a major shift from lax Obama-era regulations, the Trump administration is finally allowing customs officers to screen all cargo trucks entering the U.S. from Mexico and sources on both sides of the border tell Judicial Watch Mexican drug cartels are fuming. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is using X-ray technology and other non-intrusive tools to screen 100% of cargo trucks crossing the southern border after eight years of sporadic or random screening permitted under the Obama administration.

“We felt like we were the welcoming committee and not like we were guarding our borders,” said veteran U.S. Customs agent Patricia Cramer, who also serves as president of the Arizona chapter of the agency’s employee union. “The order was to facilitate traffic, not to stop any illegal drugs from entering the country,” Cramer added. “We want to enforce the law. That’s what we signed up for.” Cramer, a canine handler stationed at the Nogales port of entry in Arizona, said illicit drugs are pouring in through the southern border, especially massive quantities of fentanyl, an opioid painkiller that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says is more potent than morphine.

Approximately 471,000 trucks pass through the U.S-Mexico border monthly, according to figures published by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The busiest port of entry is in Laredo, Texas where 167,553 trucks enter the U.S. from Mexico monthly, followed by Otay Mesa in California (76,953), El Paso, Texas (58,913), Hidalgo, Texas (45,355) and Nogales with 29,439. Other busy ports include East Calexico, California (29,173), Brownsville, Texas (16,140) and Eagle Pass, Texas (12,952). Trucks bring in everything from auto parts to appliances, produce and livestock. In fact, a veteran Homeland Security official told Judicial Watch that cattle trucks passed without inspection during the Obama administration because Mexican farmers complained that the security screenings frightened their cows. “Our guys were livid that we were not allowed to check cattle,” the federal official said.

Frontline customs agents stationed along the southern border confirm that trucks containing “legitimate” goods are often used by sophisticated drug cartels to move cargo north. This is hardly surprising since most illegal drugs in the United States come from Mexico, according to the DEA, and Mexican traffickers remain the greatest threat to the United States. They’re classified as Transitional Criminal Organizations (TCOs) by the government and for years they’ve smuggled in enormous quantities of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. Last year the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the nonpartisan agency that provides Congress with policy and legal analysis, published a disturbing report outlining how Mexican cartels move record quantities of drugs into the U.S. Because cartels move the drugs through the Southwest border, western states have become part of what’s known as the “heroin transit zone,” according to the CRS.

Federal law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch Mexican cartels operate like efficient businesses that resort to “other more treacherous routes” when necessary, but driving through a port of entry in a cargo truck is a preferred method of moving drugs. Cartels station shifts of spotters with binoculars in Mexican hills near border checkpoints to determine the level of security screenings. “They know if we’re on the job, the level of screening that we’re conducting,” Cramer said. “The cartels watch us all the time.” Nogales is a favorite for cartel spotters because the U.S. checkpoint sits in a valley surrounded by hills on the Mexican side, where unobstructed views facilitate surveillance. “They see everything,” Cramer said. For years the cartel spotters saw that much of the cargo passing through the checkpoint was waved through, according to agents contacted by Judicial Watch.
Title: Stratfor: Fentanyl is a game changer
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 05, 2017, 04:54:21 PM
Aug 3, 2017 | 08:00 GMT
Mexico's Cartels Find Another Game Changer in Fentanyl
By Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
Scott Stewart
Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
Bags of heroin, some laced with fentanyl, are shown at a press conference at the office of the New York Attorney General.
(DREW ANGERER/Getty Images)


In my July 13 On Security column about the Mexican government's anti-cartel policy, I discussed how the dynamics of the cocaine trade affected the historical trajectory of Mexican organized crime. In short, cocaine provided cartels with unprecedented quantities of cash that they then parlayed into power. Starting in the 1980s, Mexican criminal organizations began fighting over the immense profit pool produced by the lucrative trade in powder, and this infighting has continued in one form or another to this day.

But cocaine was merely the first of several drugs that were game changers for Mexican organized crime groups. The latest of them, fentanyl (and related synthetic opioids), is the most profitable yet, and is rapidly becoming the deadliest drug for users north of the border.

Disruptive Drugs

Mexican criminals have been incredibly flexible and adaptive in terms of the drugs they supply to the massive illegal narcotics market in the United States. Much of this flexibility naturally comes in response to consumer demand for certain types of drugs. But enforcement and interdiction also heavily influence the activities of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Increased disruption of Caribbean cocaine-trafficking routes, for example, led Colombian cartels to rely more heavily on Mexican groups to move their product over land into the United States. This change transformed the Mexicans into a critical link in the cocaine supply chain and allowed figures such as Gulf cartel leader Juan Garcia Abrego to demand larger profit cuts.

Methamphetamine is another good example of Mexican cartels recognizing and seizing business opportunities created by market forces and enforcement activity. U.S. law enforcement action targeting industrial-scale methamphetamine labs in California's Central Valley, and state and federal legislation such as the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005, made it increasingly difficult to manufacture methamphetamine in the United States. Mexican criminal organizations, especially several Sinaloa cartel affiliates, recognized the opportunity presented by these developments and dramatically expanded their methamphetamine production in response. They also improved the quality and purity of the drug, compared to the product made by smaller operations in the United States. As a result, methamphetamine for sale on American streets became better, cheaper and more widely available.

Sinaloa cartel lieutenant Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel even became known as the "king of crystal" due to the large quantities of methamphetamine his organization produced. Unlike cocaine, which they had to purchase from Colombian producers or, more expensively, Central American middlemen, Mexican cartels could produce methamphetamine from relatively inexpensive dual-use precursor chemicals. So, though the cartels had been making good money in the cocaine trade, methamphetamine was even more profitable, since the cartels could control the lion's share of the profit pool. And groups that had strong connections to Chinese chemical providers and could oversee the flow of chemicals through Mexico's ports had a competitive advantage. Indeed, the rise of Tierra Caliente organized crime groups such as La Familia Michoacana, the Knights Templar and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion occurred largely because they controlled Mexico's ports and the methamphetamine trade.
Areas of cartel influence in Mexico.

Fentanyl: Low Costs, Big Profits

Lately, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has cracked down on pill mills prescribing opiates in the United States. As a result, people addicted to opiates have turned to alternatives such as Mexican black tar heroin. Mexican growers have planted record amounts of opium poppies in recent years, and the large influx of Mexican heroin to the United States has filled the coffers of growers and traffickers. Mexican heroin was strong, plentiful and inexpensive. And Mexican organizations also pioneered new distribution methods, even delivering heroin to the homes of users. One no longer had to travel into inner cities to obtain the drug, and heroin use expanded in all strata of society.

However, poppy cultivation is limited by geography. In Mexico, poppies grow best along the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain chain, on ridges above the 1,000-meter mark (3,280 feet) where the air is dry. So, there is a finite amount of space where opium poppies can be planted, and these locations are not difficult for the Mexican government to find and eradicate. Mexico has a relatively gentle climate and poppy growers ordinarily can manage two harvests of opium gum a year, but heroin production is nevertheless limited. It takes about three months for an opium poppy to mature and produce opium gum.

Fentanyl and other synthetic opiates, on the other hand, are not bound by geography or growing cycles. Fentanyl can be produced anywhere a laboratory can be set up, such as a warehouse in an industrial park, a home in a residential area or a clandestine lab in the mountains. It can be synthesized as long as there is access to the required precursor chemicals, which are almost exclusively imported from China. Fentanyl is also relatively inexpensive to produce — the DEA estimates it costs about $3,300 to produce 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). It is also very potent, so a little goes a long way. According to the DEA, fentanyl is some 50 times more potent than heroin — and carfentanil is 100 times stronger than fentanyl. This makes the drug a smuggler's dream due to its compact nature. Smuggling 1 kilogram of fentanyl into the United States is, from a dosage standpoint, essentially the same as smuggling in 50 kilograms of heroin, and 1 kilogram of carfentanil is roughly the equivalent of 5,000 kilograms of heroin.

Due to fentanyl's strength, 1 kilogram can fetch more than $1 million on the retail drug market, making fentanyl the most profitable drug the Mexican cartels are trafficking. Fentanyl's inexpensive nature is why drug dealers have attempted to pass it off as various more expensive narcotics, such as "China White" heroin for example, or pressed it into pills to mimic pharmaceutical opiates such as oxycodone or hydrocodone. The potency of fentanyl, carfentanil and other derivatives also seriously increases the risk overdose. Dealers processing the drugs for sale on the street often struggle to accurately dispense the very small doses required — and small mistakes in dosage can be deadly. In fentanyl, a deadly dose is measured in milligrams — one thousandth of a gram. In carfentanil, a deadly dose is in micrograms — one millionth of a gram. When dealing with such microscopic amounts placed into a medium purporting to be heroin or a pharmaceutical pill, it isn't hard to see why miscalculations are made and why so many users are overdosing.

Lucrative Ports

Fentanyl is also relatively easy to synthesize; the chemists who work in Mexico's more complex methamphetamine labs have little problem manufacturing it. And given America's appetite for opioids, fentanyl is poised to become the latest in a line of drugs offering a competitive advantage to the organizations that produce them. As in the methamphetamine trade, those that control Mexico's ports are in the best position to benefit from the fentanyl trade: The same networks that produce and smuggle methamphetamine precursors can be used to bring fentanyl precursors into the country.

All Mexican cartels are able to smuggle some finished fentanyl from China and some quantity of the drug's precursors, but as fentanyl's popularity grows, the organizations that control the ports and have close ties to Chinese chemical providers will be able to produce the largest quantities with the most consistency. In terms of the current cartel landscape, this means that Tierra Caliente-based organized crime groups are the largest beneficiaries of the fentanyl trade — much as they have benefited the most from the methamphetamine trade. Indeed, synthetic drugs have largely fueled the rapid growth of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion.

The Mexican navy assumed security responsibility for Mexico's ports in June, but the ports are rife with corruption and it is going to be a tall task for the navy to put a substantial dent in the flow of precursor chemicals and other contraband. Thus the ports will continue to be valuable possessions.

As with the fighting we have seen over lucrative smuggling corridors on the border, it is likely that other organizations will attempt to challenge the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion's control of Pacific coast ports such as Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, as well as Veracruz on the Gulf Coast. With the amount of money at stake, any challenge is likely to be met with force and could result in significant intercartel violence. And of course, such potential for violence is of major concern to the many legitimate businesses that use Mexican ports for shipping.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 05, 2017, 04:57:16 PM
segundo post del dia

Mexico: Lawmakers Propose Reforms to Piece Together a Fractured Congress
(Stratfor)
Connections

    Regions & Countries

    Themes

Mexico's ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) proposed reforms to federal legislation that could lead to a coalition government by 2018. The purpose of legalizing a coalition government is to overcome logistical challenges posed by Mexico's political fragmentation. Since the 1990s, Mexico's political landscape splintered as several competing parties gained seats at the expense of the PRI. The PRI, which once held virtually all major elected offices in Mexico, now jostles with the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the more leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) for power in Congress . Meanwhile, former Federal District Head of Government Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, formed his own party, the National Regeneration Movement, for the 2018 presidential campaign, which threatens to further divide Congress.

Such a fragmented political scene is a potential recipe for a legislative impasse in Congress. Heavy gridlock because of poilitcal divisions has hindered the latter half of President Enrique Pena Nieto's term. Introducing a coalition government that enables opposition parties to hold politically influential Cabinet posts may provide the government with a tool to reduce legislative obstruction from the opposition and pass legislation more easily.

The political reforms, proposed by PRI legislator Manlio Fabio Beltrones, would enable the president to incorporate legislative blocs into a formal coalition. According to the proposal, the president could choose whether to invite legislative blocs into a coalition after putting the coalition up to a congressional vote. The proposed coalition also would have to represent a majority of congressmen. The potential election of Lopez Obrador (who has never held a legislative, governor, or Cabinet position) is another possible reason that PRI is attempting to facilitate a coalition government. Successfully forming a coalition government with Lopez Obrador would allow opposition parties to more directly influence his political agenda.

But the proposed legislative changes, which come less than a year before Mexico's 2018 presidential election, may not make it through Congress. To approve legislation, PRI will have to convince legislators from PAN and PRD that forming a coalition government is in their interest. Time is running out to negotiate, discuss and approve such laws before the 2018 presidential and legislative campaign season heats up. Meanwhile, it's far from certain that the legislation necessary to formalize the creation of a coalition government will make it through Congress in time for the next president to use it.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 29, 2017, 07:46:48 AM
•   Mexico: Mexican government sources told Reuters that their government is studying the possibility of stepping in to replace Venezuelan oil program Petrocaribe if the government of President Nicolas Maduro were to fall. Petrocaribe is a trade initiative that provides subsidized oil to friendly countries. Cuba, a beneficiary of the initiative whose shipments have declined, has already had to limit retail fuel sales and request help from Russia. Mexico’s foreign minister was in Havana last week and reportedly tried to persuade Cuba to help fix Venezuela while reassuring Havana that Mexico will support it if Maduro falls. We need a better understanding of Mexico’s role in this situation. Is this the first sign of a more assertive Mexico?
Title: Mexico's war is not about drugs
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 21, 2017, 05:51:41 PM
https://www.texasobserver.org/los-zetas-inc-author-mexicos-drug-war-isnt-drugs/
Title: MLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 04, 2017, 09:04:17 PM
    Regions & Countries

    Topics

    Themes

Print
Save As PDF
Forecast Update

Stratfor previously forecast that, even if populist Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wins the presidency in 2018, the nation's military-centered public security policies will not change significantly. The release of a document outlining Lopez Obrador's tentative policy positions confirm this overall assessment, although there is room for him to selectively withdraw the armed forces from public security duties.

According to a new policy paper, Mexico's populist presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will deliver few surprises on public security when he officially reveals his platform. On Oct. 3, Mexican news outlet La Politica Online obtained a document outlining domestic and foreign policy priorities for a potential Lopez Obrador administration. The document suggests a Lopez Obrador administration would take a similar approach to public security and fighting cartels as his predecessor, current Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

The Pena Nieto administration — much like the potential Lopez Obrador administration — has taken note of the military's shortcomings as police officers. The longer they remain deployed to stem the violence from cartels, the more vulnerable they become to corruption. Further complicating matters is the fact that military forces don't operate within a clear legal framework, although military authorities supported legislation to correct this earlier in the year.

Although the policy paper criticizes prior administrations for overreliance on the armed forces to pursue and arrest drug traffickers, it doesn't suggest completely withdrawing troops from their now-permanent deployments. Instead, the paper calls for studies on a possible new force, the National Guard, to replace the military in its domestic security role. In this sense, Lopez Obrador's approach to public security is the same one Pena Nieto took when he entered office in 2013. Nieto attempted to create an auxiliary paramilitary force, called the gendarmerie, to gradually supplant the military. But the force was plagued by the same corruption issues faced by Mexican law enforcement at virtually all levels of government. The gendarmerie was expensive, and it was virtually impossible for the force to supplant the military during Pena Nieto's tenure. In 2015, when Mexico implemented budget cuts, the gendarmerie's lost 25 percent of its funding.

Previous Stratfor analysis said it was unlikely that a Lopez Obrador administration would move away from Mexico's current approach to government security. This development confirms that analysis, but it's important to remember that Lopez Obrador's proposals are not policy yet. If he comes to power, he could still attempt a gradual military withdrawal even without replacing the troops with an alternative force. However, because such movements would worry Washington, it's highly unlikely that Lopez Obrador would tear down the status quo with quick action. The White House has made it clear that border security is a major priority, and Mexico is not about to risk ruining relations with its largest trading partner. 
Title: Narcos ponen explosivos en drone
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 24, 2017, 10:27:03 PM
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/24/terror-skies-mexican-cartel-attaches-bomb-drone/
Title: LA Times: Una Vision Fallida
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 27, 2017, 06:14:06 AM


http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-mexico-housing-es/#nws=mcnewsletter
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 04, 2017, 07:50:13 PM
Forecast Update

In Stratfor's 2017 Third-Quarter Forecast, we wrote that U.S. pressure to restructure the North American Free Trade Agreement could push Mexican voters toward populist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Recently, Lopez Obrador suggested he would consider providing amnesty to cartel leaders to stem violence in the country. But considering how vital Mexico's cooperation is to the United States' international counternarcotics strategy, the move wouldn't be accepted lightly by Mexico's northern neighbor.
 
See 2017 Third-Quarter Forecast

Mexico's presidential frontrunner has proposed providing amnesty to cartel leaders to reduce violence, but the proposal would be virtually impossible to implement. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador made the proposal — which would be a significant departure from previous administrations' approaches to security — during a campaign rally Dec. 2 in Quechultenango, Guerrero state. But it is important to note that the suggestion is just that, a suggestion, and may not translate into actual policy should Lopez Obrador be elected. But even if the candidate does attempt to grant cartel bosses amnesty, a mountain of institutional and logistical obstacles will likely block his efforts.

By claiming that his administration will approach public security differently, Lopez Obrador may be trying to appeal to the rural populations hit hardest by violence in recent years. But just how differently the candidate can actually approach security is an altogether different question. Lopez Obrador has said in the past he would move away from a military-centric security approach but has walked back from that statement in recent months, likely realizing the impracticality of the proposal. Similarly, even if Lopez Obrador believes that amnesty would be an effective option against crime, he will soon be faced with the impracticality of it as well.

Granting amnesty to cartel leaders would encounter stiff resistance — both in Mexico and in the United States. Mexico's cooperation against organized crime is a key part of the United States' international counternarcotics strategy and domestic security policies —particularly under the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. As president, Lopez Obrador and his administration would have to carefully weigh the benefits of negotiating to demobilize criminal groups against the risk of antagonizing a security-minded U.S. presidential administration. In addition, amnesty proposals would lead to major domestic political resistance. And if the Mexican Congress determined that an amnesty law were necessary to demobilize criminal groups, passing such legislation would be all but impossible.

Even if it were legally possible to grant criminal groups amnesty in Mexico, choosing which criminals to give amnesty to would risk opening a Pandora's box full of unending requests and pressure from various criminal organizations. Mexico's criminal landscape has fragmented over the past decade, as several large cartels have broken apart under law enforcement pressure and years of turf battles. Granting any particular group amnesty in Mexico would not guarantee any immediate public security benefits.

A comparison could be drawn to the Colombian government's peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In Colombia, the FARC's internal unity and hierarchical structure helped reduce militant attacks virtually overnight after the group enforced a unilateral ceasefire in July 2015. In Mexico, criminal gangs are highly decentralized and are driven by profit rather than ideology, which could hinder any government-sponsored negotiation to significantly curb violence at a national level. Still, Lopez Obrador's amnesty proposal cannot be dismissed. After all, it is a policy option proposed by Mexico's presidential frontrunner. There are enough obstacles to the successful implementation of any amnesty deal, however, that the attempts would likely fail.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 08, 2017, 09:52:41 PM
Highlights

    Long-term political and economic factors in Mexico have created fertile ground for a populist presidential candidate such as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
    Lopez Obrador's rise as a leading candidate in 2018 has been spurred by the decadeslong diversification of Mexico's political system, deep-seated economic grievances and more recent events in U.S.-Mexican relations.
    Even if Lopez Obrador loses next year's election, Mexico's political system is becoming more competitive and the results of future elections will be more uncertain.

Mexico's gradual move toward populism has made headlines for more than a year. The foreign press in particular has reported extensively on the popularity of presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, creating a narrative of a recent, inexorable leftward shift among Mexican voters. The underlying reality is far more complicated. Lopez Obrador's popular approval is the product of Mexico's enduring, widespread poverty and steadily diversifying political landscape, among other broader, longer-term trends. It's also the result of prevailing, discrete events, such as the Mexican government's perceived complacency when faced with U.S. threats during talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. These dynamics will likely create a competitive presidential election in 2018, in which Lopez Obrador or a challenger from a traditional party such as the National Action Party (PAN) or the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) could narrowly clinch power. In keeping with recent history, however, whoever wins next year's election will enter office relatively weak and will struggle to implement populist policies, especially if Congress and the country's economic elites disagree with them.

A Slow Change Coming

Lopez Obrador's populist message clearly resonates with a political minority in Mexico. According to recent polls, nearly a third of Mexican voters would be willing to vote for him in July 2018. This receptiveness to populism is not a recent trend, however; it even predates Lopez Obrador's previous presidential runs in 2006 and 2012. The PRI, for example, was far more populist when it emerged in the 1920s after the Mexican revolution than it is now under President Enrique Pena Nieto. Historically, poverty and corruption have created fertile ground for populist political messages, but in recent decades, as Mexico became more economically intertwined with the United States, political leaders' enthusiasm for populism waned and the country's political parties began to favor business-friendly technocrats for president. For two decades, presidential leadership in Mexico has been primarily about keeping the status quo in domestic politics and foreign affairs, particularly in international trade.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on December 15, 2017, 05:30:35 PM
Called this a year ago in an email to Crafty.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mexico-violence/mexico-enshrines-armys-role-in-drug-war-with-divisive-law-idUKKBN1E91JO

Elections in Mexico may soon come under military rule.  



Title: PRI treasurer in corruption trouble
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 21, 2017, 05:21:59 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/world/americas/mexico-corruption-pri.html?emc=edit_na_20171220&nl=breaking-news&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
Title: GPF: Mexico, Central America, & US
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 09, 2018, 10:06:44 AM
How Instability in Central America Affects US-Mexico Relations
Jan 9, 2018

 
By Allison Fedirka

In Central America, organized crime, street violence and civil unrest are nothing new. The most recent example of civil unrest comes from Honduras, where demonstrators have been protesting the president’s controversial re-election in November after a court approved changes to the constitution to allow presidents to run for a second term.
The area known as the Northern Triangle – consisting of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – has been particularly marred by instability and violent crime, leading many to flee to the United States. In response, the U.S. is tightening immigration and border controls. This week, U.S. officials said 200,000 Salvadorans who had been allowed to come to the U.S. legally would have to leave the country. The program that allowed citizens from other Central American countries to also live in the U.S. is now under review because the administration claims it has been subject to abuse. Thus, security issues in the countries of the Northern Triangle are no longer mainly domestic problems; they are impacting the U.S. as well and its relationship with Mexico, a gateway to the U.S. for many Central American immigrants, increasingly making the violence and instability there a geopolitical issue.

Central America is linked to the international system largely through its ties to the United States, the world’s only super power, and Mexico, an emerging power. The region is composed of seven countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama) that cover 202,230 square miles (523,770 square kilometers) with a total population of about 48 million. The combined gross domestic product of these countries in 2016 was $244.67 billion, roughly equal to Chile’s total GDP and just under a quarter of Mexico’s. The region is a narrow strip of land between North America and South America bounded by seas on either side. Due to their small size, isolation from the rest of the world and low incomes, Central American countries project very little power.
 
(click to enlarge)

Nevertheless, the region played an active role in international affairs during a couple of points in modern history. Since issuing the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States sought to keep foreign powers out of the Americas and to grow its regional influence. The U.S., however, was in no position to expand its power into this area until after the Spanish-American War, which the U.S. won. At that point, Spain no longer controlled Cuba, the Greater Republic of Central America had dissolved into individual countries and Mexico found itself still writhing from internal turmoil. The U.S. seized the opportunity to expand its influence in the Western Hemisphere using policies consistent with the Roosevelt Corollary, an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, including establishing business ties and military intervention. Washington’s hold over Central America in the early part of the 20th century marked its rise as the dominant power in North America.

Central America also played an important role in the proxy battle between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The region proved particularly valuable for the Soviets because of its proximity to the United States. As the U.S. chipped away at Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, the Soviets did the same in Central America. As a result, the region was rife with civil wars and foreign-backed dictatorships for decades.

When the Cold War ended, Central America no longer posed a threat to the U.S., and U.S. interest in the region began to wane. The U.S. managed to maintain influence over the Americas largely uncontested, and developments there had little impact on the United States.

This is now starting to change. In the past decade, the countries of the Northern Triangle have become known for rampant street, gang and drug violence. The area has one of the highest murder rates in the world outside of designated war zones. In 2016, El Salvador had 91 homicides per 100,000 people, while Honduras had 59 and Guatemala had 23. By comparison, the United States’ homicide rate was 5 per 100,000 people.

Violence, however, cannot be easily contained within borders. Many organized crime groups that have roots in the violence in Central America also operate throughout North America. MS13, for example, is a notorious gang founded by Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles, and it’s now active in many parts of Central America and the United States. Drugs from South America also find their way to U.S. markets through conflict-prone countries in Central America. Displaced by the violence, people have been fleeing the region in record numbers, and the United States is their primary destination. Since 2011, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala have been among the top source countries for legal and illegal immigration from Latin American countries to the United States. According to a Pew report released in December, the number of immigrants from these three countries to the U.S. nearly doubled from 60,000 in 2011 to 115,000 in 2014.

More often than not, immigrants from this region enter the U.S. illegally. As of 2015, an estimated 1.65 million of the 3 million immigrants from the Northern Triangle had entered illegally. And many arrive in the U.S. through Mexico. In fact, the majority of immigrants entering the U.S. from the Mexican border are no longer Mexicans.
 
(click to enlarge)

As the United States imposes stricter controls on immigration and border crossing, particularly from those regions that could be seen as a security threat, it is bound to increase pressure on Mexico to tighten its own controls. The U.S. push to limit immigration includes its elimination of temporary protection status for immigrants from Central American countries – primarily Honduras and El Salvador.

The U.S. and Mexico have cooperated on border control issues for decades, as the U.S. depends on support from Mexican authorities to protect its southern border. Mexico stops 40-50 percent of the immigrants attempting to cross the border to the U.S., and both countries have worked with Northern Triangle countries to help improve local security forces and economic conditions. But in the past year or two, immigration from Central America has become a bigger issue between the U.S. and Mexico, as Washington makes it increasingly clear that its solution to the Central America immigration problem is to try to block people from crossing the border and to threaten to deport them. This in turn will place a heavier burden on Mexico to address the security issues in the Northern Triangle. Mexico may not have the resources necessary to deal with these issues now, but in time it will be forced to become more involved.

The shift in the U.S. approach to Central America, from indifference following the Cold War to intensifying interest today, makes the region more geopolitically relevant. But this relevance is derived not necessarily from developments in the region itself but from the region’s ability to impact relations between the U.S. and Mexico. The more the U.S. tries to stem Central American immigration, the more Mexico will feel the pressure to become engaged. But Mexico has its own organized crime problem to deal with and can’t spare resources on the Northern Triangle. These countries will need billions of dollars in development funding – not exactly petty cash for the Mexican government. With instability at its doorstep, Mexico will be forced to respond in some way, but its options will be limited.
Title: NY Times: Monterrey, NL, Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 10, 2018, 07:04:10 AM
Welcome to the Interpreter newsletter, by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, who write a column by the same name.

This newsletter is the first of a three-part experiment based on our story on Mexican towns and cities that are dealing with public corruption and record violence by effectively seceding from the state. We’ll recount what it was like to report on each town, which we visited last year, and offer our thoughts on its larger lesson for Mexico and the world. Let us know what you think: interpreter@nytimes.com.



What We Learn When Corporate Elites Take Partial Control in a Major City — and Then Lose It
 

A restaurant in San Pedro Garza García, an affluent enclave of Monterrey, Mexico. Outside the city’s wealthy areas, violence and corruption daily are often part of the daily routine. Brett Gundlock for the New York Times

We came to Monterrey, a rich commercial city, with many questions. But there was one we asked over and over because we just could not believe the answer we kept getting.  Are you really okay with local business leaders seizing control of the police?

We asked rich and poor. We asked in corporate offices and community outreach centers. We asked activists and government officials. We asked a man who’d been forced from his home by criminals. We asked a nun.

Always the same impatient yes.

We tried explaining our incredulity. If top CEOs in Washington, where we were living, took over local police departments, reformed police practices top-to-bottom and paid for cops’ salaries and housing, then it wouldn’t really matter if crime dropped. There would still be something fundamentally uncomfortable about the heads of local aerospace and defense firms effectively running public security — and tehre would almost certainly be an outcry.

Finally, Armando Torjes, a community activist in the working-class suburb of Guadalupe, cleared it up for us.

No one much minded business people acting like politicians because, he said, the real problem was politicians acting like business people.

“It’s not that businessmen are bad people, they’re just getting all the privileges. They should be giving back,” he said as his mother, also an activist, served us lemonade in his living room.

“We have this political class that totally forgets why they are there. Suddenly it’s all about the possibility of business,” he said, referring to rampant political corruption.
We were starting to see what he meant. Monterrey’s problem wasn’t just crime. It was institutional breakdown at nearly every level of government, which allowed corruption to become the norm, including among police officers who sometimes beat citizens and extort money from them just as brazenly as did the drug gangs.
Fixing crime required fixing corruption, which required fixing the state.

That was also the conclusion reached by Monterrey’s business leaders. Except instead of fixing the state, they would cut it out.

Jorge Tello, a former head of Mexico’s intelligence agency and now a big man about town, met us at his private lunch club, just across from city hall, to tell us how it’d all happened.

“The first meeting I remember was with the governor at Lorenzo’s office,” Mr. Tello said, referring to Lorenzo Zambrano, the head of Cemex and unofficial leader of Monterrey’s business community until his death in 2014.

Drug cartels, after years of ravaging poorer communities, had begun to target the richest of the rich.

“The governor was the one to say: ‘You need to help me. I cannot do it by myself,’” Mr. Tello recounted. It was a tacit admission of the state’s weakness.

o get what happened next, you need to understand Monterrey’s peculiar corporate culture. It is one part worldly Davos elite, one part 1980s Wall Streeters working from their beach home in Florida (lots of men with tan suits, manicures and perfect hair) and three parts cowboy culture, which suffuses this part of Mexico.

Mr. Zambrano, who was peppery but aristocratic, agreed to lead a reform effort that grew into a takeover of local police forces. But first he would ensure that Monterrey’s executives would remain to help lead — and, crucially, to fund — the effort. Some were already considering a move to nearby Houston.

So Mr. Zambrano posted a tweet that Monterrey’s business leaders still cite as a call to arms. It read, translated into English: “Whoever leaves Monterrey is a coward. They must fight for what we believe. We must return to our great city!”

After a few years, community leaders like Mr. Torjes saw an improvement. As an experimental new police force moved into the streets, backed by the executives, crime and reports of police brutality dropped.

The reforms were an academic’s dream. Juan Salgado, a governance expert at the CIDE, a Mexico City university, called the new force “very impressive.”

“What they did was create comprehensive community police services,” he said, detailing reforms that benefited from the CEOs’ largess and as well their ability to skip the usual political corruption and horse trading.

But then, he said, “there was a change in the government.”

No one in official or corporate Monterrey likes to talk about what happened in 2015. No one except for Mr. Tello, who said it was important that the city face what had happened.

“I’m getting mad,” he said. “Things are going to get worse.”

The governor left office that year. (He later faced embezzlement charges, which we mention only to underscore that official corruption is just pervasive.) Monterrey’s executives, maybe a little taken with their newfound autonomy, backed an independent candidate whom they expected would be even more pliant.

But the new governor, Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, turned out not to be pliant. He has mixed fiery populist language with old-style patronage. Reforms have lapsed and crime has returned.

Mr. Torjes, the activist from the working class-suburb, argued that the real problem wasn’t the governor himself but a political system in which reforms never seem to stick.
“Every politician comes in and brings something new,” he said; a complaint we heard from activists and academics across Mexico. “You never know if something is going to last past the next election.”

This was our big realization from our time in Monterrey. The Mexican state — which oversees the world’s tenth-largest population and 14th-largest landmass — is perilously weak.

Its institutions are too weak to fix the crime and corruption tearing away at society. They’re too weak even to maintain a fix that, as in Monterrey, is already working.
“It’s quite different than if you talk about well-developed countries with strong institutions,” Mr. Tello said. In countries like the United States, he added, “it doesn’t matter what kind of mess you have at the top of the political structure because you have strong institutions.”


Monterrey’s business leaders had tried to install their corporations as replacement institutions. But they fell victim to the same institutional weaknesses they’d tried to fix. With little in the way of a civil service, a simple change in governor destabilized everything.

That might seem like a technical or abstract lesson, but it’s one that should concern everybody, and not just in Mexico. We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the health of our institutions; they’re boring, opaque and largely unseen. But maybe we should think about them.

Many of the biggest stories in the last year — ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, democratic backsliding in Turkey, regime change in Zimbabwe, a destabilizing power struggle in Saudi Arabia — come down, in part, to weak institutions. They are the guardrails meant to keep government orderly, capable and self-policing. Without them, you have corruption, instability, power grabs and leaders whose incentives do not align with the public good.

Even in the developed countries that Mr. Tello called categorically different, institutional health can’t be taken for granted. Spain has been destabilized by a secession movement led by some of its own regional institutions. Hungary and Poland, unchecked by courts and legislatures that have grown weak, are backsliding into authoritarianism. American diplomats, aghast at the gutting of the State Department, warn that American power in the world could be set back by a generation.

Many of Mexico’s leaders, like Monterrey’s business elite, hardly noticed their country’s institutional decline until they started feeling the effects personally. By then, it was too late.




Title: No se sabe si eso es digna de fe
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 13, 2018, 10:50:05 AM
http://www.elcharromx.net/2018/01/1002_6.html#.WljVw98G5N9.facebook
Title: NY Times: Nezahualcoyotl
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 14, 2018, 02:15:31 PM


Why This Mexican Town Has Us Worrying About the Future of Political Parties
 

Police officers in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl. Brett Gundlock for the New York Times

When we talk to political scientists who study American democracy about what worries them most — and they worry about many things these days — their answer is often political parties.

Whatever you think of President Trump, they argue, he has exposed the frailty of the Republican party, which tried and failed to stop his nomination. The party has since bent on core issues, especially those related to the Russia investigation. Both the Republican and the Democratic parties, scholars argue, have grown dangerously weak, unable to play their informal but crucial role as institutional checks on power; as guardrails of democracy.

That was on our minds when we arrived in Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, a million-person suburb of Mexico City, which has effectively seceded from Mexico’s party system.
Neza, as it is known, is gritty and working class, a sprawl of short concrete buildings. But it is a quiet success story. As crime and corruption skyrocket nationally, especially in surrounding areas, they’ve remained stable or even declined here.

When we asked Neza locals and officials how they did it, they pointed to Jorge Amador, the police chief who looks and talks as if he wandered into the job after getting lost on his way to a faculty meeting.

Mr. Amador, whose background is in sociology and water management, imposed policy changes that, sweeping and sometimes eccentric, might be impossible elsewhere. He set up literature programs and chess classes. He restructured the force to emphasize community engagement. He fired 100-plus officers suspected of corruption or brutality.

So was Mr. Amador the key to Neza's success? After some time in Neza (and a lot of time with Mexican academics) we came to a different conclusion. Or, at least, a broader one. Neza’s secret was breaking from the Mexican party system, which is what made Mr. Amador’s hiring and reforms possible.

Mexico’s establishment political parties are beyond troubled. They are a dangerous combination of super-strong — are they tightly control institutions that have few career civil servants — and super-weak. They are riven with corruption, patronage and nepotism. They have the power to enforce internal loyalty but not to perform basic institutional functions.

“You don’t have any institution or agency that is capable of forcing the parties to cooperate and forcing them to be honest and fair. And that is a huge problem,” said Joy Langston, a political scientist at the CIDE, a Mexico City university.

“They are very much able to negotiate reforms that make them even stronger and give them even more distance from voters,” she said, adding that this means parties have shrinking incentive to think about policies that will help voters, or to think about policy at all.

Neza is different; it is run by the left-wing P.R.D., rather than either of the establishment parties.

Most P.R.D. holds are not like Neza. They, too, see upticks in crime and corruption. But because the P.R.D. exists outside of the mainstream party system, an official like Mr. Amador is at least freer to root out corruption or experiment with unorthodox reforms.  At the same time, however, he cannot turn for help or policy expertise from state or federal institutions. So he is walking a tightrope without a net. And  not all of his policies have worked.

After years of relatively undisturbed experimentation, Neza has become something like an open-air experiment in social engineering. The goal is to so enamor the police of their civic responsibility that they will decide to refuse the money they could make extorting civilians or aiding drug gangs, as is common in much of Mexico.

In August, we attended one of the twice-annual awards ceremonies that Mr. Amador holds for the police. Of the 700 officers in attendance, half would receive some sort of prize and cash reward. Family members in the audience waved supportive signs. In an Oprah-style twist, and to cheers even she might envy, six officers were each granted bonuses worth four months pay. It felt like a pep rally.

“At the beginning, people don’t trust you, they are very defensive,” said Diana Hernandez, one of the community officers assigned to monitor a small patch of streets — another experiment.

She understands, she said. Growing up, her family rarely called the police, seeing them as bound to bring more trouble. Now, she said, “People recognize me on the street. That they know me really makes me feel good about this.”

Neighborhood watch groups, set up to coordinate with police, are provided with police cameras, alarm systems and direct lines to the patrol cars.  But their longer-term purpose, Mr. Amador said, is to create public buy-in for his reforms “so that it doesn’t matter who’s in the mayor’s office.”

In a way, he is seeking to replicate the functions of a political party: grass-roots mobilization, civil society allies and institutionalized policies. It’s a big idea, but a reminder that trying to reform the police and society without real institutional support is a bit like writing in the sand.

“It’s fragile, this experiment,” Guillermo Valdés, a former head of the national intelligence agency, said. Establishing it “has been a long process and a slow one,” requiring time and freedom that doesn’t exist for most Mexican officials constrained by the party system.

Policing experts we spoke to generally gave Neza high marks, as did Mr. Valdés.

Juan Salgado, also with the CIDE, said the city had achieved “great successes,” in part by sidestepping civil society organizations, which, like so much in Mexico, tend to dominated by the establishment parties.

Still, not everyone has been sold. Antia Mendoza, a Mexico City-based security expert, said Neza’s officials had not proven a link between Mr. Amador’s reforms and the crime rate. And she saw little proof the community networks were working.

And Neza is hardly an oasis of safety. The day before the police awards, our photographer visited Neza to find the main traffic circle shut down by a public brawl. When we spent some time in the police command center, which includes dozens of new-looking TV screens displaying feeds from hundreds of street cameras, the officers watched helplessly as a car chase zipped across the screens.

Still, in a way, the most important thing may not be how well Mr. Amador’s reforms worked but the fact that he had space to try them at all, and for years at a time. That level of freedom, particularly to purge corruption, is rare in Mexican policymaking. It’s a major problem for Mexico, constricting officials in a time of national crisis.

That, for us, was Neza’s lesson: not the presence of reforms, but the absence of party-imposed constraints. It made us look differently at the rest of Mexico, where those constraints can be suffocating.

It made us think about Europe’s mainstream parties, which are the least popular they’ve been in years, giving rise to smaller and less professionalized fringe parties. It made us think about the global rise in populist parties, which often reject policy expertise and institutions as untrustworthy “deep state” elites. And it made us think about American parties that have been hollowed out by polarization and other factors.

Mexico’s political parties are, in many ways, particular to Mexico and its history. They are legacies of the country’s revolutionary past and its recent emergence from single-party rule. The degree to which they are failing is exceptional. But the ways that they are failing are not.




Title: NY Times: Tanci'taro
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 17, 2018, 06:50:57 AM


How Do You Build a State Up From Nothing?
 

Militias, funded by Tancítaro’s avocado growers, patrolling a local orchard. Brett Gundlock for the New York Times

There is something intoxicatingly utopian about the story of Tancítaro.

This small town has succeeded at self-rule in a part of Mexico — the state of Michoacán, drug war ground zero — where so many similar experiments have failed. It is free of the drug cartels as well as the Mexican police and politicians who are widely seen as part of the problem. It has homegrown institutions. It is safe.
“It’s a nice town. You can walk around at day or night. It’s very nice,” Guillermo Valdés, a former head of Mexico’s national intelligence agency, told us this August. “They take care of themselves.”

Mr. Valdés told us about Tancítaro at the end of a long interview at a Mexico City café, where we had met him to discuss towns that were seceding in subtler ways. It was the sort of comment sometimes made after the formal questions have ended and the notebooks have closed, the casual aside that changes the whole story.

He’d recently visited Tancítaro for a book he was writing on the drug war and found its experiment in self-rule intriguing. It’s a global center in avocado production, exporting about $1 million worth every day. The orchard owners use that money to fund militias that guard and police the town.

But the more we heard about Tancítaro, the more that something seemed off. Something Mr. Valdés said stuck with us: “They expelled all the criminals.”

O.K., but how did they separate criminals from innocents? Who did the selection? There’s a version of this that sounds like frontier justice, rough but fair, and there’s a version that resembles towns controlled by drug cartels.

“It’s very hard to believe that Tancítaro is just this island of peace and perfect transparency in Michoacán,” said Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, who studies Central American security issues at Noria Research and has visited the town.

Falko Ernst, his colleague at the think tank, added, “You have an armed group acting on behalf of the real political authority, the grower’s council” — a body of wealthy orchard owners — “doing the cleansing in their name and in their interests.”

The more we learned about Tancítaro, the less utopian and the more dystopian it sounded.

But the truth, or at least what we came to understand of it, wasn’t exactly one or the other. And it wasn’t somewhere in the middle, either. It was, or seemed to be, both utopia and dystopia simultaneously.

Tancítaro is indeed pretty safe. The first evening that Dalia Martínez, a Michoacán-based journalist who worked with us on this article, visited town, there was a big street festival with families out. The streets were, as Mr. Valdés had said, safe, even at night. They were clean.

The avocado orchards were safe as well, guarded by another set of uniformed militias. There was a palpable change at the town’s perimeter, marking the edge of what militiamen called “tierra caliente” — hot ground, meaning cartel territory. The avocado trade appears to be booming.  But after a few days of scratching beneath the surface, it became clear that Tancítaro had become very good at providing security, but had developed almost none of the other basic functions of a state.

Cinthia Garcia Nieves, a community organizer who moved here to try to help build real institutions, described efforts to build community justice mechanisms and citizen councils. She had hoped that they would turn into something like a justice system and, if not a democratic government, at least a way for citizens to get involved.  But both had stalled, she said; power still rested with the militias. “Authority has become blurred, in a way. So then who gets legitimized? Who is really an authority?”

Her question made us think of very different sorts of places where deep-pocketed landowners had imposed quasi-governance by hiring bands of armed men. Another word for that is a warlord, which we use not as a value judgment but as a definitional matter.

We think of warlords as agents of evil and violence, and often they are, but just as often they are symptoms of state breakdown. Warlords are what happens when state failure, access to natural resources and the safety of a local population overlap.

Mexico is neither a failed state nor close to becoming one. But in some pockets of the country its institutions have broken down enough to reproduce conditions that partly resemble state failure. That includes the area around Tancítaro, which is rich is natural resources. The people who have access to those resources used them to achieve a monopoly on violence, creating enough stability to sustain their access to those resources. They became warlords.

Living under warlords is not the same as living under a state, no matter how many citizen councils you set up. Their rule is, by definition, arbitrary and unaccountable. Because they legitimize their rule through violence, the threat of violence hangs over everything.  But living under warlords is still better, in at least some ways, than living in anarchy, which is a bit closer to describing life in the surrounding areas, where the state is only partly present and criminal gangs fill the void.

There is a famous political science paper — one of Amanda’s favorites, and an inspiration for our coverage of Mexico — called “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.” Its author, Charles Tilly, traces how medieval European warlords and racketeers gradually evolved, over several centuries, into today’s modern states.

Variations of this theory are increasingly applied to Afghanistan. Scholars like Dipali Mukhopadhyay of Columbia University and Frances Z. Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argue that Afghan warlords — who provide the closest thing to stable governance in parts of the country — could one day build a state from the bottom up.

But this is a process that takes generations, if it works at all, Ms. Mukhopadhyay told us last year for an article on Afghanistan. It involves a lot of hardship and pain in the meantime. And it worked in medieval Europe in part because nascent states could develop for centuries, relatively unchallenged.

What can make this harder, Ms. Mukhopadhyay pointed out, is when there is still just enough of a central state to oppose these warlord-driven movements in organic statebuilding. That’s been happening for years in Afghanistan, where the United States sometimes pushes the central government to challenge warlords for authority, and other years pushes the government to tolerate them.

It seems likely that that will be Michoacán’s future as well. The government is plenty strong enough to reassert authority over Tancítaro, much as it did a few years ago in less functional militia-run areas of the state.

The government has declined to do so, Mr. Ernst suggested, for fear that disturbing Tancítaro’s safety and avocado revenue would be too politically risky. But that calculus could always change.

Tancítaro is, for us, a microcosm of a problem that is manifesting around much of the world today, driving many of its worst crises: pockets of warlordism within a functional state. Those warlords help the state by providing local stability, but they also implicitly challenge its authority.  The state and the warlord can develop an accord that will allow the warlord to one day incorporate his or her territory into the state. Or, far more common, they can compete for control, often leading to violence. This opens space for organized crime — mafias that often now have global reach — and inhibits countries from coalescing into unified states.

And it’s much more common than you might think, playing out in chunks of Central America and Southeast Asia, in gang-controlled neighborhoods of major South American cities, and in much of the Middle East. Sometimes it does work out, as it might be in parts of West Africa and the former Yugoslavia where warlords are increasingly joining the state, though this peacemaking can come at terrible cost.

We hope you find this dynamic as fascinating as we do, because we’re hoping to cover it more over the coming year.

Ms. Nieves said she hoped that Tancítaro’s experiment could congeal into something stabler and more responsive. Still, she said, she worried about whether its ad hoc, informal practices could ever function in the absence of real institutions. That is also Ms. Mukhopadhyay’s concern for Afghanistan, and ours for so many place we’ve covered. But it can be hard to find a better way.




Title: GPF: How Violence in Mexico Shapes Relations with the US
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 25, 2018, 03:25:35 PM


How Violence in Mexico Shapes Relations With the US
Jan 25, 2018

 
Summary

Violence in Mexico is on the rise, multiple reports show, stoking alarm both inside and outside the country. Though violence doesn’t have inherent geopolitical significance, it becomes significant when it has the potential to fundamentally alter a country’s economic trajectory, political system and international relations. In the case of Mexico, reports of increasing violence, particularly organized crime-related violence, merit a closer look because Mexico is an emerging market and harbors ambitions to get out from under the thumb of the United States.

The violence in Mexico also raises the issue of the potential for spillover into the U.S., since this would likely lead to a redefinition of the bilateral relationship. Other places in the world have higher rates of violence than Mexico, but greater scrutiny is placed on Mexico because of its proximity to the U.S. and the impact violence may have on Mexico’s emergence as an economic power.

Rising Violence and Drug Trafficking

To understand the potential impact, we must first understand the types of violence in Mexico. Media reports focus on intentional homicides as well as kidnappings, extortion and armed robberies. In tracking homicides, Mexico distinguishes between homicides in which the perpetrator intentionally seeks the death of the victim and homicides that result from reckless or negligent behavior without the intention of causing death.

Intentional homicides set a new record last year. The previous record of 22,409 was set in 2011. The number of intentional homicides had declined each year since then, but the trend reversed in 2015. In 2017, there were 25,339 intentional homicides, a 23 percent increase from the previous year and 13 percent higher than the old record.

Drug trafficking organizations are often blamed for the rise in violence in Mexico. The official statistics do not differentiate between drug- or organized crime-related killings and other homicides, but some types of homicides are characteristic of the criminal and drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs, in Mexico. Homicides involving guns – which was about two-thirds of the homicides in 2017 – have a high probability of being related to organized crime or drug traffickers. Extortion and kidnapping, along with human trafficking and sales of stolen cars, are also associated with DTOs. It is not a coincidence that the states with the most homicides and kidnappings per month and the greatest increases in homicides per month are those with a strong presence of drug trafficking activity. The high-profile victims are typically journalists and politicians, who are attractive targets for organized crime groups. Further, anecdotal evidence of mass graves, dismembered bodies, decapitations and bodies found with narco messaging all point to the work of DTOs.

Homicides in Mexico do not occur uniformly across the large territory. Baja California, Guerrero, Mexico state, Veracruz and Chihuahua rank as the most violent states with the highest incidents of intentional homicide. Other states with high homicide totals are Sinaloa, Michoacan and Jalisco. In other states, such as Colima, the number of registered homicides are low, but they have a dramatic effect due to the small population. Colima registered 93.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2017. Baja California Sur ranks second with 69.1 deaths per 100,000 people. For perspective, the national homicide rate in Mexico is about 20.8 per 100,000 people. Other states that have lower homicide rates have noted a faster increase in those rates. Last year, intentional homicide cases rose 550 percent in Nayarit, 116 percent in Aguascalientes and 118 percent in Quintana Roo. Overall, 26 of Mexico’s 32 states recorded an increase in homicide rates in 2017.
 
(click to enlarge)
 
(click to enlarge)

As for kidnappings and extortion, the number of reported incidents has increased in the past two years, but not as quickly as homicides. Both peaked in 2013, with 1,688 kidnappings and 8,213 extortion cases, and then dropped significantly over the next two years. However, since 2015, the number of reported incidents has slowly increased. In 2017 there were 1,484 reported kidnappings and 5,649 extortion cases, both surpassing 2016 totals. Meanwhile, local human rights organizations and other observers say there is reason to believe these incidents are under-reported. Given the nature of extortion and due to anomalies observed in the data from Mexico state, those organizations may be correct.

 (click to enlarge)

Drug Trafficking Organizations and Organized Crime

The main reasons for the spike in violence are the splintering, restructuring and growing competition among the DTOs and other organized crime groups in Mexico. This fragmentation had its roots in the presidency of Felipe Calderon (2006-12), who from day one adopted an aggressive stance on drug cartels. His “kingpin strategy” focused on killing or imprisoning the heads of major cartels, which followed a hierarchical model with strong familial and neighborhood ties.

Calderon’s approach led to a surge in homicide rates from 2006 to 2011 because it created power vacuums within groups and provoked turf wars and cycles of revenge killings. In addition, security operations began targeting these illegal groups. Over the past 11 years, Mexico’s military, which has more training and better equipment than local police, has become more involved in fighting organized crime.

The current criminal organization landscape is exceptionally fluid. Many groups operate more on a local cell-based level, and their association with other groups may shift with business interests. Many of these groups not only are involved in drug trafficking but also engage in other profitable crimes, including kidnapping, assassination, auto theft, prostitution, extortion, money laundering, software piracy, resource theft and human trafficking. Some criminal organizations have incorporated areas of specialization. For instance, some DTOs on the U.S. border have assumed the role of toll collectors, exacting payment from other traffickers, while other organizations specialize in sourcing cocaine from South America. Still others focus on transit routes within Mexico and other ways to either facilitate the drug trade or augment their profits through lower-risk activities.

The number of large DTOs jumped from four in 2006 to nine in 2017, and another 45 smaller organized crime groups have been identified. Their structure is more like a consortium, where groups are different sizes and specialize in various business activities. For example, La Linea and Los Aztecas are two distinct local criminal groups that fall under the umbrella of the Juarez cartel.

Though the Sinaloa cartel is the largest and most powerful DTO in Mexico, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which broke off from the Sinaloa cartel in 2010, has become formidable over the past two years. In a short time it has grown and strengthened enough to compete for space, resources and markets. Given the increasing overlap of territories and resources, clashes with other DTOs become more frequent and intense. This is also the case for smaller groups that may act independently or fall under larger DTOs. Some of these groups stay in the drug business, while smaller, local criminal groups remain engaged in other criminal activity such as the illicit gasoline trade. When Mexico’s current president, Enrique Pena Nieto, assumed office in December 2012, security officials estimated there were 80 to 90 smaller criminal groups in operation. The latest estimates put the number at 45, which means there still are many players competing for business in the black market.
 
(click to enlarge)

Economic Impact

Mexico needs to address the violence of DTOs for domestic economic reasons and to maintain its relationship with the United States. Violence and crime cost Mexico approximately 18 percent of its gross domestic product, according to a 2017 report by the Institute for Economics and Peace. The figure factors in a wide range of related costs, including spending on security by the government and businesses and lost income due to a homicide in the family. In terms of government spending, the institute estimates that Mexico spends 6.8 percent of its GDP to help contain violence nationwide.

Growing violence may also discourage investment, according to the Bank of Mexico. The bank recently ranked Mexico’s security as 5.5 on a scale of 1-7, with 7 representing the greatest risk to investment. Private sector estimates indicate that investments may fall by up to 5 percent because of violence, with impacts already being noted anecdotally.

Despite those warnings, a large-scale exodus of companies from Mexico in response to violence has not occurred. Many businesses there understand the security risks and factor in those costs. The point at which violence becomes intolerable will largely depend on the companies’ ability to operate profitably over the long term. Any prolonged decline in revenue or absence of investment would, of course, hurt the economy.

Relations With the U.S.

In terms of foreign policy, the violence in Mexico will primarily affect its relationship with the United States. Besides their shared border, the U.S. is the main destination for Mexican-produced opium and for cocaine transited through Mexico, and is the source of illegal weapons for Mexico’s DTOs. Drug trafficking between the two countries dates back to the early 20th century when the first opium shipments from Sinaloa made their way into the United States. Shortly thereafter, alcohol flowed to the U.S. in the wake of the Prohibition Act of 1919. The products and tactics for doing business may have changed, but not the business of smuggling.

The Mexican DTOs are the major wholesalers of illegal drugs in the United States and are increasingly gaining control of U.S. retail-level distribution through alliances with U.S. gangs. Street gangs continue to work with Mexican DTOs in Mexico, along the southwest border, and throughout the United States. These relationships are based more on location and personal and business ties than on strict affiliations with a given gang.

Mexican DTOs conduct business with a much lower profile in the U.S. than they do in Mexico to avoid engaging with security officials. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2017 National Drug Assessment notes the absence of significant spillover violence in the United States. Violence that does occur is infrequent, localized on the southwest border and mostly among traffickers. Mexican DTO activity in the United States is mainly overseen by Mexican nationals or U.S. citizens of Mexican origin. Those operating in the United States often share familial ties with, or can be traced back to, the natal region of leading cartel figures in Mexico.
 
(click to enlarge)

The U.S. and Mexico have worked closely together on border security, particularly since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But current tensions surrounding trade and immigration policies between the two countries make border security cooperation less straightforward, and the ability to strengthen such cooperation is no longer a singular issue. There is minimal spillover violence right now, but any change that causes spillover violence to rise would have massive political and geopolitical effects. The U.S. government is already studying measures for increased border controls and justifying them by vilifying Mexico. An actual spillover of violence would empower those in the United States advocating tighter border security. Right now, the U.S.-Mexico border allows for the relatively easy, free flow of trade and persons. A strong, controlled border would redefine the basic structure of this bilateral relationship.

The U.S., for its part, can try to pressure Mexico to take stronger action or pursue particular security measures. The point of leverage for this would not be a wall, as President Donald Trump has urged, since that would not be effective or practical. President Richard Nixon effectively shut down the U.S. border for several weeks in September 1969 in an attempt to stem the flow of drugs. The closed border killed local business but did little to impact the drug flow.

Perhaps more effective for the U.S. would be to limit or hinder remittances. Remittances to Mexico from people in the U.S. help to sustain or augment household income nationwide. The most recent figures from the Bank of Mexico show that from January to November 2017, remittances totaled $26.1 billion, and the year is poised to see a record high. But the move could backfire. Remittances play an even more important role in households of poorer states – Michoacan, Guerrero and Oaxaca, for example – so cutting off remittances runs the risk of driving more desperate people to join criminal groups and creating controversy within the United States. Still, remittances are a powerful card to play and may be used as a tactic with other bilateral issues, such as NAFTA, that have a greater overall impact on the U.S.

Security Options

Though it is in Mexico’s interest, particularly its economic interest, to stop drug-related violence, the key question becomes: What can the Mexican government do? The short answer is: not much. There are several strategies the Mexican government could pursue, but it faces severe constraints that will limit the effectiveness of any approach.

One obvious strategy is putting an end to criminal groups’ illicit financial activities, primarily drug trafficking and other black market activities, including fuel sales and human trafficking. The problem is that these groups have many alternative routes and means of conducting their business. Shutting down one route, point of entry or source of materials is merely a logistical problem for a criminal group. Criminal organizations have many financial resources as well as experience in logistical planning. To be effective, the government would need to conduct multiple large-scale shutdown operations simultaneously. This would be an extremely costly and difficult endeavor. The government and security forces simply don’t have the manpower and resources to conduct a sustained and effective operation of this magnitude.

Extra resources would have to come from outside the country, and the country best positioned in terms of funding, skills and expertise is the United States. But Mexico cannot accept large-scale U.S. support – especially in manpower – on its own soil. History has proved to Mexico that it must be wary of any foreign presence, that of the U.S. above all others. The government cannot risk the country’s sovereignty or increased dependence on the U.S. Therefore, from Mexico’s position, cooperation with the U.S. is best limited to primarily border cooperation, along with selective training, weapons supplies and funding.

Similarly, the idea of tackling violence by eliminating corruption is a purely theoretical option since it is no secret that, generally speaking, local police and government officials are also corrupt. Prosecution is not guaranteed and is often lax when pursued. Attempts to remove corrupt members of local police departments nationwide have failed, which in part explains why the military has assumed domestic security responsibilities. Though the targeted elimination of high-profile corruption is possible, completely cleaning the system of it is impossible without totally dismantling everything and rebuilding from the ground up.

The Mexican government faces fewer constraints in crafting regulatory frameworks for tacking criminal groups. The main obstacles the government faces here are political in nature. The current government did pursue judiciary reforms and domestic security legislation to better combat criminal groups. Both measures have been severely criticized by various political and special interest groups, citing confusion in the judiciary reforms and vagaries and loopholes for abuse of power in the domestic security legislation. Though regulatory changes fall squarely within the power of the government, the public reaction and associated political costs prevent drastic changes and full enforcement.

A final possible strategy would be to focus more on quelling violence rather than eliminating or reducing criminal activity in the country. The violence Mexico currently experiences is a symptom of the competition between criminal groups. In theory, removing this competition – in a sense creating a monopoly – would eliminate the violence that competition produces. This would involve the government aligning or tacitly supporting a dominant drug trafficking group or cluster of groups, ultimately diminishing competition. This is not a novel strategy but it certainly is a highly controversial one. It compromises the government’s power over criminal groups, and there are no guarantees that the monopoly would hold. Not to mention it’s morally questionable and wouldn’t be feasible until at least 2019. Mexico holds presidential elections on July 1, and the sitting president cannot run for re-election. A new government will be inaugurated on Dec. 1. Criminal groups will have no incentive to negotiate with the outgoing government.


Conclusion

The rise in violence in Mexico is geopolitically significant because of its potential to affect the trajectory of Mexico’s economic development and basic framework of its relationship with the United States. Given the political and resource constraints facing the Mexican government, this level of violence will likely continue to rise in 2018. During this time, anecdotal evidence will provide a strong measure of the economic impact – as will statistics, though they inherently capture the past over the present. The United States will be closely watching for any increase in spillover violence. Though the current levels do not threaten the U.S.-Mexico relationship, a sharp rise – combined with the political climate in the U.S. and tense relations over NAFTA negotiations – would help set the stage for a strong U.S. reaction that would redefine the relationship.

Title: Mayan civilization far bigger than previously thought
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 04, 2018, 10:41:24 AM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/02/03/mayan-civilization-was-much-vaster-than-known-thousands-of-newly-discovered-structures-reveal/?undefined=&utm_term=.d26ba02e1a9d&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

Title: WSJ: MLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 27, 2018, 06:49:24 AM


How to Get Rich Quick in Mexico
A top backer of the front-runner for president has a murky business history.


Alfonso Romo, strategy advisor for the presidential campaign of Andres Manuel Lopez, during an interview in Mexico City, Mexico, Feb. 15.

By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Feb. 25, 2018 4:43 p.m. ET



Former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador is leading in the polls for Mexico’s July presidential election. Given his reputation as an antimarket extremist, this may seem surprising in modernizing Mexico. But he has been helped by the backing of Monterrey tycoon Alfonso Romo, whom the candidate has named chief of staff of his proposed cabinet.


The Romo endorsement aims to reframe López Obrador as a moderate who will befriend capitalists as long as they haven’t cheated to get ahead. Mr. Romo talks a good game. In a November interview with television journalist Carlos Marín, he said that Mexico needs to be “reconstructed” because “there is a lack of ethical values and morals.”

Yet it isn’t clear that Mr. Romo is the best spokesman for ethical entrepreneurship. At least one business transaction, in which he made a killing, left lingering doubts about his commitment to transparency and fiduciary responsibility.

In 2002 Mr. Romo was chairman and CEO of the Mexican conglomerate Savia. He was also chairman and CEO of a company called Seminis, which produced seeds and was 75% owned by Savia and traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The seed company had engaged in rapid expansion through acquisitions. This created financial stress that might have been overcome using the capital markets. Instead, in December 2002, Savia signed a nonbinding letter of intent to sell the company to the California-based private-equity firm Fox Paine. Bernardo Jiménez, a spokesman for Mr. Romo, told me by phone from Mexico that Fox Paine had shown interest in the company for several years and that Mr. Romo saw this as “the best option” for dealing with Seminis’s heavy debt load.

The initial offer from Fox Paine was $3.40 a share. The Seminis board of directors had contemplated a price north of $4 a share for public shareholders. So on Dec. 17, 2002, it formed a special committee to study the offer, discuss “modifications,” and reach an agreement. The final deal offered public shareholders $3.78 per share and $3.40 per share to Savia. Mr. Jiménez describes it as the outcome of negotiation.


The value of the transaction, according to a June 2, 2003, company press release, was more than $650 million. Savia took a 2003 loss in pesos equivalent to approximately $224 million, according to financial statements.

Shareholders would never find out what the market was willing to pay for the company. “Savia expressed an unwillingness to enter into any transaction other than the one contemplated by the letter of intent and therefore the Seminis board of directors did not empower the special committee to initiate, solicit or accept alternative proposals with respect to Seminis,” according to the Seminis proxy statement dated Aug. 8, 2003, asking shareholders to approve the deal. Mr. Jiménez said the company had already tried “the major players. They had been hit by the controversy over GMOs”—genetically modified organisms—“and had no interest.”

The proxy notes that the “principal purpose of the merger and related transactions [was] to enable Fox Paine and the participating Romo affiliates to own all the shares of Seminis common stock.” Public shareholders weren’t permitted to retain ownership. They had to be content with a price that was 50.6% above the market price the day before the letter of intent was released—though the stock had traded as high as $3.99 a share earlier that year. Only Mr. Romo and his affiliates were to be “continuing shareholders.”

Mr. Jiménez said the idea was “to take the company private, restructure it and sell it.” After completion, according to the Seminis Securities and Exchange Commission filing dated March 11, 2004, Mr. Romo and affiliates owned at least 41% of the fully diluted common stock and may have had up to 52% control through parties acting on Mr. Romo’s behalf. Fox Paine had the balance.

The over-indebtedness occurred on Mr. Romo’s watch. Yet he was retained as CEO and president, awarded a $1 million annual salary, and given the right to name a majority of the new board for up to five years. Mr. Jiménez, who had been chief financial officer of Savia, became CFO of Seminis.

Savia took it on the chin. But it had another reason for dismay. The Fox Paine deal closed on Sept. 29, 2003, and on Jan. 22, 2005—some 16 months later—Mr. Romo and Fox Paine signed an “agreement and plan of merger” with Monsanto . An SEC filing dated Oct. 11, 2005, valued the Monsanto transaction at $1.5 billion in cash and assumed debt plus a performance bonus of up to $125 million payable to a company called Marinet, which Mr. Jiménez told me was owned by affiliates of Mr. Romo.





The first meeting with Monsanto, according to Mr. Jiménez, was in October 2004; a letter of intent was signed in December 2004. That implies that Mr. Romo, his affiliates and Fox Paine began negotiating the Monsanto sale roughly a year after buying Seminis. With a gain of $950 million, they more than doubled their money—a tidy return from a company that went for a song in Mr. Romo’s 2003 fire sale. Fox Paine did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Jiménez explains the bonanza by saying Seminis was restructured and the GMO controversy receded, “greatly revaluing agricultural and seed companies.” Still, it’s a tale that naturally raises the question of whether CEO Romo upheld his fiduciary responsibility as chairman to execute a fair and transparent deal. That’s the very definition of ethics.

The answer matters in the election, not the least because Mr. Lopez Obrador’s trademark in politics is crony corporatism. Before Mexicans make him president, they ought to know a bit more about his backers.
Title: STratfor: Mex Supreme Court rules soldiers to face military not civilian courts
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 28, 2018, 12:38:08 PM
Mexico: Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that military servicemen who are accused of participating in drug trafficking will face military courts instead of civilian courts, according to news website Proceso. Is this merely a procedural move, or does it have something to do with swifter justice being meted out in military courts? Are more servicemen getting involved in drug trafficking?
Title: Jose Alfredo Cardenas, Gulf Cartel, Pax Mafiosi
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 01, 2018, 12:24:07 PM
    Jose Alfredo Cardenas, aka "the Accountant," is attempting to reconstitute the Gulf cartel.
    Cardenas' arrest appeared to put these ambitions on hold, but his release due to a Mexican government misstep has put him back in the game.
    If he could reconstitute the cartel, he could impose a sort of "pax Mafiosi" and possibly lower the level of overt violence in the areas that his groups dominate.

On Feb. 19, Mexican marines stormed a house in Matamoros and arrested Jose Alfredo Cardenas, aka "the Accountant," the leader of a powerful remnant of the Gulf cartel. As noted in our 2018 annual cartel forecast, Cardenas is the nephew of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, who was a leader of the Gulf cartel when it was a strong and unified organization. He is perhaps best known for his role in the militarization of Mexico's cartels. In the past, I've written about how exceptional individuals can make a difference at the tactical level in terrorism, and the same thing is true of criminal organizations. Now it appears as if Cardenas is trying to reshape organized crime in Mexico by asserting his family's claim to the throne and putting the pieces of the Gulf cartel back together.

However, these changes are occurring at the tactical level, where individuals can shape a great deal of what happens within the given political and economic dynamics dictated by geography. One of the core tenets of Stratfor's geopolitical method is this: In the long run, geography is critical to shaping the imperatives, capabilities and constraints that mold states, nations and regions. Historically, no matter how brilliant an individual leader or personality, he or she must yield to the realities of geopolitics.
Title: Straffor: Mexico-- political assassinations
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 04, 2018, 09:08:38 PM
Mexico:

Etellekt, a risk analysis consulting firm in Mexico, released its first report on political violence in the country. The data is from the past six months and identifies 83 violent acts against politicians in 25 states. Of those, a shocking 54 were assassinations of political candidates for office. We know violence in Mexico has been bad, but if nine candidates are being assassinated every month, this is even worse than we thought. Let’s evaluate the credibility of the firm and its report and find out who was assassinated


•   Finding: Etellekt specializes in political risk mitigation and campaigning. Its clients are primarily government entities at all levels and strategic business industries. It isn’t a particularly transparent organization – it does not list its physical address or its employees on its website, making it difficult to judge its credibility. Press references to the consulting firm come from a small group of regular reporters. Only the head of the company, Ruben Salazar Vazquez, is publicly recognized. The lack of transparency could be explained by the sensitivity of the company’s work. The report should be considered reliable in that other news articles throughout the year report incidents of political violence that support the final numbers in this report. Of the 54 political victims listed in the report, seven were sitting mayors, nine were former mayors, one was an elected municipal president, 15 were pre-candidates, 12 were aldermen, eight were political party and militant leaders, one was a local deputy, and one was political adviser.
Title: Re: Straffor: Mexico-- political assassinations
Post by: DDF on March 09, 2018, 05:29:50 PM
Mexico:

Etellekt, a risk analysis consulting firm in Mexico, released its first report on political violence in the country. The data is from the past six months and identifies 83 violent acts against politicians in 25 states. Of those, a shocking 54 were assassinations of political candidates for office. We know violence in Mexico has been bad, but if nine candidates are being assassinated every month, this is even worse than we thought. Let’s evaluate the credibility of the firm and its report and find out who was assassinated


•   Finding: Etellekt specializes in political risk mitigation and campaigning. Its clients are primarily government entities at all levels and strategic business industries. It isn’t a particularly transparent organization – it does not list its physical address or its employees on its website, making it difficult to judge its credibility. Press references to the consulting firm come from a small group of regular reporters. Only the head of the company, Ruben Salazar Vazquez, is publicly recognized. The lack of transparency could be explained by the sensitivity of the company’s work. The report should be considered reliable in that other news articles throughout the year report incidents of political violence that support the final numbers in this report. Of the 54 political victims listed in the report, seven were sitting mayors, nine were former mayors, one was an elected municipal president, 15 were pre-candidates, 12 were aldermen, eight were political party and militant leaders, one was a local deputy, and one was political adviser.




Lol....

If you don't live there.... You don't know.

If you don't work in it.... You don't know....

Even if you work in it.... If you weren't there.... You don't know.

What happens in Vegas.... Stays in Vegas....
What happens in Mexico.... Never even happened.... The best saying I had ever come up with to describe what it's like working in Mexico....


Stratfor..... These guys.....  None of them know anything other than what they pay to hear, half of which may or may not be true to varying degrees.... It's readers digest bs for men.

Same as the ISIS coming into the States from Mexico.... Based on the testimony of ONE unnamed snitch from the DEA (who undoubtedly had compelling leverage to get the snitch to elaborate and be helpful with anything the snitch could contrive).... Comedy at its best....
Title: GPF: A History of Power Vacuums
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 16, 2018, 11:48:04 PM
Las mapas del articulo no se puede ver aqui':


Mexico: A History of Power Vacuums
Mar 15, 2018

Summary

Mexico’s northern borderlands have become notorious for their lawlessness. At times it can seem that organized crime groups have as much control as the federal government. Last year was actually Mexico’s most murderous year on record. The drug trade is the easy and obvious explanation for this phenomenon, and it isn’t wrong – but it is incomplete.

Mexican governments have always had a difficult time ruling over the outer reaches of their domain. The Spanish Empire, which also had the capital of its Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico City, had similar issues. The Aztec Empire (also based in Mexico City, though it called it Tenochtitlan) would have encountered the same problem if it had gotten much larger. The common thread here isn’t narcotics; it’s geography. The region around Mexico City is the heartland of Mexico, but it’s also disconnected from the farthest reaches of the country by distance, mountain ranges and plateaus.

This Deep Dive will take a closer look at the features of Mexico’s geography that make its borderlands and peninsulas so difficult to control from the center. We’ll also look at Mexico’s history, which is rife with periods that promoted the localization of security and independent-minded regional security forces. And we’ll discuss the northern border region and its relationship to the U.S., specifically what it would take for the U.S. to intervene militarily to secure the border and quell the violence.

Geography Then and Now

Mexico City, the seat of Mexico’s government, has a very basic problem: It has a lot of territory to govern and many physical obstacles between itself and much of that territory. Mexico is one of only two places in the world (the other is off the coast of Peru and Ecuador) that resides on or near the junctions of four tectonic plates – the Pacific, Cocos, Caribbean and North American plates. This makes the country a hub for seismic activity, the cause of Mexico’s many mountain ranges and plateaus. The mountainous topography separates the country into regions with unique physical environments. In some areas this hindered the development of population centers, and it has defined the culture as well as which economic activities are viable.

Narrow coastal plains and basins run along either side of the country. To the extreme northwest and southeast are the Baja California and Yucatan peninsulas, respectively. Just a short distance inland, three mountain ranges flank the mainland – the Sierra Madre Occidental in the west, the Sierra Madre Oriental in the east, and the Sierra Madre del Sur in the south. Between the western and eastern mountain ranges is the massive Mexican plateau.


(click to enlarge)

Geographically, the Mexican plateau is a single feature; geopolitically, there’s a clear division between the northern and southern plateau regions. The Chihuahaun Desert dominates the northern plateau. It does not easily support large-scale vegetation, wildlife or human populations. The southern plateau, on the other hand, sits at an altitude 3,000 feet (900 meters), which gives it a much more habitable climate, and its valleys to the south are among the most habitable in the country. Temperatures in the southern plateau and valley average 40-80 degrees Fahrenheit (about 4-27 degrees Celsius) year-round and rarely reach extreme levels. Annual rainfall is typically about 28 inches (71 centimeters), well above the roughly 15 inches needed to maintain agricultural practices, and arable land makes food production possible.


(click to enlarge)

Put these factors together and it makes sense why the valley south of the southern plateau region is the heart of Mexican civilization – the center of the Aztec empire and still the geopolitical heartland of the country today. The coast could support a large population, but any capital there would have found itself even more disconnected than Mexico City is from the rest of the country. The southern plateau isn’t perfect, but it is the best chance a civilization has to expand and project power to all corners of modern-day Mexico.

In fact, a glance at the pre-Columbian empires – mostly the Aztec but also the Mayan – provides a blueprint for understanding how Mexico’s mountain systems still impede power projection today. Both civilizations reached their limits in large part because of the difficulties that came with regularly traversing mountain ranges. For the Aztec, administrative systems were put in place to reflect this. The Aztecs’ capital was Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. As their empire expanded, direct control over their new holdings did not. In some areas they allowed local officials to govern and demanded tribute in return.


(click to enlarge)

Nearly 500 years have elapsed since the Aztec Empire fell, but the situation isn’t all that different for Mexico today. Technology has reduced geography’s impact, but rarely does innovation overcome geography entirely. The mountains and long distances that afflicted the ancient empires of the land are still making it hard for the government in the valleys off the southern plateau to have a strong presence in Mexico’s peninsulas, coastal regions and northernmost states.

The Monumental Task of Unification

Mexico’s topography poses the same challenges to internal security that it does to central governance. Historically, Mexico City could not easily move large numbers of troops over vast distances and treacherous terrain, so it has had no choice but to rely on local forces to augment the national security forces. The Mexican states, in turn, have been conditioned to be self-reliant on security. From time to time, the isolation of some areas and subsequent feeling of alienation has engendered the creation of armed rebel groups hoping to secede from or even overthrow the national government. Combined, these trends have led to a strong belief in homegrown security and skepticism of the national government. This strongly influences the way the state and non-state actors respond to lapses in security in modern Mexico. Where geography and estrangement once fostered rebellion and independence movements, today those factors help explain the rapid growth of organized crime groups and the vigilante groups that have popped up to stop them.

The reliance on local forces to augment central government forces dates back to Mexico’s colonial period, though initially it had less to do with the region’s terrain or vastness. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Spain was engaged in multiple wars across Europe. The Spanish crown needed its troops for battles in the near abroad, and so once Mexico was considered conquered, Spain redirected military resources to its European endeavors. Much of the day-to-day security responsibilities were put in the hands of the colonists and local authorities. Mayors and business elites often funded irregular militias  to help enforce security in the countryside and city centers.

Over time, Spain sent more regular troops over to Mexico, but mostly it tried arming and training locals to enforce security. By the early 19th century, near the start of Mexico’s war for independence, there were approximately 40,000 security forces in Mexico, only 6,000 of which were professional soldiers. The rest were from local militias. When Mexico’s independence movement took shape, it drew most of its fighting force from those local militias.

Once Spain was driven out, however, Mexico still faced the monumental task of unification. Many states were reluctant to answer to a central authority immediately after ridding themselves of Spanish rule. As a colony, economic activities had been poorly integrated – the states’ focus had been on shipping goods to Spain, not to each other. And the states had their own longstanding militias, whose members often had a strong affinity for their local authorities.

As a result, the newly formed Mexican government spent much of the 1830s and 1840s confronting secessionist movements. The central government was ill-equipped to deal with so many threats at once. Many state and local governments refused to pay more taxes and support a national army, preferring instead to maintain their own forces for defense. Large-scale rebellions erupted in Zacatecas and Tabasco, while republics temporarily formed in the territories of Texas, Yucatan and Rio Grande. (Texas eventually joined the United States, Yucatan returned to Mexico, and Rio Grande split the difference – part went to Texas, the rest became the Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.) Not coincidentally, all the areas where republics formed are far from the southern plateau region, and mountain ranges or deserts separate them from Mexico’s core.

Later in the 19th century and into the 20th century, other political shifts reinforced the idea that local security forces must have a prominent role. When the French tried to re-establish a monarch in Mexico in 1861, some Mexican elites endorsed the effort. Much of the country didn’t. France sent its military to impose its will. Local forces had to be commandeered to fight the French national troops. During the French intervention, the ousted Mexican government still strove to function in parallel to the French and was never fully quashed.

Then in 1910 came the Mexican Revolution, when the idea of local force development was even more vital to the revolution’s success. The longstanding government of President Porfirio Diaz used patronage to build close ties with local leadership and used the military to crush dissent. Though this approach succeeded in bringing economic growth and the most stable government structure the country had seen up to that point, it was unsustainable. Many segments of society lacked input or representation in government, and eventually they fought back.

The revolution gave a voice to the miners and farmers and factory workers who had been voiceless under the elitist government. When it came time to write a new constitution in 1917, more power was given to the local authorities. The new constitution provided a framework for security and conflict resolution under the guidance of local community leaders.

Modern Mexico

A century later, the most vexing areas for the Mexican central government are those in the northern part of the country because of their proximity to the United States.

The U.S.-Mexico border stretches almost 2,000 miles (3,100 kilometers), long enough for distinct sections to develop. A 2011 Foreign Policy Research Institute report provides a geopolitical breakdown of the border and surrounding region into three parts. First, there is Baja California, which consists of Mexico’s Baja California and Baja California Sur states (bordering California). Then there is the central band of the border referred to as the Sierra Madre, which includes Sonora and Chihuahua states (bordering Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas). The northern sections of Durango and Sinaloa are essentially part of this border section, though they don’t actually border the United States. Finally, there’s the Rio Grande Basin, which sits just south of Texas and includes Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas as well as the northern parts of Durango, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi (which, again, aren’t on the border but are so connected to the border states that they may as well be).


(click to enlarge)

Economically, some of these states are as connected, if not more connected, to their neighbors to the north than they are to the people in the southern plateau who govern their lives. These are realities that Mexico can live with, but the violence and insecurity of the northern states are a different story. Mexico City cannot let the situation deteriorate to the point that it loses the ability to exert authority, or even worse, that the U.S. feels compelled to intervene.

Baja California is strategically valuable for Mexico as a natural land buffer along the Pacific coast. Much of the peninsula, and its population, is closer to California than it is to Mexico City. As a result, the peninsula boasts strong cross-border ties with the U.S., and American companies have been influential in the region’s development. On the Atlantic coast, the Rio Grande Basin provides its own strategic value given its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. Its local businesses are closely tied to the Texas economy, which is as important, if not more so, to the local livelihood as Mexico City.

The Sierra Madre region in the center is one of the most difficult regions for Mexico to control. It includes mountainous terrain on either side, with the vast Chihuahuan Desert in between. This was one of the least populated areas during the colonial and early independence times. Because of the terrain, ties with Mexico City are meager, and it is difficult to sustain population centers. These conditions bred a strong feeling of distance from Mexico’s central government. Once upon a time, clashes with indigenous groups like the Comanche were frequent, and a distinct rancher and cowboy culture took root, which contrasted sharply with the cosmopolitan, aristocratic society of the capital. Mexico’s wars have also had a large impact on the people of this area. During the war for independence, Spain severed Mexico City’s supply lines to the north, and Sonora state suffered as a result. Inhabitants of the area were also the most affected among Mexicans by the exchange of territory at the end of the Mexican-American War.

Conclusion

Mexico’s government today faces the same challenges in projecting power as those that came before it. Its ability to influence the outer reaches of the country dwindle with each mile and mountaintop, same as ever. The difference today is that the actors filling the power void aren’t concerned with self-governance; they’re organized crime groups fighting for turf, and vigilante groups fighting for peace. After so many instances in which local populations benefited from taking matters into their own hands, there is a sense of local entitlement to self-governance. The result has been widespread violence, the deterioration of local institutions and a central government looking more and more to the military to re-establish law and order.

As the violence creeps toward and exceeds historic levels and uncertainty grows about the government’s ability to control it, the U.S. is paying close attention to the potential for spillover. It’s not unheard of that the U.S. would react to security threats emanating from across the border: Instability during Mexico’s revolution provoked a U.S. military intervention in 1916, when the U.S. Army sent a “Punitive Expedition” force to capture Pancho Villa.

But if that’s what it takes for the United States to intervene, we are a long way from intervention. At the time of its revolution, Mexico’s central government was extremely weak, and multiple border incursions had resulted in the killing of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. Before Washington got involved, it pursued other measures such as putting more troops on the border, declaring martial law along the Texas border and setting up blockades to prevent arms shipments from reaching Mexico. Today, its focus is on building a wall.

The post Mexico: A History of Power Vacuums appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: DDF on March 17, 2018, 09:07:09 PM
Good article.
Title: Forbes: More Americans murdered in Mexico than all other countries combined
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 26, 2018, 09:42:06 AM
https://www.forbes.com/sites/garystoller/2018/02/21/mexico-where-more-americans-are-murdered-than-in-all-other-countries-combined/#51e40902de37
Title: AMLO looks likely to win, Moscow happy
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 18, 2018, 09:14:09 AM
https://www.worldcrunch.com/opinion-analysis/far-left-frontrunner-for-mexican-presidency-may-get-help-from-moscow-1
Title: GPF: The Barriers to Development in Guerrero
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 26, 2018, 07:35:22 PM
The Barriers to Development in Mexico’s Guerrero State
Apr 26, 2018

Summary

Geography can be a barrier to development in any country. Some have managed to overcome their hurdles through technology and sheer political will. Others, like Mexico, have found it more difficult.

Even during colonial rule, the Spanish viceroys struggled to control parts of the vast country. Anywhere outside of the central plateau, which includes Mexico City, can be hard to govern. Today, violence and drug trafficking are on the rise, partly due to the disconnectedness and lack of government authority in certain areas. In the first quarter of 2018, Mexico registered 7,667 intentional homicides. At this rate, total homicides will exceed 30,000 by the end of the year – well above the total for 2017, which was already a record year at 25,339 homicides.

The problem has been more pronounced in some places, most notably Guerrero state. Located on the Pacific coast and 120 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Mexico City, it had the most homicides of any state in Mexico last year. Though this can partly be attributed to geography – the state is mountainous and therefore hard to secure from the outside – it’s also due to the fact that the state was not seen as a priority during various points in Mexico’s history. This Deep Dive will focus on why Guerrero has become a hub of violence and illicit activity and some of the challenges the government still faces in controlling it.

An Attractive Target for Cartels

On the whole, Mexico is a fairly prosperous country. It ranks 15th in the world in terms of gross domestic product and is classified as an upper middle-income country by the World Bank. But its wealth is not distributed evenly, and Guerrero state is a perfect example of the poverty and underdevelopment that exists in many parts of the country. Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography compared the level of development in all 32 Mexican states, looking at factors such as housing, infrastructure, basic furnishings, quality of life, health, education and employment levels. It found that Guerrero was among the three least-advantaged states in the country. In fact, all three least-advantaged states are located in the south and along the Pacific coast.
 
(click to enlarge)

Guerrero has become a prime target for drug cultivation and trafficking, a fact that’s reflected in its high murder rate. Last year, Guerrero registered a homicide rate of about 70 per 100,000 people. There are at least six major drug trafficking organizations – Jalisco New Generation Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Guardia Guerrerense, Sangre Nueva Guerrerense, Los Viagras, and Los Cornudos – operating in the state and competing for territory. Other groups active in the state include Los Ardillos and Los Rojos. Some areas of Guerrero, most notably the Chilpancingo-Chilapa corridor, have almost no government presence and are controlled mainly by drug cartels that offer to “protect” local residents in exchange for their labor in poppy fields. The cartels’ willingness to intimidate and even attack local officials prompted the government, military and federal police this month to extend special protection to political candidates ahead of federal elections scheduled for July.
 
(click to enlarge)

The state’s demographics and terrain make it ripe for exploitation by drug trafficking organizations. Guerrero is the second-largest poppy producing state in Mexico after Sinaloa, thanks in large part to its climate and soil. In addition, the state’s population is very young, with an average age of 23, making it an attractive target for drug cartels that need people to join their ranks, work their land and traffic their goods. Some 98 percent of Guerrero’s economically active population is employed, but 79 percent of its workforce is employed in the informal sector, meaning those workers do not have access to health care and retirement plans and are generally paid much lower wages. Nearly 20 percent of the working population is underemployed or underpaid, and according to Mexico’s National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, nearly a quarter of the population lives in extreme poverty. The average person living in Guerrero has just eight years of education. Only about half of workers have some primary-level education, and only a quarter completed high school. Among a population that is undereducated and underemployed, cartels have had little trouble finding recruits for the lucrative drug trade.

History of Rebellion

Why have these conditions developed in Guerrero, while other parts of the country have prospered? There is no single, easy answer, but Mexico’s colonial past is a good place to start. Though named after Vicente Guerrero, a celebrated general from Mexico’s War of Independence, the state has a rich history of rebellion against authority. Guerrero, which translates as “warrior,” had unique beginnings: For years, local residents pressured the national government to establish a separate entity for Guerrero, which was previously divided among three states – Mexico, Michoacan and Puebla. Its population was among the first to rise up in several conflicts: the War of Independence, in support of constitutional reform, against French intervention, against the Porfirio Diaz government and against the government in Mexico’s Dirty War.
Colonial rule established a strong social hierarchy and concentrated land ownership in the hands of elites. Though existing population centers were allowed to survive, the Spanish distributed land, economic opportunities and investment according to the crown’s needs rather than those of the local population. Resentment against colonial rule existed throughout Mexico – the country did, after all, fight a war for independence – but the population in Guerrero was more isolated than most, with a weaker presence of the colonial government, which had limited resources with which to control a vast area. Guerrero, then, was often the starting point for social unrest that led to different rebellions. The state continued its rebellious streak even after colonialism ended. Nineteenth-century President Porfirio Diaz ruled with an iron fist, re-enforcing the public’s distrust of centralized authority. Diaz was especially tough on Guerrero, fearing it could inspire a rebellion against his government, and kept it a weak state.

Guerrero’s history of dissent is now reflected in the formation of self-defense groups – vigilante forces that have sprung up because of the growing insecurity in the state and the government’s inability to address it. The government’s response to the violence can be described as containment. Eight military bases encircle Guerrero along a federal highway that follows the state’s borders. This strategy may help limit the spread of the violence to other states, but it leaves the center unprotected and mostly lawless. At the municipal level, local police forces are ill-equipped to control the vast land for which they are responsible. Only four of the state’s municipalities have 10 or more agents from the Ministry of Public Security assigned to them, and over a dozen have fewer than four. Federal-level public security agents are practically non-existent outside of the resort town of Acapulco and the state capital of Chilpancingo.
 
(click to enlarge)

Poor Infrastructure

Another reason for the disorder in Guerrero is the lack of infrastructure. Mexico experienced a wave of infrastructure development after the second French intervention in the 1870s and during the early years of the Diaz government in the 1880s. In 1860, Mexico had but 150 miles of disjointed railway. Just 24 years later, this grew to 7,500 miles. Initially, officials wanted to construct a rail line linking Veracruz on the east coast with Acapulco, a port city in Guerrero, via Mexico City. But ultimately, they did not follow through, and Guerrero was largely left out of the infrastructure boom, a fact that has limited the state’s development ever since.

The state was left out because its mountainous terrain makes infrastructure development costly. Heavy rain during summer months also makes construction harder and increases the cost of maintenance for existing tracks. At the start of the railway boom, private companies and investors from the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere funded infrastructure projects and choose which projects to invest in based on their own business interests. In Guerrero, business interests mainly related to mining. The northern part of the state is rich in minerals and metal deposits. There was thus enough financial incentive to construct a railway from Mexico City to Iguala, located in the mining region and relatively close to Mexico’s capital.
 
(click to enlarge)

But when metal prices fell at the end of the 19th century, investor interest in the state waned. It was around this time, in 1898, that the federal government stepped in to regulate railway construction and, in so doing, put the final nail in the coffin for Guerrero’s development. The federal government intervened for two reasons. First, it needed to fill the gap left by the private sector. The fall in metal prices hit Guerrero particularly hard, but it affected the mining industry, and therefore infrastructure development, across the country. This would have almost immediate impacts on local populations and economies that the Diaz government had been so dedicated to supporting in the previous decade. Second, the government wanted a national approach to infrastructure development to ensure that the decisions being made on which projects to support and which areas received the most investment were in the best interests of the country. This resulted in legislation that limited foreign participation in infrastructure, gave the government more control and introduced a period in which projects needed government subsidies before they could move forward. But the central government did not consider Guerrero a priority for rail construction, and therefore the extension of the railway to Acapulco was abandoned.
 
(click to enlarge)

Guerrero is also poorly connected by roads. The first and only major highway in Guerrero connects Acapulco to Mexico City. It was built in 1927 and followed the original dirt road that connected the cities. The construction of the highway significantly affected the state’s development, as economic activity and population centers grew in areas with access to it. These areas included Acapulco, Chilpancingo and Iguala, as well as somewhat smaller centers just off the highway like Taxco and Chilapa. A third of the state’s population lives in the first three municipalities, and when the other three are added, it’s nearly half the population. Even today, the areas of Guerrero that are not along the main highway are underdeveloped, desolate and disconnected from economic activity in the rest of the country. Securing these areas would require heavy investment, both in terms of finances and personnel. This in part helps explain why federal security forces have adopted a containment approach there. It is costly for the government to cover this barren area, and therefore easy for others to take over.
 
(click to enlarge)

Limited Coastal Development

One key advantage Guerrero does have is its access to the Pacific Ocean. Ports usually serve as engines for economic growth and development because they help facilitate trade. Port cities offer benefits for businesses in terms of logistics and often develop into economic hubs themselves. But this hasn’t been the case in Guerrero’s main port, Acapulco.

Discovered by Spanish conquistadors in 1532, Acapulco was among the earliest ports established by Spain. But multiple factors have prevented Acapulco from developing into a major Mexican port. From 1565 to 1814, Acapulco was one of the primary ports used by New Spain and then Mexico for trade with China and other Asian countries, although trade with these countries was secondary to trade with Europe, which meant that ports on Mexico’s Atlantic coast took priority.

It was difficult for Acapulco and the surrounding area to fully capitalize on trade with Asia. The port received large shipments from Asia only twice a year. Crossing the Pacific Ocean took an incredibly long time given the distance between Mexico and China and the limits of maritime navigation and technology at the time. A trip that now takes two to three weeks took several months back then. Goods were unloaded at the port and a local fair was set up to sell them. After four to six weeks, the fairs would close and the goods would be sent to Mexico City, where they would be consumed or delivered to other parts of the viceroyalty. Thus, Acapulco was mainly used as a transit point for commerce and goods on their way to the capital and didn’t develop into a major commercial hub itself. Acapulco port did conduct trade with other viceroyalty cities along the Pacific coast – like Guayaquil (in present-day Ecuador) and Lima (in present-day Peru) – but the volume and value of such trade didn’t match that of, for example, Veracruz, Mexico’s main port on the east coast. The extreme seasonality of trade and the port’s limited development into a business center meant that it couldn’t support major development and growth in the rest of the state.

Once Acapulco lost its position as a major Pacific shipping port for New Spain, it never claimed it back. Mexico’s fight for independence severely disrupted Spanish control over trade and territory, including in Acapulco. Mexican Gen. Jose Maria Morelos took the city of Acapulco in 1814, at which point Spain redirected trade to other ports. In the years that followed, Mexico’s central government focused on securing territory from incursion by the U.S., France and even residents of Guerrero, which was not yet a state of its own. In the early 20th century, construction of the Panama Canal was in full swing, further stagnating development in Acapulco because goods could be shipped to Mexico’s east coast faster and more inexpensively through the canal. Within Mexico, Manzanillo Port, also on the Pacific coast, quickly started surpassing Acapulco in terms of infrastructure development, and in 1908, Porfirio Diaz designated Manzanillo as an official port of entry.

Today, the ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas dominate Mexico’s Pacific maritime trade. Despite increasing trade between Mexico and Asian markets and the fact that, globally, Pacific trade is starting to overtake Atlantic trade, Acapulco cannot take advantage. The private sector continues to shy away from investing there, partly because of the security concerns in Guerrero and partly because of competition from more developed and reliable ports in other areas of Mexico. This leaves the government as the primary source of funding for major infrastructure projects, but even the government is reluctant to sink money into this part of the country.

Playing Catch-Up

Over time, Guerrero became isolated from the rest of Mexico, limiting the central government’s ability to govern the state and rein in violence there. Geography initially served as the underlying cause of Guerrero’s lack of connectivity. Its isolation from other major population centers bred a strong sense of regional identity and made it difficult to integrate the state with the rest of the country. Its only major center of commerce, Acapulco, was far from the country’s main trade routes and markets, thus making it more a transitory stop than an economic center. Guerrero’s natural resources were taken out of the region, particularly under colonial rule, and little was reinvested into the state. In the early days of major infrastructure development, Guerrero drew the short end of the stick, as other states presented more attractive business prospects.

The lack of connectivity resulted in the state’s developing an economy based on subsistence farming, tourism and basic manufacturing – all low-value economic activities. The lack of economic opportunities, a large, young labor force, and a climate prime for poppy cultivation have made Guerrero an attractive location for drug trafficking organizations, which have easily filled the power vacuum left by the central government.

Technology has come a long way, and much of the state’s geographic barriers could be overcome. But other states have gotten a head start, and Guerrero is still stuck playing catch-up. Major investments are needed to bring Guerrero on par with other Mexican states, but the security environment will make that difficult. Guerrero needs more economic and infrastructure development if it wants to really tackle the violence and drug problem. But it has a long way to go.

The post The Barriers to Development in Mexico’s Guerrero State appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.
Title: WSJ: O'Grady: AMLO Lopez Obrador
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 03, 2018, 02:07:50 PM
 By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
June 3, 2018 3:30 p.m. ET
8 COMMENTS

Donald Trump has cultivated a contentious relationship with the government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. But if left-wing Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador wins the July 1 election, it may not be long before Mr. Trump regrets many lost opportunities to advance U.S. interests by working with Mr. Peña Nieto to deepen institutional reforms.

The troubles that an AMLO presidency could bring to the U.S. go way beyond the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. AMLO says he is an antiestablishment moderate out to unseat a corrupt political class. Others say he is an old-fashioned Mexican corporatist. But he can’t get to the presidential palace without Mexico’s hard left. If he makes it, he will be under pressure to repay the more extreme elements of his campaign.

The market will impose some economic discipline on him. But there will be no cost to opening the doors of his government’s Foreign Ministry to every useful idiot, true believer in utopia, and power-hungry climber in the country.

Once in, they will bring their friends from places like Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Iran to “educate” and provide “health care” in the barrios and pueblitos—and to share military advice.

The AMLO team understands the risks of a peso collapse sparked by an investor stampede for the exits if he is declared winner on July 2. This is why he makes a point of calmly promising “respect” and “friendship” with the U.S. and no big reversals of the market economy.

Between the election and the Dec. 1 inauguration, expect even more reassurances of continuity. Anything less could finish his presidency before it starts. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had to do much the same when he first won election in 2002.

Yet there are gaping inconsistencies between AMLO’s worldview and his insistence that he is a centrist. He cannot, for example, promise fiscal restraint while pouring government resources into agriculture with the goal of reviving agrarian life circa 1960.

Nor has he reconciled his long history of opposing private investment in oil and gas with his vague and shifting suggestions that he will not disrupt the opening of the energy industry. In February AMLO adviser Alfonso Romo said that the campaign had reviewed most existing contracts and found them acceptable, as if he and the new president will be the final arbiters of fairness. Mr. Romo’s history of dubious financial dealings, which I wrote about in a February column, “How to Get Rich Quick in Mexico,” do not inspire confidence.

Yet this potential for economic instability pales in comparison with the dangers presented by the close relations between Mr. López Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement—Morena—and several military dictatorships. These are not casual bonds; they are statements of ideological solidarity, and they are perilous.

AMLO says he does not know Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. But as Mexican writer Fernando García Ramírez observed in a Jan. 15 column in the daily El Financiero, that “is true in personal terms but false with respect to his party and his movement.” Key players in Morena, Mr. García Ramírez pointed out, “sustain an intense relationship with chavismo in general and the party of Maduro”—the United Socialist Party of Venezuela—“in particular.”

Exhibit A is Morena’s president, Yeidckol Polevnksy, who speaks frankly about her admiration for Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian revolution and of her desire to import Bolivarian ideas to Mexico. “She travels constantly to Venezuela” Mr. Garcia Ramirez wrote, “participates in chavista activities, has continuous contact with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.” Another high-ranking Morena official who is enamored with Venezuela is Héctor Díaz-Polanco. He has said that Morena coming to power will allow Mexico to integrate into the Bolivarian revolution. Mr. Garcia Ramirez’s full column, “To Deceive with the Truth,” is worth reading.

Mr. López Obrador will also attract opportunists who see him as a way to get ahead. Mr. Romo is one such figure. Another is Sen. Gabriela Cuevas, who once belonged to the center-right National Action Party but jumped to Morena in January to advance her political career. When I met her in Mexico last year she had just returned from a recreational break in Cuba where, she told me, she goes because she has “friends” in the dictatorship. She is also a fan of Iran, as she explained in a November speech in Mexico City: “Today Iran is one of the most important fighters against extremism, violence and terrorism. In this sense, both Iran and Mexico have been loyal to the constructive dialogue.”

Bring this stuff up and AMLO shouts “dirty war.” Many Mexicans fear his vengeance if he wins and thus shrink from the debate. But no one will be able to say, after the fact, that the proclivities were not there. That includes Mr. Trump.
Title: WSJ: O'Grady: AMLO Lopez Obrador, Urzua
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 04, 2018, 03:47:00 AM

By Juan Montes
June 4, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET
0 COMMENTS

MEXICO CITY—Mexico’s leading presidential candidate has a daunting challenge that keeps his would-be finance minister awake at night: find some $20 billion every year to step up social spending and public investment without raising taxes or debt.

Leftist nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he would call on Carlos Urzúa to take on the herculean task if he wins the July election, as all published polls indicate he will.

“My focus will be to find the money we need,” said Mr. Urzúa, an affable 62-year-old economics professor with a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Concerns about fiscal restraint have investors wary of a victory for Mr. López Obrador, who has a lead of about 18 points over his closest rival with four weeks to go before the election. Mexico’s benchmark stock index has dropped nearly 9% this year through Friday as Mr. López Obrador has risen in the polls and talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement have hit investor sentiment.

The candidate’s ambitious plan to fund social programs and infrastructure projects by cutting other government spending isn’t realistic, according to many economists, raising fears that campaign vows of fiscal discipline will be relaxed if Mr. López Obrador becomes president.
‘My focus will be to find the money we need,’ said Carlos Urzúa, shown in April, who Mr. López Obrador has said he would pick as finance minister.
‘My focus will be to find the money we need,’ said Carlos Urzúa, shown in April, who Mr. López Obrador has said he would pick as finance minister. Photo: ginnette riquelme/Reuters

“To achieve those savings would be a positive surprise,” said Alonso Cervera, chief economist for Latin America at Credit Suisse. “If they don’t, I think they will likely widen the budget deficit rather than break campaign promises.”

Mexico’s main business groups also have voiced concerns about a return to old policies. Uncontrolled government spending under populist leaders led Mexico to major economic upheavals and peso devaluations in 1976 and 1982. After the country’s last homegrown financial crisis in 1994, Mexico secured investment-grade ratings which it kept even through the global crisis of 2008.

Since polls show that Mr. López Obrador’s Morena party and his allies could also secure an outright majority in the lower house of Congress, his administration is also likely to have enough room to pass spending plans without support from the opposition.

“The temptation of indebting the country is going to be there,” said Héctor Villarreal, head of the Center of Economic and Budget Research, a Mexico City think tank.

Mr. Urzúa, who described himself as a moderate social democrat, said a López Obrador administration would never put the country’s financial stability at risk. “What we can’t finance [through savings], won’t be done,” he said.

Success or failure of a López Obrador administration may rest on Mr. Urzúa’s ability to come up with the savings needed to fund projects such as a $5.1 billion-a-year program to put unemployed young people to work, doubling pensions for the elderly, and building two oil refineries.

“Urzúa will be the economizer-in-chief. That’s why López Obrador wants him,” said Gerardo Esquivel, an economic adviser to the candidate.

Mr. Urzúa says he is confident that by trimming down bureaucracy, making government more efficient and fighting corruption, enough funds can be freed up. The target is to make annual savings of around 2% of Mexico’s gross domestic product, or $20 billion.

Purchases by all government ministries, of items from toilet paper to computers, will be centralized and monitored at the finance ministry, Mr. Urzúa said. Part of the money for discretionary spending that is transferred to Mexican state governments, and which last year included $10 billion more than expected, would instead be funneled to public works, he said.
Mexico has seen major economic upheavals in prior decades. Above, unemployed workers in Mexico City in 1982.
Mexico has seen major economic upheavals in prior decades. Above, unemployed workers in Mexico City in 1982. Photo: Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images

Mr. López Obrador’s plan also includes slashing by half the salaries of high-ranking officials who earn more than $50,000 a year and reducing by 70% the number of management positions. He also says he would save money by fighting corruption in public bidding processes, although details remain vague.

Former government officials view the planned cuts in bureaucracy with skepticism. “You won’t attract talent, and incentives for corruption will increase, not decrease,” one former top finance ministry official said.

Reassigning funds that currently go to state governments could also face strong political resistance from affected sectors and special interest groups, complicating the plan.

And analysts see little room to make the needed savings, as more than 80% of Mexico’s roughly $270 billion budget goes to pay wages and pensions and to service debt. Mr. López Obrador’s promises to lower consumer taxes along the northern border and freeze gasoline prices could make it even more difficult to balance the books.

“The most likely outcome is that they will achieve just a fraction of the planned savings,” Mr. Villarreal said.

A López Obrador government would aim for a primary budget surplus—excluding debt payments—in 2019 and progressively reduce Mexico’s public debt, Mr. Urzúa said. “López Obrador is a fiscal conservative.”
Related Coverage

    ‘Tropical Messiah’: A Trump-Style Politician Is Mexican Presidential Front Runner (May 30)
    Nafta Talks Stalled on U.S. Auto Demands (May 23)
    Ex-Enemies, Evangelicals and a Soccer Star: Top Mexican Candidate’s New Allies (Feb. 14)

Mexico’s public debt rose steadily under current President Enrique Peña Nieto, reaching 49% of GDP in 2016 but is now on a downward path. A primary budget surplus equal to 0.8% of GDP is already projected for this year.

Mr. López Obrador has promised to respect the Bank of Mexico’s autonomy and the free float of the peso.

Mr. Urzúa was Mexico City’s finance chief from 2000 to 2003, his only government experience so far, when Mr. López Obrador was mayor. Some investors and analysts doubt he is cut out for a job as Mexico’s finance minister that typically requires international contacts and political skills.

“If Urzúa is the best López Obrador has around him, he is in trouble,” said one U.S. investor who recently met with him.

Mr. Urzúa says he is prepared for the job, having managed a budget in Mexico City that is larger than those of some countries in Latin America, and added that he has experience in difficult political talks, such as when he negotiated the city budget with an opposition-controlled local assembly.

Instead of attending international meetings and events, he said he plans to focus on re-engineering Mexico’s budget. “I won’t be a suit-and-tie minister, but a hands-on minister.”
Title: The liberal magazine New Yorker on AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 18, 2018, 11:06:13 PM
A New Revolution in Mexico
Sick of corruption and of Trump, voters embrace the maverick leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

By Jon Lee Anderson

Proclaiming a “people’s struggle” against the country’s “power mafia,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador is regularly mobbed on the Presidential campaign trail.Photograph by Meghan Dhaliwal for The New Yorker

The first time that Andrés Manuel López Obrador ran for President of Mexico, in 2006, he inspired such devotion among his partisans that they sometimes stuck notes in his pockets, inscribed with their hopes for their families. In an age defined by globalism, he was an advocate of the working class—and also a critic of the pri, the party that has ruthlessly dominated national politics for much of the past century. In the election, his voters’ fervor was evidently not enough; he lost, by a tiny margin. The second time he ran, in 2012, the enthusiasm was the same, and so was the outcome. Now, though, Mexico is in crisis—beset from inside by corruption and drug violence, and from outside by the antagonism of the Trump Administration. There are new Presidential elections on July 1st, and López Obrador is running on a promise to remake Mexico in the spirit of its founding revolutionaries. If the polls can be believed, he is almost certain to win.

In March, he held a meeting with hundreds of loyalists, at a conference hall in Culiacán. López Obrador, known across Mexico as amlo, is a rangy man of sixty-four, with a youthful, clean-shaven face, a mop of silver hair, and an easy gait. When he entered, his supporters got to their feet and chanted, “It’s an honor to vote for López Obrador!” Many of them were farmworkers, wearing straw hats and scuffed boots. He urged them to install Party observers at polling stations to prevent fraud, but cautioned against buying votes, a long-established habit of the pri. “That’s what we’re getting rid of,” he said. He promised a “sober, austere government—a government without privilege.” López Obrador frequently uses “privilege” as a term of disparagement, along with “élite,” and, especially, “power mafia,” as he describes his enemies in the political and business communities. “We are going to lower the salaries of those who are on top to increase the salaries of those on the bottom,” he said, and added a Biblical assurance: “Everything I am saying will be done.” López Obrador spoke in a warm voice, leaving long pauses and using simple phrases that ordinary people would understand. He has a penchant for rhymes and repeated slogans, and at times the crowd joined in, like fans at a pop concert. When he said, “We don’t want to help the power mafia to . . . ,” a man in the audience finished his sentence: “keep stealing.” Working together, López Obrador said, “we are going to make history.”

The current Mexican government is led by the center-right President Enrique Peña Nieto. His party, the pri, has depicted López Obrador as a radical populist, in the tradition of Hugo Chávez, and warned that he intends to turn Mexico into another Venezuela. The Trump Administration has been similarly concerned. Roberta Jacobson, who until last month was the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, told me that senior American officials often expressed worry: “They catastrophized about amlo, saying things like ‘If he wins, the worst will happen.’ ”

Ironically, his surging popularity can be attributed partly to Donald Trump. Within days of Trump’s election, Mexican political analysts were predicting that his open belligerence toward Mexico would encourage political resistance. Mentor Tijerina, a prominent pollster in Monterrey, told me at the time, “Trump’s arrival signifies a crisis for Mexico, and this will help amlo.” Not long after the Inauguration, López Obrador published a best-selling book called “Oye, Trump” (“Listen Up, Trump”), which contained tough-talking snippets from his speeches. In one, he declared, “Trump and his advisers speak of the Mexicans the way Hitler and the Nazis referred to the Jews, just before undertaking the infamous persecution and the abominable extermination.”

Officials in the Peña Nieto government warned their counterparts in the White House that Trump’s offensive behavior heightened the prospect of a hostile new government—a national-security threat just across the border. If Trump didn’t modulate his behavior, the election would be a referendum on which candidate was the most anti-American. In the U.S., the warnings worked. During a Senate hearing in April, 2017, John McCain said, “If the election were tomorrow in Mexico, you would probably get a left-wing, anti-American President.” John Kelly, who was then the Homeland Security chief, agreed. “It would not be good for America—or for Mexico,” he said.

In Mexico, remarks like Kelly’s seemed only to improve López Obrador’s standing. “Every time an American politician opens their mouth to express a negative view about a Mexican candidate, it helps him,” Jacobson said. But she has never been sure that Trump has the same “apocalyptic” view of amlo. “There are certain traits they share,” she noted. “The populism, for starters.” During the campaign, López Obrador has decried Mexico’s “pharaonic government” and promised that, if he is elected, he will decline to live in Los Pinos, the Presidential residence. Instead, he will open it to the public, as a place for ordinary families to go and enjoy themselves.

After Jacobson arrived in Mexico, in 2016, she arranged meetings with local political leaders. López Obrador kept her waiting for months. Finally, he invited her to his home, in a distant, unfashionable corner of Mexico City. “I had the impression he did that because he didn’t think I would come,” she said. “But I told him, ‘No problem, my security guys can make that work.’ ” Jacobson’s team followed his directions to an unremarkable two-story town house in Tlalpan, a middle-class district. “If part of the point was to show me how modestly he lived, he succeeded,” she said.

López Obrador was “friendly and confident,” she said, but he deflected many of her questions and spoke vaguely about policy. The conversation did little to settle the issue of whether he was an opportunistic radical or a principled reformer. “What should we expect from him as President?” she said. “Honestly, my strongest feeling about him is that we don’t know what to expect.”

VIDEO FROM THE NEW YORKER
Lies and Truth in the Era of Trump


This spring, as López Obrador and his advisers travelled the country, I joined them on several trips. On the road, his style is strikingly different from that of most national politicians, who often arrive at campaign stops in helicopters and move through the streets surrounded by security details. López Obrador flies coach, and travels from town to town in a two-car caravan, with drivers who double as unarmed bodyguards; he has no other security measures in place, except for inconsistent efforts to obscure which hotel he is staying in. On the street, people approach him constantly to ask for selfies, and he greets them all with equanimity, presenting a warm, slightly inscrutable façade. “amlo is like an abstract painting—you see what you want to see in him,” Luis Miguel González, the editorial director of the newspaper El Economista, told me. One of his characteristic gestures during speeches is to demonstrate affection by hugging himself and leaning toward the crowd.

Jacobson recalled that, after Trump was elected, López Obrador lamented, “Mexicans will never elect someone who is not a politician.” This was telling, she thought. “He is clearly a politician,” she said. “But, like Trump, he has always presented himself as an outsider.” He was born in 1953, to a family of shopkeepers in Tabasco state, in a village called Tepetitán. Tabasco, on the Gulf of Mexico, is bisected by rivers that regularly flood its towns; in both its climate and the feistiness of its local politics, it can resemble Louisiana. One observer recalled that López Obrador joked, “Politics is a perfect blend of passion and reason. But I’m tabasqueño, a hundred per cent passion!” His nickname, El Peje, is derived from pejelagarto—Tabasco’s freshwater gar, an ancient, primitive fish with a face like an alligator’s.

When López Obrador was a boy, his family moved to the state capital, Villahermosa. Later, in Mexico City, he studied political science and public policy at unam, the country’s premier state-funded university, writing his thesis about the political formation of the Mexican state, in the nineteenth century. He married Rocío Beltrán Medina, a sociology student from Tabasco, and they had three sons. Elena Poniatowska, the doyenne of Mexican journalism, recalls meeting him when he was a young man. “He has always been very determined to get to the Presidency,” she said. “Like an arrow, straight and unswerving.”


“Chicken on a bed of spinach and onions?”
For a person with political aspirations, the pri was then the only serious option. It had been founded in 1929, to restore the country after the revolution. In the thirties, President Lázaro Cárdenas solidified it as an inclusive party of socialist change; he nationalized the oil industry and provided millions of acres of farmland to the poor and the dispossessed. Over the decades, the Party’s ideology fluctuated, but its hold on power steadily grew. Presidents chose their successors, in a ritual called the dedazo, and the Party made sure that they were elected.

López Obrador joined the pri after college, and, in 1976, he helped direct a successful Senate campaign for Carlos Pellicer, a poet who was friends with Pablo Neruda and Frida Kahlo. López Obrador rose quickly; he spent five years running the Tabasco office of the National Indigenous Institute, and then leading a department of the National Consumer Institute, in Mexico City. But he felt increasingly that the Party had strayed from its roots. In 1988, he joined a left-wing breakaway group, led by Lázaro Cárdenas’s son, that grew into the Partido Revolucionario Democrático. López Obrador became the Party chief in Tabasco.

In 1994, he made his first attempt at electoral office, running for governor of the state. He lost to the pri’s candidate, whom he accused of having won through fraud. Although a court inquiry did not lead to a verdict, many Mexicans believed him; the pri has a long record of rigging elections. Soon after the election, a supporter handed López Obrador a box of receipts, showing that the pri had spent ninety-five million dollars on an election in which half a million people voted.

In 2000, he was elected mayor of Mexico City, a post that gave him considerable power, as well as national visibility. In office, he built a reputation as a rumpled everyman; he drove an old Nissan to work, arriving before sunrise, and he reduced his own salary. (When his wife died, of lupus, in 2003, there was an outpouring of sympathy.) He was not averse to political combat. After one of his officials was caught on tape seeming to accept a bribe, he argued that it was a sting, and distributed comic books that depicted himself fighting against “dark forces.” (The official was later cleared.) At times, López Obrador ignored his assembly and governed by edict. But he also proved able to compromise. He succeeded in creating a pension fund for elderly residents, expanding highways to ease congestion, and devising a public-private scheme, with the telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim, to restore the historic downtown.

When he left office to prepare for the 2006 Presidential elections, he had high approval ratings and a reputation for getting things done. (He also had a new wife, a historian named Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller; they now have an eleven-year-old son.) López Obrador saw an opportunity. In the last election, the pri had lost its long hold on power, as the Partido de Acción Nacional won the Presidency. The pan, a traditionalist conservative party, had support from the business community, but its candidate, Felipe Calderón, was an uncharismatic figure.

The campaign was hard fought. López Obrador’s opponents ran television ads that presented him as a deceitful populist who posed “a danger for Mexico” and showed images of human misery alongside portraits of Chávez, Fidel Castro, and Evo Morales. In the end, López Obrador lost by half of one per cent of the vote—a margin slim enough to raise widespread suspicions of fraud. Refusing to recognize Calderón’s win, he led a protest in the capital, where his followers stopped traffic, erected tented encampments, and held rallies in the historic Zócalo and along Reforma Avenue. One resident recalled his giving speeches in “language that was reminiscent of the French Revolution.” At one point, he conducted a parallel inauguration ceremony in which his supporters swore him in as President. The protests lasted months, and the residents of Mexico City grew impatient; eventually, López Obrador packed up and went home.

In the 2012 election, he won a third of the vote—not enough to defeat Peña Nieto, who returned the pri to power. But Peña Nieto’s government has been tarnished by corruption and human-rights scandals. Ever since Trump announced his candidacy with a burst of anti-Mexican rhetoric, Peña Nieto has tried to placate him, with embarrassing results. He invited Trump to Mexico during his campaign and treated him as if he were already a head of state, only to have him return to the U.S. and tell a crowd of supporters that Mexico would “pay for the wall.” After Trump was elected, Peña Nieto assigned his foreign minister, Luis Videgaray, who is a friend of Jared Kushner’s, to make managing the White House relationship his highest priority. “Peña Nieto has been extremely accommodating,” Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican Ambassador to China, told me. “There’s nothing Trump has even hinted at that he won’t immediately comply with.”

In early March, before López Obrador’s campaign had officially begun, we travelled through northern Mexico, where resistance to him is concentrated. His base of support is in the poorer, more agrarian south, with its majority indigenous population. The north, near the border with Texas, is more conservative, tied both economically and culturally to the southern United States; his task there was not so different from presenting himself to the Houston Chamber of Commerce.

In speeches, he tried to make light of his opponents’ accusations, cracking jokes about receiving “gold from Russia in a submarine” and calling himself “Andrés Manuelovich.” In Delicias, an agricultural hub in Chihuahua, he swore not to overextend his term in office. “I’m going to work sixteen hours a day instead of eight, so I will do twelve years’ work in six years,” he said. This rhetoric was backed by more pragmatic measures. As he travelled through the north, he was accompanied by Alfonso (Poncho) Romo, a wealthy businessman from the industrial boomtown of Monterrey, whom López Obrador had selected as his future chief of staff. A close adviser told me, “Poncho is key to the campaign in the north. Poncho is the bridge.” In Guadalajara, López Obrador told the audience, “Poncho is with me to help convince the businessmen who have been told we’re like Venezuela, or with the Russians, that we want to expropriate property, and that we’re populist. But none of that is true—this is a government made in Mexico.”

At a lunch with businessmen in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state, López Obrador tested some ideas. “What we want to do is to carry out the transformation that this country needs,” he began. “Things can’t go on as they are.” He spoke in a conversational tone, and the crowd gradually seemed to grow more sympathetic. “We’re going to end the corruption, the impunity, and the privileges enjoyed by a small élite,” he said. “Once we do, the leaders of this country can recover their moral and political authority. And we’ll also clean up the image of Mexico in the rest of the world, because right now all that Mexico is known for is violence and corruption.”

López Obrador spoke about helping the poor, but when he talked about corruption he focussed on the political class. “Five million pesos a month in pension for ex-Presidents!” he said, and grimaced. “All of that has to end.” He noted that there were hundreds of Presidential jets and helicopters, and said, “We’re going to sell them to Trump.” The audience laughed, and he added, “We’ll use the money from the sale for public investment, and thus foment private investment to generate employment.”

During these early events, López Obrador was adjusting his message as he went along. His campaign strategy seemed simple: make lots of promises and broker whatever alliances were necessary to get elected. Just as he promised his Party faithful to raise workers’ salaries at the expense of senior bureaucrats, he promised the businessmen not to increase taxes on fuel, medicine, or electricity, and vowed that he would never confiscate property. “We will do nothing that goes against freedoms,” he declared. He proposed establishing a thirty-kilometre duty-free zone along the entire northern border, and lowering taxes for companies, both Mexican and American, that set up factories there. He also offered government patronage, vowing to complete an unfinished dam project in Sinaloa and to provide agricultural subsidies. “The term ‘subsidy’ has been satanized,” he said. “But it is necessary. In the United States they do it—up to a hundred per cent of the cost of production.”

Culiacán is a former stronghold of the brutal Sinaloa cartel, which has been instrumental in the flood of drug-related violence and corruption that has subsumed the Mexican state. Since 2006, the country has pursued a “war on drugs” that has cost at least a hundred thousand lives, seemingly to little good effect. López Obrador, like his opponents, has struggled to articulate a viable security strategy.

After the lunch in Culiacán, he took questions, and a woman stood to ask what he intended to do about narcotrafficking. Would he consider the legalization of drugs as a solution? A few months earlier, he had said, seemingly without much deliberation, that he might offer an “amnesty” to bring low-level dealers and producers into legal employment. When critics leaped on his remark, his aides tried to deflect criticism by arguing that, because none of the current administration’s policies had worked, anything was worth trying. To the woman in Culiacán, he said, “We’re going to tackle the causes with youth programs, new employment opportunities, education, and by tending to the abandoned countryside. We’re not only going to use force. We’ll analyze everything and explore all the avenues that will let us achieve peace. I don’t rule out anything, not even legalization—nothing.” The crowd applauded, and amlo looked relieved.

For López Obrador’s opponents, his ability to inspire hope is worrisome. Enrique Krauze, a historian and commentator who has often criticized the left, told me, “He reaches directly into the religious sensibilities of the people. They are seeing him as a man who will save Mexico from all of its evils. Even more important, he believes it, too.”

Krauze has been concerned about López Obrador ever since 2006. Before the Presidential elections that year, he published an essay titled “The Tropical Messiah,” in which he wrote that amlo had a religious zeal that was “puritanical, dogmatic, authoritarian, inclined toward hatred, and above all, redemptory.” Krauze’s latest book—“El Pueblo Soy Yo,” or “I Am the People”—is about the dangers of populism. He examines the political cultures in modern Venezuela and Cuba, and also includes a scathing assessment of Donald Trump, whom he refers to as “Caligula on Twitter.” In the preface, he writes about López Obrador in a tone of oracular dismay. “I believe that, if he wins, he will use his charisma to promise a return to an Arcadian order,” he says. “And with that accumulated power, arrived at thanks to democracy, he will corrode democracy from within.”

What worried Krauze, he explained, was that if López Obrador’s party won big—not just the Presidency but also a majority in Congress, which the polls suggest is likely—he might move to change the composition of the Supreme Court and dominate other institutions. He could also exercise tighter control over the media, much of which is supported by state-sponsored advertising. “Will he ruin Mexico?” Krauze asked. “No, but he could obstruct Mexico’s democracy by removing its counterweights. We’ve had a democratic experiment for the past eighteen years, ever since the pri first lost power, in 2000. It is imperfect, there is much to criticize, but there have also been positive changes. I’m worried that with amlo this experiment might end.”

Over dinner in Culiacán one night, López Obrador picked at a steak taco and talked about his antagonists on the right, alternating between amusement and concern. A few days earlier, Roberta Jacobson had announced that she was stepping down as Ambassador, and the Mexican government had immediately endorsed a prospective replacement: Edward Whitacre, a former C.E.O. of General Motors who happened to be a friend of the tycoon Carlos Slim. This was a nettlesome point for López Obrador. He had recently argued with Slim over a multibillion-dollar plan for a new Mexico City airport, which Slim was involved in. The scheme was a public-private venture with Peña Nieto’s government, and López Obrador, alleging corruption, had promised to stop it. (The government denies any malfeasance.) “We are hoping it doesn’t mean they are planning to interfere against me,” López Obrador said, of Whitacre and Slim. “Millions of Mexicans would take offense at that.”

Recently, the Peruvian novelist and politician Mario Vargas Llosa—who serves as an oracle for the Latin American right—had said publicly that if amlo won office it would be “a tremendous setback for democracy in Mexico.” He added that he hoped the country would not commit “suicide” on Election Day. When I mentioned the remarks, López Obrador grinned and said that Vargas Llosa was in the news mostly for his marriage to “a woman who always married up, and was always in Hola! magazine.” He was referring to the socialite Isabel Preysler, a former wife of the singer Julio Iglesias, for whom Vargas Llosa had abandoned his marriage of fifty years. López Obrador asked if I’d seen his response, in which he’d called Vargas Llosa a good writer and a bad politician. “You notice,” he said wickedly, “I didn’t call him a great writer.”

On April 1st, López Obrador officially launched his campaign, before a crowd of several thousand people in Ciudad Juárez. On a stage set up in a plaza, he stood with his wife, Beatríz, and several of his cabinet picks. “We have come here to initiate our campaign, in the place where our fatherland begins,” he said. The stage stood under a grand statue of Mexico’s revered nineteenth-century leader Benito Juárez, an avowed hero of López Obrador’s. Juárez, a man of humble Zapotec origins who championed the cause of the disenfranchised, is a kind of Abraham Lincoln figure in Mexico—an emblem of unbending honor and persistence. Looking at the statue, López Obrador said that Juárez was “the best President Mexico ever had.”

In López Obrador’s speech, he likened the current administration to the despots and colonists who had controlled the country before the revolution. He attacked the “colossal dishonesty” that he said had characterized the “neoliberal” policies of Mexico’s last few governments. “The country’s leaders have devoted themselves . . . to concessioning off the national territory,” he said. With his Presidency, the government would “cease to be a factory that produces Mexico’s nouveaux riches.”


López Obrador often speaks of admiring leaders from the nineteen-thirties—including F.D.R. and the pri head Lázaro Cárdenas—and much of his social program recalls the initiatives of those years. In his launch speech, he said that he intended to develop the south of the country, where the agricultural economy has been devastated by inexpensive U.S. food imports. To do this, he proposed to plant millions of trees for fruit and timber, and to build a high-speed tourist train that would connect the beaches of the Yucatán Peninsula with Mayan ruins inland. The tree-planting project alone would create four hundred thousand jobs, he predicted. With these initiatives, he said, people in the south would be able to stay in their villages and not have to travel north for work.

Across the country, he would encourage construction projects that used hand tools rather than modern machinery, in order to boost the economy in rural communities. Pensions for the elderly would double. There would be free Internet in Mexico’s schools, and in its public spaces. Young people would be guaranteed scholarships, and then jobs after graduation. He wanted “becarios sí, sicarios no”—scholarship students, not contract killers.

For many audiences, especially in the south, these proposals are appealingly simple. When López Obrador is asked how he will pay for them, he tends to offer a similarly seductive answer. “It’s not a problem!” he said, in one speech. “There is money. What there is is corruption, and we’re going to stop it.” By getting rid of official corruption, he has calculated, Mexico could save ten per cent of its national budget. Corruption is a major issue for López Obrador. Marcelo Ebrard, his chief political aide, says that his ethics are informed by a “Calvinist streak,” and even some skeptics have been persuaded of his sincerity. Cassio Luiselli, a longtime Mexican diplomat, told me, “I don’t like his authoritarian streak and confrontational style.” But, he added, “he seems to me to be an honest man, which is a lot to say in these parts.”

López Obrador has vowed that his first bill to Congress would amend an article in the constitution that prevents sitting Mexican Presidents from being tried for corruption. This would be a symbolic deterrent, but an insufficient one; in order to root out corruption, he’d have to purge huge swaths of the government. Last year, the former governor of Chihuahua, charged with embezzlement, fled to the U.S., where he is evading efforts at extradition. More than a dozen other current and former state governors have faced criminal investigations. The attorney general who led some of those inquiries was himself reported to have a Ferrari registered in his name at an unoccupied house in a different state, and, though his lawyer argued that it was an administrative error, he resigned not long afterward. The former head of the national oil company has been accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes. (He denies this.) Peña Nieto, who ran as a reformer, was involved in a scandal in which his wife obtained a luxurious house from a developer with connections to the government; later, his administration was accused of using spyware to eavesdrop on opponents. According to reporting in the Times, state prosecutors have declined to pursue damning evidence against pri officials, to avoid harming the Party’s electoral chances.

With every major party implicated in corruption, López Obrador’s supporters seem to care less about the practicality of his ideas than about his promises to fix a broken government. Emiliano Monge, a prominent novelist and essayist, said, “This election really began to cease being political a few months ago and became emotional. It is more than anything a referendum against corruption, in which, as much by right as by cleverness, amlo has presented himself as the only alternative. And in reality he is.”

For months, López Obrador’s team crisscrossed the country. Arriving in a tiny cow town called Guadalupe Victoria, he told me that he had been there twenty times. After a long day of speeches and meetings in Sinaloa, we had dinner as he prepared to travel to Tijuana, where he had a similar agenda the next day. He looked a little weary, and I asked if he was planning a break. He nodded, and told me that, during Easter, he’d go to Palenque, in the southern state of Chiapas, where he had a ranchito in the jungle. “I go there and don’t come out again for three or four days,” he said. “I just look at the trees.”

For the most part, though, communing with the crowds seemed to energize him. In Delicias, it took him twenty minutes to walk a single block, as supporters pressed in for selfies and kisses and held up banners that read “amlove”—one of his campaign slogans. Appearances with his opponents and encounters with the media suit him less. At times, he has responded to forceful questions from reporters with a wave of his pinkie—in Mexico, a peremptory no. In 2006, he declined to attend the first Presidential debate; his opponents left an empty chair for him onstage.

There were three debates scheduled for this campaign season, and they were amlo’s to lose. By May 20th, when the second one was held, in Tijuana, polls said that he had an estimated forty-nine per cent of the vote. His nearest rival—Ricardo Anaya, a thirty-nine-year-old lawyer who is the pan candidate—had twenty-eight per cent. José Antonio Meade, who had served Peña Nieto as finance secretary and foreign secretary, trailed with twenty-one. In last place, with two per cent, was Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, the governor of the state of Nuevo León. An intemperate tough guy known as El Bronco, he has made his mark on the campaign by suggesting that corrupt officials should have their hands chopped off.

With López Obrador in the lead, his opponents’ debate strategy was to make him look defensive, and at times it worked. At one point, Anaya, a small man with the buzz-cut hair and frameless glasses of a tech entrepreneur, walked across the stage to confront López Obrador. At first, amlo reacted mildly. He reached for his pocket and exclaimed, “I’m going to protect my wallet.” The mood lightened. But when Anaya challenged him on one favorite initiative, a train line connecting the Caribbean and the Pacific, he was so affronted that he called Anaya a canalla, a scoundrel. He went on, using the diminutive form of Anaya’s first name to create a rhyming ditty that poked fun at his stature: “Ricky, riquín, canallín.”

When Meade, the pri candidate, criticized López Obrador’s party for voting against a trade agreement, amlo replied that the debate was merely an excuse to attack him. “It’s obvious, and, I would say, understandable,” he said. “We are leading by twenty-five points in the polls.” Otherwise, he hardly bothered to look Meade’s way, except to wave dismissively at him and Anaya and call them representatives of “the power mafia.”

Nevertheless, his lead in polls only grew. Two days later, in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta, thousands of fans surrounded his white S.U.V., holding it in place until police opened a pathway. On social media, video clips circulated of well-wishers bending down to kiss his car.

Ever since he lost the election of 2006, López Obrador has presented himself as an avatar of change. He founded a new party, the National Regeneration Movement, or morena, which Duncan Wood, the director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, described as evocative of the early pri—an effort to sweep up everyone who felt that Mexico had gone astray. “He went around the country signing agreements with people,” Wood said. “ ‘Do you want to be part of a change? Yes? Then sign here.’ ” morena has an increasing number of sympathizers but relatively few official members; last year, it had three hundred and twenty thousand, making it the country’s fourth-largest party. As López Obrador’s campaign has gathered strength, he has welcomed partners that seem profoundly incompatible. In December, morena forged a coalition with the P.T., a party with Maoist origins; it also joined with the pes, an evangelical Christian party that opposes same-sex marriage, homosexuality, and abortion. Some of his aides intimate that López Obrador could sever these ties after he wins, but not everyone is convinced. “What terrifies me most are his political alliances,” Luis Miguel González, of El Economista, told me.

At a rally in the town of Gómez Palacio, some of these alliances collided messily. In an open-air market on the edge of town, P.T. partisans occupied a large area near the stage—an organized bloc of young men wearing red T-shirts and waving flags with yellow stars. Onstage with López Obrador was the Party’s chief, Beto Anaya. One of López Obrador’s aides winced visibly and grumbled, “That guy has quite a few corruption scandals.” (Anaya denies accusations against him.) As local leaders gathered, a young woman walked to the microphone, and boos erupted from the crowd. The aide explained that the woman was Alma Marina Vitela, a morena candidate who had formerly been with the pri. The booing gathered strength, and Vitela stood frozen, looking at the crowd, seemingly unable to speak. López Obrador strode over, put his arm around her, and took the microphone. “We need to leave our differences and conflicts behind,” he said. The booing quickly stopped. “The fatherland is first!” he shouted, and cheers broke out.

With the P.T. partisans in the audience, López Obrador’s speech took on a distinctly more radical edge. “This party is an instrument for the people’s struggle,” he said, and added, “In union there is strength.” He went on, “Mexico will produce everything it consumes. We will stop buying from abroad.” After each of his points, the P.T. militants cheered in unison, and someone banged a drum.

Over dinner that night, we spoke about morena’s prospects. López Obrador boasted that, although the party remains considerably smaller than its rivals, it was able to reliably mobilize partisans. “There are few movements on the left in Latin America with the power to put people on the street anymore,” he said.

Not long before, a prominent Communist leader in the region had told me that the Latin American left was largely dead, because there were almost no unions anymore. Unions were once a powerhouse of regional politics, supplying credibility and votes; in recent decades, many have succumbed to corruption or internal divisions, or have been co-opted by business owners. López Obrador smiled when I mentioned it. The largest Mexican miners’ union had recently offered to support his campaign. In 2006, the head of the union, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, was charged with trying to embezzle a workers’ trust fund of fifty-five million dollars; he fled to Canada, where he obtained citizenship and wrote a best-selling book about his travails. In López Obrador’s telling, he had been punished for taking on mine owners. “They own everything, and they call the shots,” he said.

Urrutia was exonerated in 2014, but he still felt that he was vulnerable to new charges if he returned. López Obrador took up his cause, offering him a seat in the Senate, which would provide him immunity from prosecution. López Obrador’s critics were enraged. “You should have seen the outcry!” he said. “They really attacked me. But it’s dying down again now.” With a mocking look, he said, “I told them that, if the Canadians thought he was fine, then maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.” Rolling his eyes, he said, “You know, here they think the Canadians are all things good.”

López Obrador told me that he also had the backing of the teachers’ union, then hastened to clarify: “The unofficial one—not the corrupted official one.” Peña Nieto’s government had passed educational reforms, and the measures had been unpopular with teachers. “They are now with us,” he said, then added, “The official—compromised, corrupted—teachers’ union has also given me its support.” He grimaced. “This is the kind of support one doesn’t really need, but in a campaign you need support, so we will go forward, and hope to find ways to clean them up.”

A few weeks later, I rejoined López Obrador on the road in Chihuahua, Mexico’s biggest state. South of Ciudad Juárez and its dusty belt of low-wage factories, Chihuahua is cowboy country—a wide-open place of vast prairies and forested mountains. For several days, we drove hundreds of miles back and forth through the rangelands.

This territory had once been a base for Pancho Villa’s revolutionary army in its fight against the dictator Porfirio Díaz; the landscape was dotted with the sites of battles and mass executions. One day, outside a men’s bathroom at a rest stop, López Obrador looked out at the plain, waved his arms, and said, “Villa and his men marched all through these parts for years. But just imagine the difference: he and his men covered most of these miles by horse, while we’re in cars.”

López Obrador has written half a dozen books on Mexico’s political history. Even more than most Mexicans, he is aware of the country’s history of subjugation and sensitive to its echoes in the rhetoric of the Trump Administration. When we stopped for lunch at a modest restaurant off the highway, he spoke of the invasion of 1846, known in the U.S. as the Mexican-American War and in Mexico as the United States’ Intervention in Mexico. That conflict ended with the humiliating cession of more than half the nation’s territory to the United States, but López Obrador saw in it at least a few examples of valor. At one point during the war, he said, Commodore Matthew Perry arrayed a huge U.S. fleet off the coast of Veracruz. “He had overwhelming superiority, and sent word to the commander of the town to surrender so as to save the city and its people,” he said. “And you know what the commander told Perry? ‘My balls are too big to fit into your Capitol building. Get it on.’ And so Perry opened fire, and devastated Veracruz.” López Obrador laughed. “But pride was saved.” For a moment, he mused about whether victory was more important than a grand gesture that could mean defeat. Finally, he said he believed that the grand gesture was important—“for history’s sake, if for nothing else.”


We were interrupted by members of the family that ran the restaurant, politely asking for a selfie. As López Obrador got up to oblige them, he said, “This country has its personalities—but Donald Trump!” He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, and, with a laugh, hit the table with both hands.

Early in Trump’s term, López Obrador presented himself as an antagonist; along with his condemnatory speeches, he filed a complaint at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in Washington, D.C., protesting the Administration’s border wall and its immigration policy. When I mentioned the wall to him, he smiled scornfully and said, “If he goes ahead with it, we will go to the U.N. to denounce it as a human-rights violation.” But he added that he had come to understand, from watching Trump, that it was “not prudent to take him on directly.”

On the campaign trail, he has generally resisted grand gestures. Not long before the speech in Gómez Palacio, Trump sent National Guard troops to the Mexican border. López Obrador suggested an almost pacifist response: “We’ll organize a demonstration along the entire length of the border—a political protest, all dressed in white!”

Mostly, López Obrador has offered calls for mutual respect. “We will not rule out the possibility of convincing Donald Trump just how wrong his foreign policy, and particularly his contemptuous attitude toward Mexico, have been,” he said in Ciudad Juárez. “Neither Mexico nor its people will be a piñata for any foreign power.” Offstage, he suggested that it was morally necessary to restrain Trump’s isolationist tendencies. “The United States can’t become a ghetto,” he said. “It would be a monumental absurdity.” He said that he hoped to be able to negotiate a new rapport with Trump. When I expressed skepticism, he pointed to Trump’s fluctuating comments about the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un: “It shows that his positions aren’t irreducible ones, but made for appearances’ sake.” Behind the scenes, López Obrador’s aides have reached out to counterparts in the Trump Administration, trying to establish working relationships.

A more aggressive position would give López Obrador little advantage over his opponents in the campaign. When I asked Jorge Guajardo, the former Ambassador, what role Trump had at this point in the election, he said, “Zero. And for a very simple reason—everyone in Mexico opposes him equally.” In office, though, he could find that it is in his interest to present more forceful resistance. “Look at what happened to those leaders who right away tried to make nice with Trump,” Guajardo said. “Macron, Merkel, Peña Nieto, and Abe—they’ve all lost out. But look at Kim Jong Un! Trump seems to like those who reject him. And I think the same scenario will apply to Andrés Manuel.”

In campaign events, López Obrador speaks often of mexicanismo—a way of saying “Mexico first.” Observers of the region say that, when the two countries’ interests compete, he is likely to look inward. Mexico’s armed forces and law enforcement have often had to be persuaded to coöperate with the United States, and he will probably be less willing to pressure them. The U.S. lobbied Peña Nieto, successfully, to harden Mexico’s southern border against the flow of Central American migrants. López Obrador has announced that he will instead move immigration headquarters to Tijuana, in the north. “The Americans want us to put it on the southern border with Guatemala, so that we will do their dirty work for them,” he said. “No, we’ll put it here, so we can look after our immigrants.” Regional officials fear that Trump is preparing to pull out of nafta. López Obrador, who has often called for greater self-sufficiency, might be happy to let it go. In the speech that launched his campaign, he said that he hoped to develop the country’s potential so that “no threat, no wall, no bullying attitude from any foreign government, will ever stop us from being happy in our own fatherland.”

Even if López Obrador is inclined to build a closer relationship, the pressures from both inside and outside the country may prevent it. “You can’t be the President of Mexico and have a pragmatic relationship with Trump—it’s a contradiction in terms,” González said. “Until now, Mexico has been predictable, and Trump has been the one providing the surprises. I think it’s now going to be amlo who provides the surprise factor.”

One morning in Parral, the city where Pancho Villa died, López Obrador and I had breakfast as he prepared for a speech in the plaza. He acknowledged that the transformation Villa helped bring about had been bloody, but he was confident that the transformation he himself was proposing would be peaceful. “I am sending messages of tranquillity, and I am going to continue to do so,” he said. “And, quite apart from my differences with Trump, I have treated him with respect.”

I told him that many Mexicans wondered whether he had moderated his early radical beliefs. “No,” he said. “I’ve always thought the same way. But I act according to the circumstances. We have proposed an orderly change, and our strategy seems to have worked. There is less fear now. More middle-class people have come on board, not only the poor, and there are businesspeople, too.”

There are limits to López Obrador’s inclusiveness. Many young metropolitan Mexicans are wary of what they see as his lack of enthusiasm for contemporary identity politics. I asked if he been able to change their minds. “Not much,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Look, in this world there are those who give more importance to politics of the moment—identity, gender, ecology, animals. And there’s another camp, which is not the majority, but which is more important, which is the struggle for equal rights, and that’s the camp I subscribe to. In the other camp, you can spend your life criticizing, questioning, and administering the tragedy without ever proposing the transformation of the regime.”

López Obrador sometimes says that he wants to be regarded as a leader of the stature of Benito Juárez. I asked if he really believed that he could remake the country in such a historic way. “Yes,” he replied. He looked at me directly. “Yes, yes. We are going to make history, I am clear about that. I know that when one is a candidate one sometimes says things and makes promises that can’t be fulfilled—not because one doesn’t want to but because of the circumstances. But I think I can confront the circumstances and fulfill those promises.”

This is the message that excites his supporters and worries his opponents: a promise to transform the country without disrupting it. I thought about a speech he gave one night in Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, a neglected-looking mining town surrounded by mountains. Ciudad Cuauhtémoc was remote from most of Mexico’s citizens, but people there felt the same frustrations with corruption and economic predation. The area was dominated by drug cartels, according to López Obrador’s aides, and the economy was troubled. A local morena leader spoke with frustration about “foreign mining companies exploiting the treasures under our soil.”

The audience was full of cowboys wearing hats and boots; a group of indigenous Tarahumara women stood to one side, wearing traditional embroidered dresses. López Obrador seemed at home there, and his speech was angrier and less guarded than usual. He promised his listeners a “radical revolution,” one that would give them the country they wanted. “ ‘Radical’ comes from the word ‘roots,’ ” he said. “And we’re going to pull this corrupt regime out by its roots.” ♦

This article appears in the print edition of the June 25, 2018, issue, with the headline “Mexico First.”

Jon Lee Anderson, a staff writer, began contributing to the magazine in 1998. He is the author of several books, including “The Fall of Baghdad.”Read more »

Never miss a big New Yorker story again. Sign up for This Week’s Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories you have to read.




Title: AMLO, next Mexican president, calls for invading the US
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 23, 2018, 10:36:04 PM


https://www.dailywire.com/news/32202/mexican-prez-candidate-calls-mass-exodus-us-paul-bois?utm_medium=email&utm_content=062318-news&utm_campaign=position1
Title: GPF: La mierda se acerca a la ventiladora
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 25, 2018, 09:03:37 AM
Two reports have concluded that Mexico’s police are corrupt and unable to maintain the rule of law. As Mexico heads into elections on July 1, more than 100 politicians have been assassinated. The most recent is a mayoral candidate in the small city of Ocampo. In response, Mexican federal authorities detained the town’s entire 27-person police force, as well as the local public security secretary. These kinds of stories are unfortunately becoming commonplace, but even more disturbing is a report by the Executive Secretary of the National Public Security System, which estimated that there was a police shortfall of 95,900 officers (a shortfall owed in part to officers’ unreliability) and that it would take at least three and a half years to fill the gaps. From both a short- and long-term perspective, this does not bode well for political stability in Mexico.
Title: VDH: Mexico- an economy based on exporting people
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 26, 2018, 12:38:04 PM
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/mexico-what-went-wrong-economy-based-on-exporting-poor-people/
Title: More than 100 politicians murdered ahead of election
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 28, 2018, 07:00:28 AM
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/26/more-than-100-politicians-murdered-in-mexico-ahead-of-election.html
Title: WSJ: Mexico's Presidential Watershed
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 29, 2018, 09:29:07 AM


Mexico’s Presidential Watershed
The country may elect a left-wing populist who says he’s changed. Has he?
By The Editorial Board
June 28, 2018 6:37 p.m. ET
155 COMMENTS

Mexicans head to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president, and the biggest question is whether a country that has made great political and economic strides is about to slide backward.

The question takes the form of leftwing Morena party candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is the heavy favorite to win after two previous losses. The 64-year-old AMLO, as he is known, claims to have moderated his views but retains his zeal for the corporatist Mexico of the 1970s. With a six-year term he could reverse the progress this nation of 130 million has made to becoming a modern, advanced democracy.


It’s worth recalling how recent and substantial that progress is. For decades through the early 1980s, Mexico was a one-party, inward-looking state run by the PRI.

President Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988) recognized the need for change and started the reform era by joining the global trade regime in 1986. President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) privatized most state enterprises and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. Ernesto Zedillo was also a modernizer, laying the groundwork for the first truly transparent competitive election in 2000.

Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) and PAN successor Felipe Calderón continued this market opening. The PRI came back in 2012 with the election of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has pushed formerly unthinkable reforms to open Mexico’s energy and telecom markets and demand accountability for teachers.

The changes have lifted Mexico from an economy dependent on oil exports to a manufacturing powerhouse with a rising middle class. From shoes and cell phones to dining out and better education at all levels, Mexicans are more prosperous than ever.

Yet as young, U.S.-educated technocrats moved into government, the old guard at the PRI, including Mr. López Obrador, broke away. AMLO lost presidential bids in 2006 and 2012 and has moderated his views in his third try. He has dropped his opposition to Nafta and talks about the need to continue Mexico’s economic progress. The effort has calmed some fears—not least about politicizing the central bank.

Yet AMLO remains a man of the left whose instincts are for state economic control. For decades he described Mexican oil reserves as the property of “the people,” meaning the government. He now says he’ll respect private contracts as long as he deems them fair, which implies political leverage over investment. And he says Mexico should aspire to be self-sufficient in agriculture and gasoline.

AMLO is running against corruption, but he hasn’t practiced transparency. As mayor of Mexico City he opposed a “freedom of information” law and used no-bid contracts. He had financial records for the city’s multimillion-dollar elevated highway classified.

Optimists say he is following the playbook of Brazil’s Lula da Silva, another leftist whose close links to Fidel Castro spooked investors when he was elected president in 2002. Lula calmed markets with the right talk and presided over a short-lived, commodity-led boom. But he gradually undermined central bank independence, openness to foreign investors and fiscal discipline. By the time his Workers’ Party left after 13 years, corruption was rife and Brazil endured a near three-year recession.

A victorious AMLO would command significant power even if his Morena party doesn’t win a majority in Congress. He’d be able to name at least three members to the 11-member Supreme Court, four vice governors of the central bank and a new central bank governor in 2021. That would leave financial markets and trade agreements as the main checks on his power.

AMLO can win with a plurality of the vote against his two main competitors, but it’s possible that middle-class Mexicans will have final-week doubts and turn him away one more time. If he does win, he will pose a test for President Trump, as he is likely to seek alliances with the region’s left-wing governments.

Mexicans are responsible for their own political choices, but Mr. Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric has encouraged the response of AMLO’s left-wing nationalism. Americans have underestimated the importance of having a reform-minded, prospering democracy on its southern border. They may have to deal with a different reality for the next six years.
Title: Stratfor: Mexico's historical election
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 30, 2018, 08:16:43 AM
    The populist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador appears likely to win Mexico's presidential election on July 1, and his coalition will likely emerge from the congressional balloting in a much stronger position.
    Lopez Obrador's agenda will depend on his control of Congress. Without at least a lower house majority, he will find it virtually impossible to make good on many campaign promises.
    Whoever wins the presidency in the July 1 election can be expected to take the same general approach as the previous government to negotiating NAFTA with Canada and the United States.

Historic elections that could change the political face of the country are fast approaching for Mexico. On July 1 — for the first time since the founding of the modern Mexican state — voters could elect a president outside of the two political parties that have held the post for more than 70 years. That candidate is the populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is running as the head of a coalition led by his National Regeneration Movement (Morena). For more than a year, Lopez Obrador has led in the polls, widening his lead as he gained popularity among undecided voters and supporters of the other major parties. Now, he seems poised to win the election with a third to half of the vote, and according to some polls, he could also gain a majority in both houses of Congress, where all 628 seats are up for election. Those majorities would mean that, upon taking office in December, Lopez Obrador would not need the votes of any opposition political party to pursue his agenda. But regardless of who wins, the most pressing foreign policy topic will be the United States and NAFTA.

The Big Picture

Populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador appears poised to win the presidency in Mexico, and his coalition is expected make gains in both houses of Congress. His policies remain unclear, but there are clear signs that Lopez Obrador intends to review oil and gas contracts awarded since 2015. Any other aggressive legislative action will depend on whether his coalition seizes congressional majorities.

See The Importance of Mexico

AMLO: Promises and Reality

Lopez Obrador, who often goes by the initials AMLO, has frequently criticized the private sector in Mexico, as well as the political elites for their supposed acquiescence to corruption. The three-time presidential candidate has turned widespread dissatisfaction with government fraud into political gains over the past two years. But turning his broad campaign promises into action will likely meet with uneven results. Some pledges, such as higher public spending, can be enacted with legislative majorities; others, such as an attack on deep-rooted corruption, could meet more resistance from political opponents. Still, other promises, such as an oil export ban to benefit domestic consumers, will be economically counterproductive and will meet with resistance from technocrats at government ministries.

In the case of corruption, Lopez Obrador has several options for taking a more aggressive approach. The easiest path would involve purging government ministries of employees suspected of irregularities. A more difficult route would be the establishment of a stronger nationwide anti-corruption agency or process capable of investigating and referring cases for prosecution. Even without clear majorities in either house after July 1, his administration could still bring the proposal for such an agency to the floor of Congress for a vote. Because of widespread public resentment against official corruption, it would be politically difficult for the two other major parties, the National Action Party (PAN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), to oppose such a move even if their own elites could eventually be threatened by it.

A chart shows the changes in party composition of Mexico's lower house of Congress over time.

Another big campaign issue for Lopez Obrador is social spending. Though his policies remain unclear, his rhetoric suggests he will try to adjust government budgets to redirect funds to welfare programs. Even without a clear Senate majority, his government could still use a lower house majority to get the Senate to approve his spending priorities. But Carlos Manuel Urzua Macias, who may be his pick for finance minister, appears to support more pragmatic economic and fiscal policies, such as pushing for a quicker resolution to NAFTA talks, delaying a freeze on fuel prices and reining in government spending.

On the business front, a Lopez Obrador presidency could have a big impact on the Mexican private sector and foreign investors. He will almost certainly move to review oil and gas exploration and production contracts awarded since 2015. A longtime critic of the 2013 energy reform, Lopez Obrador will not be able to reverse the constitutional reform that opened the energy sector to private capital. And even with a two-house majority, he may not be able to significantly amend the reform's secondary legislation, because of the subsequent fiscal and economic benefits of rising oil and gas production. But a contract review could allow him to slow or temporarily suspend future bidding rounds, particularly if evidence of corruption is uncovered. Despite this risk, foreign investors appear to have bet on Mexico in the long term by snapping up exploration and production areas in 2017 and 2018.

A chart shows the changes in party composition in Mexico's Senate over time.

NAFTA and the U.S. Elephant in the Room

On the foreign policy front, Mexico's biggest challenge under a new president will likely be the successful completion of negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Canada. Concerns about other aspects of Lopez Obrador's foreign policy — suggestions that he would antagonize Washington by negotiating with criminal groups or would alter the country's military-dominated domestic security policy — are likely unfounded. But whoever wins the presidency will have to face the NAFTA negotiations in some form or another. The discussions could even be headed toward completion before a new president takes office — assuming that Mexico and Canada agree to U.S. demands, such as more stringent rules of origin for the automotive sector or a sunset clause for the agreement.

Or the trade negotiations could head down a rockier path. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump could stick to its hard-line demands and threaten to withdraw from the agreement. In that case, Mexico City and Ottawa would probably wait and hope that the U.S. Congress would restrain the White House's power to undo the agreement. If Congress steps in, a withdrawal may be beyond the administration's power, and the White House may decide that it is not in its political interests to fight for it ahead of 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential vote.

A bar chart shows the U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico over time.

Despite whoever is elected president, Mexico is still likely to take the same broad approach toward NAFTA negotiations, assuming they are still going on in December. In Mexico, the deal is widely regarded by the country's elites as being economically beneficial, so even a Lopez Obrador administration would try to preserve the trilateral deal. However, enough uncertainty remains in the talks that a satisfactory conclusion for Mexico is still in doubt. With negotiations effectively stalled, Mexico is looking, at best, at a prolonged limbo, which draws out the uncertainty for foreign investors and Mexico's private sector. At worst, Mexico's economy could suffer if the Trump administration moves ahead with Section 232 tariffs on automobile imports or moves to end U.S. membership in NAFTA.

If Lopez Obrador wins on July 1, his initial impact on Mexico's political scene will depend on his margin of victory and on whether he controls any houses of Congress. Any major gains by the Morena coalition in the Senate and lower house would likely drive the PAN and PRI into a rapid alliance to fend off Lopez Obrador's legislative advances. If his coalition takes majorities, the opposition's options will be much more limited. It will have to rely on the federal court system to slow any legislation it deems controversial, including attempts to amend the 2013 education reform, to enact laws to implement a cease-fire with criminal groups or to rewrite parts of the 2014 secondary laws for the energy reform. Nevertheless, the future for Mexico starts at the polls.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 02, 2018, 10:31:06 AM
http://www.aei.org/publication/frustrated-mexicans-are-set-to-elect-their-own-populist-strongman/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWWpreU5HUmtOV0k1TURWayIsInQiOiI5TUlGZWFmQU5wOHRCVXRvY1lPbkRrRW1kaWtnSWhYYXRnZ2oxOG1JU3dyNHdzaFNnZVdMUlZFQ2VRNzJySmlnMnVHMUJNUHp6VzhOeGEzZGczMUpteG5JRHAycDFMcE5jZmZkUmlYa2hMK2gzelIyK2J0Zk9RQ1JINzkrQitpRiJ9

y aqui' un punto de vista distinta:

http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2018/07/chavismo-on-your-doorstep.html
Title: Stratfor: AMLO logra mayoria en el Congreso
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 03, 2018, 08:09:55 AM
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been declared the winner of Mexico's July 1 presidential election, and now that nearly all the votes from the federal elections of the same day have been counted, the country's populist president-elect and his National Regeneration Movement (Morena) have emerged as big winners in Congress as well. Preliminary information from the National Electoral Council, reported July 3, indicate that Lopez Obrador's National Regeneration coalition will pick up about 69 seats in the Senate and about 309 in the lower house. These figures will give Morena uncontested majorities in both houses of Congress.

These majorities are crucial because they will allow Lopez Obrador's party to legislate without the input of political opponents such as the center-right National Action Party (PAN) or the centrist Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), which has been Mexico's ruling party for several years — until these most recent elections.

Morena's control of the legislature means the PRI and PAN will have to resort to Mexico's federal court system to slow any legislative changes they deem controversial. These issues may include attempts by Morena to amend parts of the previous administration's showcase energy and education reforms.

Indeed, having won the majority in Congress, Lopez Obrador's coalition can now begin seriously considering a far more ambitious legislative agenda than that of his predecessors in the PRI. Initiatives such as significantly increasing social spending are well within his political faction's grasp, and so are changes to secondary legislation underpinning energy reform.

Though the extent of his political power is now fully visible, Lopez Obrador's complete political agenda is not. Now that the July 1 elections have limited the power of Mexico's political minorities and private sector, they will likely begin building connections to Lopez Obrador's coalition in the hopes of shaping the president-elect's agenda. However, without significant congressional leverage to engage in political bartering, PRI and PAN will find themselves increasingly at the mercy of Morena and its allies.
Title: Eso si' sera' interesante
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 05, 2018, 01:24:14 PM


https://www.dailywire.com/news/32648/mexicos-new-president-announces-absolutely-insane-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=070518-news&utm_campaign=position1
Title: Stratfor: AMLO vs corupcion
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 06, 2018, 11:13:31 AM
    Thanks to a congressional majority, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will become the strongest Mexican president in decades, but questions remain about how he will wield that power.
    Lopez Obrador's big win, as well as the success of his party in Congress, gives him a mandate to tackle corruption, but he will find it easier to stamp out graft at the federal level than among lower-level officials.
    As a politician who has acted pragmatically in the past, Lopez Obrador could abandon a far-reaching campaign against corruption in favor of a targeted anti-graft drive.

Some political regimes bend for decades until they break. After years of pressure building on Mexico's political establishment, an overwhelming presidential and legislative victory by populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Voters propelled Lopez Obrador — who was third-time lucky after two unsuccessful attempts to capture the presidency — into the country's highest office with more than half of the national vote and the highest tally for any presidential candidate since 1994. Lopez Obrador's National Regeneration Movement (Morena) also captured a majority in the Senate and lower house, marking the first time any candidate has won both chambers since 1997.

Often referred to simply as "AMLO," the new president clearly enjoys a strong political mandate and extensive powers to pursue an agenda that includes hiking public spending, raising wages and possibly rolling back parts of energy and education reforms. But perhaps the plan that will have the most profound ramifications is his popular — and politically loaded — vow to stamp out corruption in Mexico. Fueled by the fraying of the country's political establishment and intensifying public intolerance toward crime and graft, Lopez Obrador has a strong platform to target well-entrenched political adversaries under a broad, anti-corruption umbrella. The new president, however, could trigger a major upheaval as he strives to tackle misconduct that has infested the public and private sectors. The question now is whether he will turn to political pragmatism once in power — becoming a product of the system he was elected to dismantle — or will use the powerful tools at his disposal to try and upend the country's political order.

The Big Picture

In its Third-Quarter Forecast for 2018, Stratfor noted that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stood a good chance of winning Mexico's presidential elections but that his political influence would depend on whether he secures a congressional majority. Not only did Lopez Obrador win the elections on July 1, but his Morena party also secured majorities in both chambers of Mexico's Congress of the Union. The double victory gives him the power to implement much of his agenda, including an anti-corruption drive.

Realities, however, could reduce the scope of that campaign.

The Roots of Political Change

A win by an insurgent politician like Lopez Obrador was nearly three decades in the making. Since the early 1990s, Mexico's once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has steadily ceded ground to political opponents such as the center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Voters soured on PRI as it presided over corruption scandals and an economic crisis in 1994. Other parties gained power at its expense, but by the 2012 election cycle, no single party could secure a congressional majority. Without this fragmentation, it would have been impossible for a single politician heading a brand-new party (as with Lopez Obrador) to stand a realistic chance of attaining power. After suffering consecutive defeats in the 2006 and 2012 presidential elections, Lopez Obrador made a strategic move to break with the PRD and rebrand himself under the newly formed Morena.

A bar chart shows the percentage of votes for Mexican president won by each party as well as the party makeup of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.

Broad trends clearly enabled the rise of Lopez Obrador, but short-term political trends and events also nudged voters toward his fledgling party. In December 2017, Stratfor wrote, “If Lopez Obrador becomes president in 2018, it will be because he was in the right place at the right time.” During outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto's six-year term, three major trends served to hamper PRI's and PAN's political fortunes. Criminal activity worsened significantly in parts of the country, including the state of Baja California Sur, which had previously experienced less of the extreme violence of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Even as the government broke the Sinaloa Federation by arresting its leader, the rapidly expanding Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion grew across the country, resulting in new, bloody turf wars.

Political events to the north also turned Mexicans against their political establishment. By early 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump's moves to alter key trade relationships, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, were in full swing. Voters in Mexico interpreted the Pena Nieto administration's cautious moves in response to Trump's foreign policies as indecision at best and cowardice at worst.

But it was Lopez Obrador's persistent attacks on the excesses of corrupt politicians under Pena Nieto and prior administrations that seemed to resonate the most with the public. Given that nationwide corruption scandals have wracked the country for decades, it is no surprise that the Pena Nieto administration also became embroiled in graft. Allegations of extensive graft, such as when contractors reportedly overcharged the federal government by $2.5 billion during the construction of Mexico City's new airport, provided fodder for Lopez Obrador on the campaign trail and helped turn public opinion against PRI and PAN. Pervasive violent crime, corruption and Pena Nieto's perceived weakness before Washington all contributed to the political establishment's defeat and the election of a politician who billed himself as a political outsider.

Lopez Obrador's persistent attacks on the excesses of corrupt politicians seemed to resonate the most with the public ahead of the elections.

Institutionalizing Corruption in Mexico

There is a reason why a serious anti-corruption movement has never taken root in Mexico's political system before. Since modern Mexico emerged in the wake of the 1910-20 revolution, the country's governments have put a priority on political stability, meaning that addressing political corruption simply paled in importance to victory in elections and the maintenance of stability. After 1920, a series of governments corralled the country's divided politicians into a working coalition of political factions. In so doing, the new governments primarily sought to keep the peace among Mexico's powerful elites and put the nation back on the path toward economic development and internal stability. To achieve this, successive administrations in the 1930s and 1940s incorporated as many potentially destabilizing factions as possible into the ruling party's orbit, resulting in the federal government doling out federal money and benefits to the military, state governors and labor unions, all in the interest of inculcating loyalty to the PRI. Under the strong patronage networks that emerged, politicians and party allies had little incentive to transgress the boundaries of the PRI.

The patronage system held together for nearly five decades, as PRI inevitably emerged victorious in every election. Thanks to the party's strong political networks that were undergirded by state power, a sprinkling of intimidation, and strict control over the federal government's purse strings, the party faced virtually no serious political opposition for much of the 20th century. During the period of unassailable PRI control over Mexican politics, the party never emphasized the fight against corruption. After all, its goal for decades was to create a political machine capable of delivering big wins, not one concerned with the illicit activities happening under its watch.

AMLO Takes on the Establishment

Much of the unease of elites with Lopez Obrador stems from his anti-corruption pledge. Not only does his anti-graft mandate carry broad appeal with the public, but it could also serve as a potent tool to further weaken his opponents in the political establishment. And since a U.S.-backed anti-corruption body in next-door Guatemala has already taken down a president — and with the prospect that such agencies could spread across Central America — the incoming Mexican president has an interest in seizing the initiative to battle corruption at home rather than face the risk that outside forces would team up with civil society groups to galvanize public dissent over graft. The details on how Lopez Obrador will translate a popular campaign promise into policy remain sketchy, but he now has the legislative numbers to create anti-corruption bodies without interference from other parties in Congress. The independence of any such bodies, their enforcement powers and their potential insulation from politics or politicization by the president remain open questions. The prospect of an anti-graft body with teeth is nonetheless a direct threat to the country's political establishment. The PRI and PAN are already in a weak position, and the publicization of more corruption scandals involving them will only harm their standing among potential voters.

In broad terms, there are two paths open to Lopez Obrador. First, he could take a more ideological approach in cutting the political establishment down to size. Such action would please many of his constituents, but endowing an anti-corruption body with broad investigative and enforcement powers to systematically take down political opponents could prove disruptive to Mexico's stability. On the other hand, Lopez Obrador could pursue a more practical approach that could still score the president political points with his base. Such an approach would target corrupt officials primarily at the federal level in Congress and ministries through audits and investigations. Such probes would constitute showy moves that could greatly unnerve investors, but Lopez Obrador would still be operating within the constraints of the system that enabled his rise. For all his anti-establishment rhetoric, Lopez Obrador began his career as a member of PRI and made a name for himself as a PRD official and a mayor of Mexico City before becoming a presidential candidate. Ultimately, Lopez Obrador knows the good, the bad and the ugly intricacies of the system and where he is likely to encounter the heaviest resistance.

AMLO knows the good, the bad and the ugly intricacies of the system and where he is likely to encounter the heaviest resistance in his anti-corruption drive.

The Path Forward

Lopez Obrador will be greatly restricted in attempting to extend the writ of an anti-corruption body down to the local level. Because municipal officials are nestled beneath state officials in the federal system created by PRI, there are multiple avenues for corrupt behavior, some of which the central government in Mexico City cannot detect or easily eliminate. During PRI rule, the president could remove governors more easily or lean on party bosses to influence the behavior of even lower-level officials. But now that governorships across the country are in the hands of different major parties and (largely unreported) corruption has become deeply embedded in thousands of municipalities, combating lower-level graft and theft will pose a great challenge for the federal government. Morena's legislative majorities will allow Lopez Obrador to enact tougher anti-corruption mechanisms to ensnare the egregiously corrupt in Congress and federal ministries, but extending the writ to the states, municipalities and the private sector — all authorities with whom many Mexicans interact on a daily basis — will be far more complicated.

So where will Lopez Obrador go from here? Tackling endemic corruption at a federal level is not only simpler than taking down local officials, but it also offers greater political benefits since it's more visible to the public. Accordingly, Lopez Obrador is likely to allocate investigative resources to such a fight. But as Brazil has learned, measures to combat deeply entrenched corruption can have unexpected consequences, after an investigation into a massive graft network at state-owned energy firm Petroleo Brasileiro worsened the country's economic downturn in 2014 and 2015. In Mexico, an indiscriminate pursuit of corruption would likely have immediate side effects, particularly if such an initiative occurs in tandem with other measures, such as tax hikes or reviews of oil and gas contracts, that will frighten investors. Broader investigations and stricter enforcement mechanisms would also disturb opposition parties, which will harbor worries that the probes will target their members. Investors and the private sector may also interpret heavy anti-corruption efforts as a move to consolidate political power, which risks fomenting economic disruption in the form of capital flight and delayed investments.

Some budgetary and security issues will also influence Lopez Obrador's plans to reduce corruption. Any new mechanism that is actually capable of investigating and punishing illicit enrichment will compete with other funding priorities in the national budget, such as social, infrastructure and security spending. Striving to create a commission with a sizable body of investigators doesn't necessarily have the same near-term political payoff as the funding of new bridges, schools or roads. Other concerns, such as the backlash from drug traffickers whose political allies may find themselves caught up in corruption investigations, or protests and public opinion campaigns driven by officials resisting the probes, could also discourage the creation of new, more powerful anti-corruption institutions.

Though Lopez Obrador swept into office on the back of promises to stamp out corruption in the government, the hard realities of governance may ultimately whittle down his ambitions to a series of targeted investigations through existing institutions. Overall, this approach would be far less disruptive than wide-ranging investigations, while also avoiding the political hullabaloo that would surround Congress' establishment of far stronger investigative bodies. But even if the new president has little choice but to tone down his anti-graft campaign, he will be the strongest Mexican leader in decades. Lopez Obrador boasts the political incentive and wields the tools to ramp up corruption investigations — the only question is whether he ultimately decides that the rewards of taking a dramatically stronger stance against Mexico's endemic corruption is worth the risk.
Title: GPF: AMLO's transistional justice
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 07, 2018, 11:33:58 AM
Last year, Mexico recorded its highest homicide rate ever, so its next president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will try a new strategy against the cartels. Dubbed “transitional justice,” the strategy will feature amnesty, leniency and decriminalization, at least according to the incoming interior minister. AMLO, as the president-elect is colloquially known, doesn’t take office until Dec. 1, and he must approve the strategy before submitting it to the public for a referendum. It’s clear that the incoming government will need to make some kind of change, but AMLO will soon discover that Mexico’s problems are not the reflection of bad policy but of much deeper societal issues. How he handles the cartels may become another obstacle to improved U.S.-Mexico relations
Title: 2017 homicidios en Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 01, 2018, 08:24:03 AM
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/07/30/mexico-had-more-homicides-in-2017-than-previously-thought.html

Title: GPF: Truth and Reconciliation in Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 07, 2018, 02:20:00 PM
Aug. 6, 2018
By Allison Fedirka


Truth and Reconciliation and Violence in Mexico


The president-elect has a controversial plan to eliminate organized crime. Will it work?


For many Mexicans, insecurity is commonplace. They look at the news and see stories of new vigilante groups, or they learn about the piles of bodies that were the most recent victims of organized crime, or they hear anecdotes of how business was obstructed or suspended because of some unnamed security concern. Now, the media coverage they watch tends to overemphasize these kinds of acts of violence while de-emphasizing the fact that Mexico has a mostly functional government and thriving economy. Still, violent crime, especially associated with the country’s drug cartels, is a serious issue in Mexico. So serious, in fact, that President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s radical proposal to resolve it – which features amnesty and reconciliation rather than confrontation – helped win him the presidency. He will soon begin to execute the plan, but as he does, he needs to bear in mind that virtually every previous plan to eliminate the cartels in the past few decades has failed.

A Spectacular Failure

This stands in stark contrast to the success of the cartels themselves. Their run began in the 1980s, when they went into business with Colombia’s cocaine producers looking for alternate transportation routes to their biggest market, the United States. At the time, Mexican drug trafficking was essentially a monopoly. But things changed in the 1990s. The business was divvied up partly by function and partly by region to inoculate itself from counternarcotics operations. Where some saw safety in numbers, others saw competition, which inevitably and violently ensued. The government, meanwhile, tried to curb cultivation but did not conduct large-scale operations against drug traffickers.

Enter Felipe Calderon, the president from 2006 to 2012, who all but declared war on the cartels. On his first day in office, he enlisted the military to help manage public security, employing a decapitation strategy on the leadership of the biggest groups. Calderon’s successor, Enrique Pena Nieto, mostly pursued the same strategy.
The strategy failed. In fact, it succeeded only in balkanizing and militarizing the larger cartels. The number of large drug trafficking organizations – that is, ones capable of controlling large swaths of territory – jumped from four in 2006 to nine in 2017. (This figure excludes the 45 or so smaller organizations that operate on a local level and whose associations with larger groups may change, depending on their business interests.) The cartels continued to produce, move and profit from their trade. Poppy cultivation, for example, increased 38 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, yielding an additional 111 metric tons. Higher numbers of cocaine-related overdoses and increased levels of coca production in Colombia suggest cocaine use is on the rise in the United States, a market in which Mexican cartels control supply.


 

(click to enlarge)


Homicides, meanwhile, shot up dramatically under Calderon. They dipped slightly from 2011 to 2014 before increasing again. In 2017, Mexico registered 25 homicides per 100,000 people. More alarming than the sheer number is the speed at which the number is increasing. 2017 set a record for registered intentional homicides, and 2018 is on track to be the bloodiest year ever, with a reported 15,973 intentional homicides in the first half of the year alone, according to the National System of Public Security. 2018 has also been notable for its uptick in political assassinations. In the nine months leading up to recent elections, 132 politicians and candidates were killed, according to risk analysis firm Etellekt. (The previous record, set in 2010, was 20.)

Clemency Is Controversial

AMLO, as the president-elect is often called, promised to solve these problems knowing full well the failures of his forebears. And he did so by taking a new approach, articulated in his 10-point Pacification and National Reconciliation Plan for Mexico. Though short on detail, the plan calls for opening public debate on contentious issues and a re-examination of how the law is enforced. Controversially, it proposes amnesty for some offenders, the formation of truth commissions, the use of pardons and penalty reductions, the professionalization and purging of law enforcement entities, the gradual demilitarization of public security, and the possible legalization of drugs beyond medicinal marijuana.

Some of these, especially those that redress problems among law enforcement personnel, are direct responses to public demand. Mexico does not have enough police officers to keep the peace, and the ones it does have are often underqualified. At the beginning of the year, the country had a total of nearly 120,000 officers or 0.8 officers per 1,000 residents, short of the minimum standard of 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents. In some places, there is no functional police force at all. In the places where the police do exist, many officers were not current with their performance evaluations; 66,000 had no evaluation at all. Roughly 24,000 have no initial training. Nearly 80,000 uniformed officers failed to meet the evaluation of basic skills. And this is to say nothing of rampant allegations of criminal collusion and corruption.

Other proposals are not so popular. Take the proposed amnesty law, which will apply only to young people co-opted by organized crime, women forced to mule drugs, and farmers forced to produce drugs. It is not meant to forgive crimes against humanity, torture and forced disappearances. Still, clemency is controversial – just ask anyone in Colombia, whose citizens remain deeply divided over the deal to bring members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia into the political fold – and the government has not yet decided how it will prosecute full-fledged organized crime members.

The legalization of drugs is also contentious. It’s unclear which drugs AMLO’s plan would apply to, and it’s unknown whether the law would focus on consumption, production, sale or any other segment of the business cycle. Drugs are, moreover, just one component of an organization’s portfolio. Legalizing drugs in Mexico may do little to prevent a criminal enterprise from continuing to profit in foreign markets, nor will it prohibit the countless other illicit activities in which it engages. Hence why AMLO means to target their finances. But if he does that, the groups won’t have much of an incentive to participate in his peace plan.

The Greater Good

At this point, AMLO’s primary objective is to open the debate on alternative ways to solve Mexico’s security problems, a goal that invariably touches on sensitive topics. And so, from Aug. 7 to Oct. 24, he will hold public discussions throughout Mexico to identify public needs and hear ideas of how to address them. Participants will include farmers, indigenous groups, academics, business members, religious communities, local authorities, politicians and the military.


 

(click to enlarge)


It will be interesting to see what details, if any, come from the discovery phase of his plan. Many of Mexico’s security problems are structural and so are difficult to solve. Revamping municipal police and gradual demilitarization alone will take at least three and a half years to execute (according to the National System of Public Security) even if everything goes exactly according to plan (which it rarely does). The U.S. has already criticized the plan to legalize drugs, and it could discourage AMLO from making good on the proposal by linking the issue to other issues. And in any case, there is always a chance that the public consultations will backfire.

AMLO may listen to all sides, but ultimately he will be forced to ignore some suggestions – and the groups that made them – for the greater good. And in doing so he will create enemies. With all these potential roadblocks, it’s no wonder a poll by the National Survey of Urban Public Security showed that 35 percent of the population thinks security will be equally bad in the next year while another 33 percent thinks it will get worse. AMLO’s predecessors came to office with grand plans too. His strategy is different, but unless he can secure buy-in from both cartels and civil society, the outcome will be the same.
Title: GPF: US-Mexico NAFTA negotiations
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 11, 2018, 09:09:06 AM
Mexico and the U.S. are talking rules of origin in NAFTA. Canada is sitting on the sidelines. The U.S. continues to play hardball, having reportedly refused to budge on its calls for 75 percent local content as a baseline, with 40-45 percent of regional content coming from high-wage zones (the U.S. and Canada). Washington is, moreover, now overtly linking the talks with potential tariffs on automobiles and auto parts. The U.S. proposal now includes a measure to exempt existing Mexican auto plants from the tariffs, which would still apply to any new Mexican auto plants. Mexican media indicate that Mexico is willing to be more flexible on rules of origin for automobiles with the U.S. in exchange for leeway in other areas – eliminating the sunset clause and keeping the dispute resolution mechanism, for example. Still, the current proposal is too steep even for Mexico, so bilateral talks on the issue will continue into next week. Meanwhile, Canada remains in direct contact with its counterparts but is staying out of it until its southern neighbors resolve the questions on automobiles. This doesn’t mean Washington has forgotten about Canada – President Donald Trump recently threatened Ottawa over its high tariffs and trade barriers. The current goal is for an agreement in principle by the end of the month. Meeting that goal will require some major concessions over the next couple of weeks.
Title: GPF: Guerrero
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 16, 2018, 02:38:40 PM
A state in Mexico wants to decriminalize poppy production. At least, that’s according to the Justice Committee of the Guerrero State Congress. Mexican newspaper Milenio reported on Wednesday that the issue would be sent to the Mexican Senate for consideration. Guerrero has been one of the hardest hit states by the drug trade, and it boasts a number of local vigilante security groups. So it’s no surprise that it’s the source of the country’s more radical political initiatives. Then again, about to take power is a Mexican president who has advocated similar policies. Ideas like this have always been in the ether. Maybe now they are gaining traction.
Title: Stratfor: Narcowars spill into tourist areas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 18, 2018, 12:22:18 PM
Highlights

    An attack carried out by La Union Tepito against a splinter group illustrates the continuing danger posed by the balkanization of cartel groups in Mexico.
    That the attack occurred in a tourist zone shows how cartel figures can drag violence into any part of Mexico.
    The attack was well-orchestrated, which likely reflects the powerful CJNG's support for La Union Tepito.

Editor's Note: This security-focused assessment is one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets, and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.

The party atmosphere surrounding Mexico's Independence Day celebrations in Mexico City's Garibaldi Plaza was shattered Sept. 14 when a group of three gunmen dressed as mariachis opened fire on a group seated at a restaurant. The hail of pistol and rifle fire killed five people and injured another eight. The apparent target of the attack was Jorge Flores Concha "El Tortas," the leader of a criminal organization known as "La U," or "La Fuerza Antiunion," a group that split from the powerful Union Tepito crime network.
A Map of Mexico City's Major Narcomenudistas

Union Tepito assassinated El Tortas' predecessor, Omar Sanchez Oropeza, aka "El Oropeza" or "El Gaznate," on May 5 in a parking garage in the Tlaxpana colony of the Miguel Hidalgo delegation of Mexico City. Union Tepito sometimes uses the name New Generation Cartel of Tepito, illustrating its close connection to the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). The CJNG is the most aggressively expanding cartel in Mexico and is behind much of the violence that has wracked Mexico in 2018.

A Professional Attack

The attack was well-planned and well-executed, which may be a result of the support Union Tepito has received from the CJNG and its experienced enforcer groups. While it is unclear if El Tortas was at the restaurant at the time of the attack, most of the dead and wounded were associated with him, according to Mexican newspaper El Milenio. This suggests Union Tepito had intelligence on his plans in advance and was able to prepare for the attack.

Using gunmen dressed as mariachis provided good cover for status, allowing the attack team to move into the area with rifles hidden in their instrument cases. After the attack, the shooters escaped on the back of motorcycles operated by drivers staged and waiting for them. The motorcycles likely took the shooters to safety in the maze of nearby Tepito, the group's stronghold. Their hasty exit suggests the attackers feared the Garibaldi Plaza area's heavy police presence, which is not a concern in many parts of Mexico.

An Ongoing Cartel Threat

The conflict between Union Tepito and La U has resulted in a significant increase in homicides in Tepito and adjacent areas of Mexico City so far in 2018. Union Tepito efforts to eradicate La U will continue, and La U can be expected to retaliate against Union Tepito for the attack.

The increased violence has prompted local business and political leaders to request that the Mexican military deploy forces to improve security in parts of the capital. Such a brazen attack will likely result in similar calls, which will make it very difficult for Mexico's incoming administration to fulfill its campaign promise of removing the military from the struggle against Mexico's criminal cartels.

Reports indicate that one of the eight wounded victims was a foreign tourist. This highlights the persistent danger of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in Mexico. It also once again illustrates how cartel leaders can drag violence into any part of Mexico.

In light of these risks, travelers and expatriates in Mexico should practice good situational awareness and pay specific attention to people who might belong to cartels. If a group of such people enters a restaurant or other establishment, it would be prudent to be prepared to respond to a possible incident, and even to leave the location to avoid potential violence.
Title: Stratfor: AMLO plows ahead
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 16, 2018, 08:32:20 PM
Mexico: President-Elect Plows Ahead With Plans for an Airport Vote
(Stratfor)
Print
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Mail
Save As PDF
Listen
Bookmark
The Big Picture

Mexican voters elected Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as president based on his promises to combat government and private sector corruption. True to his word, Lopez Obrador has signaled his intention to take the construction of Mexico City's new airport — a project plagued by corruption allegations — to a public vote. Enforcing the results of a nonbinding referendum, however, would put Lopez Obrador in dubious legal territory and hurt investor confidence in Mexico.
See 2018 Fourth-Quarter Forecast
See The Importance of Mexico
What Happened

On Oct. 16, the legislative heads of Mexico's ruling party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), said their party would not financially support a referendum on whether to continue construction of the new Mexico City international airport. The president of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, a Morena ally, said the referendum lacked legal validity and that he would ask the Supreme Court to invalidate it if President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attempts to enforce its results. The referendum, which Lopez Obrador has set for Oct. 25-28, would give voters the options of continuing the project — which has been plagued by allegations of $40 million in corruption-related cost overruns — canceling its construction in favor of expanding the existing Mexico City and Toluca airports or building new runways at the Santa Lucia military airbase. The government may also try to reduce costs for some parts of the airport project even if voters choose to continue with its construction.
Why It Matters

The referendum provides a test as to how far Lopez Obrador wishes to stray from normal institutional channels to enforce his populist campaign promises. After all, Lopez Obrador made decisive action against corruption and increased popular participation in referendums — including a vote on the controversial airport — a key part of his political platform on the campaign trail. According to Mexican law, however, Lopez Obrador cannot hold a binding vote on the facility's continued construction as no legal basis exists for such votes on public works projects like airports or for such referendums outside of an election.

The referendum, however, is significant because Lopez Obrador could try to turn a nonbinding, haphazard vote into policy. No federal electoral authority will count the votes, while it's unclear what private or nongovernmental entity will actually conduct the referendum. A vote against the airport's continued construction could paint Lopez Obrador into a corner, as he would either try to turn it into policy and alienate allies by entering legally dangerous territory or ignore the result and suffer political backlash from followers who expected him to follow through on a major campaign promise. If Lopez Obrador were to opt for the former, investors could become wary of providing funds for projects that could attract scrutiny from the government, whether because of corruption or local resistance.

But there is another layer of importance to the referendum. Lopez Obrador is progressing down a politically disruptive path by trying to hold a potentially controversial vote haphazardly — seeking a congressional vote to change the constitution to permit such a referendum would have created less instability. In theory, Lopez Obrador has the two-thirds majority in each house of Congress and a majority of the state legislatures needed to alter the Mexican Constitution to eventually allow such referendums to legally proceed. His haste to put the airport issue to a public vote on an unrealistic timeline and without funding support, however, is exposing his lack of votes in Congress for constitutional reform — even from his own allies — meaning Mexico's new president is opting for a course of action that will inject a sizable amount of uncertainty into the country's politics.
Title: Caravan
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 10, 2018, 04:14:24 PM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/miles-migrantes-llegan-queretaro-tras-abandonar-cdmx/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION
Title: Caravan #2; Marchan en El Paso
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 11, 2018, 02:41:16 PM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/segunda-caravana-migrantes-veracruz-puebla/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/marchan-contra-militarizacion-para-intimidar-a-migrantes-en-el-paso-texas/
Title: Calderon renuncia PAN
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 11, 2018, 03:16:27 PM


https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/felipe-calderon-expresidente-renuncia-pan/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION
Title: Dos Caravanas, apoyo por el estado de Sonora
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 12, 2018, 03:38:53 PM

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/caravana-migrante-llega-primer-grupo-sonora/


https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/segunda-caravana-migrante-llega-puebla/
Title: Muchas enfermedades en las caravanas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 12, 2018, 10:02:50 PM
El "headline" (?Como se dice 'headline'?) dice que ya hay cuatro caravanas,

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/migrantes-caravana-concentran-coatzacoalcos-veracruz/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 19, 2018, 07:15:15 AM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/integrantes-caravana-migrante-tambien-llegan-mexicali/

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/motiva-segunda-caravana-migrante-esperanza-mejor-futuro/

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/caravana-migrante-sector-empresarial-de-mexico-ofrece-empleo-migrantes-centroamericanos/

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/reabren-garita-san-ysidro-frontera-tijuana/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 20, 2018, 09:46:46 AM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/videos/miembros-de-la-segunda-caravana-permanecen-en-la-casa-del-peregrino/

https://noticieros.televisa.com/videos/estados-unidos-sigue-reforzando-barricada-en-garita-de-san-ysidro/

Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 21, 2018, 06:30:07 AM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/refuerzan-medidas-de-seguridad-en-muro-fronterizo-de-mexico-con-eu/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 22, 2018, 12:01:19 PM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/policia-eu-realiza-operativo-garita-san-ysidro/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 24, 2018, 09:16:45 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-bYT0sFdw8&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR20wtyu2LKkDGXtUlzkQOz46FDqOI9HkhMLEr2lOPJ9TBFNaiNXJBiq2Jk
Title: Acuerdo entre Trump y AMLO?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 24, 2018, 12:50:18 PM
segundo

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/trump-amlo-alcanzan-acuerdo-migracion-segun-washington-post/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 25, 2018, 10:40:44 AM

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/trump-recomienda-a-mexico-ser-inteligente-y-frenar-las-caravanas-migrantes/

https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/mexico-sides-trump-looks-completely-shut-illegal-immigration-us/?utm_source=push&utm_medium=conservativetribune&utm_content=2018-11-25&utm_campaign=manualpost

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/trump-insiste-migrantes-esperen-mexico-mientras-tramitan-asilo/

===========

https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/estados-unidos-cierra-frontera-san-diego-tras-intento-asalto-migrantes/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 25, 2018, 05:34:44 PM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/estados-unidos-defiende-cierre-garita-fronteriza-san-diego/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION
Title: Stratfor: Rodeo in the Borderlands
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 27, 2018, 11:54:48 AM
The Cultural Stew of Rodeo in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
By Thomas M. Hunt
Board of Contributors
Thomas M. Hunt



    For centuries, migration across the U.S-Mexican border has been a normal part of life in rural far West Texas.
    The rodeo culture in the region reflects that reality, featuring traditions from both north and south of the Rio Grande.
    The popularity of the sport in both Mexico and Texas makes it an interesting prism through which to view the current issues surrounding the border and immigration.

My family owns a ranchito in the beautiful Davis Mountains of far West Texas. It is my favorite spot on earth. A recent episode of Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" series on CNN featured Texas' Big Bend region where the Davis Mountains are located. The residents he interviewed, much like myself, cherish both the rugged beauty of the land as well as its rich mixture of Anglo and Mexican cultural traditions. And they universally opposed the push to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border through the sparsely populated region.

In one interview, an eye-patch-wearing cowboy/saloon owner named Ty delivered an astonishing moment of eloquence on this point. "We can't survive without the river," he said, referring to the Rio Grande forming the border. "And we can't survive without the people on that side of the river. And they can't survive without us. And they're our friends, for God's sake. Loyalty is a big thing in Texas, and you ain't gonna build a fence between me and my loyal friends."

President Donald Trump, who has long touted a wall stretching the entire length of the border as a solution to illegal immigration, recently ordered about 5,200 active-duty troops to the border in response to reports that a large caravan of migrants was moving north from Central America. The deployment took place amid the implementation of a larger set of policy proposals centered on immigration. These include a "zero tolerance" policy by law enforcement toward undocumented immigrants and a decision to allow the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy to expire.

Those issues and the wall proposal have put the region at the front of my mind lately. I've been thinking about my annual trips there in August, when I take a few friends out to the ranchito so we can watch the Big Bend Ranch Rodeo held in nearby Alpine. In the amateur competitions at the event, working cowboys representing their home ranches perform tasks designed to replicate the reality of their chosen profession: calf branding, team penning, cattle doctoring, wild-cow milking and ranch bronc riding. The display of everyday skills showcases the athleticism of the wranglers. The ranch hands are very much the real deal — and their abilities are amazing. I competed in a few local youth rodeo events as a child, and I maintain that roping a calf from horseback is perhaps the single most difficult feat in all the world of sports. But my group of friends also goes as scholars interested in larger issues.

Rodeo seems to offer an interesting prism through which to view the types of border questions that Bourdain's episode raised. It serves simultaneously as the official state sport of Texas and as (in a stylized form called charreria) the national sport of Mexico. Rodeo events, moreover, range from the small and the local to commercialized versions that are truly gigantic.

Among the most successful of the latter are the 300 or so competitions put on every year by the Professional Bull Riders (PBR). Although the organization includes competitors from all over the world, its brand identity is very much centered in the United States. "At its core," its website says, "PBR has always been about bringing people together to participate in and enjoy a sport built upon traditional American values. Reflecting on these bedrock principles, PBR looks for ways to promote these values, celebrate real heroes, unite our nation, and inspire the next generation."

In 2008, the organization entered into a partnership with the U.S. Border Patrol, whose agents became "the official federal law enforcement officers of the Professional Bull Riders." Recruiting booths for the agency are now prominently found at PBR events. That tone seems markedly different from the ranch rodeo of which my friends and I are so fond.

The cowboys and vaqueros of the borderlands have a long and deep relationship, after all. My guess is that at least a few of the ranches that send competitors to the Big Bend event employ a hand or two from Mexico. It is also worth pondering as well that charreria are becoming mainstays in a number of rural communities in Texas. This is perhaps emblematic of the demographic transition into a state whose largest population group is projected to soon be Hispanic.

All three flavors of rodeo — the amateur competitions between rural ranch hands, the gatherings of vaqueros practicing the traditions of Mexico and the professionals who perform their sport in concrete arenas before thousands of spectators — reflect the perspectives that can be found in the mixed heritage of the borderlands.
Title: Stratfor: AMLO's call for a moral constitution
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 27, 2018, 02:35:20 PM
Second post

Mexico: What the President-Elect's Call for a Moral Constitution Means
(Stratfor)

The Big Picture

When he enters office in December, Mexico's president-elect will expand the avenues for Mexican citizens to demand political change. In addition to pursuing a broad constitutional reform effort to expand the authority of national referendums, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will ask the citizenry for input on what he has dubbed a "moral constitution." Although not legally binding, the document will likely include requests for populist policy changes that Lopez Obrador could pursue. But in all likely scenarios, the drive for change will also increase uncertainty in the private sector and spark political opposition.

What Happened

Mexico's new leader is moving forward with his plan to create a set of social guidelines and shared values that he has dubbed a moral constitution. On Nov. 26, Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador set out a timetable for drafting the new document. According to Lopez Obrador, the presidency will accept submissions from members of different elements of Mexican civil society from Dec. 3, 2018, to April 20, 2019. The government will then convene on July 31 to determine which proposals to include in a final draft.

Why It Matters

Lopez Obrador has said that the document will not be legally binding, but the process he started may still end with legislative changes. His request for proposals from different sectors of Mexico's civil society — which could include interest groups and political factions with clear ideological agendas — will likely lead to requests to change the country's laws or constitution to address long-standing grievances.

Opening up a new channel for grievances means that Lopez Obrador will also be opening a new source of uncertainty for investors.

Populist demands for greater social spending or for mandatory consultations ahead of public works and energy projects, for example, could plausibly find their way into the process. The request for suggestions will likely be met with calls for populist policy changes, some of which the Lopez Obrador administration may choose to pursue for their political expediency ahead of the 2021 midterm election or the 2024 presidential vote.
Background

Lopez Obrador is trying to introduce more avenues for democratic participation in Mexico, where citizens have traditionally had few options to involve themselves outside of federal elections. Primarily, the president-elect has pushed for such increased participation to come through a constitutional amendment to make referendums legally binding, more frequent and focused on a wider range of subjects. However, the drive for a moral constitution and greater citizen participation in politics will come at a cost. By opening up a channel for a wide range of groups to air their grievances with the status quo, Lopez Obrador will also be opening a new source of uncertainty for investors.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 27, 2018, 07:24:58 PM
second post

Possibly rumint, but worth noting

https://www.speroforum.com/a/YVOQLYYSQG58/84351-Mexican-selfdefense-group-to-hunt-down-migrant-caravan?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RKQZOZIYWV3&utm_content=YVOQLYYSQG58&utm_source=news&utm_term=Mexican+selfdefense+group+to+hunt+down+migrant+caravan#.W_4Fv-JRfcs

Calls for the narcos to take action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=vQDtjrn0v50

Gente encabronado

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=deBYhPbZinY


also see

https://www.speroforum.com/a/KQOHJHIITD34/84373-Confirmed-migrants-use-children-as-human-shields?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=RKQZOZIYWV3&utm_content=KQOHJHIITD34&utm_source=news&utm_term=Confirmed+migrants+use+children+as+human+shields#.W_4FXuJRfcs
Title: Mexican policeman puts caravaneros in their place; quejas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 27, 2018, 10:48:56 PM
third post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egbcZOs7abU&fbclid=IwAR2FW76nDFXRX3PgZyjuQI3KXnEU8ANhfNZx-KaGdBADlgs5ldH6bh1K5Lk

Quejas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ogwlE6qQI
Title: Haz Tijuana Tremendo de Nuevo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 29, 2018, 10:44:12 AM
https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/caravanners-get-bad-news-tijuana-govt-rain-coming-not-paying-keep-dry/?utm_source=push&utm_medium=conservativetribune&utm_content=2018-11-29&utm_campaign=manualpost
Title: Pinche Pueblos Sin Fronteras
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 06, 2018, 02:44:44 PM
Lo siguiente es del periodico izquierdista "The Los Angeles Times"

https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-caravan-leaders-20181206-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter
Title: Politicos "accidentados" por avion y por helicoptero
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 25, 2018, 03:18:17 PM
https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/polticos-mexicanos-muertos-accidentes-aereos-pan-pri/?utm_medium=ONESIGNAL&utm_source=SITE&utm_campaign=PUSHNOTIFICATION
Title: New Narco boss in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 28, 2019, 05:37:18 PM


https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/01/28/exclusive-terrorist-who-targeted-americans-takes-over-mexican-cartel-on-texas-border/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_content=links&utm_campaign=
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 09, 2019, 11:55:17 AM
What Happened: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is planning to hold a referendum on Feb. 23-24 on the construction of a $628 million power plant in Morelos state, Natural Gas Intel reported Feb. 8. Although construction on the plant is complete, it has not yet started operations. The referendum will only include residents of 32 towns along a 171-kilometer (106-mile) pipeline supplying the plant.

Why It Matters: Holding the referendum would significantly erode investor confidence in Mexico as the plant has already attracted considerable funding and halting the project would be a sign of increasing regulatory risk despite previous assurances.

Background: Lopez Obrador's government has already held informal referendums, including a vote on the construction of a new airport in Mexico City in 2018.
Title: Stratfor: Murder in Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 19, 2019, 08:07:03 AM
Murder in Mexico: What's the Danger to an American Tourist?
Mexican marines patrol the beach of Playacar, near the seaside tourist resort of Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo State, on Feb. 14, 2019.
(DANIEL SLIM/AFP/Getty Images)
Print
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Mail
Save As PDF
Listen
Bookmark
Highlights

    Mexico broke its record for homicides last year, and the dynamics that are driving that violence are unlikely to abate in the near future.
    At the same time, record numbers of U.S. citizens are either visiting Mexico as tourists or residing in the country, yet the number of Americans murdered in Mexico remains remarkably low.
    Still, violent crime remains a problem in Mexico, and visitors and residents should take measures to mitigate the risk.

With spring break right around the corner, our Threat Lens team is once again in demand, as clients — along with a wide array of friends and family — are all wondering about the safety of a Mexican getaway for some spring sun. Of course, the concern is understandable. As our 2019 Mexico cartel forecast reported, murders in the country hit their highest rate ever last year and, worryingly, there's nothing to suggest that this year will be any different.
The Big Picture

Geography, economics and history have resulted in the United States and Mexico becoming tightly intertwined, with Mexico's manufactured goods benefiting the U.S. market and U.S. tourists helping Mexico's economy. Mexico's proximity to the United States, however, has also spawned powerful and deadly crime south of the Rio Grande — some of which can ensnare Americans.
See The Importance of Mexico

Mexico's climbing murder rate has yet to deter American tourists from visiting their southern neighbor. Last year's U.S. tourist figures are not yet available, but it's safe to assume that the tally will come in higher than the 35 million that visited the country in 2017. The U.S. Department of State has issued warnings advising against travel to five Mexican states: Colima, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Guerrero — the last of which is home to the resort city of Acapulco. Despite this, the resorts of Cancun, Cozumel and Cabo San Lucas are already full of American tourists in 2019, and I expect they will be near capacity over spring break.

Someone recently reached out to me on Twitter, saying they had stopped visiting Mexico after becoming a Stratfor subscriber. Now, that's certainly not our intent in writing on this topic; after all, we prefer to take a "go, but" approach to travel security rather than definitely tell anyone not to go. It's the same story for Mexico, which is a great country to visit with incredible things to see and do. But, like anywhere else, there are risks, many of which can be avoided or mitigated. For the moment, though, let's take a closer look at the confluence of Mexico's growing murder rate and the rising number of American tourists choosing to visit the country. Because, ultimately, the threat may not be as great as feared. 
American Deaths in Mexico

Between June 2017 and June 2018, 238 Americans died in Mexico, amounting to 29 percent of all U.S. citizens who perished overseas during the period, according to the U.S. Department of State. But in terms of homicide, Mexico looms much larger in the figures: Of the 152 who were murdered overseas during the 12 months in question, exactly half died in Mexico. Naturally, however, the question of scale is paramount in interpreting the figures. The 35 million U.S. tourists who visit Mexico dwarf the number of their compatriots (1.5 million) who go to nearby destinations such as Jamaica. And while just six Americans fell victim to homicide in the latter, the murder rate for U.S. citizens is, per capita, higher on the Caribbean island than it is in Mexico.

To put things further into perspective, Chicago has a population of 2.7 million — about the same as the number of Americans that live in Mexico (to say nothing of the 35 million that visited last year). Last year, however, 561 people died in homicides in the Windy City, more than seven times the number of Americans who were murdered in Mexico.
A graph showing the cause of deaths for Americans in Mexico from June 2017 to June 2018.

In the end, the 76 American homicide victims are a drop in the bucket in terms of Mexico's overall total: 33,341. Moreover, a good portion of those murders occurred in border cities in which there are active cartel wars, such as Tijuana, Juarez and Reynosa. In contrast, just four occurred in tourist hotspots like Cancun, La Paz in Baja California Sur and Puerto Penasco in Sonora. Furthermore, many of the Americans murdered in places like Tijuana and Juarez were dual citizens or residents of Mexico who were involved in criminal activity — that isn't intended to minimize their deaths, but merely indicates that such murders have almost no bearing on the American tourists who visit Mexican resorts. And even in states with significant resorts in which the murder rate has increased, such as Quintana Roo (which is home to Cancun), the number of American tourists killed there remains quite small. Violence in Cancun, for example, is quite common — an attack on a bar there on Feb. 16 killed five people — but most of the violence occurs far from the tourist zones along the beach. Ultimately, Mexico's murder rate may have risen to about 27 per 100,000, but its homicide rate is still only about half that of Honduras or El Salvador.
Avoiding the Danger

That notwithstanding, Mexico patently does have a serious problem with violent crime, as evidenced by the many cartels that are fighting each other for control of the country's lucrative drug production areas, trafficking corridors and domestic narcotics sales. And then there are ancillary, violent criminal activities, such as fuel theft, cargo theft, kidnapping and human trafficking. Cartel members also tend to wield military-grade weapons, which they do not hesitate to use on rival gangs or security forces, often resulting in collateral damage.

Violence in Cancun is quite common — an attack on a bar there on Feb. 16 killed five people — but most of the violence occurs far from the tourist zones along the beach.

Because of this, the best way to avoid falling prey to criminal violence is to avoid places in which it is most likely to occur, such as strip bars and seedy clubs in which drug-selling occurs. Moreover, many foreign victims of crime in Mexico were drinking to excess, using drugs or staying out late at night. We recommend that tourists visiting Mexico stay at their hotel or resort grounds after dark and avoid drinking to excess or using drugs. In some of the drinking-related incidents, assailants spiked beverages with incapacitants such as GHB, Rohypnol or fentanyl, so we recommend you not accept drinks from unknown people or leave your drink unattended. What's more, it's a good idea to avoid going onto the beach after dark.

And speaking of the dark, avoid driving at night, even on the highways. That means that if you're flying into Mexico, schedule your flights to arrive during the day and use pre-arranged transportation to get to your hotel or resort, as Mexican taxis, particularly the illegal ones, can sometimes be used for express kidnappings and sexual assaults.

Before you go, minimize what you take with you on your trip, so that you can reduce your losses if you are robbed and lessen your temptation to resist an armed criminal. And if, despite all your precautions, armed robbers do confront you, do as they say, for they will not hesitate to use gratuitous violence if you fail to comply. In the end, your watch or your wallet is simply not worth your life.

As the old adage goes, you're more likely to die or suffer injury in a traffic accident (or fire or other accident) than you are to suffer harm at the hands of a criminal. That's why it's critical to pack a stop-the-bleed kit and other first aid equipment, a good-quality flashlight and smoke hoods, as these items can literally be lifesavers. For the rest of the time, exercise proper situational awareness and common-sense security and you're unlikely to encounter many problems on your trip south.
Title: USMCA
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 26, 2019, 03:50:06 PM
https://usmca.com/?fbclid=IwAR01DI_57pJUKB3xArevGGN2FPgTRZT47vSSxC2o7eF07E6c2lBMNdc4b6A
Title: Las guerras continuan
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 27, 2019, 08:24:59 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHTLE6vlgNE&feature=player_embedded
Title: Entrevista seria
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 28, 2019, 07:18:55 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=edZR_nPp1l8
Title: Judicial Watch White Paper-- important read
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 13, 2019, 09:33:46 PM


http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/JWWhitePaperCartelFTOdesigationMarch2019-003.pdf?V=1&utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=corruption+chronicles&utm_term=members&utm_content=20190314042916
Title: Timeline Mexico 2009-present
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 13, 2019, 09:46:14 PM
Second post



https://www.timelines.ws/countries/MEXICO_D.HTML?fbclid=IwAR0URKrWgZza5aFVftMTroPAz9moDEMLsGf8L013o169O-yOKkb2pQxwRLk
Title: Hezbollah-Los Zetas? and more
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 15, 2019, 06:18:00 AM
https://www.utep.edu/liberalarts/nssi/_Files/docs/Capstone%20projects1/Valencia_Evolving-Dynamics-of-Terrorism.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1snBcM8t9ODBSAjCCDkelJ52EggrlSK84_a8DycLnOEaiBr7GedVRdlXA

https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2017/282846.htm?fbclid=IwAR3PtbR8ZglrSgDw_0GFcqULgaF6Ai7BK9s1dBWMYaWIa8mes8MB_XYRvUQ

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/10/mexico-drug-cartels-grip-on-politicians-and-police-revealed-in-texas-court-files?fbclid=IwAR183RJZRrj1UeVuzR5uRB83MIa14BlrQluMWqxGpeyq_DSvGfWS0BJcCAI

https://abc7chicago.com/mexico-cartels-now-fuel-deadly-chicago-opioid-epidemic/4605627/?fbclid=IwAR0t9uyE7t622Ddw__TzAaUnnsdelSVZa-LEVJhjYaor9AefA9QmHf3ymvc
Title: Re: Hezbollah-Los Zetas? and more
Post by: DougMacG on March 15, 2019, 08:45:55 AM
https://www.utep.edu/liberalarts/nssi/_Files/docs/Capstone%20projects1/Valencia_Evolving-Dynamics-of-Terrorism.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1snBcM8t9ODBSAjCCDkelJ52EggrlSK84_a8DycLnOEaiBr7GedVRdlXA

https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2017/282846.htm?fbclid=IwAR3PtbR8ZglrSgDw_0GFcqULgaF6Ai7BK9s1dBWMYaWIa8mes8MB_XYRvUQ

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/10/mexico-drug-cartels-grip-on-politicians-and-police-revealed-in-texas-court-files?fbclid=IwAR183RJZRrj1UeVuzR5uRB83MIa14BlrQluMWqxGpeyq_DSvGfWS0BJcCAI

https://abc7chicago.com/mexico-cartels-now-fuel-deadly-chicago-opioid-epidemic/4605627/?fbclid=IwAR0t9uyE7t622Ddw__TzAaUnnsdelSVZa-LEVJhjYaor9AefA9QmHf3ymvc

Revelations about Middle East terror organizations forming alliances with gangs south of our border surprises me.  I didn't know we had a southern border.

Crafty, this post contains a wealth of (bad news) information.  How did we get to where one political party wants to abandon national security as the globe and our own neighborhood keeps getting more dangerous.

From the UTEP pdf:
"Hezbollah conducts criminal operations across the globe. They have formed alliances with multiple countries in Latin America. One alliance in particular that has received attention as 3 of late is with the “Los Zetas” drug cartel or drug trafficking organization (DTO) in Mexico. Hezbollah has created a criminal syndicate of drug trafficking through some of Mexico’s most well connected global drug dealers. This new partnership has assisted in laundering between $850 and $900 million."
Title: Mas violencia en Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 21, 2019, 06:08:43 PM
https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-tijuana-violence-20190314-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1hhFv_Dt0MQE-OJteeSOiW6K4Upah4qBJzzqpDeh2e9g3y6Eu9lCWMLR8

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/jalisco-new-generation-cartel-goes-on-the-offensive/?fbclid=IwAR1YP24FT5qfqyKwDvwnp_902eLWDCNK7TwshHqPAOZ4A-daUj4NHZfWyxk

!Aun atacan la cuartel de la policia!
Title: Cartel Del Noreste
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 22, 2019, 01:48:11 PM
    The Cartel del Noreste appears poised to launch a push to seize control of Monterrey, Mexico's third-largest metropolitan area and a major regional business hub.
    This could lead to a significant escalation of violence in areas where many companies and organizations have interests, and where many of their employees live.
    Competing extortion demands would also present businesses in the region with a dangerous conundrum.

Editor's Note: This security-focused assessment is one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets, and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.

The Cartel del Noreste (CDN), the remnant of the Los Zetas cartel that controls the lucrative Nuevo Laredo smuggling plaza, has taken actions over the past week suggesting it is preparing a push to seize control of Monterrey, Mexico's third-largest metropolitan area and a major regional business hub. Such an offensive would likely meet resistance from the groups currently in the area and so would involve significant violence — something businesses with interests in the area should prepare for.
The Big Picture

By 2013, the long process of balkanization — or splintering — of Mexico's cartels made analyzing them much more difficult. Indeed, many of the ones we had been tracking, such as the Gulf cartel, had imploded and fragmented into several smaller, often competing factions. From the Gulf cartel emerged the notorious Los Zetas, which also subsequently split into several smaller remnants including the Cartel del Noreste (CDN). That splinter group now appears poised to make a play for control of the major Mexican business center of Monterrey. Were the CDN to proceed, foreign businesses there would feel the heat.
See Security Challenges in Latin America

Over the weekend of March 16-17, a narcomanta — or banner with a message from a drug cartel — was hung in the city of San Pedro Garza Garcia, part of the Monterrey metropolitan area. The banner threatened to kill members of the Gulf cartel and "the people of El Gato" who do not leave the city. El Gato refers to Jose Rodolfo Villarreal Hernandez, a leader of a remnant of the Beltran Leyva Cartel who has established a strong presence in San Pedro Garza Garcia. The banner also threatened "people who pay a fee to El Gato" — meaning that businesses pay him extortion fees, and said that they would use murder to target businesses that do not instead pay extortion fees to the CDN. The banner also claimed that the mayor of San Pedro Garza Garcia, Miguel Bernardo Trevino de Hoyos, was working with the CDN — something the group probably would not broadcast were it true.

In response, a narcomanta attributed to "El Felino," presumably a reference to El Gato, was hung threatening the people allegedly bringing deadly violence to the area. It also said his organization was well-established in the area, and was prepared to take on the intruders.

Competing extortion demands would also present businesses in the region with a dangerous conundrum.

The CDN has also reportedly been busily threatening journalists. The publication Proceso reported March 13 that CDN has threatened at least a dozen journalists in the Monterrey metropolitan area via calls to their personal cellphones. The callers revealed knowledge of personal information about the call recipients, such as where the journalists lived and their families' activities. The threatening callers also reportedly demanded payments to allow the journalists to continue to work. Threatening journalists is not a new activity for the CDN: In December 2018 it threatened the Expreso newspaper in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state, by leaving a message in front of the paper accompanied by a human head in a cooler.

As we noted in our 2019 annual cartel forecast, the CDN has been locked in a protracted battle for control of Ciudad Victoria with the Zetas Vieja Escuela (Spanish for the "Old School Zetas"). This battle apparently has not drained the CDN's resources such that its leadership thinks it lacks the resources to mount an offensive for control of other areas.

It is quite possible that this apparent CDN activity could be a hoax or just empty bluster. But if the CDN's threats are sincere and it actually attempts to seize control of the wealthy enclave of San Pedro Garza Garcia and the rest of the Monterrey metropolitan area, it could produce a significant escalation of violence in areas where many companies and organizations have interests — and where many of their employees live. Competing extortion demands would also present businesses in the region with a dangerous conundrum.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 06, 2019, 06:49:16 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/58-say-stop-the-migrants/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=8faa106a24-MNT+apr05-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-8faa106a24-349632321
Title: Asuntos en guardia de seguridad para ex-presidentes
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 07, 2019, 08:28:20 PM

https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/politica/amlo-dispone-guardia-de-seguridad-para-proteger-fox-pero-sin-excesos?fbclid=IwAR0qHqftqKJ3TNdrl3hu9ieaGkuLVkACMAWnKzuOW9wENdmUvCB0fmRWy-Y

https://www.blog-del-narco.com.mx/2019/04/felipe-calderon-tenia-miedo-me-pidio.html?fbclid=IwAR1655QiP9KS3Le6LyifxRpX_nfGSI2QlU50kjgpSuDoIbSmmFMpjajCi-o

Tambien , , ,

http://borderland-beat-forum.924382.n3.nabble.com/Cancun-Luxury-car-rental-business-destroyed-by-possible-grenade-believed-to-be-target-of-organized-ce-td4106535.html
Title: Mas sobre seguridad de Vincente Fox
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 10, 2019, 01:22:12 PM
https://www.blog-del-narco.com.mx/2019/04/comando-armado-intento-entrar-casa-de.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR2xRZbrpAWevnoqmU85SY07kjZ360quX8oyIjM02Yy9s7wUoKVRVc3mgf0
Title: US govt program facilitates remittances
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 11, 2019, 05:17:19 PM
   

Most of the $33 Billion in Remittances to Mexico Flow Via U.S. Govt. Banking Program

Though President Trump said he would block money transfers to Mexico to fund a much-needed border wall, Mexicans in the U.S. sent a record $33.48 billion in remittances last year and a big chunk of it flowed through a government program operated by the Federal Reserve.

This means that, amid an onslaught of illegal immigration, the U.S. government is largely responsible for the billions in remittances flowing south of the border from illegal aliens. Figures released by Mexico’s central bank show that 104 million transactions were executed in 2018, nearly six million more than the previous year.

Uncle Sam facilitates the process with a program called “Directo a Mexico” (Direct to Mexico), launched by the Federal Reserve, the government agency that serves as the nation’s central bank, more than a decade ago. President George W. Bush came up with the idea following the 2001 U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity to provide low-cost banking services to illegal immigrants and facilitate the procedure for those sending money home.

In its first year, 2005, remittances to Mexico topped $20 billion and the Federal Reserve reports “double-digit percentage growth for the past several years.” Remittances are transferred through the Federal Reserve’s own automated clearinghouse linked directly to Mexico’s central bank (Banco de Mexico). The Trump administration should eliminate it because it undermines our nation’s immigration laws and is a potential national security nightmare.

Back in 2006 Judicial Watch investigated the outrageous taxpayer-subsidized initiative and obtained government records that shed light on how it functions. Marketing materials target immigrant workers in the U.S.—regardless of their legal status—as well as banks, credit unions and other financial institutions.

The program is promoted as “the best way to send money home,” offering “more pesos for every dollar.” American financial institutions are charged $0.67 per item to transfer money from the United States to Mexican banks, ensuring a “highly competitive rate.” The Federal Reserve also provides participating U.S. financial institutions with Spanish language promotional materials to “help get your message out.” The marketing materials also include the number of Mexican migrants in the U.S. with no distinction between those here illegally or not. A separate list identifies thousands of Mexican banks receiving “Directo a México” transfers.

When the program was created Federal Reserve officials acknowledged that most of the Mexican nationals who send money back home are illegal immigrants so a Mexican-issued identification is the only requirement to use the government banking service. A colorful brochure promoting “Directo a Mexico” offered to help immigrants who don’t have bank accounts and assured the best foreign exchange rate and low transfer fees.

A frequently asked question section posed this: “If I return to Mexico or am deported, will I lose the money in my bank account?” The answer: “No. The money still belongs to you and can easily be accessed at an ATM in Mexico using your debit card.” In short, the U.S. created this special banking system specifically for illegal aliens and tens of billions of dollars have streamed through it.

As a presidential candidate Trump proposed a plan to get Mexico to fund a border wall by cutting off remittance payments from Mexican migrants in the U.S. In a memo to a mainstream newspaper Trump wrote that Mexican migrants send $24 billion in remittances annually and the estimated cost of a border wall would be between $5 billion and $10 billion.

According to his plan, the U.S. Patriot Act would be amended to block wire transfers from Mexican nationals using companies such as Western Union. Nowhere in the document is the Federal Reserve’s special program, which clearly caters to illegal immigrants. The president is well aware that the overwhelming majority of remittances to Mexico are sent by those living in the U.S. illegally.

In fact, his proposal was to create a rule that “no alien may wire money outside of the United States unless the alien first provides a document establishing his lawful presence in the United States.”  The Federal Reserve’s “Directo a Mexico” has no such requirement as the commander-in-chief completes his first term.
 




Title: Guerrero poppy farmers detain soldiers
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 12, 2019, 06:15:31 PM


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/guerrero-farmers-detain-soldiers/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=3eb46ec59a-MNT+apr12-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-3eb46ec59a-349632321
Title: Otro caravan sale de Chiapas y Cubanos irregulares
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 17, 2019, 05:40:26 PM

Next caravan under way in Chiapas , , ,

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/ca...il&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-9ee523849d-349632321

Irregular Cubans

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/im...il&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-9ee523849d-349632321
 
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 19, 2019, 06:59:03 PM
Looks like President Trump's pressure on Mexico is having some effect

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-getting-tougher-on-migrants/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=3860e416b7-MNT+apr19-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-3860e416b7-349632321

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/juarez-swamped-with-migrants/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/15000-trucks-stranded-in-juarez/

Meanwhile , , ,

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/4-dead-after-gang-attacks-celaya-police-station/
Title: Stratfor: Caravans not behind crossing slowdowns
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 22, 2019, 04:01:49 PM


Why Migrant Caravans Are not Behind the Recent U.S.-Mexico Border Crossing Slowdowns
A Central American migrant caravan on Nov. 11, 2018, passes through the Mexican state of Guanajuato on its way to the United States.

Highlights

    Much has been made of so-called migrant caravans heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border, but they are a relatively small part of a broader problem increasing processing times for legal land border crossings into the United States.
    These slowdowns affect the operations of businesses reliant on cross-border trade.
    While current record levels of immigration will eventually drop off, seemingly intractable staffing challenges at U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the national political fight over the border will continue.

Editor's Note: This security-focused assessment is one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.

About 3,000 migrants from Central America crossed into Mexico from Guatemala via the Rodolfo Robles International Bridge on April 12, joining about 4,000 others already in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas hoping to make it to the United States. Based on the patterns of previous caravans from Central America, the migrants will take an additional three to four weeks to make their way north to the U.S. border, arriving sometime in early May. This timeline could be delayed, however, by an apparent crackdown by the Mexican government: Reuters reported on April 17 that Mexico City has sought to slow the caravans by closing visa offices in southern Mexico and stopping the processing of visas, stranding migrants in camps.

The Big Picture

Staffing shortages, a highly charged atmosphere over immigration and border security, and record-high numbers of would-be illegal border crossers — many of whom are children — have overwhelmed U.S. officials, with so-called migrant caravans a relatively small contributor to the slowdown in border crossings. Consequent delays at official crossing points where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents process thousands of commercial and personal vehicles every day have caused major problems for legitimate businesses. While current record levels of immigration will eventually drop off, the perennial challenge of securing the border and the national political fight over the issue will persist.

See Crossing Borders

But while some migrants will turn back and some will seek shelter in Mexico, the majority will eventually push on to the U.S. border and will even be joined by others — swelling the size of the caravan. Nongovernmental organizations will help by arranging bus rides, providing meals and leading the group on foot at times. As the caravan moves north, it is likely to break up as groups head toward major crossing points into the United States at Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Piedras Negras.

The caravans are contributing to a surge in illegal border crossings into the United States, which has experienced more illegal crossings from Mexico than it has in 12 years. To boost patrols in overwhelmed sectors, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reassigned hundreds of agents from high-traffic ports of entry, such as San Diego, and Laredo and El Paso in Texas. This in turn has slowed down the processing of legitimate border traffic.

The recent slowdown in processing times threatens the operations of businesses reliant on trade with Mexico. In El Paso, for example, wait times increased to two to three hours in early April 2019 compared with an average of about one hour in April 2015. At Otay Mesa, California, crossing was taking close to 4.5 hours in early April versus minimal wait times in November 2018. And California's San Ysidro crossing, just a few miles west of Otay Mesa, was shut down by protests and immigrants trying to force their way across. Laredo is also experiencing unusually high wait times of about four hours. No caravans, however, will arrive at the border in April. Moreover, the last time a caravan arrived on the border — when about 1,800 Central Americans reached Piedras Negras in early February — its arrival didn't cause a significant jump in legal border crossing times.
Migrant Caravans, a Small Part of the Overall Problem

While caravans have been drawing a great deal of attention in the national debate over immigration and border security, they are just one of a number of factors that have contributed to the crisis unfolding along the border with Mexico. Immigrants attempting to reach the United States by caravan make up a small percentage of total immigration from Mexico and Central America. The February Piedras Negras caravan, for example, accounted for little more than 2 percent of the 76,535 individuals that CBP agents apprehended that month trying to cross into the United States.

March 2019 in turn saw the highest levels of monthly reported apprehensions (103,492) at the border since April 2007, a 105 percent increase over March 2018. In March 2019, apprehensions were up 516 percent from March 2017, when migration along the border with Mexico was at record lows. From January to March 2019, CBP apprehended more Honduran and Guatemalan family units than in all of 2018 combined. So it is actually the overall increase in illegal immigration that is overwhelming the border, not the caravans themselves.

Seasonal Surges and CBP Staffing Woes

Immigration to the United States from Latin America is currently in the middle of its annual increase as seasonal workers attempt to make their way in. In a historical trend, border apprehensions — an indicator of overall illegal immigration patterns — tend to increase from February through May before dropping in June and July. So with or without caravans, the seasonal pressure on immigration authorities along the border should continue for the next one to two months.

Making it harder for the government to cope with the surge, and thus increasing legal crossing wait times, CBP has simultaneously been struggling with staffing shortages. In late March, CBP ordered the redeployment of 750 agents from El Paso and Laredo; Tucson, Arizona; and San Diego to address the surge along less-patrolled sections of the border. That number could go up to 2,000 agents during April, and CBP could request even more if it deems it necessary — further straining resources at busy ports of entry.

Less personnel means fewer open lanes, delays in processing vehicles and backlogs that compound the wait time — ultimately raising shipping costs for companies and individuals that rely on products from Mexico.

During 2018, similar but smaller redeployments saw shorter delays. CBP moved 100 agents from El Paso to the Arizona and California sectors in November, causing wait times to double to about an hour in El Paso. This reallocation of resources has closely corresponded to the increase in wait times during early April. The agents' absence is forcing ports of entry to limit their operations. For example, Laredo was operating only 10 of 12 commercial lanes on April 12, while Otay Mesa was using only eight of 10. Less personnel means fewer open lanes, delays in processing vehicles and backlogs that increase wait times — ultimately raising shipping costs for companies and individuals that rely on products from Mexico.

The apparent shortage of CBP agents is nothing new. According to a 2017 report from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, CBP hasn't hit its hiring goals since 2014. It is also trying to fill 7,000 to 8,000 positions for new agents and officers to secure the border and ensure commerce continues without unreasonable delays. But nothing so far indicates the CBP will overcome its personnel shortages any time soon.

Faced with an influx of immigrants and a shortage of personnel to deal with them, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has chosen border security over the swift processing of commercial and private traffic from Mexico. While the president didn't go so far as to shut down the border as he threatened in early April, the redeploying of limited human resources away from entry points has still hampered trade.

The importance of border security to Trump, as evidenced by his insistence on a border wall, means the subject will remain a politically intractable issue. And while current record levels of immigration will eventually drop off, relieving some pressure on border security forces, the perennial challenges of an understaffed CBP and the national political fight over the border will continue at least through the next round of U.S. elections in 2020.
Title: Cartel threatens life of AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 22, 2019, 06:13:01 PM
Nothing to see here, keep moving , , ,


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/fuel-theft-cartel-issues-second-threat/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/first-quarter-sets-new-homicide-record/
Title: 300K enter Mexico in one month
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 24, 2019, 07:29:01 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/300000-migrants-have-entered-mexico/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=b96b04214b-MNT+apr24-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-b96b04214b-349632321
Title: Mexican Army in firefight with armored SUV
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 28, 2019, 03:01:30 PM
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/04/28/cartel-gunmen-use-armored-suv-in-clash-with-mexican-military-near-texas-border/amp/?fbclid=IwAR1P2GxW9M73S3Z0GoONQouiGDbVu8lYI7xp8h8MAO-l6Tn3ehZ0-Rojw20
Title: Tough to have Separation of Powers in such an environment
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 04, 2019, 03:57:05 PM


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/lopez-obrador-threatens-to-identify-judges/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=fd1a01f4dd-MNT+may03-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-fd1a01f4dd-349632321
Title: Journalist's body guard kills carjacker
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 08, 2019, 04:29:10 AM
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2019/05/bodyguard-for-journalist-hector-de.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR0tYd4B8AhgjpFFPXN8oIO1-i_wFENrEZnBzL0jgczHH9aT4-SynJuVzoM
Title: Interpol looking for Ex-governor
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 08, 2019, 09:53:06 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/interpol-red-notice-issued-for-ex-puebla-governor/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=a9c8bf3390-MNT+may08-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-a9c8bf3390-349632321
Title: Criminal Complaint against Vera Cruz attorney general
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 09, 2019, 06:59:31 AM


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/criminal-complaint-against-its-attorney-general/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=a9c8bf3390-MNT+may08-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-a9c8bf3390-349632321
Title: Debe haber un cuento interesante atras de ese articulo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 12, 2019, 03:30:07 PM


http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2019/05/sinaloa-farmer-runs-over-and-kills-his.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR3IkPMDBC3V79__SMP2d6iLJnIw3KDbgREbpy0Jp3Xqjb5CVT8KR4BnCOc
Title: Un fuente interesante
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 12, 2019, 03:38:34 PM
segundo del dia

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2019/05/sinaloa-farmer-runs-over-and-kills-his.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR3IkPMDBC3V79__SMP2d6iLJnIw3KDbgREbpy0Jp3Xqjb5CVT8KR4BnCOc
Title: 5 corrections officers shot down in Morelos
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 13, 2019, 10:18:08 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/prisons-on-alert-after-five-guards-killed/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=fdd9a1733c-MNT+may13-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-fdd9a1733c-349632321
Title: Varias
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 17, 2019, 05:53:54 PM
https://mailchi.mp/mexiconewsdaily.com/may-17-2019?e=add05987d5
Title: Atlantic: Can Trump use the Insurrection Act?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 17, 2019, 06:28:30 PM


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/can-trump-use-insurrection-act-stop-immigration/589690/?fbclid=IwAR0iYaxHkh1NBn8FLWDF3yhzeeiLiVRJrAqGgJ_Il6DaoxuD8eNGd4xDgSA
Title: Espia los narcos a los policia
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 21, 2019, 07:37:13 AM


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/crime-gangs-watched-over-reynosa/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=dc54df3a0b-MNT+may20-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-dc54df3a0b-349632321
Title: Golfo Secuestro operando en Tejas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 24, 2019, 08:58:23 AM
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/05/23/gulf-cartel-kidnapping-crew-caught-operating-in-texas/?fbclid=IwAR1PuTob0FruSDmnouq4QaqRmrWsIJ187blVR7vyzfJAKzMuBmtgp2IRe1s
Title: Make TJ Great Again
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 25, 2019, 12:35:57 AM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS8kLsFys9c&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1Wh3YU006YxWBvX8LiZa2toxBS8Sj-GyIkA7H9D_Ht0lY5TiTHYEyNj2s
Title: Y asi' va , , ,
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 25, 2019, 11:07:20 PM
https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/crime/2018/07/16/juarez-police-officer-arturo-lozano-mendez-charged-elpaso-sinaloa-cartel-federal-charges-drugs/789417002/?fbclid=IwAR3R_RFOp20MgGgazDLZOq4yySaGvUT-9amVHaZ1X44jKhlSRHGZ-naGbo0

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/world/juarez/2015/05/15/former-juarez-police-chief-julia-leyzaola-says-shooting/31255129/?fbclid=IwAR2PGBmL4UMiRanvxneVsgJeiuXIDEv9l1xeo34csJGa9POv9hXDhxllgYA
Title: Otro dia como otros dias
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 27, 2019, 05:39:12 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/jalisco-cartel-attacks-police-in-michoacan/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=4641e9dbf0-MNT+may27-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-4641e9dbf0-349632321

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/five-federal-investigators-detained/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=4641e9dbf0-MNT+may27-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-4641e9dbf0-349632321
Title: CJNG Zamora
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 28, 2019, 09:46:43 AM
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2019/05/cjng-multiple-attacks-on-zamora.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR1wUPnWSOC_m9mrMlhFHOMkALzQ_JRlwaAhdV7WtJrqz1PRdqZCgd-88HM
Title: Un analysis de la Tarifa Trump
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 31, 2019, 07:47:35 PM
Comparto lo siguiente sin estar de acuerdo con varias partes:

A Tariff Threat Against Mexico Could Be Trump's Riskiest Yet

On May 30, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico starting June 10 unless the country takes "substantial" steps to stem the flow of migrants crossing the U.S. border. According to Trump's statement, that tariff would continue to rise by 5 percentage points on the first day of each following month until eventually capping off at 25 percent in October, where it would remain until Washington deems enough has been done to counter northbound migration flows from Central America.

The Big Picture
________________________________________
U.S. President Donald Trump has made immigration a clear priority as he gears up for his re-election in 2020. After shutting down the government in December in a bid to fund his U.S.-Mexico border wall, Trump is now threatening an unprecedented tariff hike on Mexican imports in the hopes of getting Mexico City to stem the increasing number of Central American migrants showing up at Washington's southern doorstep. However, combined with the president's ongoing disputes with other key U.S. trade partners, a full-blown trade war with Mexico could be the final straw that pushes the United States into a recession.
________________________________________
The U.S. and the Balance of PowerThe Importance of MexicoNorth America Unrivaled

What's the likelihood Trump will follow through? 

Other than fewer migrants flowing through, it remains unclear what other criteria the United States would be use to judge Mexico. Following Trump's announcement, a White House official only noted that the criteria would be "ad hoc." Given this ambiguity, it's possible that Trump could back down from the full threat — using it instead as leverage to reach a modest agreement with Mexico that he could then declare as a victory. On the other hand, the president has also shown that he is willing to tolerate significant collateral damage in order to implement his immigration policy, as evidenced by the 35-day government shutdown earlier this year. Trump made a similar threat in April, in which he gave Mexico one year to halt migration flows before imposing tariffs on its exports.

But now, he's significantly turned up the heat with a new June 10 deadline — a nearly impossible timeline for Mexico to fully implement any kind of plan. There are rumors Trump made the threat in haste after hearing a report about an increase in migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Thus, it is possible that Trump is willing to make a quick withdrawal from the threat if Mexico can make modest concessions.

What's behind Trump's threat?

Securing the U.S.-Mexico border was a key pillar of Trump's 2016 campaign platform that ultimately ushered him to victory. But over the past two years, migrant crossings into the United States — largely from Central America — have risen to decade-high levels. In April alone, Customs and Border Protection officers arrested nearly 100,000 migrants crossing illegally, most of whom had families requesting asylum.

In addition to threatening Trump's campaign promise of a security crackdown on the southern border, this sudden influx of migrants has also strained the U.S. border security forces' ability to process and hold people awaiting removal or a hearing on asylum. And while the Mexican army and police forces are involved in operations to detain or deter migrant flows, the number of crossing points and corrupt security officers have hindered Mexico's ability to meaningfully stem the movement of people.

Does Trump have the power to impose such tariffs?

The short answer is possibly, though it'd be an unprecedented move and could be challenged by the courts. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) gives the U.S. President significant power to regulate aspects of global commerce in the event of a national emergency that is either wholly or partially international. And the White House has already declared a national emergency on its border with Mexico in an effort to redistribute the $6.7 billion in government funds towards Trump's wall and border security.

However, the IEEPA does not explicitly authorize the president to implement tariffs as a way to deal with a national emergency. Instead, it affords the power to "regulate" certain commercial activities with the country in question through foreign exchange transactions or the transfer of payments between banking institutions. The IEEPA has also never been used to implement tariffs against another country. In fact, the law was initially passed in 1977 as a way to limit some of the powers Congress previously delegated to the president in times of emergency.

Combined with Trump's ongoing disputes with other key U.S. trade partners, a full-blown trade war with Mexico could be the final straw that pushes the United States into a recession.

It can certainly be argued that using the IEEPA to implement tariffs is an expansive interpretation of the law. However, the U.S. judicial system does tend to defer to the president on issues of national security. Congress also still has the power to reverse national emergencies and block tariffs, though doing so would require a joint resolution signed into law, something that would demand significant bipartisan backing. And despite Trump's previous trade wars irking many members of his party, Republicans have yet to overturn a single tariff Trump has implemented. The extent to which the federal law can be used to implement tariffs has not been determined by U.S. federal courts, and would thus set an important precedent for U.S. foreign policy.

How will this affect USMCA approval?

Trump's tariff threats certainly risk sticking a pin in the process to approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on both sides. Mexico had submitted the agreement to its legislature for ratification on May 30. But Trump's threat — announced just hours later — now risks making the USMCA a sideshow. Even if President Trump fully removed the North American Free Trade Agreement to allow Mexico and the United States to instead deal on World Trade Organization terms, the average tariff that Mexican exporters would face would be less than five percent — which is where Trump's threatened move starts. And the full 25 percent tariff would be more than seven times higher.

Such a sizable tax hike would likely force Mexico City to consider delaying a full passing of USMCA until after this particular issue is resolved, just as it did earlier this year when it stalled the process until the United States removed steel and aluminum tariffs on Mexican products. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Senate had been blocking the agreement over the steel and aluminum tariffs as well, and will likely try to do the same should Trump follow through on imposing these new tariffs. That said, it's also possible Trump could use the threat of a trade war with Mexico as leverage against Congress to get USMCA approved.

How might Mexico respond to the threat?

Countries typically retaliate when a trade partner tacks on higher tariffs, hence the name "trade war." But for Mexico, a full retaliation will be difficult due to its sputtering economy, which has not seen positive Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for three of the last four quarters. Trump's announcement, unsurprisingly, has already jarred global markets, with the Mexican peso falling 3 percent. The tariffs risk pushing Mexico into an even deeper recession. And if Mexico responds by upping its own tariffs on U.S. goods, that would only make matters worse — limiting the extent to which Mexico is willing (or able) to match the United States tit-for-tat in a potential trade war.

Instead, Mexico could try a more targeted approach to minimize the blowback on its economy, such as imposing taxes on only agricultural goods. Still, the safest option may indeed be to appease Trump in some capacity and allow him to declare a victory of some sort in exchange for no tariffs at all. And indeed, Mexico appears to already be taking such a route, with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sending an emergency delegation to Washington on May 31.

What would be the economic toll for both countries?

The extent to which President Trump's threats hit the U.S. economy would depend on the level of Mexican retaliation, and whether or not the tariffs end up reaching the 25 percent cap in October. Compared with the other global tariff disputes Trump has waged so far, a trade war between the United States and Mexico would undoubtedly be the most damaging one yet. Roughly two-thirds of U.S. imports from Mexico are through intracompany trade, meaning goods can cross the border several times before becoming a finished product. This highlights the high degree of economic interconnectivity between the two countries.

In the worst-case scenario, both Mexico and the United States could both slap each other with 25 percent tariffs. Should such tariffs last for months, U.S. economic growth in the short-term could be hit by more than 1 percent of GDP and Mexico's could go well beyond 10 percent. But this extreme case is highly unlikely because it would almost certainly be met with backlash in Washington. Even a modest scenario of just 5 percent tariffs with comparable retaliation from Mexico could result in a roughly .25 percent drop in U.S. GDP, and an up to 5 percent drop in Mexico's GDP.

What are the implications for Trump's other trade wars?

Trump is threatening to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on a total of roughly $1 trillion in U.S. imports from Mexico. When adding up the potential impacts of Trump's threatened tariffs on almost all imports from Mexico and China as well as Japanese and European cars, he risks sending the United States into a recession — thus damaging his re-election hopes in 2020.

Waging a trade war against Mexico could serve as a lesson to China, Europe and Japan that even a quick deal capitulating to some of Trump's demands does not necessarily neutralize the threat of tariffs from the United States. It could very well prompt Beijing, for example, to harden its position amid its own trade negotiations with Washington — no longer able to trust Trump's promises that tariffs would be reduced long-term should China meet Washington demands.

What's the main takeaway?

While there's a chance Trump could actually implement the tariffs in full as a punishment for Mexico's failure to stem the northward flow of migrants, he may also be keeping them in reserve to spur the Mexican government to devote more forces to resolve the problem at hand.

A lot still depends on if — and to what extent — the president follows through on his threat. Trump's tariffs not only risk freezing the USMCA approval process, but plunging the United States and Mexico into recession. Though, in sending the Mexican economy into an even deeper tailspin, Trump risks making matters even worse on the U.S.-Mexico border by prompting even more desperate Mexican citizens to head north in search of work.
Title: Otro dia como otros dias 2.0
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 02, 2019, 04:27:38 PM
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2019/05/a-book-bomb-explodes-in-hands-of-morena.html?fbclid=IwAR3dInYKLILxhCG79Rx_PecWsT7uSwiGOQJx-HVZdr_B9p2Vzfwze-Dcm1c

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2019/05/leader-of-hacker-cartel-was-earning.html?fbclid=IwAR11um9Je7pYyCi1J_4iBxSO8SPbgzohcMsG3HlmFwev-OJBBHC_6pnq9vg#more

https://www.blog-del-narco.com.mx/2019/05/video-ejecutan-y-exhiben-hijo-de.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR2IbOrs5BlEejzJ5J-34OWFdgcdp1IoxIi5j8BnBDkSsaJhEkr2c4W6UvM

https://www.blog-del-narco.com.mx/2019/05/video-del-convoy-del-cjng-antes-de.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR17S6dS-z7jc2Xn6STAcxE2ozgKAyTYzJmBzZBy8Se6HfJN7PRFW63Yx3U
Title: El hombre mas valiente de Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 03, 2019, 05:55:16 AM
https://tubitv.com/movies/357459/mexicos_bravest_man
Title: DEA
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 03, 2019, 06:04:05 AM
segundo



https://www.propublica.org/article/allende-zetas-cartel-massacre-and-the-us-dea


https://www.propublica.org/article/dea-operation-played-hidden-role-in-the-disappearance-of-five-innocent-mexicans?fbclid=IwAR3M-bZOcEv0DUvVJtD-XkFaA6URVV4zBhDTRqtMBN5xtI_LY-P99rmiR3I
Title: Sobre AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 03, 2019, 04:56:43 PM


On AMLO:


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/opinion/amlo-is-leading-country-to-disaster/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=7c8dd87113-MNT+june03-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-7c8dd87113-349632321


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/opinion/incompetent-bureaucrats-and-doomed-policies/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=7c8dd87113-MNT+june03-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-7c8dd87113-349632321
Title: Los Narcos controlan 80% de Mexico dice el gobierno
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 04, 2019, 11:06:33 AM


https://www.conservativereview.com/news/mexican-government-admits-80-populated-territory-run-cartels-including-key-border-areas/?fbclid=IwAR3tD2kqyh3FQx0n4p9TWu9zK_nB0Ay1y8qP-2mnwGLdadUN1xjJotswQlQ
Title: 34 anos por tirar a agentes de la CIA
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 21, 2019, 11:04:58 AM


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/police-get-34-years-for-shooting-of-cia-agents/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=1f6de16da9-MNT+june19-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-1f6de16da9-349632321
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 24, 2019, 05:28:26 PM
ISIS Jihadi on entering America through border:
https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2019/06/isis-fighter-affirms-what-jw-exposed-years-ago-terrorists-enter-u-s-via-mexico/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=corruption_chronicles&fbclid=IwAR35MW3XfJr12rqLQu1Uig1qPa5wKrXcYOmCv9ZvPGihuiCEjQGgIpD3Qu0
ISIS Fighter Affirms What JW Exposed Years Ago—Terrorists Enter U.S. Via Mexico - Judicial Watch
Five years after a Judicial Watch investigation uncovered evidence of Islamic terrorists infiltrating the United States through Mexico, a captured ISIS fighter is providing details of a plot in which jihadists enter the country through the southern border to carry out an attack. The terrorists...


Looking to fundamentally transform America with undocumented voters:

Pelosi On Immigrants: ‘Violation Of Status Is Not A Reason For Deportation’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that a violation of immigration status should not be a reason to deport someone illegally living in the U.S.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/24/nancy-pelosi-violation-status-not-reason-deportation-illegal-immigrants/?utm_medium=email

Thank you President Trump:
Report: Trump’s Asylum Program With Mexico Is Adding Two Additional Cities
The Remain in Mexico program will add two Mexican border towns, the latest sign that Mexico is doing more to mitigate illegal immigration into the U.S.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/24/two-cities-added-remain-in-mexico/?utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR2D4zMIAbzbrxNKNijuB3V4ncjOcPOzWwLlmPpe0iMegn0rW48-4yXUSrE


Mexican law enforcement reality:
mexiconewsdaily.com
Four coordinated attacks against Jalisco police leave five dead
Five people were killed on Friday in four coordinated attacks against Jalisco state police in Tlajomulco and Zapopan. Two of the dead were police officers.
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/attacks-against-jalisco-police-leave-five-dead/?fbclid=IwAR0NTGblbaKMohFje8mIBMKbtnIN5EZYwIfS1-MxlVZLX1GAdw0LgIdekI4
Title: Muertos en la frontera se bajan en los anos Trump
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 27, 2019, 02:23:08 PM


https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/06/us-mexico-border-deaths-lower-under-trump-than-obama-data-shows/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
Title: Cuando huyeron los protectores del Presidente
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 27, 2019, 02:41:06 PM
segundo del dia

https://elblogdelnarco.com/2019/06/10/la-historia-de-cuando-el-estado-mayor-que-cuidaban-al-presidente-salieron-huyendo-2-veces-de-tamaulipas-video/?fbclid=IwAR1nmEPp81rmETcR4oYN7e4NohCcv7L4AtcLCLPBNuYyJ10DA-CUkX3_QM4
Title: Narcos amenazan a Guardia Nacional
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 01, 2019, 11:54:07 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/tabasco-crime-warning-to-national-guard/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=5907a1598a-MNT+july-01-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-5907a1598a-349632321

https://cis.org/Arthur/Cartel-Members-Claim-Asylum-After-Fleeing-Gun-Battle?fbclid=IwAR3RVpvpUCLMqTGSYyy2AQaS7INofoTpu6npcCvlaiijtF6a0kBYGzpjLDg

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mayor-advises-citizens-to-avoid-public-spaces/

I've driven through this reservation.  A very lonely place; some serious huevos on this sheriff and his men.
https://nypost.com/2019/06/29/meet-the-real-life-action-hero-taking-on-a-mexican-drug-cartel/?fbclid=IwAR3Bb1z3mxhLaU0bBtTzv0TVXYhE9iM4HQbqFGvFQKzTio_8UqN56cNI_sY
Title: Stratfor: Narco Wars
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 14, 2019, 05:04:07 PM


Highlights

    Mexican news outlet Milenio counted 2,249 murders nationwide in June, the highest monthly total since it began keeping its own tally in 2007 and the first time its numbers have ever surpassed 2,000 for a given month.
    According to Milenio, the four Mexican states with the highest murder counts in the month were Jalisco with 206, Mexico with 202, Baja California with 181 and Guanajuato with 176, an unsurprising development for those who have been tracking the country's cartel dynamic.
    The Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion is playing either a direct or indirect role in nearly every part of the country experiencing elevated violence.

Editor's Note: The full version of this security-focused assessment is one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets, and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.

To those who closely follow violence in Mexico, the reports can sometimes seem overwhelming: Two shot dead in Cancun; 15 murdered in the last 24 hours in Tijuana; 12 dismembered bodies found in trash bags in Jalisco, etc. The headlines come in day after day in a steady rhythm of violence, and the photos are worse than the headlines. Images of dismembered bodies or of "narcomantas," messages from cartels on banners, left next to severed human heads appear at least weekly.

Mexican news outlet Milenio on July 1 published its unofficial count of murders in Mexico for the first half of 2019. Milenio counted 2,249 murders in June alone, the highest monthly number the news outlet has recorded since it began keeping its own tally in 2007. In fact, this is the first time that Milenio's numbers have ever surpassed 2,000 for any given month.

According to Milenio, the four states with the highest murder counts in June were Jalisco with 206, Mexico with 202, Baja California with 181 and Guanajuato with 176. While these numbers are not official, they still serve as a good barometer by which to measure the state of the country's violence. As expected, the country appears well on its way to another record-setting year for murders.

The Big Picture

Viewed individually, daily acts of violence in Mexico can appear senseless — but the violence is not senseless when seen through the lens of the overarching dynamics driving it. While some violence in Mexico results from personal disputes or local grievances, the majority results either from competition between cartels or among a cartel's members. Since 2006, Stratfor has worked to analyze, understand and chronicle the cartel dynamics that have driven the preponderance of the violence in Mexico. We present our findings in our annual cartel report, which helps clients understand what is driving the violence in Mexico.

Based on the trends we outlined in our 2019 annual cartel forecast, the high levels of violence in Jalisco, Mexico State, Baja California and Guanajuato state come as no surprise.

One commonality we are observing across Mexico is that the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) is playing a role in nearly every part of the country experiencing elevated violence, either directly or indirectly.

Jalisco

While the CJNG is busy expanding into other parts of the country, it is also embroiled in a bloody battle in its home turf of Guadalajara. The CJNG is facing a challenge from a splinter of the cartel that calls itself "Nueva Plaza" composed mostly of former CJNG members and led by Carlos "El Cholo" Enrique Sanchez Martinez and Erick Valencia Salazar, aka "El 85."
 
Sanchez Martinez is a former high-ranking member of the CJNG who reportedly broke with the group after the CJNG's leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (aka "El Mencho"), ordered the execution of a Colombian financial operator. Valencia Salazar, one of the founders of the CJNG, believes Oseguera Cervantes informed on him to the police in 2012 so that he would be arrested and Oseguera Cervantes could assume sole control of the organization. Following his release from prison in December 2017, Valencia Salazar has sought revenge on Oseguera Cervantes. Though he is a cousin of Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia, the wife of Oseguera Cervantes, in this case, his grudge is stronger than his familial loyalties.
 
While interpersonal conflicts may have sparked the CJNG-Nueva Plaza conflict, it appears the Sinaloa cartel's Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada has fueled the fighting by helping fund Nueva Plaza in an effort to weaken his CJNG rivals.

Mexico State

Most of the violence in Mexico state is as a result of a turf war between smaller-scale groups competing for control of retail drug sales in Mexico City, and of other criminal activity such as prostitution and extortion. Several such "narcomenudistas"  are active in Mexico City, but the most powerful are the Union Tepito; the Cartel de Tlahuac; and the Anti-Union Tepito, or La U, a Union Tepito splinter. At the end of May, the leaders of both the Union Tepito and La U were arrested in police operations.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced June 27 that he will deploy national guard forces to Mexico City to help stem the growing crime problem there.

In recent weeks, Mexican authorities have claimed to have arrested several CJNG members in Mexico City and said they believe the organization is attempting to expand its presence in the region. The CJNG had been supporting Union Tepito but may now be attempting to assert itself directly in the Mexico City area in the wake of the leadership losses by Union Tepito and La U. This increase in direct CJNG activity is likely to result in more violence. On June 27, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that he will deploy national guard forces to Mexico City to help stem the growing crime problem.

Baja California

The vast majority of the violence in Baja California state is a result of the continuing struggle for control of the Tijuana smuggling plaza. The dominant cartel group in Tijuana is the Sinaloa cartel branch run by the Arzate Garcia brothers, Rene (aka "La Rana") and Alfonso (aka "El Aquiles"). The brothers are Tijuana traffickers who helped Sinaloa wrest control of the city from the Arellano Felix organization (aka the Tijuana cartel), and they are now fighting to retain their position, which includes control over street-level retail drug sales as well as cross-border smuggling routes.

Their main opposition is a remnant of the Tijuana cartel that sometimes refers to itself as the Cartel de Tijuana Nueva Generacion, an acknowledgment of its affiliation with the CJNG. The CJNG is involved in this dispute because it does not have a border crossing of its own, and so has to pay a "piso," or tribute, for contraband it smuggles through border crossings controlled by other groups. Such payments can reach tens of millions of dollars a year for a large drug trafficking organization, thus providing the group a large financial incentive to attempt to control drug-smuggling routes known as plazas — even if this means protracted fighting. Coincidentally, this is the same reason that the Sinaloa cartel began its efforts to wrest control of border plazas controlled by other groups in 2003 such as Nuevo Laredo, where it failed, and then later Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana, where it succeeded.

With both of the local factions in Tijuana backed by powerful outside cartels with massive resources, the battle for control of the city may grind on until some unforeseen development impacts the dynamic.

Guanajuato

The Mexican government has launched an aggressive nationwide operation to stem fuel theft in the country, an operation that began with the deployment of federal security forces to the Salamanca refinery in Guanajuato. While these efforts have reduced the problem, they have done little to quell the violence in Guanajuato state.
 
Several cartels are active in Guanajuato, including remnants of Los Zetas, but the main catalyst of the violence there is the struggle between the CJNG and a regional organized crime group known as the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel led by Jose Antonio Yepez Ortiz (aka "El Marro".) Yepez Ortiz and his organization are fighting hard to keep the CJNG at bay, but the CJNG keeps sending forces into the state. The result has been sustained bloodshed.
Title: GPF: La Nueva Guardia Nacional
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 25, 2019, 03:33:07 PM

Mexico’s New National Guard: What It Is, and What It Isn’t

Will the agency make any difference in crime rates?
By
Allison Fedirka -
July 23, 2019   

Every Mexican president over the past 20 years has tried to tackle the escalating violence and insecurity in the country. Some made more progress than others, but the problem has persisted. Now, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has developed his own strategy, at the heart of which is the new National Guard. It has been met with mixed reactions. Some have embraced the idea, while others believe it’s more of the same, offering little hope to substantially improve the security situation in the country.

What is certain, however, is that the Mexican government needs to do something to address the rising violence. 2018 set a new record high for homicide rates, and 2019 is already on track to break that record, with 14,600 homicides registered in the first half of this year alone, according to the National System of Public Security. Multiple polls reveal the level of fear that many Mexicans feel at the deteriorating conditions. A survey conducted by the Center for Social Studies and Public Opinion last October found that 62.9 percent of people felt unsafe where they lived. Similarly, a poll taken this month by the National Survey of Urban Public Security found that 73.9 percent of respondents felt unsafe. The violence has had an impact on businesses too, as companies are forced to boost security, relocate their facilities or shut down factories altogether because of the worsening security in the country. There’s also evidence that drug sales, extortion, kidnapping and violence are rising in parts of Mexico City that were previously considered safe.

Perceptions of Insecurity in Mexico

(click to enlarge)

But previous governments’ attempts to reduce the level of violence – through, for example, targeting cartel leaders and relying on the military – haven’t produced the desired results. So it’s understandable that the current administration has decided to take a different approach, starting with the creation of the National Guard, a security force Mexican authorities say will be a civilian agency. Prior to the guard’s inauguration on June 30, Mexico relied heavily on federal police, the army and navy to combat organized crime, primarily because local police were overwhelmed and have proved unreliable in dealing with organized crime. It was an ineffective system given that the army and navy are not structured or trained to handle domestic security problems. There were also concerns about excessive use of force, abuse of power and other human rights violations allegedly committed by the military during security operations. The Mexican public has, as a result, supported the creation of a civilian force that’s supposed to help lower crime rates. According to a poll conducted by research firm Parametria shortly after Lopez Obrador announced the project, 87 percent of Mexicans said they backed the National Guard.

The new security body is tasked with 20 functions, chief among them crime prevention and investigation. Surveillance, verification and inspection activities are also top priorities. Other functions include cybersecurity, intelligence and information gathering. The remaining functions cover organizational support and administrative roles. Salaries for National Guard members will be competitive (19,000 pesos, or $1,000 per month, according to Lopez Obrador) to discourage bribes and corruption. The National Guard will be composed of some 82,000 members (some of whom have already been deployed) covering 150 locations that have been identified as high risk. By 2021, it will grow to 111,000 members covering 266 locations nationwide.

Murders and National Guard Deployments by State

(click to enlarge)

There are questions, however, about its structure and independence as a civilian institution. The guard falls under the authority of the Secretariat of Civilian Security and Protection. But the second-level chain of command will also include army and navy personnel and defense ministry officials. Furthermore, 62 percent of the officers currently serving in the guard come from the army, 16 percent from the navy and only 22 percent from the federal police. The federal police will be eliminated within the next 18 months as it’s absorbed into the guard, while the army will continue to be one of the main sources of recruitment through 2021. Efforts to recruit civilians have produced poor results thus far. It seems the introduction of the National Guard may not be such a radical change after all.

The agency has thus faced public backlash. Many human rights groups and other community organizations see the changes it has ushered in as more cosmetic than structural. They contend that, because the military will play an important role in the guard, problems with abuse of power and excessive use of force will continue. The federal police have also voiced their concerns over having their own members recruited into the agency – thousands of officers even went on strike over the issue. The police are also worried about the lack of transparency over pay, uncertainty about seniority recognition and the treatment they received from military leadership. So far, the government has managed to alleviate some of the federal police’s concerns, but civilian groups insist more changes are needed.

However, the National Guard was structured this way for a reason. While efforts have been made to train more local police forces, they will not be ready for at least another three years, assuming everything goes according to plan. By recruiting from the military and federal police, the National Guard was able to launch earlier than it likely could have had it relied solely on civilian or local police forces. And despite the concerns of some civil society organizations, the army and navy are consistently ranked among the most-trusted institutions in Mexico. Recruiting from the military, therefore, could help increase the guard’s credibility among the public. In addition, the National Guard has received widespread political support. To create the agency, the government needed to pass certain constitutional changes, which required majority support in both houses of Congress and in at least 17 of 32 state legislatures. That the government was able to garner support from all 32 legislatures shows that a wide range of regions and politicians in Mexico back the National Guard.

(click to enlarge)

Public trust in and political backing for the National Guard, however, do not automatically mean the new organization will succeed. In the long term, drawing forces from the military isn’t sustainable, and the guard will have to start recruiting from the civilian population, especially if it is to win over the public’s confidence and prove its own utility. More important, the guard needs to produce results in terms of fighting crime and reducing violence (particularly with regard to the homicide rate). In a poll conducted this month, some 60.3 percent of Mexicans said they think the security situation is the same or worse than it was 12 months ago. And given that many of the people who are now part of the National Guard were also part of the federal police or military just a year ago, it’s questionable whether there will be any improvements in crime rates.

The National Guard will play a key role in efforts to improve security in Mexico, but it can’t be expected to single-handedly end violence in the country. It’s just one component of a much broader criminal justice system – one that many still see as extremely corrupt and unreliable. Meanwhile, the root causes of crime in Mexico, including socio-economic factors like unemployment and a lack of education, still need to be addressed. Lopez Obrador’s national security strategy deals with many of these issues, but it is in the early stages of development. The National Guard is just one piece of the puzzle, and the final judgement on whether or not it’s a success will have to wait until the other pieces are put into place.

   
Allison Fedirka is a senior analyst for Geopolitical Futures. In addition to writing analyses, she helps train new analysts, oversees the intellectual quality of analyst work and helps guide the forecasting process. Prior to joining Geopolitical Futures, Ms. Fedirka worked for Stratfor as a Latin America specialist and subsequently as the Latin America regional director. She lived in South America – primarily Argentina and Brazil – for more than seven years and, in addition to English, fluently speaks Spanish and Portuguese. Ms. Fedirka has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and international studies from Washington University in St. Louis and a master’s degree in international relations and affairs from the University of Belgrano, Argentina. Her thesis was on Brazil and Angola and south-south cooperation.
Title: Asian illegals paying $40,000; Proceso
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 27, 2019, 12:22:48 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/asian-migrants-pay-smugglers-up-to-us-40000/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=eb737ac4d7-MNT+july-26-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-eb737ac4d7-349632321

Cuando estoy en Mexico, siempre leo Proceso:
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/misbehavior-implies-independence-says-publisher/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=eb737ac4d7-MNT+july-26-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-eb737ac4d7-349632321
Title: Guarda espalda en Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 29, 2019, 07:08:13 PM
https://tohff.com/2019/07/28/bodyguards-in-mexico/?fbclid=IwAR2ddl3PKg2I0kyMew2cmYpVGu_vT8U97OPF4_W9KJIHZWEp5OZ_CKxJubE
Title: Numeros de Estadounidenses matados en Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 08, 2019, 12:04:53 PM


https://www.forbes.com/sites/garystoller/2018/02/21/mexico-where-more-americans-are-murdered-than-in-all-other-countries-combined/?fbclid=IwAR0yjGDFD3EhqINOdMgqAy_E1dQjnNsywC3A5IDYDJQqAVvdjBOX4qRzotk#23c9997cde37
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 10, 2019, 03:02:24 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/community-police-involved-in-taking-down-gang-leader/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=a8da9b698a-MNT+aug-05-2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-a8da9b698a-349632321


365
Title: Why more Mexicans are being killed; un dia mas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 11, 2019, 01:04:27 PM

https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/why-are-more-mexicans-being-killed-2019/?fbclid=IwAR0QpOkRg7eXlMutd3xHnTweWxrAA1Dj_gmoo98nEAqX2hQERlxFkczacgU

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2019/08/killing-of-20-avocado-bar-restaurant.html?spref=tw&m=1&fbclid=IwAR2b0nj6hJEFM3ET4mKWWmDSUaB35_ZMzL7mtLBTyb-B_udtI7vHrAQEjvI
Title: Garbarge Truck tank captured
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 14, 2019, 08:54:30 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/police-find-guerrero-gang-leaders-war-tank/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Today&utm_campaign=2151e775be-MNT+aug-07-2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-2151e775be-349632321
Title: ?Pagar o no pagar?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 20, 2019, 01:06:04 PM
https://globalecco.org/to-pay-or-not-to-pay-criminal-extortion-from-a-game-theory-perspective?fbclid=IwAR1_GRqsq2bG9PVJBpyNlaw6EHVdlBmyNeeoWjAfTmP4fbzKOeJfvA8DMJw
Title: GPF: Zapatistas extend authority in Chiapas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 21, 2019, 12:25:35 PM
Competing for control in Mexico. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a Mexican militia that controls large swaths of territory in Chiapas state, claimed that it extended its authority to 11 more zones in Chiapas, giving it a total of 43 areas of control. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador responded cautiously, saying the expansion was welcome so long as it was not violent. Domestic security is still a challenge for Mexico, as self-defense groups like the Zapatistas have created obstacles to restoring order in certain parts of the country. Chiapas is also a key part of the route for migrants heading north from Guatemala, and maintaining control of the area is critical to controlling the flow of migrants.
Title: Arresting entire police forces in Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 23, 2019, 09:55:40 AM
https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/entire-police-forces-continue-arrested-mexico/?fbclid=IwAR1F1SelQPjGUDq_lZC870QiuFFB5t2qqP22pfP1p5wEe2ygxcvhvhsCkRk
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 23, 2019, 11:48:46 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6cJR9copFw

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/states-warn-feds-theyre-negotiating-with-criminal-gangs/
Title: Se emperora la guerra
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 02, 2019, 06:19:30 PM
https://www.apnews.com/9231894fd9bf451e92a6ba64e3c68dc2?fbclid=IwAR1CuzWgpK8yvuvibjwWLsQ3xSruVP7pIs_rfzjeJ9rR9ERZyfHO04csfQQ
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 05, 2019, 11:09:04 AM
https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/entire-police-forces-continue-arrested-mexico/?fbclid=IwAR37BhCZtvMeUwEOoHmsDM5Irhs90u8WHc7b3zUqvVVNKfV9zSItb-nB-zs
Title: Stratfor: Nuevo Laredo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 09, 2019, 10:34:24 AM


    Violence between the Cartel del Noreste and state police has been surging in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas state over the past two weeks.
    In response to these losses, CDN has threatened those that do business with security forces, prompting many gasoline stations to refuse to sell fuel to the authorities.
    Given running gunbattles involving automatic weapons and grenades, attacks on security forces and threats against businesses, those with interests in Nuevo Laredo should be on heightened alert until the wave of brutality subsides.

Editor's Note: ­This security-focused assessment is one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.


Violence between the Cartel del Noreste (CDN) and state police has been surging in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas state over the past two weeks. The incidents began Aug. 22, when officers with the Center for Analysis, Information and Studies of Tamaulipas (CAIET) erected a pop-up checkpoint just outside Nuevo Laredo on Federal Highway 2, which leads to Piedras Negras up the Rio Grande in Coahuila state. A convoy of heavily armed CDN gunmen with the cartel's "Tropa del Infierno" (Spanish for "Soldiers of Hell") enforcer unit attacked the checkpoint and wounded two police officers. They attacked the officers again as they took their wounded to the hospital, injuring a third officer.

The Big Picture


Since 2013, Mexico's cartels began a long process of balkanization, or splintering. Many organizations, such as the Gulf cartel, imploded and fragmented into several smaller, often competing factions. One of the three main clusters of smaller groups we track by geography centers on Tamaulipas state.



See Security Challenges in Latin America

On Aug. 23, Tropa del Infierno gunmen attacked the Santa Teresa Hotel in Nuevo Laredo, where CAIET officers were staying, killing one officer and wounding two others. On Aug. 27, 11 members of the enforcer unit were killed — four in an attack on a police station and seven in an attempted ambush on a CAIET patrol. On Aug. 28, family members of the CDN gunmen protested outside the Santa Teresa Hotel and threatened to burn vehicles in the parking lot. This incident shows the CDN's deep roots in the Nuevo Laredo community.

On Aug. 31, CAIET arrested four members of the CDN Tropa 202 enforcer unit in Ciudad Mier after a running gunbattle. Several others escaped into the countryside. On Sept. 2, four CDN gunmen were detained at a roadblock on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo, and on Sept. 5, eight members of the Tropa del Infierno were killed in a firefight with CAIET officers; the dead included three female gunmen.

With the running gunbattles, those with interests in Nuevo Laredo should be on heightened alert until this wave of brutality subsides.

 

In response to these losses, CDN has openly threatened businesses that support the CAIET and the military in Nuevo Laredo. It specifically warned gasoline stations that sell fuel to security forces. According to media company Televisa, stations have refused to sell fuel to the authorities since Sept. 2. Televisa broadcast a conversation between a Tamaulipas state official and a gas station owner in which the owner refused to sell fuel even if additional security was provided for his station. This has forced the authorities to ship in fuel.


The CDN is a remnant of the Los Zetas cartel that is led by Juan Gerardo Trevino Chavez, also known as El Huevo; he is a member of the Trevino smuggling clan, which has a long history in Nuevo Laredo — and in the Los Zetas cartel. His uncles, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, aka Z-40, and Omar Trevino Morales, aka Z-42, were both former leaders of Los Zetas. The Trevinos are old-school Nuevo Laredo smugglers and criminals with deep ties to the community.

Conflict between the CDN and government forces isn't a new phenomenon. In the summer of 2018, violence between the two sides also surged after the ambush and assassination of the director of a prison in Nuevo Laredo. With the running gunbattles involving automatic weapons and grenades, attacks on security forces and threats against businesses, those with interests in Nuevo Laredo should be on heightened alert until this wave of brutality subsides.
Title: Stratfor: The Case for a Counter Insurgency Approach to Mexico's Cartel Wars
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 02, 2019, 12:21:14 AM
on security
The Case for a Counterinsurgency Approach to Mexico's Cartel Wars
Scott Stewart
Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
9 MINS READOct 1, 2019 | 10:00 GMT
Favio Gomez, brother of Servando Gomez, also known as
(MANUEL VELASQUEZ/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Favio Gomez, brother of Servando Gomez, also known as "La Tuta," is transported in Mexico City on Feb. 27, 2015, after his capture. Counterinsurgency tactics, rather than counterterrorism measures, might bring Mexico more success in battling its cartels.
Highlights

    Mexico has not designated its cartels as terrorist organizations, but it uses many counterterrorism tools and tactics to fight them.
    Such an approach has weakened many cartels, causing several to implode, but it has done little to enhance the government's legitimacy or address the issues that foster the rise of such groups.
    Because cartels have grown strong due to corruption, incompetent governance, economic malaise, impunity and the absence of the rule of law, Mexico might require a holistic counterinsurgency approach that goes beyond military means to remedy the underlying issues that facilitate such criminality.

 

Just last week, I was chatting with someone on Twitter who stated his belief that Mexican drug cartels should be classified as "terrorists" because of their actions. It's an idea, however, that I have long opposed: Cartels' gratuitous violence notwithstanding, their actions do not really fit the definition of terrorism, which many broadly define as political violence directed toward civilians. To my mind, Mexican cartels have simply not yet emulated Colombia's Pablo Escobar and his Medellin Cartel sicarios and engaged in political violence.

The Big Picture

Geographic proximity to the United States has been both a blessing and a curse for Mexico. Easy access to the giant U.S. market and free trade agreements have fostered more manufacturing activity, jobs and foreign investment in the country. At the same time, Mexico's proximity to illicit U.S. markets has resulted in the rapid growth of extremely violent criminal enterprises. Crime and violence are taking a huge toll on citizens and placing heavy fetters on the Mexican economy. There are many profound factors underlying the rise of the powerful organized crime groups, which are responsible for the majority of Mexico's violence. But until Mexico can address these issues, its government will be unable to kill its way out of this situation, causing the people and the economy to suffer.

See The Importance of Mexico

Still, it dawned on me that — definitions aside — the Mexican government and its U.S. ally have pursued the "war" on cartels using many of the same tools that we normally associate with the "global war on terror." Mexican special operations forces routinely raid hideouts to capture or kill cartel leaders, as well as employ sophisticated intelligence tools to track or hack cartel communications devices and networks. In one February 2017 incident, Mexican marines poured fire from a helicopter armed with a minigun into a house in Tepic, Nayarit, killing a Beltran Leyva Organization leader and 11 of his henchmen. Widely circulated videos of the incident resembled something one would expect to see in an operation targeting the Islamic State rather than an anti-crime operation in the capital of a Mexican state. 

I certainly don't fault the Mexican military for using military force against the cartels. Since the 1990s, the cartels have employed former soldiers armed with military-grade weapons in their enforcer units. But as we've seen in recent years, the military-based counterterrorism approach to combatting the cartels is not working. The government has captured or killed a long list of cartel leaders but failed to curb cartel violence. Indeed, 2019 is on track to be the most violent year ever in Mexico. Clearly, the Mexican government can't capture or kill its way out of its cartel problem. Instead, the road to solving the country's profound problems might lie along a different, more holistic, tack: a counterinsurgency model. Thinking of the cartels as criminal insurgents provides a valid blueprint for understanding the problem — as well as a road map for addressing it. 
 
Mexico's Cartels Stage an Insurgency

The idea that Mexican cartels are criminal insurgents is not a revelation. In fact, Stratfor contributor John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker published an anthology in 2012 on the topic of Mexico's criminal insurgency for Small Wars Journal. As it is, the U.S. military defines insurgency as "the organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region," in its counterinsurgency doctrinal document, Joint Publication 3-24. And while Mexican cartels may not be seeking to establish an alternative government like a typical political insurgency, they are seeking to nullify or challenge the political control of territory to further their criminal operations.

Insurgents thrive in insecure areas that lack capable, credible governance. There are historical, geographic and political factors that have challenged Mexico City's ability to govern and control parts of the country. Indeed, banditry, smuggling and other criminal activity have historically plagued ungoverned places such as the sparsely populated deserts and mountains of the country's north.

In some ways, it is only when it comes to end goals that the Islamic State and Mexican cartels differ: Whereas the jihadist group wants to control territory for political power, cartels wish to do so for profit.

Geography and terrain are important factors that enable an insurgency, and it is no coincidence that most successful insurgencies take advantage of rough terrain, such as mountains and deserts, to wage their operations. But even more important than the physical terrain is the human terrain, as insurgents who enjoy the support of the population tend to thrive, relying on locals for shelter, material support, recruits and even intelligence. Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong noted that favorable human terrain allows a guerrilla fighter "to move among the people as a fish moves in the sea," and leftist and jihadist theorists alike have stressed the need to obtain local backing in their insurgencies. The cartels use a complicated combination of largesse and fear to ensure the population stays on their side. Indeed, Mexico's Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera did not become a revered and respected cultural icon by mistake, but rather as the result of a carefully cultivated campaign. In the end, mere popular support couldn't protect Guzman from the massive international effort to capture him, but it certainly complicated authorities' efforts to locate him, allowing the cartel boss to remain freer for much longer than he would have otherwise.

In places like Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has conducted operations to destabilize areas in which it wants to operate by conducting targeted assassinations and engaging in efforts to influence or sway local leaders to its side. By offering "plata o plomo" (silver or lead), Mexican cartels operate in much the same way, seeking to tip the local population to their side, maintain their favorable standing or, at the very least, obtain locals' fearful acquiescence by demonstrating the government's powerlessness. In some ways, it is only when it comes to end goals that the Islamic State and Mexican cartels differ: Whereas the jihadist group wants to control territory for political power, cartels wish to do so for profit. 

Taking a Holistic Approach

As history has repeatedly demonstrated — including recent history in the war against jihadism — counterinsurgency is difficult. This is especially so when locals view the forces conducting the counterinsurgency as outsiders. For insular communities in the Mexican mountains, federal troops are nearly as foreign as U.S. troops in Afghanistan. At its heart, counterinsurgency is really more an art than a science, meaning it requires a great deal of foresight, patience and cultural understanding. Unlike the current counterterrorism approach, a counterinsurgency approach would go beyond mere military force to utilize all the tools of the national, state and local governments, including their political, economic, educational, health, legal and developmental resources. Getting all of Mexico's conflicting political parties and state and local governments on board would present a challenge, but perhaps only measures that erode cartels' support base will cut such enterprises down to size. 

As I have noted in the past, there is little difference in the geographic factors that influence the north and south banks of the Rio Grande. The vast majority of the drugs that flow north out of Tamaulipas pass through the Texas Rio Grande Valley, while most of the money that flows south ends up back in Tamaulipas. Indeed, the same criminal cartels that operate in Tamaulipas also operate in Texas, but there are worlds of difference in terms of how these groups operate depending on whether they're on the U.S. or Mexican side of the line. As has become abundantly clear, they are far more aggressive and violent in Mexico than they are in the United States. It all goes to show that corruption, incompetent governance, economic malaise, impunity and the absence of the rule of law have allowed cartels to thrive and engage in wanton violence in Mexico. In essence, these are the same factors that have permitted groups such as the Islamic State West African Province to spread in Nigeria, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin in northern Mali and other insurgent groups elsewhere.

This graph shows murder rates by year in Mexico.

Mexican governments have repeatedly tried to address the cartel problem through an institutional approach, focusing merely on reforming corrupt police agencies. The government of current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is taking a similar path, creating a new Mexican National Guard and reviving the Secretariat of Public Security that his predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, abolished. These new institutions, however, have done little to reduce the violence wracking Mexico because they are not holistic and cannot address the underlying issues facilitating the criminal insurgencies. Lopez Obrador the candidate noted that corruption was the No. 1 problem facing Mexico, but Lopez Obrador the president has succeeded in doing very little about the issue.

To be successful, a counterinsurgency campaign must weaken the insurgent forces while building the government's legitimacy. Mexico's counterterrorism approach against the cartels has weakened many of the groups, causing several to implode, but it has done little to stem corruption or enhance the government's legitimacy. This, in turn, has allowed criminals to take advantage of the vacuum of authority and governance.

Joint Publication 3-24 notes that "the [host nation] government generally needs some level of legitimacy among the population to retain the confidence of the populace and an acknowledgment of governing power." The Mexican government has not been able to build legitimacy in the eyes of the population, which has very little confidence in central authorities' ability to govern. Until Mexico City can begin to make progress on the ground in governing, battling corruption, ending impunity and winning the trust and confidence of the local population, cartels will continue to thrive — no matter how many criminal leaders the military kills or how many new security institutions the state drafts into the fight.   
Title: Otro dia como otros dias 3.0
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 04, 2019, 07:59:20 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/supreme-court-justice-issues-surprise-resignation/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/is-the-military-tiring-of-turning-the-other-cheek/
Title: Mexico's Unorganized Militia vs. the narcos
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 10, 2019, 04:15:25 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/guerrero-town-imposes-curfew-in-preparation-for-a-new-cartel-invasion/
Title: Liberan al hijo del Chapo despues de enfrentamientos
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 18, 2019, 07:02:17 AM
https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/politica/2019/10/17/despues-de-enfrentamientos-liberan-a-hijo-de-el-chapo-en-culiacan-3674.html?fbclid=IwAR1XHPfwHtAiyfHUH8FldLKu0yehAQH81j3TW28M9BE9dqVVBr1sgsq_zXA


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhSM0JFkU4U&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2b2TnWYvqoemnA3ZvTJRqIZ0Z0GsM-sWE_lz3xpcyqQedvapi30Y52uLw





Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 19, 2019, 07:17:55 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/sinaloa-cartel-sows-terror-in-culiacan/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/cartel-threatened-michoacan-police/
Title: WSJ on Culiacan
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 19, 2019, 09:00:01 PM



Mexican Cartel Rules City After Gunbattle
Operation to free Ovidio Guzmán was unprecedented in scope and sophistication
A policeman walks past a burnt vehicle after heavily armed gunmen waged a battle against Mexican security forces in Culiacán. Photo: Alfredo Estrella/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By David Luhnow,
José de Cordoba and
Santiago Pérez
Updated Oct. 18, 2019 7:04 pm ET

MEXICO CITY—A son of the infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is captured. Cartel gunmen respond with a vicious attack on soldiers and civilians across a major Mexican city, leaving at least eight people dead and 16 wounded. The government gives in and releases the son, a top figure in the cartel.

One of the most violent and harrowing days in Mexico’s long fight against drug cartels unfolded late Thursday as members of the Sinaloa cartel wreaked havoc across Culiacán, a modern, middle-class city of around 800,000 residents, in response to what appeared to be a botched attempt to arrest Ovidio Guzmán.

Heavily-armed gunmen riding in convoys engaged in more than 70 separate firefights with Mexican security forces, set fires to vehicles, shot at government offices and engineered a jailbreak that freed 55 prisoners, with six recaptured, officials said. By nightfall, it was clear that the cartel was in charge of the city.

Mexican cartels have a history of blocking streets with burned-out cars to protect their bosses and of going on rampages when their leaders are captured by authorities. But Thursday’s events were unprecedented in their scope and sophistication, showing that the Sinaloa cartel is alive and well despite the absence of its legendary leader, who is now serving a life prison sentence.

The incident stunned many in Mexico and raised pressure on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to make headway against the country’s relentless cartel-fueled violence. On Friday, he defended the decision to release the younger Mr. Guzmán.

“The situation became very difficult. Many citizens were at risk,” the president said at his daily news conference. “I agreed with that.”

Cartel gunmen had also kidnapped eight army soldiers and an officer, said Mexico’s Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval. They were released after the drug lord was freed.

Schools remained closed in Culiacán on Friday, as did many businesses.

Mr. Guzmán, who is only in his late 20s, has emerged as a top figure in the cartel along with his brothers Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo following the arrest and extradition of their father in 2017.

The incident was the third major gun battle of the week. On Monday, at least 13 state police in Michoacán state were massacred by suspected gunmen from the country’s powerful Jalisco cartel. A day later, one soldier and 14 alleged cartel gunmen died in a shootout in southern Guerrero state.

The violence, along with widespread extortion of businesses by organized crime, is one factor in Mexico’s economic stagnation. The economy has failed to grow so far this year. A survey by Mexico’s central bank found that violence and political uncertainty are the top two obstacles to economic growth cited by economists.

The administration’s backing down to the cartel’s offensive was sharply criticized by many ordinary Mexicans and security analysts, who challenged Mr. López Obrador’s policy of using force only as a last resort in an attempt to pacify one of the world’s most violent nations. He has called the policy “hugs, not bullets,” promising to focus on attacking poverty rather than cartels.

Murders in Mexico are on pace for a record-high 37,000 this year, according to the country’s national statistics agency. The U.S., which has nearly three times Mexico’s population, has about 15,000 murders a year, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Security analysts said the Culiacán incident was a public-relations disaster for the government, which looked weak in the face of cartel firepower.

“Lopez Obrador was confident his call for peace and love—and not going after narcos—would lower violence,” said Raúl Benitez, an analyst at the Autonomous University of Mexico. Instead, he said the president has given free rein to gangs. “It shows the peace-and-love strategy is not working.”

Adding to the sense of impunity, a lawyer representing the Guzmán family held a press conference in Mexico City on Friday to thank Mr. López Obrador for freeing Mr. Guzmán.

“The calculus the president made was that a single Mexican life is worth more than all the violence that was, as they say in music, reaching a crescendo,” attorney Juan Pablo Badillo said, adding that “we have no idea what would have happened” if the drug lord hadn’t been released.

Mr. Sandoval said Friday that a unit of Mexico’s National Guard had located Ovidio Guzmán, but acted hastily and arrived at a safe house without a warrant. While they were waiting for it, cartel gunmen allegedly opened fire. Security forces captured Mr. Guzmán, officials said, but then found themselves surrounded by cartel gunmen who arrived as backup.

Within minutes of Mr. Guzmán’s capture, hundreds of cartel gunmen sprang into action. Convoys of SUVs and pickups filled the city streets. Gunmen wore bulletproof vests and toted assault rifles, and at least two had machine guns, including an intimidating Browning M2 set up on the back of a light truck, according to security experts who analyzed video footage of the events.

Gunmen also began firing on army barracks where the family members of soldiers lived, Mr. Sandoval said. One unconfirmed report said gang members had hijacked loaded fuel trucks and parked them near the barracks, threatening to blow them up.

“The criminal organization’s ability to call on its members and power of response was underestimated,” said Mr. Sandoval.
Mexican soldiers patrol near the government palace in Culiacán on Friday. Photo: alfredo estrella/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Mobsters sprayed bullets in front of key government buildings and gas stations, torching cars and sending plumes of smoke over the Culiacán skyline. It gave the impression of a civil war, sparking panic among the population, said Eduardo Guerrero, a former top Mexican security official.

Between 100 and 150 gunmen surrounded the area near the house where Mr. Guzmán was hiding out, outnumbering some 70 to 80 troops. Another 150 or 200 cartel members were deployed in various parts of the city to create havoc, Mr. Guerrero estimates.

Another armed commando staged a parallel raid, taking advantage of the chaos spreading across Culiacán to free more than 50 cartel members from a nearby prison. Security guards offered no resistance.

“They were more powerful and showed tactical supremacy. The government didn’t expect a reaction in such scale,” said Guillermo Valdés, Mexico’s former intelligence chief. “As soon as some 300 hit men came out, there was no capacity to counter them.”

Mexico’s powerful drug cartels are likely to take note of the Sinaloa cartel’s use of military power and tactics in freeing Mr. Guzmán, and emulate it, said Mike Vigil, a former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who has also served in Mexico.

“Releasing Ovidio sends a vivid message to criminal cartels that if a group’s leader is captured, all you have to do is go into a town, commit wholesale violence, and the government will release him,” he said.
Residents were forced to flee for cover as armed gunmen and federal police clashed on the streets of Culiacán Thursday. Photo: str/EPA/Shutterstock

Mr. López Obrador campaigned on ending Mexico’s drug war. Since 2006, as cartels gained increasing power, successive presidents have used the armed forces to kill or capture cartel leaders and break up powerful gangs.

The strategy reduced the clout of the largest cartels, but it also led to growing criminal violence as cartels splintered into rival gangs and fought each other for control of drug-trafficking routes and territory. Hundreds of thousands have died in the carnage.

Mr. López Obrador said his government would no longer focus on capturing cartel leaders but work on alleviating poverty. “What happened yesterday was lamentable, but in no way does it mean our strategy has failed,” he told reporters during his morning news conference.

The government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has worked on alleviating poverty in order to prevent young people from joining gangs. Photo: daniel ricardez/EPA/Shutterstock

The president is also relying on the force of his personality to tamp down crime, calling on gang members to think of their mothers.

“We’re calling on criminals to tone it down, that we all start to behave better. To hell with criminals. Fuchi, guacala,” he said, using colloquial terms that mean “gross, yuck.”

Thursday, as word of the battles in Culiacán spread on social media, the phrase #Fuchi/guacala was trending on Twitter.

—Anthony Harrup and Robbie Whelan contributed to this article.

Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com, José de Cordoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com and Santiago Pérez at santiago.perez@wsj.com
Title: Lugares mas violentos en Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 31, 2019, 09:18:20 AM


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coastal-tourist-destinations-among-most-violent-locations/
Title: Ejercito descontento con AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 04, 2019, 07:48:15 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/critical-speech-reveals-growing-rift-between-amlo-military/
Title: Federalist: Tiempo para guerra a los narcos
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 06, 2019, 05:56:06 PM


https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/06/its-time-for-the-united-states-to-wage-war-on-mexican-drug-cartels/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newslink&utm_term=members&utm_content=20191106213905
Title: Ed Calderon on Mexico's Mormons
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 07, 2019, 01:32:08 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BojXVi3el-g&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1NgSQDtVvVGqVU2I2FNIiu479XqIoq4XHHgBIsHC5KQINvCFB3zPwIXyE
Title: Alcance de los carteles? Policia quien arestaba hijo del Chapo esta' asasinado.
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 07, 2019, 11:28:34 PM
https://www.judicialwatch.org/videos/mexican-drug-cartels-how-far-is-their-reach-chris-farrell/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7662587/Mexican-police-officer-arrested-El-Chapos-son-assassinated-hail-bullets.html

https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/08/cop-arrested-el-chapo-son-shot/?fbclid=IwAR3N-rjiBrdpS-blHfnoKDB2MtCxIuw8NKFIns1eo3sPrBGPsL0WcIGWZ-4

Title: !Acuerdate de tus promesas!
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 21, 2019, 07:50:09 AM
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49984987?ns_source=facebook&ns_mchannel=social&ocid=socialflow_facebook&ns_campaign=bbcnews&fbclid=IwAR1_sQh6ylQxMF3c3eCtafQUJ2Bq6Qurkzkhvwbc5ZyVeGIwEJyVJZtUH6w
Title: Narcos declarado terroristas?
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 29, 2019, 11:31:45 AM
HIGHLIGHTS

The long and complex relationship between the United States and Mexico has left the Mexicans far more sensitive to what they perceive as U.S. infringement on their sovereignty.

Many Mexicans view U.S. President Donald Trump's actions as offensive, patronizing and motivated by his 2020 election ambitions.

Merely labeling a few of the larger groups such as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Sinaloa cartel as terrorist organizations will not be helpful in meaningfully countering all the smaller groups.

Editor's Note: ­This security-focused assessment is one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.

In a radio interview that aired on Nov. 26, U.S. President Donald Trump told former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly that he intends to designate Mexican cartels as international terrorist entities because of their role in human and drug trafficking. The statement was met with widespread condemnation in Mexico, where both the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the public are seriously opposed to the move. Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said in a Nov. 25 interview on the proposal that he didn't expect the United States to follow through on the idea.

The situation in Mexico is quite different from that in Colombia during the early 1990s when Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel were designated as narcoterrorists. Both the Colombian government and population supported the designation and the U.S. assistance. However, the long and complex relationship between the United States and Mexico has left the Mexicans far more sensitive to what they perceive as U.S. infringement on their sovereignty. Many Mexicans viewed Trump's threat to send U.S. troops to Mexico in the wake of the Nov. 4 LeBaron slayings as offensive, patronizing and motivated by his 2020 election ambitions. Any decision to designate the Mexican cartels as international terrorist organizations is seen in much the same light.

The harsh reality is that economics dictate that the flow of contraband across the U.S.-Mexico border — drugs going north and cash and guns flowing south — will never end as long as there is a huge market in the United States for illegal drugs.

From a practical perspective, the U.S. government has long been involved in supporting Mexico's military efforts against the cartels, and it has provided training, equipment, assistance and intelligence. The relationship is particularly close with the Mexican marines, who are involved in most operations targeting high-value cartel figures. The Mexicans have been able to either capture or kill a long list of major cartel figures. Such operations do weaken and fragment the cartels, but they do very little to address the underlying problems — corruption, impunity and a vacuum of authority — that allow them to operate the way they do in Mexico.

The harsh reality is that economics dictate that the flow of contraband across the U.S.-Mexico border — drugs going north and cash and guns flowing south — will never end as long as there is a huge market in the United States for illegal drugs. At the same time, it is important to recognize that the same cartels operate on both sides of the border, but they are far more restrained in the United States. Therefore, if Mexico can make progress in addressing corruption and related problems, it can regain the trust of the public and take steps to constrain the cartels so they behave as they do in the United States. Obviously, given the violent behavior of the cartels, the government of Mexico must continue to use military force against them so it will be able to address these underlying weaknesses. However, force alone will not be able to combat those problems.

Finally, there is a real practical difficulty in designating Mexican cartels as international terrorist organizations. The cartel landscape is far different from what it was 20 years ago, and there are an array of distinct and independent groups. For example, the Gulf cartel has completely imploded and turned into a host of smaller local criminal groups, including Los Zetas, which has splintered into at least a half-dozen competing factions. Merely labeling a few of the larger groups such as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Sinaloa cartel as terrorist organizations will not be helpful in meaningfully countering all the smaller groups.
Title: How guns are smuggled into Mexico from US
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 05, 2019, 09:47:32 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/army-reveals-how-crooks-get-guns-across-the-border/
Title: WSJ on AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 07, 2019, 01:04:23 PM
Mexico’s Polarizing President Presides Over Rising Violence, Flailing Economy
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador remains popular despite cartel crime and weak growth
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador greets supporters in the southern state of Oaxaca. PRESS OFFICE

David Luhnow and José de Córdoba
Dec. 7, 2019 12:15 am ET

MEXICO CITY—On Dec. 1, tens of thousands of people gathered in Mexico City’s gritty central square to celebrate Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s first year in office. His supporters chanted “It’s an honor to support Obrador.”

A few blocks away, thousands of protesters marched along the city’s elegant Reforma boulevard to rail against the president. Their chant was different: “It’s a horror to support Obrador.”

Since taking power, the silver-haired populist has polarized Mexico more than any president in recent memory. A majority see him as their first honest leader in decades, a man of the people and champion of the forgotten poor. For a growing minority, the president is a dangerous authoritarian who is consolidating power and failing to address the country’s basic problems like out-of-control crime and weak economic growth.

Stalling Out
Annual change in GDP
Source: International Monetary Fund
Note: 2019 data are estimates.
%
Mexico
U.S.
2009
’10
’11
’12
’13
’14
’15
’16
’17
’18
’19
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
His first year wasn’t an optimistic harbinger of his remaining five years in power. Mexico’s economy hasn’t grown at all this year, its worst performance in a decade. Even as the U.S. economy chugs along, Mexican businesses have slowed investment, spooked by the president’s governing style and economic decisions like suspending the country’s historic opening to private investment in the energy industry. At the same time, the window may be closing for ratification of a renegotiated free-trade pact among Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

Crime has hit record highs, with murders climbing another 2.2% during the first 10 months of the year compared with last year’s record tally of 36,685 slayings. More than ever, parts of Mexico appear ungovernable as powerful crime syndicates take on the government. In October, the Sinaloa cartel overran the northern city of Culiacán in a successful attempt to force the army to liberate a captured drug lord.

President Trump had been expected to designate Mexico’s drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, putting them on a par with groups like Islamic State and al Qaeda. On Friday night, he said he would “temporarily hold off” on that move at the request of Mr. López Obrador.

Mr. Trump, in tweets, said the two nations would “step up our joint efforts to deal decisively with these vicious and ever-growing organizations!” He said “all necessary work” had been completed to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations.

A series of recent clashes between cartel gunmen and security forces as well as massacres of civilians in Mexico has captured global attention. Last month, presumed gunmen from a cartel killed three mothers and six of their children, all U.S. citizens living in a fundamentalist Mormon community in the northern state of Chihuahua.


Men carry the remains of Dawna Ray Langford and her sons Trevor and Rogan, who were killed by unknown assailants in November. PHOTO: CARLOS JASSO/REUTERS
Rafael Chávez, a burly construction worker who runs a business remodeling homes, voted for Mr. López Obrador last year on the politician’s promises he would “transform” the country. But a sharp slowdown in construction has forced Mr. Chávez to cut the size of his crews to 12 from an average of 30.

“I had the hope he was going to be able to conjure a change,” says Mr. Chávez. But with crime growing and a weak economy, he says, it seems “everything is falling apart.”

Since taking power, the man who once said “to hell with your institutions” has become the most powerful president in decades, with a big majority in both chambers of congress. He has attacked many of the country’s fragile institutions like courts, the central bank, and regulators as part of a “mafia of power” against him. And his party is now trying to oust the non-partisan head of the agency that oversees elections in time for the 2022 midterms.

“It’s not yellow flashing lights—they are glowing red,” says Enrique Krauze, one of the country’s leading historians. Mr. López Obrador’s government appears to be “on the road to becoming a populist dictatorship.”

Despite the shaky first year, the veteran politician and baseball fan remains Mexico’s most popular leader in decades, with different recent polls showing an approval rating between 60% and 70%. Those are enviable numbers at a time when some leaders in Latin America have approval ratings in the single digits and others face violent street protests.

“It’s a paradox,” says Héctor Aguilar Camín, a leading Mexican writer. “It’s a president who has high credibility and very poor results.”

The answer may lie in Mr. López Obrador’s masterful use of political symbols. He slashed his own salary and that of top bureaucrats, arguing that Mexico can’t have a rich government and poor citizens. The savings have gone partly to fund an expansion in cash transfer programs for the elderly, middle-school students and others.

The austerity is a welcome change in a country where many former presidents retired as multimillionaires. Enrique Peña Nieto, Mr. López Obrador’s predecessor, left office hounded by scandal and a record low 16% approval. The former president appears regularly in the pages of Mexico’s top society magazines, jet-setting on holidays around Europe with his new 31-year-old girlfriend, a model. Mr. Peña Nieto has long denied wrongdoing.


President López Obrador talks to a fellow passenger during a commercial flight in in Mexico in February. PHOTO: ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Mr. López Obrador is the symbolic opposite. He put the country’s version of Air Force One, a Boeing 787, on the auction block and flies economy class, delighting fellow travelers. He disbanded the 8,000-strong elite presidential guard, saying the people would protect him. And he turned the sprawling and secretive presidential compound into a tourist attraction visited by millions. Rather than rest and play golf on the weekends, he visits the country’s poorest corners.

“This is one of the best things that has happened in all of my life,” said Omar Escovedo, 59, a retired state worker, during a recent visit by the president to the mostly indigenous hamlet of Amanalco near the capital. Over the past decade, the politician visited every county in Mexico—all 2,457.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Do you think a populist leader can bring peace and prosperity to Mexico? Join the conversation below.

He has also proved adept at communication. In a country where presidents hardly ever held news conferences, he holds one nearly every morning that is carried live on radio, television and the internet to millions of his supporters.

There, Mr. López Obrador hammers home his vision of a country cleaved in two. His opponents are traitorous “conservatives”—a term from Mexico’s 19th century civil wars—and modern-day “neoliberals.” To him, these Mexicans are corrupt, beholden to foreign interests, and wealthy. Mr. López Obrador has even resurrected a 19th century word, “fifí,” meaning Frenchified and effete, to describe them.

On the other side are Mr. López Obrador and his supporters. These are the inheritors of Mexico’s 19th-century patriots and revolutionaries who seek to extinguish corruption and, through the hand of the state, produce well-being for all, especially the poor and the nation’s indigenous people.

“If you oppose López Obrador, then you are a traitor, corrupt, a coup monger,” says José Crespo, a political analyst at Mexico City’s CIDE university. “It’s a Manichaean use of history where on one side are the good Mexicans and on the other the very bad Mexicans.”

Crime is perhaps the president’s biggest vulnerability. A majority of Mexicans give him negative marks on crime, which they say is the country’s most pressing problem. A December poll by newspaper Reforma found 65% of Mexicans believe organized crime is stronger than the Mexican government. Just 29% said the government is stronger.


Soldiers stand guard in Villa Unión, a Mexican town near the border with the U.S., after a shootout with suspected cartel gunmen earlier this month. PHOTO: JULIO CESAR AGUILAR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The crime wave has also hit Mexico City, which until recently had been relatively shielded from the carnage in the countryside. More than eight in 10 city residents say crime is their biggest problem, polls show. Just south of Mexico City, Catholic churches in parts of Morelos state have suspended Mass during evenings because parishioners are too frightened to attend, according to Ramón Castro, the bishop of Cuernavaca.

From the day he took power, the president declared an end to the country’s war on drugs, saying “you can’t fight fire with fire.” Mexico’s U.S.-trained Naval Marines, the force that killed or captured most top cartel leaders in the past decade, including Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been sidelined, say Naval officers. No major cartel figure has been arrested or killed this year.

The president disbanded the 40,000 strong Federal Police, built up under the previous two administrations in a bid to create a capable police force to pursue organized crime. In its place is a new National Guard, drawn mostly from the ranks of army and naval police. The Guard has 70,000 members and will grow to 140,000, the government says.

Critics say the Guard is a work in progress with no clear mission. So far, it has been deployed to stop Central American migrants from reaching the U.S., patrol Mexico City’s subway system, fight gasoline theft and deal with high-profile incidents such as massacres by organized crime. “It’s been a very reactive force, scattered, without a clear vision,” says Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security analyst.

Deadly Trend
Homicides in Mexico
Source: Mexico's National Statistics Institute
2010
’12
’14
’16
’18
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
Analysts say that while Mexico has mostly relied on the armed forces to control organized crime, it has for years neglected a long-term fix: building professional police forces, especially at state and local levels, that can actually solve crimes like murder. Less than 13% of violent crimes end up with a suspect appearing before a judge, compared with 80% in the U.S., according to Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and former member of Mexico’s intelligence agency.

By dismantling the Federal Police, the president went back to square one in creating a trained federal force. His government has also cut federal funding to train state and local police forces, according to government budget data.

Aside from the National Guard, the president is betting that reducing poverty will reduce crime. Some 800,000 youth have signed up to an apprentice program called “Youth Building a Future” that gives them a monthly stipend in exchange for learning a trade, a process that Mr. López Obrador hopes will keep them from becoming cannon fodder for gangs.

The president is also relying on the force of his personality to tamp down crime, calling on gang members to think of their mothers. “We’re calling on criminals to tone it down, that we all start to behave better. To hell with criminals. Fuchi, guácala,” he said, using colloquial terms that mean “gross, yuck.”

Last week, a small army of gunmen in a convoy of about 50 armored trucks, some mounted with .50 caliber rifles, attacked a small town in Coahuila, less than 40 miles from the Texas border, shooting up the town hall. At least 23 people, 17 of them presumed cartel members, were killed in a two-day running battle between security forces and gunmen, who wore helmets and military fatigues, and drove trucks emblazoned with the insignia of their self-styled “Northeast Cartel.”

On the economy, the outlook appears grim. Economists forecast just 1.2% growth next year—well below the president’s promises of 4% average annual growth and 6% growth by the end of his term.

Lack of Confidence
Mexico's gross fixed investment index
Source: Mexico's National Statistics Institute
Total
Construction
2016
’17
’18
’19
85
90
95
100
105
110
115
120
ConstructionxSept. 2019x93.4
Investment in machinery, equipment and construction fell 6.8% in September compared with a year ago, and is down 4.8% in the first nine months of this year, Mexico’s statistics agency said Friday.

Many blame the stagnation on the president’s decisions like canceling Mexico City’s partially built new airport, the country’s largest public-works project. Mr. López Obrador spiked the project after some $5 billion had already been spent, saying it was too extravagant. His finance minister later quit, saying economic decisions were being made on the basis of ideology.

The nationalist also reversed or suspended the economic overhauls—from ensuring public school teachers are tested for competence to opening the energy sector to private investment—carried out by Mr. Peña Nieto. Even auctions to attract private investment in renewable energies like wind farms have been scrapped.

Mexico’s stagnation marks the first time in two decades that Mexico’s economic cycle has diverged from the U.S., its northern neighbor and destination for 85% of its manufactured exports.

To spark economic growth, the president is betting on the resurrection of debt-ridden state oil firm Pemex, injecting it with new money and forcing it to build an $8 billion new refinery in his home state of Tabasco. But the oil industry accounts for under 4% of Mexico’s economic output.

His government closed down ProMexico, the country’s overseas investment offices. While he is supportive of the renegotiated free-trade deal with the U.S., he has yet to visit a single modern factory.


A refinery belonging to Pemex, the Mexican state oil firm. PHOTO: DANIEL BECERRIL/REUTERS
In July, on a visit to the countryside, he extolled the virtues of a primitive sugar-cane grinder powered by one mangy horse in a video he posted on his Twitter account which went viral. “This is an authentic people’s economy,” he said as the horse went around in a circle, grinding out the cane juice. “This is the economy we are promoting,” he said.

His austerity drive, while good for public finances, has forced thousands of top technocrats out of institutions like the central bank and finance ministry by slashing wages and cutting benefits like private health insurance.

“I’ve seen a year of destruction of institutions, of projects, of talents, of human capital,” says Valeria Moy, the director of “How are we doing, Mexico?” a Mexico City-based think tank. “This year, nothing has been built, and much has been destroyed.”

Write to David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com and José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 09, 2019, 08:35:48 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/painting-of-nude-revolutionary-zapata-on-an-aroused-horse/
Title: La gente en Veracruz se defiende
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 21, 2019, 11:49:33 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/residents-arm-themselves-in-southern-veracruz/
Title: Se aresta el Jefe de Policia en Chihuahua (LeBaron)
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 27, 2019, 04:52:34 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/chihuahua-police-chief-arrested-in-connection-with-lebaron-massacre/
Title: CATO: How Sinaloa Cartel clobbered Mexican Army
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 28, 2019, 09:29:56 AM

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-sinaloa-drug-cartel-clobbered-mexican-army
Title: Stratfor: The Business Impact of Corruption and Impunity in Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 29, 2019, 09:49:28 AM


The Business Impact of Corruption and Impunity in Mexico
Scott Stewart
Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
7 MINS READ
Dec 24, 2019 | 10:00 GMT

HIGHLIGHTS
Falling victim to crime can make business operations unprofitable, but cooperating with criminals can prove even more costly....

The detention in the United States of Mexico's former secretary of public security highlights how corruption reaches to the highest levels of Mexico's government. Former Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna was arrested Dec. 10 in Grapevine, Texas. He has been charged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York with three counts of cocaine trafficking conspiracy and one count of making false statements related to bribes he allegedly received from the Sinaloa cartel to help facilitate its smuggling operations. Garcia Luna held the national security post in Mexico during the administration of former President Felipe Calderon from 2006 to 2012. Before then, he headed Mexico's Federal Investigations Agency (AFI) from 2001 to 2006.
 
Testimony from the Sinaloa cartel's former chief accountant during the trial of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera incriminated Garcia Luna. Jesus Zambada, the brother of Guzman Loera's business partner Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, testified that on two occasions he delivered briefcases containing $3 million to Garcia Luna. According to Jesus Zambada, the first delivery occurred in 2005 while Garcia Luna was leading the AFI and the second transaction occurred while Garcia Luna was secretary of public security.

The Big Picture

There is no disputing that Mexico's proximity to illicit U.S. markets has resulted in the rapid growth of extremely violent criminal enterprises. Crime and violence take a huge toll on Mexico's citizens and economy. But geography alone is not responsible for the majority of Mexico's violence. Other factors, such as corruption and impunity, have permitted the cartels to become powerful and to operate brazenly. Until Mexico can address these issues, its government will be unable to kill its way out of the situation.

See Security Challenges in Latin America

For those who watch Mexico, the arrest of Garcia Luna — who has been dogged by accusations of corruption — comes as no surprise. Former high-ranking member of the Beltran Leyva organization Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka La Barbie, wrote a letter in 2012 published in the Mexican newspaper Reforma claiming he had paid protection money to Garcia Luna beginning in 2002. Garcia Luna and the Calderon administration denied the accusation, claiming Valdez was lashing out at those who had arrested him. But rumors of Garcia Luna's corruption persisted, regularly appearing in major Mexican news outlets such as Proceso. In fact, the rumors were so widespread that Forbes magazine named Garcia Luna to its list of the 10 most corrupt Mexicans for 2013. When Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was elected in 2012, he subsequently abolished the Secretariat of Public Security that Garcia Luna had led; rumors of Garcia Luna's corruption likely played a role in Pena Nieto's decision.
 
Recent Mexican history is replete with law enforcement organizations being disbanded for corruption, and not just municipal police departments. For example, the administration of former Mexican President Vicente Fox created the AFI in 2001 to replace the Federal Judicial Police, an agency disbanded because of rampant corruption. Patterned after the FBI, the AFI was structured to block corruption spilling over into it from other agencies. Despite those safeguards, by late 2005 the Mexican Attorney General's Office reported that almost 1,500 of the AFI's 7,000 agents were under investigation for suspected criminal activity and 457 agents faced criminal charges. Because of this corruption, Calderon's 2008 police reforms disbanded the AFI and assigned its mission to the Federal Police in early 2009. Garcia Luna, however, managed to dodge a Mexican criminal probe into the AFI's corruption problem, and for that matter, any legal consequences in Mexico from the various allegations against him. This highlights another long-standing problem that has plagued Mexico: impunity.
 
While news reports following Garcia Luna's arrest have suggested the Mexican Attorney General's Office is planning to request his extradition from the United States for trial in Mexico, it is highly unlikely the U.S. government would comply. The history of prison escapes involving high-profile figures such as Joaquin Guzman Loera and of judicial malfeasance resulting in the release of prisoners such as Rafael Caro Quintero has made the United States wary of such requests.
 
In October, I wrote a column discussing how corruption and impunity were enabling Mexican cartel groups to behave far more brazenly and brutally on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border than they do north of it. This case illustrates how corruption and impunity reach even the highest levels of the Mexican government. Corruption is even more pervasive at the state level and endemic at the municipal level. And Mexico is certainly not the only country in the region impacted by corruption and impunity: Neighboring Guatemala and Honduras suffer even more severely from these maladies — and even the United States is by no means immune to them. Among the dangers of corruption and impunity is the way they enable criminal enterprises.

Enabling Criminals

Corruption helps smugglers by allowing contraband (or people) to pass through ports, checkpoints or over borders when authorities accept payment to turn a blind eye. In several recent court cases, testimony emerged that high-ranking Honduran politicians and police officials took this a step further and accompanied high-value loads of cocaine to ensure the loads did not encounter any problems while passing through Honduras.
 
Corruption also helps criminals use the proceeds of their illegal activities, such as when officials allow bulk cash shipments to pass through checkpoints and when corrupt bank officials or businessmen permit money laundering through their organizations. The lure of huge amounts of criminal cash continues to be difficult for banks and businesses to resist despite the potential consequences, such as the $1.9 billion dollar fine HSBC paid in 2012 to avoid prosecution for laundering funds for Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers.

The freedom of operation that corruption and impunity allow criminal organizations to pursue lets them extort businesses, kidnap executives, steal cargo or hydrocarbons, or hide contraband within a company's products or shipments with little fear of legal repercussions.

Corruption also greatly facilitates criminal organizations' ability to acquire weapons, such as when corrupt officials look the other way when illegal shipments of guns and ammunition pass over borders. Many documented cases also exist of military or police officials selling guns to criminal groups, and in fact, the vast majority of the medium and heavy machine guns, hand grenades, 40 mm grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and other military ordnance Mexican cartels use is purchased from military sources in the region.
 
There have also been many well-documented cases in which police and military personnel have served as muscle for various criminal groups, in which police dispatchers have conducted records checks for criminals, and in which police command center personnel have even used government CCTV systems to serve as "halcones" (lookouts) for criminals.
 
Impunity follows corruption when law enforcement officials or judicial authorities are bribed or threatened into allowing criminals to avoid arrest, to be released without charges or to otherwise escape prosecution. Even when criminals are prosecuted, corruption often allows them to live like kings in their prison cells and to continue to operate their criminal enterprises from behind bars — or, as mentioned, to get out of prison through jailbreaks or legal shenanigans.

The Business Impact

All this corruption negatively impacts businesses by allowing criminals to operate brazenly and with impunity. The freedom of operation allows criminal organizations to extort businesses, kidnap executives, steal cargo or hydrocarbons, or hide contraband within a company's products or shipments with little fear of legal repercussions. We have seen companies shutter or suspend operations in parts of Mexico most affected by crime flowing from corruption and impunity, such as Guerrero and Guanajuato states.

Clearly, criminality can make business operations unprofitable. But cooperating with criminals as with money laundering can prove even more costly, as HSBC found. Paying bribes to corrupt officials can also create crushing liabilities: Companies have been forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for violating the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or the U.K. Bribery Act. Until Mexico is able to come to grips with the situation, businesses will continue to suffer.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 01, 2020, 08:12:30 PM




https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/ban-on-plastic-bags-takes-effect-wednesday/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 21, 2020, 04:24:42 PM
https://www.westernjournal.com/hundreds-us-bound-migrants-storm-border-rush-mexico/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=AE&utm_campaign=can&utm_content=2020-01-21
Title: Mexico defiende su frontera con Guatemala
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 22, 2020, 08:33:32 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/government-rounding-up-migrants-to-protect-them/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 29, 2020, 09:47:22 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/ngo-sees-potential-for-cartel-insurgency/
Title: Stratfor: Tracking Mexico's Cartels in 2020
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 04, 2020, 03:11:06 AM
Tracking Mexico's Cartels in 2020
Scott Stewart
Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
14 MINS READ
Feb 4, 2020 | 10:00 GMT

Editor's Note: This security-focused assessment is an excerpt from one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.

Since 2006, Stratfor has produced an annual cartel report that chronicles the dynamics shaping the complex mosaic of organized crime in Mexico and that forecasts where those forces are headed in the coming year. When we began producing these forecasts, the landscape was much simpler, with only a handful of major cartel groups. As we noted in 2013, the long process of Balkanization — or splintering —  of the groups made it difficult to analyze them the way we used to. Indeed, many of the cartels we had been tracking, such as the Gulf cartel, had imploded and fragmented into several smaller, often competing factions.
 
Because of this, we began to look at the cartels by focusing on the clusters of smaller groups that emanate from three distinct geographic areas: Tamaulipas state, Sinaloa state and the Tierra Caliente region (Guerrero and Michoacan). When viewed individually, the daily flow of reports of cartel-related murders and firefights can be overwhelming and often appears senseless. But the violence is not senseless when viewed through the lens of the dynamics driving it. Our intent here is to provide the framework for understanding those forces.
 
This year's report will begin with a general overview of the past year and then examine and provide an update and a forecast for each of those three areas of organized crime. For a detailed historical account of the dynamics that brought the major cartel groupings to where they are today, please read our 2017 report.

A map showing areas of cartel influence in Mexico

2019 in Review —  Mired in Bloody Conflict

The forces that shaped the violence in 2019 were much the same as those in 2018, and as 2020 dawns, the regions are mired in bloody cartel conflicts that show no sign of resolution. Part of the reason is the involvement of powerful external organizations that can supply the money, guns and men to sustain weaker local groups and prevent them from being defeated. This dynamic has been at work for several years in Tijuana and Juarez, where local proxies supported by the Sinaloa cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) are locked in bitter battles for control. In Reynosa, the CJNG has thrown its support behind a faction of Los Metros, preventing it from being defeated by the more powerful Gulf cartel faction from Matamoros, attacking from the east, or the Cartel del Noreste (CDN), attacking from the west. But the CJNG is also being vexed by this same phenomenon. The Sinaloa cartel is funding a breakaway CJNG faction in Guadalajara, creating problems for the CJNG in its core area. The Sinaloa cartel is also reportedly backing anti-CJNG forces in Guerrero and Michoacan states.

As a result of these brutal conflicts, murders in Mexico set another record in 2019, hitting 34,582 — and surpassing the record 33,341 of 2018. The rate of increase, however, has slowed from the steep jumps seen during 2015-18. It is important to note that these numbers don't account for the many abducted and slain people whose bodies are buried in clandestine graves, burned or dissolved in acid.
 
Violence has been persistent in border plaza towns such as Tijuana, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa. It has been nearly constant along the interior routes where drugs and precursor chemicals are smuggled, as well as in places where opium poppies and marijuana are grown. Despite this, the cartel groups continue to produce and traffic large quantities of drugs, including South American cocaine and Mexican heroin. But the cartels realize their biggest profit margins in synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl.
 
Last year also saw an increase in the amount of cannabis oil that the cartels are producing and smuggling (often in 5-gallon buckets) into the United States. The oil is a concentrated form of cannabis, making it easier to smuggle than large bales of marijuana. And vaping has opened a market for marijuana cartridges, which can be manufactured using the oil.

Tierra Caliente-Based Cartel Groups

A map showing areas of Tierra Caliente cartel influence in Mexico

Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG)

The CJNG is by far the most powerful of the Tierra Caliente-based groups, and it is involved in nearly every part of the country that is currently experiencing elevated violence. In Jalisco, Guerrero, Veracruz and Guanajuato, it is acting directly. In Tijuana, Mexico City, Reynosa and Juarez, it is working with local partners or proxies. The CJNG has aggressively sought control of ports, border plazas and areas where drugs are grown and where fuel is stolen. The government has reported that the CJNG has become the most powerful cartel group in Mexico and that it has a presence in more places than the Sinaloa cartel.
 
In looking from west to east, we see that the CJNG is working with remnants of the Arellano Felix organization (Tijuana cartel) for control of the Tijuana smuggling plaza; is supporting the Chapo Isidro group for control of the smuggling plazas in Sonora state against Sinaloa cartel ally Los Salazar; is supporting La Linea in its efforts to push Sinaloa out of Juarez and the drug-growing areas of Chihuahua state; and is backing a faction of Los Metros as it attempts to maintain control of the Reynosa plaza. Farther south, the CJNG is continuing its bloody campaign in Guanajuato state, where it is fighting the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, led by Jose Antonio Yepez Ortiz, alias El Marro. The CJNG is also fighting for control of Michoacan and Guerrero states against an array of smaller cartels. In addition, it has pushed into Quintana Roo state, home to the resort cities of Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel.
 
This avarice has led to the group's leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, being declared public enemy No. 1. The Mexican and U.S. governments have worked with other governments to track down and arrest members of his wife's family, the powerful Valencia smuggling clan, which facilitates money laundering for the group.

Other Tierra Caliente-Based Groups

Tierra Caliente is the most heavily fragmented region in Mexico, with dozens of distinct and often competing organized crime cartels in the states of Michoacan and Guerrero. The implosions of the Beltran Leyva organization, the Knights Templar and La Familia Michoacana resulted in the creation of a number of these groups.
 
In Michoacan, the remnants of the Knights Templar, including Los Viagras, and of La Familia Michoacana, such as La Nueva Familia Michoacana, fight for control of the state with the CJNG. One interesting development this past year was the creation of the Carteles Unidos (United Cartels), a group that combined Los Viagras and a number of smaller Michoacan cartel groups. The Sinaloa cartel may be supporting Carteles Unidos as a way to foil the aspirations of the CJNG in the state.
 
The militant landscape is further complicated by the large number of autodefensas, or self-defense, groups in Michoacan and Guerrero. These heavily armed militias often set up roadblocks and charge tolls. In July, two American citizens were shot dead and their 12-year-old son was wounded when they attempted to run a roadblock in Guerrero state.

Forecast

The CJNG will remain the largest and most aggressive cartel group this year. It will continue to profit handsomely from cocaine and synthetic drugs, and those profits will pay for its far-flung military operations and support for proxy groups. The CJNG can be expected to expand its operations to San Luis Potosi, Torreon, Monterrey and perhaps even Nuevo Laredo.
 
Efforts to roll up its leadership and its financial operations are unlikely to have a major impact on the group. We do expect to see more fractures of the CJNG in 2020, and if Oseguera Cervantes is finally captured or killed, his removal would increase the infighting and splintering. Guerrero and Michoacan will continue to be excessively violent in 2020.

Sinaloa-Based Cartel Groups

a map showing areas of Sinaloa Cartel influence in Mexico

Sinaloa cartel

While a great deal of attention has been paid to the July conviction of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera and his life sentence, he isn't the only Sinaloa cartel figure who faced legal problems over the past year. In December, Ismael Zambada Imperial, the son of Guzman Loera's partner and current Sinaloa cartel leader Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia, was extradited to the United States to stand trial on drug charges. Zambada Imperial was arrested in Mexico in 2014 and convicted on drug and weapons charges. The United States requested his extradition in 2015.
 
Two of his half-brothers have already been convicted in the United States. Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla was arrested in Mexico in 2009 and extradited in 2010. He was sentenced to 15 years in May 2019 after testifying in the trial of Guzman Loera. With credit for time served, he could be released as early as 2023. Half-brother Serafin Zambada Ortiz was arrested in 2013 as he attempted to cross the U.S. border in Arizona. He was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison and released in September 2018.
 
The only son of Zambada Garcia who remains free is Ismael Zambada Sicairos, who is also believed to be involved in the narcotics trade. The U.S. indictment of Zambada Imperial lists his half-brother Ismael Zambada Sicairos; their father; and Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, the son of Guzman Loera, as co-conspirators.
 
Guzman Salazar along with his half-brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez are known as Los Chapitos (The Little Chapos). They made international headlines in October, when Guzman Lopez was arrested in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa. Guzman Salazar mobilized his group's gunmen and laid siege to the city with the support of the forces of Zambada Garcia. These gunmen entered a military housing area and captured some military personnel and their families. They used them as hostages, forcing the government to release Guzman Lopez.

Tijuana Cartel Remnants

The remnants of the Arellano Felix organization (Tijuana cartel) remain divided into two camps. The stronger faction is affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel and is run by the Arzate Garcia brothers, Rene, aka La Rana, and Alfonso, aka El Aquiles. The brothers helped Sinaloa wrest control of Tijuana from the Arellano Felix organization.
 
Their main opposition sometimes refers to itself as the Cartel de Tijuana Nueva Generacion, an acknowledgment of its affiliation with the CJNG. This conflict has been extremely bloody, and the state of Baja California has the second-highest murder rate for Mexican states (76.7 per 100,000).

Juarez Cartel Remnants

The situation in Juarez is quite similar to that in Tijuana. The Sinaloa cartel worked with a splinter group of the Carrillo Fuentes organization (Juarez cartel) to establish a firm foothold in the Juarez plaza. The CJNG is supporting other remnants of the cartel — Nuevo Cartel de Juarez and La Linea — to strike back against Sinaloa and its allies. This struggle also involves the battle for the city of Chihuahua and the drug-growing areas in the mountains of Chihuahua state.
 
Last year it appeared that Sinaloa forces Gente Nueva with support from the Los Salazar organization in Sonora were gaining the upper hand in the mountains of Chihuahua, but the dynamics changed and La Linea began to win back territory. Perhaps one of the highest-profile events tied to this fight was the Nov. 4 ambush of a family in northern Sonora near the Chihuahua border, which resulted in nine dead women and children. Most of those killed were dual U.S. and Mexican citizens.

Remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization

Fausto "El Chapo" Isidro Meza Flores continues to fight with the Sinaloa cartel. Though his organization hasn't made much headway in gaining control over a larger portion of the drug-growing areas in Sinaloa, it appears to have had more success in taking control of smuggling plazas and fuel theft rackets in Sonora. It is fighting Los Salazar, the Sinaloa faction that has long held power in Sonora.

Forecast

Despite the many challenges the Sinaloa cartel has faced in the courts and on the battlefield in recent years, the organization will remain strong in 2020. El Mayo Zambada Garcia appears to have slowed the fragmentation that has taken a heavy toll on the group since the Beltran Leyva organization split from it in 2008.
 
The CJNG has been working hard with the help of its local allies to undermine the Sinaloa cartel's control of the smuggling plazas stretching from Tijuana to Juarez. The Sinaloa cartel has lost some ground, but it hasn't been decisively defeated in any conflict zone. This is why the battleground cities have remained largely in stasis during 2019, and we don't anticipate a major shift in 2020.

Tamaulipas-Based Cartel Groups
A map showing areas of Tamaulipas cartel influence in Mexico
Gulf Cartel Fragments
Many people, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, continue to refer to the Gulf cartel as a unified entity, but it is nothing of the sort. It has disintegrated into an array of smaller, competing groups that control smaller pieces of territory, such as Matamoros or a part of Reynosa.

The border city of Reynosa remains a hot spot as several cartel groups vie for control of it. The two main local competitors are splinter groups of Los Metros, formerly a Reynosa-based enforcer group of the Gulf cartel. After the two factions exhausted themselves in years of battle, they reached out to more powerful outsiders for help. One group aligned with the Gulf cartel faction from Matamoros, which is aligned with the powerful Cardenas smuggling clan — the family of former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen.

Los Zetas Splinters
Many people continue to refer to Los Zetas as a cohesive entity, but like the Gulf cartel it split from, it is heavily fractured. The Cartel del Noreste (CDN), based in Nuevo Laredo, has also attempted to capitalize on the Los Metros infighting and a push toward Reynosa from the west, but it hasn't been able to make much headway. It has a strong hold on Nuevo Laredo, and the territory it controls stretches into Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. CDN remains at war with another Los Zetas remnant, the Zetas Vieja Escuela (ZVE), or the Old School Zetas, for Ciudad Victoria.

The CDN has aggressively gone after government forces in recent months, specifically the special forces of the state police agency known as the Center for Analysis, Information and Studies of Tamaulipas (CAIET). The CDN has attacked hotels where CAIET forces have stayed in Nuevo Laredo and have ambushed many of their patrols. The CDN and their Tropa del Infierno (Troops From Hell) have suffered serious losses in these confrontations, and their threats are alienating the local population.

Forecast
The battle for Reynosa will continue to rage because of the support from powerful outside actors who have the resources to keep the money, men and guns flowing. In the Monterrey area, violence will increase in 2020 if the CJNG makes a concerted effort to establish its presence in the important logistical hub.
 
The CDN alienation of the local population will likely result in an intelligence windfall. However, we are skeptical that government forces will have the foresight to take advantage of the opportunity. But the weakness of the CDN will be noted by others, and it is quite possible that CJNG, ZVE or some other group will make a move on Nuevo Laredo in 2020.

Implications for Businesses and Organizations
Violence has affected almost every part of Mexico, including areas that are considered generally safer than others, such as upscale neighborhoods and tourist resorts and attractions. Most of the violence has been cartel on cartel or government on cartel, but with the organized crime groups using military-grade equipment, the risk of injury or death for bystanders is considerable. 
 
Moreover, these persistent conflicts rapidly burn through men, weapons and vehicles, forcing the groups to look beyond drug smuggling to augment their incomes. Many have resorted to other criminal rackets, including extortion, human smuggling, kidnapping, cargo theft and hydrocarbon theft. This is taking a heavy toll on businesses operating in conflict areas, forcing some to suspend operations in the states of Guerrero and Guanajuato.
 
We remain concerned that a significant breakdown or implosion of the CJNG could lead to a scramble for control of its territories, including the important commercial center of Guadalajara and the ports of Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas and Veracruz. Such a struggle could result in a significant increase in violence in those areas, or a drop in some cities as men and resources are pulled back to fight for control of these core areas.
Title: Tres socios del Chapo se escapan la carcel
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 05, 2020, 08:43:55 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/3-associates-of-el-chapo-escape-prison/
Title: WSJ: Mexico Slides towards one man rule
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 25, 2020, 11:49:20 AM
Mexico Slides Toward One-Man Rule
The president uses his authority to muscle business and suppress dissent.

By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Feb. 23, 2020 1:55 pm ET


A recent “invitation” to business leaders from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to attend a fundraiser at the National Palace was an offer many couldn’t refuse. Some 70 of the Mexican “suits” who showed up reportedly pledged to spend 1.5 billion pesos ($88 million) on government lottery tickets.

About half the tickets in the pot—another 1.5 billion pesos’ worth—remained unsold at the end of the evening. The drawing is scheduled for September, when up to 100 winners will take home 20 million pesos each. The proceeds, if any, will be earmarked for public assistance, which the president says he will allocate to the nation’s ailing hospitals.

It’s unclear whether the scheme can succeed, but the larger problem is that it looks like pay-to-play. Presidential fundraising for pet projects has the whiff of illegality because the state dishes out valuable concessions and no-bid contracts and can let unpaid tax bills slide. Yet when AMLO—the president is known by his initials—does it, no one dares stop him.

The Mexican economy did not grow in 2019 and the standstill is expected to continue this year because business and government investment has collapsed. To understand why, look no further than Mr. López Obrador’s use of executive power to try to make himself the savior of the nation.

AMLO has a utopian vision for Mexico in which he gets to decide what economic fairness looks like and how rich is too rich. Think Bernie Sanders en español. Not all wealthy people are brought low—only the ones who get in the way.

AMLO’s decisions to scrap the construction of a new airport in Mexico City and to force the renegotiation of natural-gas pipeline contracts have received a lot of international attention. His effort to cap salaries at the central bank may violate the Mexican Constitution and is seen as a ploy to chase out qualified technocrats so he can replace them with political loyalists.

This smells bad. Behind the scenes it’s even worse, as “the law” is used to spread terror among opponents. A key tool is the Financial Intelligence Unit, which derives its power from international commitments to combat money laundering. The unit, which is inside the Treasury, is supposed to investigate suspicious financial activity and pass the information to the attorney general. In practice, critics say, it is being used to gain control of institutions that ought to be independent.

Mr. López Obrador remains popular because Mexicans still see in him a guy who is willing to stand up to corruption and crony capitalism. Hot money chasing high interest rates in Mexico has held up the peso, and U.S. ratification of a new North American free-trade agreement has removed a source of market uncertainty.

Yet 15 months into AMLO’s presidency, the weak economy, rampant violence and a breakdown of the public-health system have diminished his popularity. All eyes are now on the midterm elections of July 2021. If his Morena Party and its allies win two-thirds of Congress’s lower house and strong support among the nation’s 32 governors, he will have smooth sailing in the second half of his six-year term. If the opposition surges, he may become a lame duck.

Meantime, he is working to consolidate as much power as possible. The lottery spectacle at the National Palace showcased his muscle. He lavished praise on the tycoons, congratulating them for meeting their moral obligation to contribute to his causes.

Privately many Mexicans snickered about what was seen as a blatant act of extortion. The misuse of the Financial Intelligence Unit at the Treasury is also worrying. It has been employing its power selectively to pressure the president’s adversaries.

According to Article 115 of the banking and credit law and Article 41 of the anti-money-laundering act, officials at the Treasury must safeguard the confidentiality of ongoing investigations. Further, under Mexican law all suspects are entitled to the presumption of innocence. Yet the unit has a record of violating both norms, making public statements of condemnation and freezing the financial assets of the accused and their extended families even before charges are filed and without a judge’s ruling.

The chief of the unit, Santiago Nieto, told me Saturday that the prohibition on speaking about investigations applies only to the attorney general’s office and that he uses his freedom of speech to expose findings. He said freezing assets is an administrative tool to block the moving of money.

But Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that freezing assets without a court order is unconstitutional, and the attorney general has complained about the lack of due process. Nevertheless, the weaponization of the unit continues, probably because it gets results.

The head of the regulatory commission on energy and a Supreme Court justice were both named as suspects—along with family members—in possible financial crimes. Both maintained their innocence. But the freezing of assets meant possible financial ruin even if there was eventual exoneration. Neither was ever charged but both resigned. AMLO replaced them with his own handpicked appointees. Tick-tock, Mexico.

Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
Title: No se trata de cerveza
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 29, 2020, 09:39:45 PM
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/02/29/mexican-border-state-governor-announces-4th-coronavirus-case/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=todays_hottest_stories&utm_campaign=20200229
Title: Marijuana
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 06, 2020, 07:40:06 PM


https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/business-group-likes-senates-marijuana-bill/
Title: DEA agarra 600 de CJNG
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 16, 2020, 08:07:33 AM
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/project-python-mexican-drug-cartel-us-arrest-a9398116.html?amp


https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2020/03/11/dea-led-operation-nets-more-600-arrests-targeting-cartel-jalisco-nueva-4
Title: Wuhan Virus
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 25, 2020, 11:31:12 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/covid-19-5-dead-405-confirmed-cases/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 27, 2020, 11:41:57 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/sonorans-demand-tighter-border-controls/
Title: AMLO saluda al madre del Chapo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 01, 2020, 09:28:59 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-ignores-crime-victims/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 07, 2020, 02:39:48 PM
In Mexico, Lopez Obrador Takes a Timid Approach to COVID-19's Economic Battering
4 MINS READ
Apr 7, 2020 | 19:25 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
The lack of significant stimulus measures could ultimately sap the Mexican president’s ability to govern....

The Big Picture
Mexico's GDP is expected to contract significantly due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fall in international oil prices. The Mexican government announced its long-awaited fiscal stimulus on April 5, but the measures did not gain investors' confidence. A minimal response to economic headwinds could increase insecurity in Mexico, eroding a significant portion of Lopez Obrador's support.

See COVID-19
What Happened

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on April 5 outlined the steps his government will take to deal with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the prevailing consensus among analysts projecting Mexican GDP will contract 8 percent in 2020 (versus government estimates GDP will contract 4 percent), Lopez Obrador's government has come under criticism for not announcing fiscal stimulus sooner like the many other world governments that have announced aggressive fiscal and monetary responses over the past several weeks.

With an economy already in recession, the Mexican government was not expected to produce a plan on the order of those unveiled by most developed nations. It was not even expected to unveil a plan of the size announced by the Chilean government, which said it will spend an estimated 5 percent of GDP to boost the economy. Still, the lack of significant measures surprised even the most pessimistic analysts.

Expectations for a more robust announcement increased after Lopez Obrador met April 2 with business leaders, who asked him for tax and social security fees deferments in line with what the IRS has announced in the United States, deferments in utility services payments similar to those enacted in France, support for small businesses payroll payments, and reconsideration of controversial public investments.

But the president granted none of those requests in his April 5 address, much to the business community’s displeasure. Instead, Lopez Obrador said the government will modestly expand a direct-payment program for rural communities expected to suffer from a decline in remittances from the United States, create a limited small-business loan program and develop a new mortgage program for public employees. The message also included more support for Mexico's national oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos.

Previous massive contractions in Mexico's economy were followed by spikes in insecurity and violence.

A more aggressive recovery package could be partially financed by generous existing credit lines with the IMF of $61 billion, which the Mexican administration has so far been unwilling to use. Injecting liquidity into the market could be partially supported with a smaller credit line with the U.S. Federal Reserve, which Mexico's central bank has started to partially use. But the lack of a clear, coordinated response between Mexico's Finance Ministry and the Central Bank has hampered efforts to address the economic crisis.

Rating agencies had already downgraded Pemex's and Mexico's federal government debt, and follow-up downgrades are likely now that Lopez Obrador has unveiled his proposal — something that will hamper the public and private investment needed for a recovery.

Why It Matters

Previous massive contractions in Mexico's economy (-6.3 percent in 1995 and -5.3 percent in 2009) were followed by spikes in insecurity and violence. The number of homicides in Mexico has continued to increase in the first months of 2020, and a large economic contraction could be a fertile ground for increased criminal activity, organized or otherwise.

Lopez Obrador's popularity was already declining during the first quarter of 2020 because of his administration's failure to address crime and for mismanaging the public health sector even before COVID-19. While his approval rating is still high compared to most other leaders in the region, the downward trend is clear, potentially diminishing his party's fortunes in midterm congressional elections in 2021. Up to now, Lopez Obrador has managed to pass a good portion of the legal reforms he had promised. But if he loses his majority, Mexico might move toward a more investor-friendly environment.

Lopez Obrador's administration had been able to maintain a tense and cordial equilibrium with Mexico's private sector despite their disapproval of the government's pursuit of various projects it objected to, including the Santa Lucia Airport, Dos Bocas refinery and the Maya Train infrastructure projects. The president gave the go-ahead for the continuation of all of these projects during his April 5 message — he even designated all activities surrounding their constructions as "essential." Existing displeasure with Lopez Obrador plus his unwillingness to give the private sector the COVID-19 relief it wanted could fracture the relationship between government and business community.

A less popular and more isolated president could lead to more uncertainty regarding the economic direction of the country and less trust in the ability of the federal government to conduct policy. As in the United States, the absence of clear direction from the top could see various state governors start playing more important policy roles.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 11, 2020, 11:01:36 AM
https://mailchi.mp/mexiconewsdaily/apr-10-2020-mnt?e=add05987d5
Title: GPF: Mexico's Three Economic Fronts
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 23, 2020, 12:40:35 PM
April 22, 2020   View On Website
Open as PDF



    Mexico’s Three Economic Fronts Face a Recession
By: Allison Fedirka

Mexico is bracing for a serious economic recession this year, much like the rest of the world. But unlike many other countries, the Mexican government is not meeting the event with an abundance of bailouts, tax breaks or other fiscal measures. Instead, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (popularly known as AMLO) has opted to stay the course with his plans of austerity and social development funding, much to the chagrin of big business. He has made it clear that his goal for combating the recession is to avoid sovereign debt and mitigate the impact felt by the country’s poor. Lopez Obrador is facing three fronts in his battle against a recession in Mexico: the country’s formal, informal and black market economies. And his decision to focus on propping up and reining in the informal economy through continued social development funding is more than just a continuation of adherence to political policy. It also reflects that the government is unable to effectively address the other two economies on its own.

The Three Economic Fronts

Lopez Obrador’s strategy to confront the economic recession preserves his big-picture plan to “transform” the Mexican economy and wrestles with the fact that the Mexican economy can be clearly divided into three distinct sub-economies, each playing by its own set of rules. The formal economy is characterized by services, finance and high-end manufacturing with intricate supply chains. It generates 77.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and is concentrated in the central and northern parts of the country. The informal economy — a “gray zone” not taxed or regulated by the government but still legal — generates 22.5 percent of the country’s GDP and is characterized by precarious employment, basic manufacturing and low wages. It exists in much higher concentrations in the country’s south. The black market economy, run by organized crime, is prevalent throughout the entire country. Its economic contribution is not clearly known given the illicit nature of its activities, but recent estimates put Mexican drug sales to the United States at $19 billion to $29 billion annually. Despite its illegality, the black market injects a massive amount of capital into the economy, which generally speaking is a good thing. On the other hand, it also deters investment and infrastructure development and breeds extortion, corruption and violence. The result is a mixed bag of economic effects that is not easy to define or calculate.
 
(click to enlarge)

AMLO’s proposed solution for dealing with the segmented nature of Mexico’s economy involves diminishing the economic and development disparities across the country through youth education and job training programs, labor-intensive infrastructure projects, support for small businesses, anti-corruption measures and government austerity. In other words, he is attempting to reduce the informal economy and merge it with the formal economy. His approach has been controversial and viewed by the opposition as contrary to the ultimate objectives of developing and growing Mexico’s economy. Indeed, the segmented nature of the country’s economy makes it extremely difficult to pursue a policy that helps one segment without hurting the other two. But in the face of the recession, the government has opted to direct the few funds it has toward the informal sector, an approach that aligns with long-term goals and exists as the most viable short-term solution available.

The Formal Economy: Severe Limits

Mexico’s formal economy has a high degree of exposure to external forces and is therefore largely out of the government’s control. For starters, the Mexican economy is largely dependent on the health of the U.S. economy. Mexican exports to the United States are equivalent to about 31 percent of the country’s GDP, and the United States is the leading supplier of foreign direct investment to Mexico. Remittances, which totaled $36.05 billion last year, are Mexico’s largest source of U.S. dollars, and 95 percent come from senders in the United States.

When the U.S. economy performs poorly (or restricts border crossings), the effects are often amplified in the Mexican economy. The International Monetary Fund expects the U.S. economy to contract 5.6 percent this year, and new unemployment claims in the country at the time of publication stand at 22 million. For Mexico, this means that there are far fewer buyers of Mexican goods and that the country can’t trade its way out of the crisis, even considering the strong decline in the peso’s value relative to the dollar so far this year.

To escape its mild 2019 recession, Mexico had planned to turn to foreign direct investment in 2020. And even before a global recession became imminent, the government was struggling to attract foreign investment over concerns of regulations, crime and general doubts over management. Now, the United Nations estimates that foreign investment will drop by 30-40 percent globally this year. For Mexico, this means investment will be difficult to come by and require fierce competition with others.
Foreign investment is no longer a viable option to stimulate the economy. Lastly, other major financial sources, such as oil and tourism, not only remain out of Mexico’s control but have poor prospects this year. Admittedly, state-owned oil company Pemex has been struggling for years, but even in the company’s best-case scenario, it can do little to address low oil prices, let alone change them. As for tourism, travel restrictions and personal fears mean the cancellation of many summer trips.
 
(click to enlarge)

The Mexican government has offered little to mitigate the recession’s impact on the formal economy because the influence of external factors will outweigh much of what it can offer. The government says it only has about $10 billion available from various rainy day funds. This means the bailouts, tax breaks and fiscal stimulus called for by businesses in the formal sector cannot be executed on a scale that would have an impact on a $1.3 trillion economy. Effectively stimulating an economy takes massive amounts of money, which often means taking on debt — and the concern over government debt in Mexico predates AMLO. The government currently does not have enough reserves to cover its debt in the event of an emergency, and incurring new debt would make matters only worse. Additionally, spending money on the formal economy would largely put the two other major segments of the economy on the sidelines. The government’s financial authorities did loosen liquidity rules on banks, which they assert are well equipped to handle the pending economic crisis, but aside from that, it has taken a largely hands-off approach.

The Informal Economy: Opportunity for Impact

The Mexican government has directed its efforts toward the informal economy because its potential for impact is higher and the informal economy plays a critical role in the workforce. Mexico defines the informal economy as one that includes any economic activity that is legally produced and marketed but the production or distribution units are not formally registered. It also includes all economic activities that operate from family resources, such as micro- and small businesses that are not constituted as companies. Because informal workers tend to have lower-quality jobs, lower wages and no insurance compared to those with formal-sector jobs, they are more vulnerable to recession. And since the latest official figures from the end of 2019 show that Mexico’s informal sector employs 56.2 percent of all workers, a sizable portion of the country’s working population is highly vulnerable to recession.
 
(click to enlarge)

The actions the Mexican government has taken to mitigate the impact of a recession on the country’s economy have focused on supporting the continued employment of informal workers. Earlier this month, the government said it would provide a 25,000-peso ($1,000) credit for small and micro-companies that have retained employees and not reduced wages, offering low interest rates that increase slightly by company size. The plan allows for a million total recipients, though an estimated 5 million will request access, and money will arrive in May and June. This low-interest-rate credit will need to be paid back in three years, with payments starting after the fourth month. Lopez Obrador also announced additional credit for the creation of 2 million more formal jobs this year, but such a project was already in the works prior to the global recession.

One wild card that could impede the government’s task of easing the recession’s impact is remittances, which play a key role in many household incomes, particularly in poor segments of the economy. BBVA estimates that, this year, remittances will decline by 17 percent to $29.9 billion due to the recession and mass unemployment in the United States. Nevertheless, from the government’s perspective, it’s still more cost-effective to support working programs now than deal with millions of people eventually out of work amid economic collapse.

The Black Market Economy: A Very Large Shadow

Though Mexico’s organized crime groups are not often considered in terms of their contribution to economic activity, they must also be factored in to efforts to combat the recession. For better or worse, the large scale and high value of their operations do create jobs and support economic activity at local levels. The pervasive nature of organized crime means it touches the pocketbooks of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans. And these groups are not immune to the recession, though they are positioned better than most to confront it. Like many multinational companies, organized crime groups in Mexico experienced supply chain disruptions with the slowing global economy, particularly with respect to the chemical precursors from China used to make fentanyl. The disruptions hurt major fentanyl suppliers, such as the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Meanwhile, alternative revenue flows, including human trafficking, fuel robbing and extortion, are not currently available due to increased border restrictions, low oil prices and businesses going on hold for quarantine. Of course, the addictive nature of drugs means that demand in that area remains. And that, in turn, has meant an increase in price due to supply chain shortages and stricter border measures.

AMLO’s government will have to face the threat of increased social and political encroachment by organized crime. The recession and health crisis have already presented organized crime groups with opportunities to intensify their presence in socioeconomic gaps in place of the government. Big-name cartels like Golf, Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa have also started community outreach and charity programs to provide locals with goods at a time when supplies and funds are scarce. In this area, AMLO finds himself extremely limited in terms of what he can do to combat organized crime, particularly on the economic end; freezing assets will not reach a sum high enough to stop operations anytime soon. This is one major reason that AMLO reiterated his plans to continue social development funding and welfare programs, which are intended (at least on paper, over time) to undermine the hold that organized crime has on local communities. That said, the president knows this remains a weak point for the government because it cannot throw money around as easily as the cartels.

The Only Real Option

Lopez Obrador was forced to choose sides in preparation for mitigating the impact of Mexico’s deeper recession, and his outlier approach of rejecting stimulus measures reflects the reality of three very distinct economic segments, none of which overwhelmingly dominates the others. He does not have the funds or enough control over the formal economy to risk stimulus; he does not have the reach or security ability to take on organized crime. What remains is the country’s informal sector, where the bang for the buck (or punch for the peso) is larger, and where efforts generally align with longer-term goals of integrating the informal economy into the formal one, thereby improving economic standards for Mexico’s lower socioeconomic classes. This may not be considered the ideal move by many, but it’s AMLO’s only decent option.   
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 24, 2020, 09:17:18 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/cartel-puts-on-a-show-of-force-with-25-vehicle-convoy/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/authorities-investigate-meeting-between-national-guard-suspected-criminals/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 29, 2020, 10:45:03 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/cartels-believed-hurting-due-to-partial-border-closure/
Title: Mexico knew about top cop's narco involvement
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 04, 2020, 05:33:22 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-knew-about-top-cops-narco-involvement/
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 06, 2020, 07:21:53 PM
Mexico falls 4% on peace index due to surge in organized crime
Baja California least peaceful state last year, Yucatán the most peaceful
Published on Wednesday, May 6, 2020
9
SHARES
Peacefulness in Mexico deteriorated 4.3% in 2019, largely due to a 24.3% increase in the rate of organized crime, according to a global think tank.

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said in its report Mexico Peace Index 2020 that peacefulness has declined 27.2% over the past five years. Published on Tuesday, the report highlighted that the homicide rate in Mexico last year was 28 per 100,000 residents, seven times higher than the global average.

The IEP noted that the rate increase of 1.4% in 2019 represented “a much slower rise than the previous year’s increase of 15.7%” but highlighted that the national violent crime rate increased by 4.7%. The latter increase was mainly driven by an 18.7% rise in the sexual assault rate, the think tank said.

It said that Baja California was the least peaceful state in Mexico last year for a second consecutive year followed by Colima, Quintana Roo, Chihuahua and Guanajuato. Yucatán remains the most peaceful state, followed by Tlaxcala, Chiapas, Campeche and Nayarit.

The IEP said that only seven states have recorded improvements in homicide rates since 2015. “Baja California Sur has achieved the largest improvement, reducing its homicide rate by more than half to stand at 10.3 deaths per 100,000 people,” the report said.

The think tank said that statistical analysis shows that there are four distinct types of violence in Mexico: political, opportunistic, interpersonal and cartel conflict.

The overall economic impact of violence in Mexico last year – the first full year of the new federal government – was 4.57 trillion pesos (US $238) billion, the IEP said, noting that the figure is equivalent to 21.3% of national GDP. Homicides caused just under half of the economic damage.

“The economic impact of violence was nearly eight times higher than public investments made in health care and more than six times higher than those made in education in 2019,” the report said.

“The economic impact of violence was 36,129 pesos per person, approximately five times the average monthly salary of a Mexican worker. The per capita economic impact varies significantly from state to state, ranging from 11,714 pesos in Yucatán to 83,926 pesos in Colima.”

Despite the high cost of rampant violence, the federal government spent just 0.7% of GDP on domestic security and the justice system last year, the IEP said, highlighting that the percentage was the lowest among the 37 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Economista (sp)
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 18, 2020, 11:04:23 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/forces-arrest-4-armed-men-handing-out-care-packages/
Title: AMLO exige explicacion de Operation Fast & Furious
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 20, 2020, 08:29:59 AM
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20200519/mexico-demands-explanation-for-obama-era-gun-walking-scandal?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ila_alert
Title: EUA falla cumplir con el dinero
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 15, 2020, 09:06:45 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/us-never-came-through-with-2-billion-to-stem-migration/
Title: Three killed in attack on DF police chief
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 29, 2020, 01:08:19 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-city-police-chief-wounded-in-armed-attack-3-people-killed/
Title: Mexico set to squander gains
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 02, 2020, 06:35:33 AM
https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/mexico-set-to-squander-gains-of-usmca/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpjM00yUmlNR1JpTkdKaCIsInQiOiJRVHpoZDdLcERzK0ZsbTBMM3pHZ2lTcTc4N1hUdmVRcjVcL3o4K2lPV1B1Ujk4aXkzeTd5S0RBd1Fyem04Ykhia21CNmhcL1VVdDYwXC9jeHVmMm5mdmpBMTViQzVtaU9yMW52XC9LV1FiU2RxTWNKV1hJckN0eUZzNDlTQ0pxZGFUbmEifQ%3D%3D
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 18, 2020, 04:43:05 AM
https://twitter.com/hdemauleon/status/1284278015330066432?s=12&fbclid=IwAR2g4CNM1s1lG8P65HYW2Y0PYpFjlFcdv-HlB4uo09nuOJzcpehLOqGMWhY

https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/mexican-video-shows-armed-men-cheering-powerful-druglord
Title: Stratfor: AMLO's pension reform
Post by: Crafty_Dog on July 29, 2020, 06:28:37 AM
Lopez Obrador Unexpectedly Moves to Safeguard Mexico’s Pension System
3 MINS READ
Jul 28, 2020 | 19:10 GMT

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s proposed overhaul to Mexico’s pension system will preserve investor confidence by maintaining the country’s current individual account system, while still addressing pressing concerns about the system’s long-term sustainability. On July 22, Lopez Obrador announced his proposed pension reforms, which the Mexican Congress will vote on when it reconvenes in September. The proposed changes to Mexico’s current pension system include doubling employer contributions over an eight-year period; increasing total contributions from 6.5 to 15 percent; limiting the commissions charged by Retirement Funds Administrators (AFOREs); and decreasing the number of years a worker needs to contribute to access a minimum guaranteed pension from 25 to 15 years, while increasing the number of such pensions by about 40 percent.

The overhaul will quell fears about Mexico reverting back to a defined benefits system. Lopez Obrador was a long-standing critic of Mexico’s pension system, which has been based on individual retirement accounts since the signing of landmark reforms in 1997. Over the years, the system had become a symbol of Mexico’s economic liberalization. But given Lopez Obrador’s previous criticisms and the need for funds to finance his government’s infrastructure projects, private sector leaders had feared he would seek to nationalize the pension system as Argentina did in 2008.

Latin American Pension Reforms

Across Latin America, politicians have been moving toward altering the defined contributions systems prevalent in the region. Chile recently voted to allow emergency withdrawals that will harm its individual accounts-based pension system. Peru and Brazil are also exploring changes to allow withdrawals that would hurt the long-term sustainability of their systems or create hybrid systems.

The timing of the announcement allows the Lopez Obrador administration to preempt more radical proposals that would have further hurt investor confidence in Mexico. Lopez Obrador’s hard-line supporters had floated several, more radical pension reform proposals, including the creation of a mixed system where low-income workers would be part of a separate “defined benefits” system. Some supporters had also pushed to nationalize current individual pension accounts.

The proposal could help repair Lopez Obrador’s relationship with the private sector, which has been steadily deteriorating since his more statist administration took office in December 2018. The pension reforms were designed with the input and approval of Mexico’s main business sector organization, the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE). The support by the business sector, unions and the leadership of Lopez Obrador’s party will also make it difficult for his hard-line supporters to oppose his reform proposal.

The proposal, however, is not problem-free as there are still legitimate concerns over the long-term impact of the increase in employer contributions on both formal employment and small businesses. The pension reforms also do not mitigate the risk of AFOREs being forced through legislation to invest in Lopez Obrador’s pet infrastructure projects.
Title: Lucha de presidentes
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 12, 2020, 11:17:06 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/narco-state-accusation-irresponsible-hurts-mexicos-international-image/
Title: Guerrero
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 14, 2020, 07:34:27 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/crime-rate-down-32-in-guerrero-a-major-drop-in-the-last-3-years/
Title: El quien no transa, no advanza: Hermano de AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on August 23, 2020, 02:15:33 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/video-footage-shows-delivery-of-bags-of-cash/
Title: PEMEX losses deepen Mexico's financial woes
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 02, 2020, 10:09:48 AM
Pemex’s Losses Deepen Mexico’s Financial Woes
3 MINS READ
Aug 31, 2020 | 19:41 GMT

HIGHLIGHTS

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's failure to strengthen Pemex's finances and shore up domestic oil production will exacerbate Mexico's public finance woes from COVID-19.  On Aug. 24, Mexico's state-owned energy giant Pemex reported its lowest level of monthly crude oil production since 1979, with the company's July output totaling only 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) -- marking a 0.6 percent decline from June and a 4.5 percent decline from July 2019. Pemex was already struggling before the current COVID-19 crisis, seeing record losses during 2019 and the first half of 2020. Lopez Obrador's attempts to strengthen Pemex's bottom line and increase domestic oil production, however, will continue to fail without new private investment to help increase long-term production, as well as a business plan that forces Pemex to focus on the most profitable areas....

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's failure to strengthen Pemex's finances and shore up domestic oil production will exacerbate Mexico's public finance woes from COVID-19.  On Aug. 24, Mexico's state-owned energy giant Pemex reported its lowest level of monthly crude oil production since 1979, with the company's July output totaling only 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) — marking a 0.6 percent decline from June and a 4.5 percent decline from July 2019. Pemex was already struggling before the current COVID-19 crisis, seeing record losses during 2019 and the first half of 2020.


Lopez Obrador's attempts to strengthen Pemex's bottom line and increase domestic oil production will continue to fail without new private investment to help increase long-term production, as well as a business plan that forces Pemex to focus on the most profitable areas.

Mexico's current oil fields in the Gulf, such as Cantarell and Ku-Maloob-Zaap, are nearing the end of their productive life. Any substantive increase in production thus needs to come from new developments in either deep-water fields or the unconventional fields in northeastern Mexico, which Pemex does not have the resources or expertise to develop alone.

Other national oil companies, such as Brazil's Petrobras or Colombia's Ecopetrol, have engaged in strategies to get rid of unproductive assets and focus on their resources on most productive areas. These strategies have helped prevent both Petrobras and Ecopetrol's credit rating from being downgraded in recent years. Pemex's debt, meanwhile, was downgraded this year and last.

Lopez Obrador has relied on Pemex's revenue and resources to boost government spending, which has spread the company's already scarce resources thin by forcing its involvement in unprofitable activities. This has included placing Pemex in charge of building a new refinery in southeast Mexico and modernizing various other refineries.

Lopez Obrador's administration has also barred Pemex from partnering with private firms on long-term exploration projects, further accelerating the deterioration of the company's finances and profitability prospects.

Pemex will increasingly become a drag on Mexico's already stressed public finances, which will impede Lopez Obrador's ability to mitigate the fallout from COVID-19 ahead of 2021 midterm elections by robbing his government of a key revenue source.
Amid the fallout from the pandemic, Lopez Obrador is facing mounting pressure to revive the Mexican economy, which was in a recession even before the onset of the global health crisis. But this time, he Mexican government won't be able to rely on Pemex to shore up spending, especially in the absence of any tax reform that would enable the company to diversify revenues, and may be forced to redirect its scarce resources to keep Pemex afloat.

Pemex has long been a key financing source for the Mexican government, which is one of the main causes of the company's chronic underinvestment. Pemex's revenues currently make up around 10 percent of the federal government's total revenues.
The Lopez Obrador administration has provided Pemex with debt relief and even some subsidies in the hopes of giving the oil company some room to make more productive investments. But given the magnitude of Pemex's cashflow erosion, that money has instead been used to cover the company's current expenditures.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Lopez Obrador's administration has also not passed any meaningful fiscal stimulus packages, and has instead continued to fund its pet infrastructure projects that are already underway, including the $8 billion Dos Bocas refinery.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 08, 2020, 10:23:44 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/national-guard-seizes-michoacan-gangs-homemade-tank/

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-embassy-issues-advisories-against-visiting-mexico-over-virus_3491081.html?ref=brief_BreakingNews&utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb
Title: AMLO ofrece retirarse
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 30, 2020, 05:04:36 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-vows-to-quit-if-100000-protest/

Ademas

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/residents-fined-for-filling-oaxaca-city-potholes/
Title: El Caudillo AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 05, 2020, 04:29:14 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/opinion/lopez-obrador-becomes-latin-americas-new-strongman/
Title: General Cienfuegos
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 09, 2020, 07:00:41 AM
The Curious Case of Mexican General Cienfuegos
The former defense minister is released in another loss for the drug war.

By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Dec. 6, 2020 5:58 pm ET


Mexican Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos receives the Legion of Merit in West Point, N.Y., Nov. 16, 2018.
PHOTO: MSGT JOHN GORDINIER



At a West Point ceremony in November 2018, the U.S. Defense Department conferred the Legion of Merit on Mexico’s then-secretary of national defense, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos. Less than two years later, on Oct. 15, the retired Mexican four-star was arrested in Los Angeles on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges.

A grand jury in the Eastern District of New York had handed up an indictment of Gen. Cienfuegos on Aug. 14, 2019, for crimes allegedly committed between December 2015 and February 2017. The indictment remained sealed until his arrest.

On Oct. 16, requesting a “permanent order of detention,” Acting U.S. Attorney Seth D. DuCharme alleged before the New York court that “while holding public office in Mexico, the defendant used his official position to assist the H-2 Cartel, a notorious Mexican drug cartel, in exchange for bribes.”

U.S. prosecutors insist they had what they needed to convict Gen. Cienfuegos, who was an active member of the Mexican military during the six years (2012-18) he held the cabinet-level post in the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto. But on Nov. 17, Attorney General William Barr dropped the case. The general was released and on Nov. 18 returned to Mexico, where the government has said it will investigate the charges. The odds of that happening are pretty long.


Chalk up one more loss for the futile, half-century-old U.S. war on drugs. In this case, the circular logic out of Washington is that keeping Mexico as a U.S. partner in fighting transnational crime trumps actual crime fighting. The good news for the drug-war bureaucracy is that its jobs program is secure.


Gen. Cienfuegos is innocent until proven guilty, and the Drug Enforcement Administration’s case against him, using intercepted BlackBerry Messenger communications that he supposedly sent to the capos, has provoked skepticism. Some are asking why a high-ranking government official, well-versed in intelligence, would recklessly risk a prestigious career.

On the other hand, institutional corruption is a problem in Mexico, while the American legal system guarantees the general due process. To remove the case to Mexico under pressure from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (a k a AMLO) reeks of cynicism on both sides of the border.

It is unclear if the DEA informed its counterparts—the Defense Department’s Northern Command, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Council and the director of national intelligence, to name a few—of the evidence against Gen. Cienfuegos and built consensus for his arrest.


The DEA may have sensed the risk of being overruled and decided it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. As one source close to diplomatic circles of both countries told me, “It’s hard to understand how the DEA would have gotten the green light to arrest him, and then the Justice Department would send him back to Mexico.”

Word around Washington is that some of the alphabet-soup bureaucracy was unhappy at being left out of the loop. But that was nothing compared with the outrage from Mexico’s military. While AMLO was initially blasé about a DEA bust of a former top official, he did not remain so when the army made its fury clear.

Mexico’s rules for the DEA inside the country require agents to share intelligence regularly with Mexican authorities. The Mexican military, it is said, felt humiliated and betrayed by what it saw as a violation of the spirit of engagement and cooperation between the two countries. At this AMLO sprang into action, sending a message, via his foreign minister, to the gringos that south of the border, trust had been broken. With extradition and Mexico’s willingness to allow DEA agents to remain in the country at risk, the general was set free.

The Pentagon may have played a role too. After two decades working to convince the Mexican armed forces to modernize the relationship between the two sides, there has been substantial progress. Joint field training exercises at U.S. Northern Command in Colorado, for example, demonstrate a shared sense of the importance of North American perimeter security. Was prosecuting the general worth losing all that?

AMLO has put the army at the center of many of his pet projects, from developing a new international airport to taking over management of the country’s seaports. Yet while it is also charged with combating the transnational crime ravaging Mexico, it has achieved very little. It would be nice to know why.

The Cienfuegos release was meant to salvage bilateral cooperation. But what sort of cooperation is it if Mexico’s priority is to bury this matter rather than get to the bottom of whether the general is guilty or was set up? The drug-war game of cops and robbers will return to the script but the case against Gen. Cienfuegos suggests a more serious problem is brewing.
Title: WSJ on AMLO
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 01, 2021, 05:25:46 AM
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador —a k a AMLO—has been known to bristle when critics liken him to the late Hugo Chávez. But the parallels between the spirit of Mr. López Obrador’s two-year-old government and that of the Venezuelan strongman’s in its early years are impossible to ignore.

Morena, AMLO’s party, launched an effort in the Mexican Senate in December to seize autonomy from the country’s central bank. The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, will discuss the bill this week. The president seems to be backing off the idea, but if so it is only a tactical retreat.

AMLO is on a mission to complete what he calls “the fourth transformation” of Mexico, and he has to centralize power to do it. He has already wrested control of the Supreme Court, and last month he proclaimed that autonomous regulatory bodies like the federal antitrust commission and the office that provides transparency in federal contracts should be eliminated.


Ahead of the June midterm elections he is signaling that he is ready to buck the authority of two independent bodies charged with ensuring election fairness. Mexican democrats are in a fight for their political lives.

There are obvious differences between AMLO and Chávez. But when the history is written I suspect most of them will turn out to have been driven by economic constraints on the Mexican caudillo, not choice.

Chávez had control of Venezuela’s state-owned oil monopoly PdVSA when oil prices took off in the early 2000s. Awash in oil income, he was able to buy off opponents while spreading money around to create the illusion that the masses were getting richer. He had the resources to militarize his government, and Cuba had been infiltrating the barracks for decades.

AMLO’s world is one of moderated oil prices and a diversified economy. Revenues generated by Pemex, the state-owned, debt-laden petroleum company, are dwarfed by the boom in manufacturing and services born of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.


So AMLO can’t copy Chávez play by play. But his aspirations are hauntingly similar and so is his modus operandi.

Chávez was a demagogue and he used his television show—“Aló Presidente”—to bond with the man in the street against the Venezuelan establishment. AMLO uses his daily morning press conferences to the same effect—though he has been absent since his Covid-19 diagnosis a week ago.

His words sow resentment and division while justifying abuses of power in the name of corruption fighting. His critics are dismissed as elites—or “fifi” in his lexicon. There is no civil discourse.

Up to now he has used “legal” instruments like the anti-money-laundering Financial Intelligence Unit inside the Mexican Treasury to purge institutions of nonbelievers—including a Supreme Court justice and the head of the energy regulatory commission. Neither has been charged with a crime. He has also boosted the army’s role in the economy.

Morena controls the Senate, where the bill passed in December would obligate Banxico, Mexico’s central bank, to buy foreign-currency cash from Mexican banks.

Watchdogs on both sides of the border are alarmed. Cash is a nonissue for legally compliant financial institutions because they verify its origins and are able to ship it to correspondent U.S. banks.

Morena claims that the change in the law is necessary to ensure that migrants aren’t forced to change their dollars at disadvantageous rates. Yet Banxico reports that only about 1% of total remittances are cash.

It isn’t clear who Morena is trying to please by obligating the central bank to take cash dollars. But it is certain that passing the law would break a longstanding taboo in place to protect the monetary authority from becoming a tool for transnational criminal organizations to launder money. Who else walks into Mexican banks with suitcases full of unexplained cash?

Banxico says the law threatens its autonomy and its ability to do its job. In a Dec. 9 communiqué it said the draft legislation “would force the Central Bank to carry out high-risk active operations that may compromise” international reserves and “the compliance with the constitutional mandate to preserve the purchasing power of the National currency.”


Sharp criticism from the international financial community seems to have given AMLO second thoughts. He knows that if Mexico is marked a money launderer, the peso will hit the skids, and so will his presidency. His finance minister now says the government is working on an alternative idea for migrant cash transactions.

If he and Morena back off, it will be a small but important victory. Preserving Banxico’s autonomy may not be a sufficient condition to save Mexican pluralism from the Venezuelan fate, but it is a necessary one.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 24, 2021, 05:24:07 AM
Mexico’s Energy Conundrum
Winter storms were just the beginning.
By: Allison Fedirka
Last week, ice storms disrupted natural gas supplies to Mexico and so revived an existential question over how energy independent the country can and should be. But because Mexico’s independence is so often defined by its relationship to the United States, what started as an errant power outage quickly became a larger debate over the future of Mexico’s energy sector, infrastructure development and domestic politics as officials clamored for more energy self-sufficiency.

Their calls are hardly misplaced. State-run energy company Pemex has long focused primarily on oil, leaving the natural gas sector in a state of arrested development. What natural gas Mexico does produce is in decline. Modest deregulation has allowed for private investment and infrastructural improvement, but for now the country relies heavily on the U.S. to meet its natural gas needs. In fact, its northern neighbor accounts for about 70 percent of the natural gas consumed in Mexico, and 60 percent of the energy consumed by vital manufacturing hubs in the north is natural gas. Similarly, the U.S. meets nearly 75 percent of Mexico’s gasoline needs. (Though Mexico is an oil-producing country, it does not have the refining efficiency, ability or storage capacity to meet domestic demand with its own crude oil production.) In 2019, Pemex alone spent $14.75 billion on fuel imports; the country total is even higher once private importers have been factored in.


(click to enlarge)

Energy is a historically sensitive issue in Mexico. U.S. and British oil companies dominated the country’s oil industry during its infancy, and were put in check only in 1917, when Mexico’s new constitution stipulated that the national government had ownership over all subsoil – that is, resources. A series of taxes and other regulatory measures favoring Mexico ensued, until finally in 1938 President Lazaro Cardenas simply expropriated the assets of nearly all the foreign oil companies operating in Mexico. The move reflected years of festering discontent among Mexicans with how the oil industry operated in their country – how profits were being sent overseas, how investment was lacking, how production was low, and how poor Mexican industry workers were. Shortly thereafter, the government formed Pemex and has played an influential role in its operations ever since.

With a past like this, it’s easy to see why energy independence means more than just a best-practice of diversification. There’s an inherent wariness between the U.S. and Mexico, which lost a lot of its territory to the U.S. in 1848 and which fell victim to intermittent invasions and occupations by U.S. forces up until the start of World War I. Past energy disputes make Mexico even more uneasy. After the 1938 expropriations, the U.S. threatened to stop buying Mexican silver and its oil companies embargoed Mexican oil. Exports fell to half their volume in a handful of years. The issue was not resolved until Mexico agreed to pay $29 million in compensation to U.S. companies in 1942. Now as then, Mexico’s dependence gives the U.S. a ton of leverage. Current disagreements between the countries are plenty manageable, but this kind of leverage means Mexico has a hard time acting from a position of strength if an unmanageable conflict erupts. Energy security is thus highly politicized.

Value of Mexican Oil Exports by Destination
(click to enlarge)

It’s one thing to want independence, of course, and quite another to have it. Importing energy from other suppliers is simply not a viable option. Its proximity to the U.S. and its existing infrastructure make transport cheaper than from any other supplier. Higher prices on energy imports would drive up Mexico’s own production costs, making domestic markets more expensive and exports potentially less competitive.

In addition, the country’s state-owned oil company is in dire straits. Once the pride and joy of the country’s economy, Pemex is now a drain for the government. Crude oil production has been in decline since peaking in 2003, and the lackluster price of oil globally makes recovery difficult. Tax demands, mismanagement, barriers to reinvestment, pension plans and fuel theft have made Pemex operations inefficient and have left the company in debt to the tune of approximately $110 billion. The Mexican government has been pumping money in to keep the company afloat – and plans to provide another $3.5 billion this year – but has been unable to reverse its course.


(click to enlarge)

The administration of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is betting heavily on improving Mexico’s refining capacity. Its refineries are currently operating at 36.4 percent capacity, according to the energy office. (Lopez Obrador says Pemex refineries operate closer to 50 percent capacity.) Issues are due partly to supply and partly to the lack of upgrades. The Dos Bocas refinery project, for example, lies at the core of the government’s plans to solve the country’s refining shortcomings. Pemex owns the project, which will cost $31.3 billion over 20 years. The project’s potential value and return remain contested by members of the business community; those opposed believe the benefits are unrealistic. There is also concern over the lack of storage capacity for refined fuels.

Mexico City has meanwhile made modest policy attempts to improve its energy issues.
For example, it attempted to curb fuel imports by introducing a bill last December that significantly reduced the timeframe for related contracts. These measures were challenged in court, though, and their application was temporarily suspended under court orders.

The government also proposed major natural gas infrastructure projects. In the last quarter of 2020, it announced an infrastructure investment package worth $14 billion. Among the proposals is the Salina Cruz liquefaction project, which includes the expansion of pipeline networks and will account for $1.2 billion of the earmarked investment. While the Salina Cruz project has the domestic market in mind, two other liquified natural gas projects in the package mean to re-export LNG to Asia. These kinds of projects are designed to both stimulate economic recovery and signal to private investors that their money will be used wisely.

Mexico's Natural Gas
(click to enlarge)

The government can’t go it alone, so foreign direct investment will play a key role in helping Mexico build out its energy infrastructure. The problem confronting the government is that its hands-on approach to restructuring and revitalizing the domestic energy industry is off-putting to the very investors Mexico needs to attract. When he came to office, Lopez Obrador made several moves that discouraged investor confidence such as rewriting gas contracts, canceling electricity projects and taking steps toward ending subcontracts in the labor force. Other efforts, such as saving Pemex, have been viewed as superficial, moves that treat the symptom and not the disease. The chambers of commerce from Canada and the U.S. have both expressed concern over the growing role of the state in economic projects and warned that this could affect investment behavior going forward.

Mexico has a national imperative to break free of its energy dependence on the United States, in spite of the many obstacles that stand in its way. Even under the best of circumstances, they will be difficult to surmount any time soon.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on May 18, 2021, 12:17:46 PM
May 18, 2021
View On Website
Open as PDF

    
Brief: Why Mexico's President Is Apologizing to China
It has a lot to do with trade talks with the United States.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: When it comes to U.S.-Mexican relations, the U.S. has the advantage in almost every way that matters. Mexico City has few options but to try to leverage trade, its proximity to the U.S., the significant Mexican diaspora in the U.S. and its relationship with Canada. As U.S. anxieties about China grow, however, ties with the Chinese could become a bargaining chip for the Mexican government.

What Happened: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador apologized on Monday for the 1911 racially motivated killing of hundreds of Chinese people in Torreon, Coahuila. He hosted a ceremony alongside the Chinese ambassador to Mexico, and specifically thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping and Chinese scientists, diplomats and companies for their assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lopez Obrador’s comments coincided with the start of a two-day meeting among the U.S., Mexico and Canada on the disputes related to their trilateral trade agreement.

Bottom Line: It’s no coincidence that Lopez Obrador’s apology – and especially his expression of gratitude toward Chinese businesses – occurred at the same time as trade talks with Mexico’s northern neighbors. For its part, China welcomes the opportunity to grow its presence in the Western Hemisphere. How far Mexico is willing to go remains to be seen, and there’s a fine line between creating leverage with the U.S. and provoking an American backlash.
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 07, 2021, 09:50:03 PM
 

Topic # 2:  Roberto Sandoval, Former Governor of Nayarit is Arrested in Nuevo Leon

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/roberto-sandoval-former-governor-of.html

 



Photo # 1: Roberto Sandoval Castañeda's taste for Pura Raza Española (PURE) horses led him to ally himself with drug cartels

Photo # 2: Roberto Sandoval Castañeda was governor of Nayarit from 2011 to 2017

 

The Story:

 

This Sunday, in the midst of the largest elections in the history of Mexico, the arrest of the former governor of the state of Nayarit, Roberto Sandoval, was reported in Linares, Nuevo León, who is accused of operations with resources of illicit origin. Sandoval was arrested with his daughter, Lidy Alejandra, who was also charged with the same crime. The operation to arrest the former governor and his daughter was led by agents of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR), Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), Secretariat of the Navy (Navy), National Guard (GN), and the National Center Intelligence (CNI). According to information from journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva, Sandoval and Lidy, his daughter, were arrested at 5 in the morning this Saturday. When issuing the arrest warrant against Roberto Sandoval and Lidy, a federal judge considered that there is evidence, both in the common and federal courts, of the alleged connection of the former governor with people who have been detained abroad for crimes related to organized crime. Sandoval and his children, as well as his wife, have several arrest warrants against them, the last complaint against the family was made by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) last March, since it established through different federal agencies of that state and its relatives a network of diversion of public resources and money laundering, during the years of his government (2011-2017).

 

During his administration, violence and insecurity linked to organized crime escalated dramatically so that at the end of his term there was talk that he had ties to drug trafficking. He was wanted in 194 countries after Friday, November 13, a Nayarit control judge accused him of the crimes of illicit enrichment, embezzlement and improper exercise of functions. But it is not the first time that accusations have been made against the former governor. Since May 17, 2019, the United States accused him of ties to drug trafficking in Mexico, having received bribes from the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), and froze accounts that the former state governor had in the US. That is why on February 28, the Secretary of State of the American Union, Mike Pompeo, reported that the Treasury Department included the former governor of Nayarit, in the list of people who committed acts of corruption, which in his case It was because of the links with criminal drug trafficking groups. In addition, he pointed out that neither Sandoval Castañeda nor his family can enter that country. Days later, Roberto Sandoval gave an interview to Radio Fórmula.

 

He said he was surprised by the determination of the neighboring country and clarified that for two years he has been in contact with the authorities of that country. In addition, he said that in 2016 he received a letter informing him about the suspension of his US visa until his situation was clarified, so he had already had time without visiting the neighboring country. He insisted that he was innocent of the accusations. In addition to diverting millions of pesos of public resources, the American Union pointed out that the former governor accepted bribes from the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, its financial arm "Los Cuinis" and the Los Beltrán Leyva Cartel. In the plot with drug trafficking and abuse of power, the Nayarit prosecutor, Édgar Veytia Cambero, alias “El Diablo” and personal friend of Sandoval Castañeda, was also involved. "El Diablo" was not only involved with organized crime, but also carried out land grabbing, threats, extortion, torture, femicide, kidnapping and forced disappearances in the state.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 3:  “Tony Duarte” Lawyer Linked to Late Governor Aristoteles Sandoval & Defended Sinaloa Cartel Members Killed in Guadalajara

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/tony-duarte-lawyer-linked-to-late.html

 



José Luis Duarte Reyes, a lawyer and businessman linked to former governor Aristóteles Sandoval, was executed in a parking lot in Guadalajara, Jalisco

 

Synopsis:

 

José Luis Duarte Reyes, a lawyer and businessman linked to former governor Aristóteles Sandoval, was executed in a parking lot in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Although the state government assured that this election day has not had major incidents, Duarte Reyes was executed along with another man, while two more people were injured. resumably, the lawyer known as "Tony Duarte" was singled out for being a defender of members of the Sinaloa Cartel. According to the first reports, the businessman was attacked when he was in the vicinity of a parking lot of his property, located on Herrera and Cairo and Mayor streets of the Jalisco capital. Subjects aboard two vans fired up to 50 rounds around 9:30 am on June 5, according to police reports. The same state prosecutor, Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez, went to the site. When Aristóteles Sandoval served as mayor of Guadalajara (2009-2012), Tony Duarte's daughter, Rocío del Carmen, worked as the Director of Parking. It should be noted that in September 2011, José Luis Duarte Contreras, Tony Duarte's son, was assassinated. The crime occurred in Puerto Vallarta. Other reports indicate that the lawyer had a criminal record for his probable responsibility in crimes of misrepresentation and fraud in the 1990s. The former Governor of Jalisco; Aristóteles Sandoval, close to Tony Duarte, was killed in a Puerto Vallarta bar in the early hours of December 18, 2020.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 4:  Fresnillo, Zecatecas: Armed Confrontation Between Civilians and Police

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/fresnillo-zacatecas-armed-confrontation.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

This Friday afternoon elements of the Investigative Police clashed with armed civilians in the Buenavista community of Trujillo. In the confrontation two alleged criminals died and an officer was badly injured. According to the security authorities, there was also one civilian arrested and another managed to evade the officers. The events were recorded on the way to the Leobardo Reynoso community, where the agents of the state prosecutor's office were shot at by armed people. Elements of the National Guard (GN) State Preventive Police (PEP) and from the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) arrived in support. While the shooting broke out, the inhabitants ran to their homes to get to safety. A helicopter from the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP) also participated in the operation. Through breaches and dirt roads, an intense operation was deployed. Local residents reported that it is very recurrent in the area to see vehicles of armed civilians without any authority detaining them. In the end the forensics of the General Directorate of Expert Services took charge of what happened.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 5:  Sanalona, Sinaloa: The Holy Death Highway for Fervent Worshipers

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/sanalona-sinaloa-holy-death-highway-for.html

 

 

 

The Story:

 

Every day it is populated with chapels and cenotaphs that are well visited. Tell me she doesn’t look tough as fuck...! boasts a young man dressed in black who sanctifies himself again and again before the Holy Death and offers her "I will idolize you all of my life by putting your image as many times as necessary for this place, because you have helped me and my friends." He assures that in addition to the six chapels that exist in less than 14 kilometers he will install more "every time my girl supports us, we reward her. We want people not to be ashamed and follow Holy Death, so we have to place her image everywhere." The street is gradually populated by chapels that together with the dozens of cenotaphs are part of the road landscape before the fervor that is increasing, by the road that leads to Tamazula, Durango and that is part of the Golden Triangle, the chapels are becoming an obligatory place to stop, some do it out of curiosity, others out of devotion. The cenotaphs and the Holy Death compete in the exaltations that are lived daily in those places, it’s a practice of challenge, there death is combined that is the physical representation of the transition that occurs when leaving life and the cenotaph where they are finally part of the world of the dead.

 

WITH STYLE

 

Chapels and cenotaphs compete in their structure, for example there is a cenotaph that emulates the Parthenon, an icon of ancient Greece. The replica of the crown jewel of Greek architecture is lost on the wild road, a few meters from the dam. Believers indicate that they have a perception of death as inevitable, so they do not consider it incorrect to establish conversations or practices in honor of the deity who is in charge of it. "I come to ask you to move away from all those negative vibrations that try to harm my destiny and my life ... just like that," details a fervent admirer of Holy Death. Police authorities and the Catholic Church itself assure that the followers of the Holy Death are people who live outside the law, but that to date in Sinaloa there are no statistics on how many criminals venerate the Holy Death. According to police authorities, they say that when they have searched the homes and vehicles of some criminals, statues, altars and other objects have been found that pay tribute to the Holy Death.

 

Holy Death is represented as a skeleton dressed in a dark robe that covers it from head to toe and that also has other elements. One of the chapels of the Holy Death that is at the road junction Sanalona-El Coyonqui, at that moment is being renovated, now, the seven different colors are being painted in reference to all kinds of requests. The painter says that he takes care of the place at the request of its owner "I come from a rehabilitation center, the boss supplies us with the paint and we are gladly painting, we do it little by little because there are many people who come." The colors are white to achieve peace, harmony and success. Red means love. Blue is to achieve success. Yellow means the solution to problems for all those who do not find the way out of what afflicts them. The golden color, allows economic tranquility. The "guardian" of Holy Death, at this moment, assures that lately the statues are being stolen. "People are stealing from the Niña, here they recently took the scythe of one of the images we have..." he details. He assures that lately people are going more to these places "we have to remove twice a day the candles, the flowers because the truth is they don’t fit, the truth is it’s unusual how men arrive, older males, everything, they come here."

 

HOMICIDE

 

In another of the chapels, precisely where about a month ago a man was murdered, the traces of the event are still present, blood sprinkled on the feet of the Holy Death, just like in the photograph of an individual who is on one side, give an account of what happened there. "We come to leave flowers in memory of the friend who killed him here, not even Holy Death saved him, the good thing is that it was at her feet," says an 18-year-old boy who has a huge tattoo on his left arm "The girl close to my heart." He points out that "Mahami N" was a friend of his brother and that obviously he knew him very well. While snooping inside the place, he takes out beer cans, even assures that they left a joint to the Holy Death. There are also bouquets of dried flowers, it seems that from that moment, this chapel is no longer as visited as the rest of them. "Since she doesn't smoke... I take the joint," she jokes. Another visitor says that he is Catholic, that he believes in the Virgin of Guadalupe and assures that she has done miracles for him, but that the Holy Death, fulfills another type of help. "I dare not ask the little Virgen of Guadalupe to help me in my "business", I always traverse in the jaws of danger ... afterwards I come to visit her, she’s fucking cool.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 6: Gulf Cartel Boss Behind Mass Graves Sent to Prison in Mexico

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/06/06/gulf-cartel-boss-behind-mass-graves-sent-to-prison-in-mexico/

 

 

 

Synopsis:

 

A former top-ranking leader with the Gulf Cartel responsible for a series of mass murders, clandestine gravesites, incinerations sites, and other gory methods of disposing of humans has been sentenced to more than 11 years in a Mexican prison. The cartel boss spent time in a U.S. prison in his early years and is known for an incident where he began crying in front of a judge. Known in the criminal underworld as El Pelochas, or Metro 28, Luis Alberto Blanco Flores climbed the ranks of the Gulf Cartel while surviving and taking part in a series of shifting alliances and betrayals. Those actions eventually led to him becoming a top regional boss before his latest arrest. This week, a sentencing tribunal handed down a term of 11 years and six months in prison following his conviction for aggravated extortion and engaging in organized criminal activity, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office revealed. According to authorities the crimes that led to Pelochas’ sentence took place during the summer of 2017. Breitbart Texas reported extensively on the criminal career of El Pelochas who became one of the leading Gulf Cartel figures between 2016 and 2018. During that period, he made a push to take control of the Reynosa faction and clashed with another top commander.

 

Breitbart Texas kept a record of the murders directly attributed to that power struggle with more than 500 murders taking place during that time. The murders included executions, assassinations, kidnapping victims, and casualties of the large-scale shootouts. One gruesome trend that grew during that time was the use of clandestine crematoriums and mass graves where Gulf Cartel members worked to dispose of the bodies of their victims and rivals. During the start of his criminal career, El Pelochas spent time in a U.S. prison. In August 2010, federal agents arrested him in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, and only charged him with one count of illegal re-entry. At the time of his initial hearing, the fearsome cartel leader began to sob as he was escorted into the Brownsville federal court and he saw his mother in the audience. El Pelochas was one of three cartel commanders who fled to Brownsville to hide from rivals who had been hunting them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 7:  GRAPHIC: Gulf Cartel Dumps Ice Chests with Body Parts in Border City in Mexico

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/06/06/graphic-gulf-cartel-leaves-ice-chests-with-body-parts-in-mexican-border-city/

 

 



 

Synopsis:

 

A group of gunmen believed to be with one faction of the Gulf Cartel left at least two ice chests filled with dismembered human body parts in the Mexican border city of Reynosa. Authorities recovered one of the ice-chests, while unknown gunmen absconded with the other one. The incident took place on Saturday afternoon when residents spotted two ice chests along the Monterrey-Matamoros highway near the Jarachina Norte neighborhood. The ice chests had been tied closed with a piece of rope. However, by the time authorities responded to the scene, the ice chests were gone. Authorities believe that a group of gunmen picked up the two ice chests before they arrived. Soon after, authorities responded to another location also along the same highway about a body left next to an ice chest. Authorities arrived to find a dismembered torso next to one ice chest that looked similar to one of the two that had been reported earlier in the day. While the male victim has not been identified, the current theory points to one of two rival factions of the Gulf Cartel leaving the gory crime scene as a message to their rivals. As Breitbart Texas has reported, two factions of the Gulf Cartel have been actively fighting for years over control of lucrative border areas in and around Reynosa.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 8: "FOR EACH ONE OF US WE WILL KILL 2" FOR THIS REASON THE CJNG DECIDED TO HUNT DOWN THE POLICE

Source:  https://elblogdelnarco.com/2021/06/06/por-cada-uno-de-nosotros-les-mataremos-a-2-por-esta-razon-el-cjng-decidio-cazar-a-policia/

 



 

Synopsis:

 

It's a type of direct attack on officers rarely seen outside of the most gang-ridden nations in Central America and it represents the most direct challenge yet to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's policy of avoiding violence and rejecting any war against the cartels. The drug trafficking group has declared war on the government with the aim of eradicating the Tactical Group, because according to the criminal group, it unfairly treats its members. “They want war, they are going to have war and we have already shown them that we already have them located. We're going for all of you, ”says a professionally printed banner signed by the Jalisco cartel that appeared hanging in a building in Guanajuato in May. "For each member of our company (CJNG) that you send, two of your tacticians will be killed, wherever you are, at home, on patrols or fixed services," says the banner, referring to the cartel by its initials. Officials in Guanajuato, Mexico's most violent state, where the CJNG fights local gangs backed by the Sinaloa cartel, declined to comment on how many members of the elite group have been killed so far.

 

In the most recent case, state police publicly acknowledged that an officer was abducted from his home Thursday, killed, and his body dumped on a highway. Security analyst David Saucedo says there have been many cases. “Many other (officers) decided to defect. They took their families, abandoned their homes and are in hiding and on the run." He added that the "CJNG is hunting down the elite policemen of Guanajuato." It's hard to find the number of victims, but Poplab, a news cooperative in Guanajuato, said at least seven police officers have been killed on their days off so far this year. In January, armed men went to the home of a policewoman, killed her husband, dragged her away, tortured her and dumped her bullet-riddled body. Guanajuato has had the highest number of murdered police officers of any Mexican state since at least 2018, according to Poplab. Between 2018 and May 12, a total of 262 police officers have been killed, about 75 officers each year, more than are killed by gunfire or other assaults on average each year across the United States. The problem in Guanajuato has gotten so bad that the state government published a special decree on May 17 to provide an unspecified amount of funding for protection mechanisms for police and prison officials. "This is an open war against the security forces of the state government," Saucedo said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 23, 2021, 11:47:33 AM
June 23, 2021
View On Website
Open as PDF

    
US-Mexico Border Security: A Modern Version of an Old Problem
It’s a geopolitical problem that often gets painted in political colors.
By: Allison Fedirka
U.S.-Mexico defense and security cooperation is a geopolitical conundrum. Geography dictates that the two countries must work together to address security concerns across their extensive shared border, among other issues. However, a host of constraints – many of which are permanent or endemic – surround this relationship. Such constraints limit the space in which cooperation can take place and the possibility for mutually acceptable solutions.

The United States and Mexico share one of the longest continuous and dynamic land borders in the world. There are 50 official crossings along the 1,900 miles of border between them. Before the pandemic, approximately $1 billion worth of trade crossed the border every day, with advanced manufactured goods often crossing back and forth multiple times. This movement of goods is vital for both countries’ economies. Mexican exports to the U.S. represent approximately 31 percent of its gross domestic product, and the four U.S. states that border Mexico (and rely heavily on migrant labor) account for 25 percent of U.S. GDP.

Commerce at the border is possible so long as the border is secure and stable. But more than that, a tranquil border – something that has generally existed since the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 – was a geopolitical prerequisite for Washington to project power abroad. In other words, the absence of a major threat from the south freed up policymakers to allocate resources toward supporting and executing their foreign policy ambitions. (So important is border security that in World War I, Germany tried but failed to sow conflict between the U.S. and Mexico in hopes of bogging down the U.S. Army in North America.)

Rightly or wrongly, U.S.-Mexico border security tends to get lumped in with domestic politics – such that it obscures the real reasons border tensions are so difficult to resolve. The issue du jour, of course, is immigration, specifically Central American immigration via Mexico. (This issue predates the pandemic, but the associated economic and social deterioration of COVID-19 made it worse.) There is a consensus among the U.S., Mexico and Central American countries that the migration flows should be addressed, as should the underlying causes of migration. There is no consensus on how to do it. No country wants to assume the bulk of the responsibility for a solution where others have a say. The solution each country brings to the negotiating table often reflects the political necessities of the moment, painting a fundamentally geopolitical problem in political colors.

The underlying constraints that limit the intensity and the potential of U.S. and Mexican cooperation are a byproduct of a historical rivalry. The United States didn’t always dominate North America; it had to compete with Mexico for territory and foreign allies, especially in both of their early years.

They even fought a war with each other, after which Mexico lost large swaths of territory to the U.S. Equally scarring but often forgotten up north are the memories formed by a U.S. military invasion that ventured not only into the borderlands but into what is present-day Mexico City.

Subsequent U.S. interventions and invasions of Mexican territory reinforced Mexico’s sensitivity to and distrust of U.S. security forces. During the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Mexico was so unstable that the U.S., compelled as it was to stem any spillover into its territory, sought to block incoming weapons to Mexico that could add to the violence, including by occupying the port of Veracruz.

Then there was U.S. involvement in the Punitive Expedition of 1916-17. One of the leading figures vying for political power during the revolution was Pancho Villa, who actively tried to draw the U.S. into the conflict as a way to undermine Mexican state forces. After he attacked U.S. citizens and raided border towns, the U.S. Army sent as many as 12,000 soldiers into Mexico to search for Villa. And though the U.S. would withdraw them as WWI commanded more and more attention, the seeds of distrust in Mexico had been planted.

However unlikely an invasion from the north may be, the fear of subjugation is a defining feature of Mexico City’s border security strategy. Mexico is obviously not strong enough to unilaterally take on the U.S. alone, so its current strategy revolves around keeping U.S. security forces at as much distance as possible. But since security cooperation is in both of their interests, they have had to engage in a variety of ways to keep the border safe. Perhaps the most notable of which was the 2008 Merida Initiative, which established a cooperation framework between the U.S. and Mexico for combating transnational crime, drug trafficking and money laundering primarily through U.S. support to the judiciary. But even then, there are parameters in place to limit the physical presence of U.S. security officials in Mexico and to regulate how shared information is exercised and used. More recently, the Mexican government went further and passed legislation that restricts the operational tasks U.S. security and intelligence agents can engage in.

Geography also makes it difficult for Mexican security forces to cooperate with outside countries. Mountainous and desert terrain split Mexico into states that, during colonial times and early independence, were extremely isolated from the central government and needed to rely on their own resources and systems for governance and security. Over time, this contributed to power vacuums that have often been filled by criminal groups. Crises such as pandemics make it all the more difficult for the central government to reassert control.

The U.S. understands all these limitations, which is why the immigration issue remains so intractable. It’s also why the U.S. has begun to reengage with Central American countries more directly. Mexico will always be part of the equation, but there is only so much it can do given its financial constraints and its general (and understandable) aversion to U.S. security presence. It’s a contemporary version of a historical problem, one that calls into the question the very concept of national sovereignty.

454913
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on June 23, 2021, 11:49:12 AM

 

CU’s El Betin Gunned Down in Street by Sicarios in Morelia, Michoacan
Monte Escobedo, Zacatecas: Cartel del Golfo Burns Captured Combatants
Reynosa, Tamaulipas: The Hunting of Innocent Civilians
Knights Templar Cartel joins CJNG to Form Michoacan New Mob Cartel
La Costa, Michoacan: CJNG Leaves Decapitated Heads and Message for El Abuelo (Graphic image Attached)
Chihuahua: Business Robbery, Crime With the Most Increase in Corral Administration
EXCLUSIVE: Los Zetas Cartel Builds Big Data Surveillance System on Mexican Border City
Mexican president vows to investigate deadly border shootings of innocent bystanders
 

 

Topic # 1:   CU’s El Betin Gunned Down in Street by Sicarios in Morelia, Michoacan

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/cus-el-betin-gunned-down-in-street-by.html

 



 

The Story:

 

El Betín was gunned down inside his car in the middle of the street on Sunday. El Betín is the brother of a Carteles Unidos plaza boss named El Seco in Apatzingán. El Betín also allegedly had financial ties to powerful Carteles Unidos leader Alberto Espinoza Barrón, "La Fresa" an infamous, high ranking former leader of La Familia Michoacana.

 

The Shooting

 

On the afternoon of Sunday, June 20 2021, a man known by the alias “El Betín” or “El Cocón” was driving in his purple Chevrolet Camaro on Periférico Paseo de la República street, in an area south of the city of Morelia, Michoacán. When El Betín reached the section of the street near the subdivision “Morelia 450” unknown assailants opened fire on him. No details are given about the appearance of the attackers nor if they were inside a vehicle at the time of the shooting. The vehicle and El Betín himself were riddled with bullets in the attack. The assailants then fled in an unknown direction. El Betín received serious gunshot injuries from the shooting. Witnesses to the attack called the emergency services line to report the incident. Paramedics were dispatched to the scene. El Betín was given basic first aid on site and rushed in an ambulance to a hospital however Betín succumbed to his injuries and died while he was being treated by doctors at the hospital.



 

Who is El Betín? How does he relate to Carteles Unidos?

 

Contra Muro reports that El Betín is the brother of Juan Manuel Montero Nambo, alias “El Seco”, who is alleged to be the Carteles Unidos plaza boss in charge of the town of Santiago de Acahuato, in Apatzingán municipality. El Betín has also allegedly been financially linked to Alberto Espinoza Barrón, alias “La Fresa” or 'The Strawberry'. La Fresa is a former lieutenant of the La Familia Michoacana. He is currently believed to be a major leadership figure within Carteles Unidos. Back in the 2000s-2010s, La Fresa is believed to have taken over the Morelia plaza after the death of “El Güero”. La Fresa was believed to be a financial advisor and right arm of Dionisio Loya Plancarte, alias "El Tío" and Nazario Moreno González alias "El Chayo", the leaders of La Familia Michoacana at the time.



La Fresa was arrested in December 2008 and was believed to be succeeded by Rafael Cedeño Hernández alias “El Cede” after Fresa’s arrest. El Cede was later famously arrested in 2009 while attending a baptism party for a baby born to a cartel member. With La Fresa having all these historic ties to the criminal underworld of Michoacán, Fresa is a very interesting character for El Betín to allegedly have direct financial ties to.

 

Who is his brother, El Seco?

 

Juan Manuel Montero Nambo, alias “El Seco” a native of the town of Acahuato, municipality of Apatzingán, Michoacán. He first came to the attention of the public in 2014 when an avocado farmer from Tancítaro came forward to authorities and revealed that two years prior, in November 2012, El Seco had kidnapped him and held him for ransom. The avocado farmer was only released by El Seco and his men because the farmer had promised he would sell some property he owned in order to afford the large ransom they were demanding. After his captors released him, the farmer made good on his promise, sold the property and delivered the money to appease El Seco. The farmer did not report the incident to police at the time because he was afraid of reprisals against his family.   



Juan Manuel Montero Nambo, alias “El Seco”

 

The farmer had chosen to come forward in 2014 because El Seco was believed to have fled the state and believed to be in hiding so he was unable to hurt the farmer’s family in retribution. When the Michoacán State Attorney General’s Office received this report from the avocado farmer, they began investigating the current whereabouts of El Seco.  They were able to locate him in the town of San Pedro Tlaquepaque, in the state of Jalisco. According to Vallarta Uno,  El Seco had been hiding out in Jalisco for the last 8 months because “he was hiding from another subject with whom he had problems in his state [Michoacán]”. El Seco was arrested by authorities and presented before a judge on charges related to the homicide of six people and the kidnapping of seven others.  In addition to the November 2012 avocado farmer kidnapping, El Seco is believed to be involved in the kidnapping and ransom of two women in Tancítaro, also in November 2012. One of the kidnapped women was released, presumably after payment was received while the other woman was later found dead.



El Seco after being apprehended by the PGR in 2014

 

El Seco is believed to be involved in the August 2013 kidnapping and subsequent murder of five people in Tancítaro. Only 3 remains of the five kidnapped were ever recovered. Those three remains were located in September, a month after they were kidnapped, in the Tepalcatepec river. El Seco is also suspected in the November 2014 kidnapping of 4 farmers in the city of Apatzingán. Those four farmers are still missing to this day, their whereabouts unknown.



El Seco after being apprehended by the PGR in 2014

 

Who was behind the hit on El Betín?

 

The cartel affiliation of the assailants who killed El Betín is currently unknown. There are no confirmed reports on who was behind the attack. It should be noted that Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) has previously threatened El Betín’s brother El Seco on social media. The CJNG is widely considered to be Carteles Unidos’s primary rival in the state of Michoacán. According to Letra Roja, in May 2021 the CJNG publicly named and threatened members of the Michoacán Police who they allege are working for El Seco and fellow Carteles Unidos member, El Tukan.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 2:  Monte Escobedo, Zacatecas: Cartel del Golfo Burns Captured Combatants

Source: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/monte-escobedo-zacatecas-cartel-del.html

 



 

A new video from the Mexican underworld has just surfaced online. For this broadcast hitmen from the Gulf Cartel (CDG), in alliance with the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) are disposing of their adversaries with fire in an open field. An ominous message for the enemy is being spoken. While an enforcer is pouring a flammable liquid from a one gallon container onto a tight firewood stack. Beneath the mound of wood lies an injured Grupo Flechas combatant. Before their communique concludes the horrific screams of the immolated individual can be heard in the background.

 

Video translation is as follows:

 

Sicario #1: This will be the fate of everyone who wants to help out the Sinaloa enforcers. For those of you wanting to do a favor for the Sinaloa Cartel. As it is you owe us for that loss we took in Tepetongo. Little by little we are going to turn things around in our favor. I’m telling you this ahead of time so that you don’t find yourselves in disbelief afterwards. So you all know how Commander Fantasma takes care of things.

 

Sicario #2: Pay attention gentlemen. This is how the Sinaloa gunmen are being burned away. Because you guys are assholes and pieces of shit. You still owe us for that loss we had in Tepetongo. We are the absolute mob of Mr. Fantasma. This is an operation for Mr. Fantasma you fucks. The fucking towns of Monte Escobedo and Tepetongo belong to us.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 3:  Reynosa, Tamaulipas: The Hunting of Innocent Civilians

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/reynosa-tamaulipas-hunting-of-innocent.html

 



 

The Story:

 

Last Saturday, the city of Reynosa was again a ghost town of desolate avenues and closed shops. Messages circulating on WhatsApp asking people not to leave their homes and alert their families that the nightmare had begun again. That day a caravan formed by trucks and sedan cars arrived in Reynosa from Río Bravo. Those who were part of the convoy toured four colonies in the east - Almaguer, Lampacitos, Unidad Obrera and Bienestar - shooting at the people they were encountering in their path. Construction workers, workers repairing the sewer, a young newly graduated nurse, an elderly person who walked under the burning sun (and who was shot in the throat), the owner of a grocery store and a customer who was shopping at the time he passed the hitmen's armed criminal cell. In total, 14 people whose lives were cut up on the chopping block at the whim of the murderers. The citizens of Reynosa have learned to live between shootings that are recorded almost every day, at any time. It is common for citizens to check their social networks before leaving home or work, in order to avoid war zones: roads in which persecutions are recorded, or vehicles are burned.

 

It’s not strange that civilians lose their lives by being caught in the crossfire of the groups that dispute control of that border city. But nothing like this had ever happened. The hunt for innocent people, without a criminal record or any relationship with organized crime. "Unpublished, unprecedented," said Attorney Irving Barrios. In April 2017, a former bodyguard who had become leader of the Gulf Cartel, Julián Manuel Loisa Salinas, El Comandante Toro, was killed by the Navy. Loisa was fleeing for the sixth time from an operation designed to stop him. On that occasion he couldn't escape. The truck in which he was fleeing crashed into a tree: he descended opening fire on the sailors. He was riddled on the spot. His death unleashed two days of chaos and extreme violence in Reynosa. His men burned shops, cars, buses, cargo trucks. There were 32 blockades in the city. The Gulf Cartel itself circulated audios ordering people not to leave their homes. There were versions that a group of Cyclones - one of the factions of the cartel - had been sent from Matamoros to take over the city, one of the main drug and migrant crossings: a kidnapping gold mine, "protection fee", hydrocarbon theft and extortion.

 

The command was assumed by Jesús García, El Güero Jessi. But other cartel leaders opposed: Alberto Salinas, El Betillo; Petronilo Flores, aka El Metro 100 or El Comandante Panilo; Lui Alberto Blanco, El Pelochas, as well as Juan Miguel Lizardi, nicknamed Miguelito 56. Between April and July of that year, 90 executions were recorded in Reynosa. There was talk of a hundred disappearances. Clashes between Los Metros (fraction of the CDG whose stronghold is Reynosa), Los Ciclones (armed wing created by Alfredo Cárdenas Martínez, El Contador) and Los Escorpiones (fraction created by Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, aka Tony Tormenta, and composed of ex-police officers) intensified. The internal struggle ended in a bloodbath that plunged Reynosa into darkness. El Betillo and El Güero Jessi were killed. El Pelochas and El Metro 100, arrested. His successors continued to be engaged in a struggle that has made Reynosa one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico - and with the greatest perception of insecurity.

 

In 2019, 140 inhabitants of Charco Escondido, just 20 kilometers from Reynosa, left their homes: the hitmen had entered the community to burn several homes: seven people from the same family were killed days later. In the middle of all that fire, the Northeast Cartel was also introduced into the area, commanded by a nephew of the bloodthirsty Z-40, former leader of the Zetas: Juan Gerardo Treviño, known as El Huevo. For years, the bodies of executed people have appeared on rural roads, as happened in May 2021 when six men in tactical vests were found with gunshots in the head, or as happened in August last year, when the heads of three "bodyguards" of Commander Maestrín (a lieutenant of Miguelito 56) appeared.

 

For years, blockades have been a daily thing, as happened last March, when Mayor Maki Ortiz could not reach the celebration for the 272 years of the foundation of the city because criminals had crossed vehicles and placed caltrops on various avenues. For years, in one of the main manufacturing and cross-border trade centers, classes have been suspended, shops close, people have equipped themselves in their homes: the streets become a cemetery. And yet, nothing similar to what happened this Saturday had never happened: hitmen hunting people in the streets: murderers who go through four colonies killing at random, without anything happening: without being persecuted, arrested, judged. The massacres are repeated. Violence in Mexico is out of control and the State is increasingly incapable of guaranteeing the security of citizens.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 4: Knights Templar Cartel joins CJNG to Form Michoacan New Mob Cartel

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/knights-templar-cartel-joins-cjng-to.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

The Knights Templar Cartel has separated from the United Cartels (CU) and joined forces with the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) and now call themselves the Cártel Gente Nueva de Michoacán (Michoacán New Mob Cartel). The possible rupture between the Knights Templar and United Cartels came after the murder of a well-known owner of a steakhouse in the town of Coalcoman, who had alleged links with the criminal organization. It is believed that the hitmen behind the attack were from Cárteles Unidos, who in addition to murdering the owner Margarito Gálvez, also set fire to the restaurant with the victim inside. A crime that caused indignation because residents claimed that the man was honest and had no criminal activity, a fact that contrasts with the version of the reason for the rupture between the Michoacán cartels. The owner of the restaurant gained notoriety in 2019, when Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) ate at the restaurant during a visit to the state of Michoacán along with two other members of his cabinet.

 

The Knights Templar Cartel

 

The Knights Templar Cartel emerged in the state of Michoacán as an ally of the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS). And publicly announced its appearance in March 2011, originally it would replace the La Familia Michoacana (LFM) but over the years both groups followed each other in their own way. The original leaders of the Knights Templar were Enrique Plancarte aka El Kike Plancarte, Servando Gómez Martínez, aka La Tuta and José Antonio González aka El Pepe, who after the alleged death of the leader of the Michoacana Family, Nazario Moreno González aka El Chayo, the Madest Male and the Craziest One, in December 2010. Following after the break with Jesús Méndez Vargas, tried to take over the social base that The Michoacana Family captured in its beginnings. But most of its founders have been killed or arrested, which turned The Knights Templar into a very small cartel with a discreet presence which led it to be part of United Cartels to confront the CJNG. Unidos is an alliance of several small criminal groups such as Los Viagras and La Familia Michoacana, as well as some self-defense groups that have allegedly received support from the Sinaloa Cartel to combat the CJNG's attempts to take control of key coastal areas used to bring drugs to Mexico, as well as production territories in the mountains.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 5:  La Costa, Michoacan: CJNG Leaves Decapitated Heads and Message for El Abuelo

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/la-costa-michoacan-cjng-leave.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

The Cartel Jalisco New Generation released online a narco message directed at Juan Jose Farías Álvarez aka El Abuelo Farías. Their notice also included the heads of two decapitated males in a styrofoam cooler. The ascending CJNG is looking to assassinate him. El Abuelo is a controversial figure in Mexico. He’s been linked to the self-defense groups and the world of drug trafficking. In the city of Tepalcatepec he is received with praise and cheers by the townspeople. El Abuelo is a celebrity for some but for the Michoacán government El Abuelo is a criminal. Currently he’s the leader of the Tepalcatepec Cartel.

 

Narco message reads as follows:

 

This will be the fate of everyone who supports El Abuelo, El Torró, El Teto. Along with you Chopo Panzón, you’re next bitch. Jackass, jackass, jackass. Sincerely, CJNG

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 6:  Chihuahua: Business Robbery, Crime With the Most Increase in Corral Administration

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/chihuahua-business-robbery-crime-with.html

 

   

 

The Story:

 

According to data from the Trust for Competitiveness and Citizen Security (Ficosec), during the administration of Governor Javier Corral Jurado the crime that increased the most was that of robbery without violence, while in the rest of crimes the variation is not very significant. “The truth is that the statistical behavior comparing the last three state administrations is very similar; There is not much to analyze, because it varies in some crimes, well, there are some that have gone down in this administration, but there are others that have gone up ”, explained Arturo Luján Olivas, director of the Ficosec Foundation. Regarding the investigation folders for business robbery without violence, the director of the association points out that in the administration from 2010 to 2016, a total of 7,805 folders were found, while the current administration, which ends in September, has registered 9,046, which corresponds to an increase of 27.6%. This is by comparing the first 55 months of each administration, to make a fair comparison, since it should be remembered that this last period of government has been shorter than the previous ones.

 

Regarding intentional homicide, it only increased 1% compared to the previous administration, since from 8,894 folders during the period of César Duarte, the figure increased to 8,990 in the Corral government. “Those 100 folders are a very small variation; but in what corresponds to victims there is a significant decrease, since in the previous administration there were 11,291 victims, while this administration has registered 10,198 deaths ”. The highest peak in this crime was registered in August 2020, with 247 folders, which compared to the most complicated month of the previous administration, which was January 2011, with 311 folders, shows a decrease of 20.5%. "Yes there is an important change, but we must also take into account that the figures are sometimes highlighted in folders and sometimes the victims must be highlighted, as a folder can have more than one victim." However, historically the month of January 2011 is not the highest, since in the Reyes Baeza administration, which was from 2004 to 2010, August 2010 had a total of 406 research folders; 39.1% more than the most violent month of the last administration.

 

“The rest of the crimes that we monitor, which is the robbery of a house with and without violence; business robbery with violence, vehicle robbery in its two forms, kidnapping and extortion, the numbers decreased; that means we can talk about an improvement.” As for the crime that decreased the most in the last 55 weeks, it is theft of a vehicle with violence, it has a decrease, in the comparison of administrations, of more than 82% in the investigation folders, while theft without violence also decreased up to 60% statewide. “Of course the decline is a good thing, although we will never be satisfied with the numbers around public safety; it would be wrong for us to affirm satisfaction with the numbers, but we are able to recognize that in hard data there is improvement in some crimes ”. Therefore, the head of the Ficosec Foundation points out that the crime trend has been downward, despite the fact that there are erratic months in terms of crime, however crime levels are still above the national average.

 

“In the last 12 months, which correspond from June 2020 to May 2021, the mobile homicide rate is 6.6 victims per 100,000 inhabitants; while the municipalities of Chihuahua bring a rate of 44 victims and Ciudad Juárez of 102 per 100 thousand inhabitants ”. Likewise, he pointed out that 45 of the 67 municipalities in the state are above the national average in terms of homicides; taking into account that there are municipalities where the rate must be for every 10,000 inhabitants, because the population is smaller. "It is not the same to speak of 20 homicides in Ciudad Juárez, to speak of 20 homicides in Cuauhtémoc, in Uruachi or any of the towns that are located in the mountainous area, which do not even reach 100,000 inhabitants."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 7:  EXCLUSIVE: Los Zetas Cartel Builds Big Data Surveillance System on Mexican Border City

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/06/22/exclusive-los-zetas-cartel-builds-big-data-surveillance-system-on-mexican-border-city/

 



 

Synopsis:

 

Los Zetas Cartel checkpoints in the border city of Nuevo Laredo are linked to more than 100 forced disappearances–including the recent kidnapping of three U.S. citizens. The checkpoints exist with complete impunity and are part of a complex strategy to give the criminal organization more control by harvesting the data of those stopped at the roadblocks. Breitbart Texas consulted with U.S. law enforcement agents in Mexico who are working the case of a missing Texas family from earlier this month as they were traveling from a town in Nuevo Leon to the border city of  Nuevo Laredo. 39-year-old Gladys Cristina Perez Sanchez traveled with her 16-year-old son, Juan Carlos Gonzales, and her 9-year-old daughter, Cristina Duran, when they went missing. The current theory is the family encountered a cartel checkpoint. In 2021, authorities have documented close to 100 similar cases in and around Nuevo Laredo–prime Los Zetas turf.

 

Authorities from both sides of the border shared with Breitbart Texas exclusive information about a complex intelligence apparatus used by the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas to exert complete control of their territories. The region is under the cartel command of Juan Gerardo “El Huevo” Trevino Chavez. The cartel operation uses lookouts and informants placed in strategic turf locations. Those individuals call in suspicious vehicles or persons who then intercepted. The gunmen interrogate the disappeared about their identities, where they are traveling, and why. The gunmen also order motorists to unlock their cell phones and check their social media. The cartel operators reportedly can quickly clone a phone they deem suspicious for deeper data mining. The information is relayed to a central network of radio, phone, and database operators, similar to a 911 call center. Authorities share grave concern about how CDN-Los Zetas has created a database which mimics government ones loaded with property records, license information, and other contents.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Topic # 8:  Mexican president vows to investigate deadly border shootings of innocent bystanders

Source:  https://www.borderreport.com/regions/mexico/mexican-president-vows-to-investigate-deadly-border-shootings-of-innocent-bystanders/

 



 

The Story:

 

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s president vowed to investigate the border shootings that left 19 people dead over the weekend, even as the latest homicide figures showed a rebound in killings nationwide. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said evidence indicated that 15 of the victims were innocent bystanders. The other four dead were suspected gunmen from a group that drove into the northern border city of Reynosa and opened fire indiscriminately. “Everything indicates that it was not a confrontation, but rather a commando that shot people who were not involved in any conflict,” López Obrador said. The government of Tamaulipas state, where Reynosa is located, said in a statement there was evidence the killings involved “organized crime,” which in Mexico is generally used to refer to drug cartels. Cartels in the Reynosa area have become increasingly involved in migrant trafficking or charging protection fees to migrant traffickers. Raymundo Ramos, who leads one of the state’s most active human rights groups, said he believed the killings were related to the June 6 elections that chose new mayors for Reynosa and most other Mexican cities and towns.

 

“This is clearly an act of post-electoral terror directed at the people of Reynosa, and probably a warning for the rest of the townships in Tamaulipas,” wrote Ramos. Drug gangs in Mexico rely heavily on intimidating or coopting local governments to extort money or gain protection from municipal police. Reynosa is located across the border from McAllen, Texas, and has been the scene of fighting between factions of the Gulf cartel. But those disputes usually target rival gunmen or security forces. The dead in the Saturday attack included taxi drivers, workers and a nursing student. On Monday, federal prosecutors said they were taking over the case, in which one suspect has been arrested. The Attorney General’s Office said the attack was “the result of territorial disputes between gangs from Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas and the cartels that operate in Reynosa.” Rio Bravo is located just to the east of Reynosa. Authorities are still investigating the motive, though in the past, drug cartels have sometimes used random killings of civilians to turn up the heat on rival gangs, or intimidate local authorities.

 

López Obrador pledged “a thorough investigation.” María Elena Morera, director of the civic anti-crime group Common Cause, said many people have become inured to such violence. “Mexicans have become accustomed to all these atrocities, without there being any real reaction,” Morera said. “In the face of so much violence, people prefer not to let the pain in, and turn away.” The killings Saturday in Reynosa, and the latest nationwide homicide figures, suggest that López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” crime strategy is doing little to decrease killings. There were 2,963 homicides in May, the latest month for which figures are available, higher than May 2020 and well above the numbers that prevailed when López Obrador took office in December 2018. The government says homicides declined 2.9% in the first five months of 2021 compared to 2020, but that may be because January and February of this year were marked by Mexico’s worst coronavirus wave, when public activities were curtailed. “This is nothing,” Morera said of the drop. “It is as if you keep a patient in a coma and then say he’s doing very well.”

 

Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca called the Reynosa victims “innocent citizens,” and said “Criminal organizations must receive a clear, explicit and forceful signal from the Federal Government that there will be no room for impunity, nor tolerance for their reprehensible criminal behavior.” García Cabeza de Vaca belongs to the rival National Action Party and is himself being investigated by the federal prosecutor’s office for organized crime and money laundering – accusations he says are part of plan by López Obrador’s government to attack him for being an opponent. Local businessman Misael Chavarria Garza said many businesses closed early Saturday after the attacks and people were very scared as helicopters flew overhead. On Sunday, he said “the people were quiet as if nothing had happened, but with a feeling of anger because now crime has happened to innocent people.” The attacks sparked a deployment of the military, National Guard and state police across the city.

 

The area’s criminal activity has long been dominated by the Gulf cartel and there have been fractures within that group. Experts say there has been an internal struggle within the group since 2017 to control key territories for drug and human trafficking. Apparently, one cell from a nearby town may have entered Reynosa to carry out the attacks. López Obrador has sought to avoid confrontations with drug cartels, at one point releasing a top trafficker to avoid bloodshed. He prefers to focus on addressing underlying social problems like youth unemployment. Earlier this month, López Obrador praised the drug cartels for not disrupting the June 6 mid-term voting, even though three dozen candidates were killed during the campaigns. “People who belong to organized crime behaved very well, in general, there were few acts of violence by these groups,” the president said. “I think the white-collar criminals acted worse.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 







454914
Title: Canada, Mexico, and America's Reality
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 09, 2021, 06:34:36 PM
November 9, 2021
View On Website
Open as PDF

    
Canada, Mexico and America’s Reality
By: George Friedman

The United States lives in a fundamentally unique geopolitical reality. It’s the only major power that doesn’t face the risk of a land war, so it doesn’t need a massive force to defend the homeland. Instead, it can concentrate on maintaining control of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. If it retains control of the seas, the only threat to the United States would be air and missile attacks. These are not trivial threats, but they are far more manageable without having to worry about an invasion by land or sea. The United States itself has offensive options it can indulge in – even if it doesn’t always use them prudently, and even if it leads to defeat elsewhere. The U.S. has not faced a foreign presence on its soil since the 19th century. Even nuclear weapons are countered by mutual assured destruction, which has protected the U.S. homeland for over half a century.

This happy condition is the foundation of American power. During the harshest of wars, World War II, where much of Europe and Asia was torn asunder, the American homeland remained untouched. This is such an obvious fact that it tends to be neglected.

So too are the geopolitical reasons behind American security. Any attack on the United States must either be an amphibious assault from across the sea or a land assault from either Canada or Mexico. The U.S. fought numerous times with Mexico in the 19th and very early 20th centuries, and in the 1960s, the Quebec independence movement prompted fears in the U.S. that an independent Quebec might align with the Soviet Union. But today, neither country can attack the U.S. itself, hence the first layer of American security. The second layer is that neither country wants to align with powers hostile to the United States. Had Germany secured their allegiance in World War II, or had the Soviet Union in the Cold War, or had China in the past few decades, the risks to American security would have soared, and the U.S. invulnerability to war on the homeland would have evaporated. American history would have been very different, along with the history of humanity.

Therefore, in any discussion of American strategy and of its strategic priorities, the most important issue is not the South China Sea or NATO but the maintenance of relations with Canada and Mexico. It’s true that at the moment each country has an overriding interest in maintaining their relationship, for reasons ranging from trade to social links. It’s also true that the United States could impose its will militarily on either country. However, waging war on neighbors is dangerous and exhausting. America is a global power pursuing global interests, and its domestic stability would be the first casualty of a land assault against Canada or Mexico.

On the surface, this whole line of reasoning sounds preposterous. But the fact that it seems so arises from the misconception among Americans that the current relationship with Canada and Mexico is unchangeable, and thus requires no care. But one of the most obvious observations of history is the speed at which the apparently obvious dissolves and a new normal takes its place. Given the overwhelming importance to the U.S. that neither neighbor shift its national strategy, the comfortable assumption of continuity is perhaps the most reckless element of U.S. policy. Certainly, there is no current danger of a shift, nor any danger on the horizon. But this is precisely the time when a prudent power devotes significant attention to an issue. Reversing a shift in policy is far more difficult than preventing one.

There are forces driving the U.S. apart from these two countries, countries that are not in a position to cause a break, but which in the future, when other issues are added to them and enticing new relationships show themselves, might change the equation. In the case of Canada, the manner in which the United States canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that was important to Canada, signaled a profound indifference to Canada’s interests. There was little consultation, no offer of compensation, nor any attempt to create an alternative project. By itself, this is not enough to cause a break with the United States, but it certainly reminds Canada that Washington sees it as subordinate to its interests rather than as the object of its interests.

In the case of Mexico, the U.S. obsesses over immigration, an issue that is nonessential to Mexican interests. There has been a surge of migrants at that border, most on their way to the United States, but all creating significant problems on their way north. The United States views Mexico as a source of illegal immigration. Mexico sees the problem of immigration as having its origin at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala. Mexico has therefore requested American help in closing its southern border, which has been refused. Instead, Mexico is demonized for the immigration the U.S. will not help stop. (I have no interest in the question of which country is right. All such matters are complex, and every nation is certain that another nation is at fault.)

For the United States, obsessing without alienating either Canada or Mexico is essential to its national interest, if not its national policy. The physical security of the United States and its trade system depends on these two countries. A rational policy of extreme awareness of their internal processes and a willingness to indulge their needs even to the disadvantage of the United States is a low-cost, high-return policy. When someone takes a client to lunch, he picks up the tab, even if the client has ordered the most expensive items on the menu. The cost of lunch is vastly less than the business you will get.

The most interesting part of geopolitics is that a current state of affairs feels eternal. Nothing in geopolitics’ past should give anyone that confidence. Maintaining a beneficial status quo requires effort, painful until the alternative is considered. But since the belief is that nothing will change, then no effort is needed. The U.S. is a dominant global power because its homeland is secure from attack. Its homeland is secure because Canada and Mexico secure it. The failure to understand that they have options – and are far from exercising them – means their treatment is determined by America’s passing interests. From a geopolitical point of view, this is understandable: Power blots out vulnerability. From a policy standpoint, it ignores reality.
Title: Un desmadre viene
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 18, 2022, 11:18:39 AM

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/18/the-border-crisis-is-bad-but-in-mexico-a-larger-crisis-looms/?fbclid=IwAR1R8xf-HEpqDmxq2RkIVfFSWaDvpuz5ZF9JidFCS5BWaMp9dztcO8h21NU
Title: New Revelations in Ayotzinapa
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 02, 2022, 02:42:39 AM
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/mexico/2022-04-01/mexican-military-archives-produce-new-revelations-ayotzinapa-case?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=90ec04b9-ce44-40ef-b57d-9960c4d0af1f
Title: Espias Rusas en Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 02, 2022, 05:42:30 PM
segundo del dia

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-russian-gru-spies-in-mexico-says-top-us-general-2022-4?fbclid=IwAR3a0AdaZq04svMzVdYgHC4Q-rWC6C9MjhdhyKAYq1GKiaM1PHR4S9uT5JQ
Title: Ayotzinapa
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 26, 2022, 01:55:30 PM
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/special-exhibit/ayotzinapa-investigations?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=7f0ce6d9-9849-4210-854e-6e578c2a623f
Title: Sinaloa Cartel foot soldiers
Post by: Crafty_Dog on September 05, 2022, 05:41:33 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxoHxx5CopU

510924
Title: President Echevarria's legacy
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 02, 2022, 04:24:05 AM
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/mexico/2022-09-30/echeverrias-legacy-co-opt-and-control?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c069abc2-39e7-4cce-b4a2-504f1ff2a687

514050
Title: Plata o Plomo
Post by: Crafty_Dog on October 28, 2022, 02:02:15 PM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/us-prosecutors-evidence-garcia-luna/?utm_source=jeeng&utm_medium=webpush

517231
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on November 29, 2022, 04:46:50 PM
521491

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/security-emergency-following-arrest-in-nuevo-laredo-led-to-us-consulate-and-school-closures/?utm_source=TWE&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tpcc%20%3D%20dailynewsletter&pnespid=veE7UX5HN.oD2OLGqTW_DpbUuRn.SsJ6POi4mbt2sQZmhCcJRgyiu2OBQYjg4v2f4BpA3bAv
Title: Ed Calderon
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 30, 2022, 04:58:13 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PIOoJMMptA

523986
Title: Zapatistas en Chiapas
Post by: Crafty_Dog on December 31, 2022, 08:52:11 PM
In fighting globalism, the Zapatistas brought the world to Chiapas
Leigh Thelmadatter
Leigh Thelmadatter
December 31, 2022
0
EZLN sign in Chiapas, Mexico
When talks with the federal government failed, the EZLN focused on carving out autonomous territory, (Photo: Hajor/Wikimedia Commons)

For those of us 50 and older, it seems like yesterday — the masked, charismatic Subcomandante Marcos taking the world by storm to demand justice for a jungle people threatened by globalization and “the new world order.”

He and the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) made their dramatic appearance on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The treaty had been decried by many, but this armed insurgency cut through all that.

EZLN didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. Chiapas has had a long and sometimes violent history of conflict. The Zapatistas, named after the Mexican Revolution general Emiliano Zapata, organized in 1983 after decades of failure to resolve economic, political and cultural issues.

But they remained obscure until they took over seven towns by force, including San Cristóbal de la Casas, making a declaration there that got Mexico’s and the world’s attention.

Subcomandante Marcos
Subcomandante Marcos, with trademark baclava and pipe, was the leader and spokesman for the EZLN. (José Villa at VillaPhotography/Creative Commons)
Actual fighting with federal forces only lasted two weeks.

The Zapatistas had impeccable timing: the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had severely weakened (and would officially fall six years later). And instead of limiting their actions to petitioning the Mexican political system, the EZLN reached out internationally via contacts and the Internet.


To people outside Mexico, it made for a great underdog story. And as word spread, foreign journalists flocked to Chiapas, giving them nearly glowing coverage.

This forced the Mexican government to sign the San Andrés Peace Accords in 1996, but it balked in 2001 when the Zapatistas marched to Mexico City to have it formally put into law. Instead, the congress passed a watered-down version, and the Zapatistas broke all talks with them.

EZLN Comandanta Ramona
The EZLN’s gender egalitarianism and female leaders like Comandanta Ramona attracted much international support. (Photo: Heriberto Rodríguez/Creative Commons)
Instead, they focused on creating an “autonomous zone” with the support of certain areas of Chiapas and the international leftist community. Their success with foreign organizations is somewhat unusual and comes not only because EZLN fights for indigenous rights and against capitalism and globalism, but also because their organization is a mix of traditional and modern sensibilities, which inspired organizers to allow women a more visible role in their movement.

However, it is ironic that an anti-globalism movement would have decades-long ties with foreign organizations. It has been vital to their survival. International organizations provide donations and outlets for selling products like coffee in a way they say provides an alternative to globalism that does not abuse native peoples.

The connection to the world outside Mexico has influenced Zapatista priorities, causing them to adopt stances on issues as varied as gender identity, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, COVID policies, rail lines in Norwegian Sami territory and Mexico’s Maya Train project.

The effectiveness of the autonomous strategy locally is debatable. It has meant developing local solutions for needs such as healthcare and education. However, Chiapas, including Zapatista territory, remains extremely impoverished.


Map of territory claimed by various Zapatista groups
Map of territory claimed by various Zapatista groups. (Graphic: Hxltdq/Creative Commons)
Traditional farming practices are not enough to live on, and migration out to other parts of Mexico and to the United States has been significant in the past couple of decades. Illegal logging, especially in the Lacandon Rainforest, has led to severe environmental degradation, says local activist Eric Eberman of the Colibri-Tz’unun Reserve.

The lack of federal troops has made the zone attractive to both human and drug smugglers.

The irony does not stop with the fact of international contacts.

Subcomandante Marcos might have been the best tourism spokesman the state ever had. While some tourism and foreign residents had been in Chiapas prior to 1994, the news coverage brought the curious and the idealistic, not only to experience the native cultures, but with the hope of engaging someone in a black Zapatista balaclava as well.

San Cristobal de las Casas
Miguel Hidalgo street in present-day San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, full of foreign tourists (Photo: Protoplasmakid/Creative Commons)
For a time, there were so people arriving many that this tourism took on the name zapaturismo. As late as 2009, markets were filled with Zapatista-themed merchandise. At this point, it has all but disappeared.

Zapatourism hasn’t completely disappeared, but it is certainly not a matter of driving up to one of the communities to say hello. Some tourism offices in San Cristóbal might give you information about entering Zapatista territory but will tell you that doing so is at your own risk.

There is some indication that some Zapatistas are becoming more open to the idea of visitors again, such as the community of Oventic; however, I would recommend contacting an organization that works with the Zapatistas to find out what may or may not be possible through their contacts.

The memory of the uprising has faded since the movement mostly shuns the press, but tourism continues to grow in Chiapas, especially in San Cristóbal. In the past 30 years or so, the city has transformed from a small, isolated town to a cosmopolitan center welcoming hundreds of thousands of travelers each year. It also hosts a significant and growing number of foreign residents.

Cafe Rebelde coffee brand
Promotional photograph for coffee advertised in 2017 as “grown on Zapatista lands by Zapatista hands” and distributed worldwide. The brand is still for sale, and distributor Essential Trading Coop says a fraction of sales still go to a nonprofit organizing community projects in the Zapatistas’ autonomous communities.
The tourism has led to a now fairly large community of resident foreigners. Researcher Gustavo Sánchez Espinosa of the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) calls them “lifestyle migrants.”

These are people with incomes in dollars euros, etc., who come to Chiapas looking for some kind of change in their life. They look to live in an exotic locale, but over time, also look for certain amenities from back home — and businesses spring up to accommodate those needs. Mestizo Mexicans call them “neo-hippies;” local indigenous people call them alemantik or gringotik.

The majority of these settle in and around the historic center because of its majestic colonial architecture. But today, this area is now a jumble of the native and the foreign, with streets filled with European-style cafes, organic merchandise stores with streets filled with indigenous women selling handcrafts and other goods, along with people with huge backpacks and neo-hippie clothes and hair. Such residents separate themselves from other migrants, from places like Central America and other parts of Chiapas, attracted to the city for economic reasons.

In a way, the division revives the original purpose of the historic center, which began as a fort, then became an enclave for the colonial Spanish, with the poor and indigenous on the periphery.

It is highly unlikely that Marcos or any of the other leaders imagined that their stand against the outside world would instead bring the world to their doorstep.

Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Title: Prison break in Ciudad Juarez
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 05, 2023, 11:46:55 AM
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/juarez-prison-head-focus-of-probe-manhunt-underway-for-fugitives/?utm_source=MND%20mail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MNT&pnespid=tbR8CScXOKhCxaTR_z7tCoOepQytDod9dLntm_5ttkxmbnE.snSN_jY5PQQi8CBPFVJRsyrF

Ciudad Juárez prison head focus of probe as authorities search for fugitives
The head of Cereso No. 3 prison in Ciudad Juárez, Alejandro Alvarado Téllez, center, is now under investigation for allegedly allowing multiple prohibited items into the prison under his charge. (Photo: State of Chihuahua)

0
SHARE
The director of the Cereso No. 3 prison in Ciudad Juárez was fired on Tuesday, following a prison raid that left 19 people dead and allowed at least 27 prisoners to escape.

According to a statement by the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, former director Alejandro Alvarado Téllez and several other prison staff members are under investigation for the events leading up to the jailbreak.

Authorities are investigating whether they failed in their duties to maintain security or even allowed prohibited objects to enter the prison.

The raid occurred on the morning of Jan. 1 after gunmen attacked the penal institution, seeking to free a leader of the local Mexicles gang, Ernesto Alfredo Pinon de la Cruz, alias “El Neto.” Nineteen people were killed in the gun battle, including 10 guards. At least 27 prisoners escaped, including the gang leader and his lieutenant.

Prisoners being transferred out of Cereso No. 3 in Juarez, Chihuahua
In the aftermath of the raid, hundreds of prisoners are being transferred out of Cereso No. 3 to other prisons around the country. (Photo: Cuartoscuro)
When federal authorities regained control of the prison, they found that El Neto had been staying in a “VIP zone” within the center, with access to drugs and money.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry (Sedena) announced that it had deployed 200 military personnel to Ciudad Juárez to reinforce security. The additional troops will join the hunt for the fugitive prisoners, alongside over 900 members of the army and National Guard already in the city.


At least five criminals who escaped in the breakout have been captured, along with weapons, drugs and cash. Meanwhile, seven people have died in clashes during the manhunt, including two police officers. Five criminals armed with tactical weaponry were killed in a police chase after firing on search units.

In addition, one fugitive was caught on security cameras attempting to cross the United States border into El Paso, Texas.

Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos listening to updates on authorities' attempts to track down fugitive prisoners after a prison break in Juarez
Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos, center, listening to updates on authorities’ attempts to track down fugitive prisoners. (Photo: Gov. of Chihuahua)
“After the sighting, the authorities of El Paso, Texas, were informed with the relevant information, and immediately a joint search operation was implemented on both sides of the border,” the state government said.

191 prisoners from the Cereso have been transferred to other federal prisons around the country. They had been charged with crimes including murder, kidnapping, rape and organized crime activity.

“This operation concluded safely and successfully; with these movements, the state government was supported in guaranteeing the governability of the center after the events of Jan. 1,” read a statement by the Defense Ministry (Sedena).

According to the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, the transfer of “El Neto” and 179 other prisoners from the Cereso has been under consideration since a previous escape attempt on Aug. 11. The request was on hold pending an analysis of capacity in other centers.

Ernesto Alfredo Piñon de la Cruz, alias “El Neto"
Ernesto Alfredo Piñon de la Cruz, alias “El Neto” lived like a king in Cereso No. 3, authorities say, with access to drugs and money. He’s been involved in organized crime since starting his own gang while still a teen and becoming a regional leader in the Juárez Cartel at age 18. (Photo: social media)
They added that “El Neto,” who has been jailed since 2009, was initially held in another prison but has fought a long legal battle to be transferred and then kept in the Cereso. From the prison, he allegedly coordinated numerous violent attacks by the Mexicles gang, one of the most powerful criminal cells in Ciudad Juárez.

With reports from Animal Político, Reuters and Excelsior
Title: Re: Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 07, 2023, 07:49:41 PM
https://www.americanpartisan.org/2023/01/all-out-war-mexico-deploys-soldiers-heavy-armour-to-fight-sinaloa-cartel-as-gangsters-rampage-after-arrest-of-el-chapos-son/?fbclid=IwAR1hz_J1iEdeLiAa0ZCr_56NegOsYte7Q8MRiQhCIB8oPd4UlO6fVMBwgqo
Title: CJNG only cartel to have its own AR-15 factory
Post by: Crafty_Dog on January 21, 2023, 03:03:29 PM
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2022/12/cjng-only-cartel-to-have-had-its-own.html
Title: RANE: US-Mexico Chips
Post by: Crafty_Dog on February 08, 2023, 04:30:45 PM
February 8, 2023
View On Website
Open as PDF

    
Mexico Will Benefit From Washington’s Chip Focus
The U.S. wants to build a North American semiconductor supply chain.
By: Allison Fedirka

The United States is prioritizing the creation of a regional semiconductor production chain to give itself alternatives to Asian firms, especially those with ties to China. Even for the country that invented the semiconductor, this is a massive task. The manufacture of cutting-edge chips is incredibly expensive and complicated, and just a few companies around the world are dominant. If the U.S. is going to succeed in its chips drive, it will need to involve Mexico.

Chip Race

Today, semiconductors are used in everything from consumer goods (computers, cellphones, automobiles, etc.) to military equipment and communication satellites. But despite the ubiquity of chips in modern technology, the manufacturing equipment for more than three-quarters of the global chip supply comes from just five companies. Three of these firms (Applied Materials, Lam Research Corp. and KLA Corp.) are in the United States, and the other two are in U.S. allies: the Netherlands’ ASML and Japan’s Tokyo Electron. ASML holds a monopoly on the machinery needed to make the most advanced semiconductors.

The U.S. is determined to defend and extend this advantage over China. In 2022, Washington passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which allotted $52.7 billion for the research, development and manufacturing of microchips. It also passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which supports the manufacture of electric vehicles and relevant chips in North America. Internationally, the U.S. in late January convinced Japan and the Netherlands to work with it on restricting semiconductor technology sales to China. This builds on a 2019 agreement that banned ASML from exporting its most advanced machinery to China. The latest agreement expands these restrictions, although details have not been released. The U.S. is likely trying to strike a balance between pressuring China and not spurring Beijing to accelerate development of domestic capabilities.

Over time, Washington wants to reduce its own reliance on foreign firms, particularly those tied to China as well as companies like ASML. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, from 1990 to 2021, the U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity fell to 12 percent from 37 percent. Most of it is now in Asia. The U.S. is now trying to coax chipmakers into moving to North America. Major players like GlobalFoundries, Intel, Samsung Foundry, TSMC and Texas Instruments are building new semiconductor production facilities in the United States, especially New York, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Washington is mainly focused on the automotive sector, where the U.S. is highly integrated with Canada and Mexico. This sector plays a major role in driving the U.S. and Mexican economies. The three countries agreed to develop a joint chipmaking initiative, including coordinating supply chains and investments. They also want to work together to map critical minerals.

Typical Global Semiconductor Production Pattern
(click to enlarge)

Mexico’s Advantages

About 40 percent of U.S. semiconductor plants are in states along its southern border, a significant opportunity for Mexico. Likewise, many of Mexico’s manufacturing hubs, especially for high-end manufacturing and automobiles, are in northern border states. Mexico’s foreign minister estimates that a quarter or more of imports from Asia could be replaced by North American production, boosted by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.

Nearshoring Opportunities in Latin America
(click to enlarge)

The Mexican government has already begun laying the diplomatic groundwork to support its chip ambitions. At the beginning of the year – prior to the U.S.-Japan-Netherlands agreement – Japan’s foreign minister was in Mexico discussing trade and semiconductors. Later in January, a Dutch delegation along with U.S. officials visited the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California for talks on investment opportunities, with a focus on agro-industry, electric vehicles, semiconductors, supply chains and energy.

Talks are also underway between the Mexican government and the business community. Firms like Intel, Skyworks Solutions, Texas Instruments and Infineon Technologies are already operating in Mexico and working on chip R&D and test manufacturing. Conversations with Taiwanese chipmakers like TSMC are ongoing. Foxconn, the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer, already established a headquarters in Mexico in order to be closer to clients (mostly in the electronic vehicles sector) in North America. Mexico is also working with the Inter-American Development Bank to identify semiconductor opportunities, and with the National College of Professional Technical Education to produce more skilled workers to serve in chip manufacturing. Finally, Mexican industry and higher education institutions have partnered with Arizona State University to boost the production of semiconductors in North America through training and increased production capacity in northwest border states.

FDI Inflows to Mexico
(click to enlarge)

Some in Mexico hope that Washington’s semiconductor drive will help develop the country's southern region. This would help the government solve one of its biggest challenges, but the initiative is no quick fix. Currently, Mexico’s chip industry is limited to lower-skill roles like assembly, testing and packaging – ideal starting points for the development of more skilled, formal work in Mexico’s underdeveloped south. Moreover, chipmaking uses large amounts of water, which is more plentiful in southern Mexico. But although the south is close to the narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec, giving exporters quick access to the Atlantic and Pacific, its transportation (and energy) infrastructure is poor. Existing Mexican industrial complexes, particularly for automobiles, are farther north, in Guadalajara, Nuevo Leon, Baja California, Aguascalientes and Chihuahua. Semiconductor manufacturing will probably stay close to these clusters to leverage existing infrastructure and shorter distances to the United States.

Rules and Rivals

While Mexico is on paper a promising location for chipmakers, there are several challenges it must address to play a major role in the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing chain. First, the U.S. and Mexico are at odds over the government’s management of the electricity sector. A stable and secure electricity supply is critical for chipmaking, but future investments in the Mexican electricity network are in jeopardy because of these disputes, which adds risk for manufacturers. Similarly, U.S. companies have taken issue with Mexico’s labor laws. This recurring point of contention generally occurs at the company or plant level and cannot be ruled out. Foreign firms also want Mexico to alter its regulations and incentives to make itself a better business environment for semiconductor manufacturing.

However, the main threat to U.S.-Mexican cooperation is increasing Chinese investment in Mexico. The U.S. will expect Mexico to restrict Chinese firms from entering the Mexican segments of the North American chip supply chain. This is a major reason Washington wants much closer coordination with Mexico City on strategic goods. It is also why the U.S. is starting with less sophisticated chips used in things like cars rather than high-end products related to defense. The U.S. can leverage its relationships with Japan and South Korea – which already relocated some manufacturing to Mexico – to encourage non-Chinese investment in the country. And of course, the U.S. can threaten to restrict investment, trade, remittances, etc. to its southern neighbor to drive its point home.

None of Mexico’s challenges are insurmountable. And the U.S. interest in becoming self-sufficient in semiconductor production, as well as the importance of the auto industry to the U.S. economy, means the U.S. will be very willing to work with Mexico to find solutions.

527558
Title: Stratfor: What the Matamoros kidnapping says about Cartel Violence in Mexico
Post by: Crafty_Dog on March 22, 2023, 06:27:58 PM
What the Matamoros Kidnapping Says About the State of Cartel Violence in Mexico
undefined and Latin America Analyst at RANE
Carmen Colosi
Latin America Analyst at RANE, Stratfor
undefined and Global Security analyst with RANE
Caroline Hammer
Global Security analyst with RANE, Stratfor
12 MIN READMar 21, 2023 | 21:21 GMT


The recent armed attack on four U.S. citizens in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, illustrated well-documented security risks in Mexico's many crime hotspots, where gang and cartel violence disrupts daily life and hinders business operations. But while the demonstrated risks are nothing new, much about the incident was out of the ordinary, including the abnormal targeting of American civilians, the subsequent calls by U.S. Republicans for military intervention, and the cartel's highly out-of-character note apologizing for the whole affair. The oddities of the incident and the response to it by the cartel, as well as the Mexican and U.S. governments, confirm and expand on long-standing security, political and logistical risks from organized crime in Mexico.

The Attack
On Friday, March 3, the four American citizens entered Matamoros from Brownsville, Texas, in order to receive cosmetic surgery. A few hours after crossing the border, armed gunmen in trucks shot at their vehicle while they drove through the city, leading to a crash, after which the gunmen forced them out of their vehicle and into one of their trucks. During the incident, a stray bullet killed a Mexican woman at the scene of the initial attack. In a video of the attack that subsequently circulated on social media, three of the Americans appeared unconscious. Over the next few days, word of the kidnapping spread in U.S. media and the FBI announced a $50,000 reward for the return of the victims. Mexican authorities discovered two of the victims alive and two dead on March 7 in a cabin southeast of Matamoros. On March 8, the Mexican government deployed 200 members of the army and 100 members of the National Guard to Matamoros to strengthen security in the border region. Based on the location of the incident, it was clear that the Gulf Cartel — once one of Mexico's most powerful criminal groups — was likely behind the attack. This appeared to be confirmed on March 9, when five men were left beaten and tied up in the street, along with a narco banner apologizing for the attacks signed ''the Scorpions,'' a faction of the Gulf Cartel. The banner claimed the men were the perpetrators of the attack and that the attack was a mistake ''caused by lack of discipline.''

The Cartel's Response
Mexican cartels are widely understood to not want to target U.S. citizens or tourists from other countries, except in circumstances where they're involved in drug trafficking. While the response to the murder or kidnapping of Mexican citizens or migrants from poor countries would barely make national Mexican news, security risks to Americans (and other, usually Western, foreigners) create an outsized backlash that cartels view as simply bad for business and thus not worth it. This was acutely demonstrated by the response to the Matamoros attack and kidnapping; the level of media coverage, the FBI reward and the hundreds of newly-deployed Mexican troops all make cartel operations more difficult and threaten their ability to make money.

The Gulf Cartel faction's apology note — an uncharacteristic action for a group with a penchant for extreme violence — also demonstrates the Scorpions leaders' immediate recognition that their people made a mistake. Criminal groups elsewhere in Mexico have similarly learned this lesson, with massive security deployments to Baja California Sur state in 2017 and Quintana Roo state in 2021 and 2022 following violence in tourist areas that killed and injured foreigners. Cartels know the Mexican government will devote ample resources to ensure the safety of foreigners and particularly tourists, and they'd prefer to avoid such encroachment into their territory.

Intentions aside, the attack and murder of two Americans in Matamoros was not the first incident that illustrates that mistakes can and do occur. In January 2020, gunmen likely belonging to the Northeast Cartel in Ciudad Mier, another border town in the Tamaulipas state, attacked an American family and killed their 13-year-old child. The attack may have occurred because the perpetrators believed the family's SUV resembled the SUVs used by rival cartels. Mexican cartels vary in size and structure, but while all are hierarchical, they tend to also be decentralized, providing lower-ranking members the leeway to launch rash attacks to gain their leadership's approval, in retaliation for violence by rivals, or for personal financial gain. When cartel attacks on foreign tourists do occur, they are most likely cases of mistaken identity in which cartels think the victims belong to a rival cartel, making such incidents far more likely in areas experiencing intense inter-cartel territorial struggles (Tamaulipas among them).


The Matamoros attack additionally shows how U.S. citizens and other foreigners who look like they may be locals or migrants may be at greater risk. Matamoros, like other Mexican cities and towns located near U.S. border crossings, has seen its population of migrants from other parts of the Americas surge over the last decade. In recent years, people escaping the poor security and economic conditions in Haiti have made up an increasing portion of Matamoros' migrant community. In February, NGOs estimated a total of 1,000 Haitian migrants were in Matamoros. Cartels and smaller local gangs commonly target migrants for kidnapping for ransom, human trafficking, or to recruit (and sometimes outright force) them into their criminal enterprises, including drug trafficking.

The four Americans who were targeted in the recent attack were Black and it is possible the cartel members racially profiled them, believing they were migrants or Haitian traffickers encroaching on the Scorpion's territory (as Mexican and U.S. authorities reportedly theorized). The possibility that the gunmen racially profiled the Americans prior to the attack has already fueled fear among the city's migrants, leading 100 Haitian asylum-seekers to flee one of Matamoros' camps following the attack. Hispanic and Latino U.S. citizens have long faced similar risks in Mexico, and the Matamoros attack demonstrates that Black tourists and business travelers may be similarly at greater risk of a mistaken identity attack in Mexico's high-violence regions, especially those with large Haitian migrant populations.

The Mexican Government's Response
The Mexican government's quick reaction to the kidnapping illustrates the trend of Mexican authorities conducting a highly public and elevated security response when U.S. citizens or other tourists are victims of violent crime, given the importance of tourism to the Mexican economy. Tourism accounted for just over 7% of Mexico's total GDP in 2021 as the country attracted over 31 million visitors that year. The Mexican government will likely continue to prioritize sending security forces to areas where tourism serves as the lifeblood of the local economy (like Quintana Roo, Baja California and Baja California Sur) in an effort to maintain the image of low criminal activity in these popular tourist destinations, despite Mexico's overall high rate of violent crime.

But the kidnapping of the four U.S. citizens is unlikely to change Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's overall approach to containing cartel violence in his country. The Lopez Obrador administration has never clearly outlined a security strategy since taking office in December 2018. But the president's catchphrase of approaching cartels with ''hugs, not bullets'' has reflected his government's broadly non-interventionist approach to cartels' presence. As such, Mexico's security forces rarely seek to proactively combat cartel influence, opting instead to simply keep violent crime statistics down in tourist areas and major cities. This strategy relies heavily on the use of a militarized policing force created under his presidency called the National Guard, which has absorbed units and officers from the Federal Police, Military Police and Naval Police. The Lopez Obrador government will almost certainly continue to utilize the National Guard to attempt to curb migration patterns, protect critical infrastructure and ensure increased safety in tourist destinations. But these areas of emphasis will likely continue to leave certain areas vulnerable to the influence of cartels — especially in states where rival cartels are fighting for control over territory, which include Tamaulipas (where the four U.S. citizens were kidnapped), Michoacan, Mexico State and Guerrero.

The Lopez Obrador administration's reaction to the Matamoros attack will also raise the risk of protests in Mexico by showcasing the government's continued failure to address security threats facing Mexican citizens. Many Mexicans have already expressed anger on social media over their government's swift response to the kidnapping of U.S. citizens, which stands in stark contrast to the historically slow or nonexistent response to the daily kidnappings of Mexican citizens. According to data compiled by the Mexico-based Alto Al Secuestro (Association to Stop Kidnapping), there were 5,256 reported kidnappings in Mexico between December 2018 and January 2023 — an average of four per day. But Mexican authorities rarely respond to these kidnappings in a proactive manner unless U.S. citizens and other foreigners are involved.

Activists have previously organized mass protests over kidnappings in the country — most prominently in response to the kidnapping of 43 student teachers in Guerrero state in 2014, which saw some demonstrations turn violent. Against this backdrop, incidents that highlight the disparity in security reactions for foreigners and locals — like the Matamoros kidnapping — raise the risk of renewing such protests by reminding Mexican citizens of their government's apparent disregard for their safety.

The U.S. Government's Response
The United States remains highly unlikely to directly intervene in the fight against cartels in Mexico, despite Republican lawmakers' increased calls for such action following the Matamoros incident. In recent weeks, certain members of the Republican Party have used the kidnappings to criticize the Mexican government's record on security, with some — including Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — going so far as to propose legislation that would allow the U.S. military to intervene in Mexico. The draft bill would seek to designate nine of the most powerful Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, thus allowing U.S. armed forces to be dispatched to Mexico. Former U.S. President Donald Trump also suggested labeling Mexican cartels as terrorist entities, though his administration never followed through on the effort. While the legislation is currently being debated by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, it is highly unlikely to be passed as it has been criticized by Democrats and some Republicans for proposing to interfere with another country's security policy. But even on the off-chance that the bill is ratified, Lopez Obrador has indicated that his government would not cooperate with any U.S. armed forces sent to his country to contain cartel violence, stating such a deployment would ''breach Mexico's sovereignty.''

But while the United States is unlikely to respond at the federal level, U.S. state governments could make regulatory changes in an effort to push Mexico to increase security efforts. Similar violent events against U.S. citizens could spur U.S. authorities to implement increased border security measures in an effort to prevent cartel violence from spilling across the border. Such measures would most likely come from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who previously implemented inspections along his state's border with Mexico in response to a surge in illegal border crossings in April 2022. The measures imposed by the Texan state government slowed cross-border traffic to a crawl and angered truckers, who formed a blockade at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge that nearly stopped traffic in both directions for three days. Economists estimated that delays from the inspections, which were only in place for less than two weeks (from April 6 to April 15), led the U.S. economy to lose an estimated $8.97 billion, with Texas alone losing $4.23 billion, as fruits and vegetables rotted in trucks. The re-implementation of such measures would risk similar logistical and financial challenges.

The United States will also likely continue to release periodic statements to further warn citizens about the dangers of traveling to Mexico. In the aftermath of the U.S. citizens' deaths in  Matamoros, ​​the U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Mexico released a statement warning the thousands of U.S. students expected to visit the country in the coming weeks for spring break to exercise caution and to avoid visiting Mexican states designated ''Do Not Travel'' on the U.S. State Department's website. The advisory is the latest in the U.S. diplomatic push to educate American citizens about the dangers of traveling in Mexico. Such statements will continue to appear in the future, particularly in reaction to U.S. citizens falling victim to violent crime.

Sticking to the Script
In Mexico's criminal landscape, there is little room for a change of course. Cartel members must always fight for their survival, lest risk being assassinated by rival criminals or arrested by authorities. The Mexican government must balance between enforcing security to keep high-priority areas safe (like economically-important tourism destinations), while still granting cartels enough leeway to stave off a larger backlash. And the U.S. government must respond verbally to threats to its citizens and provide whatever direct security assistance to Mexico that its southern neighbor will accept. Barring massive (and unlikely) changes to the economic and/or political environments in the United States and Mexico, or to the U.S. market for illegal drugs, the parties involved will be confined to these roles. Both countries' 2024 general elections provide potential wildcards in the form of opposition candidates. But for all their bluster, any new president in either country will almost certainly return to the standard script amid economic, security and political pressures.

Cartel violence is a slow-moving tragedy — Mexico's personal forever war. Organized crime bleeds the Mexican economy and contributes to poverty, even as new manufacturing facilities and tech startups improve conditions for few. Incidents like the attack on the four Americans in Matamoros, while horrific, are sadly the norm for locals in much of the country. And that grim reality is unlikely to change anytime soon. With no serious, existential threat from domestic security forces, cartels and smaller gangs will continue to threaten the lives and livelihoods of locals, foreigners and businesses alike, requiring constant vigilance as crime rates forever fluctuate between ''acceptable'' and ''catastrophic.''


531266
Title: Ayotzinapa Case
Post by: Crafty_Dog on April 14, 2023, 03:09:03 PM
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/mexico/2023-04-14/ayotzinapa-case-fugitive-interviewed-israeli-magazine?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=fe77497e-6cda-4436-a095-381620e947ef