Thread: Mexican Troops Aiding Smugglers, Says Report

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3408634
Ontario, CA, 1/17/2006

Mexican troops aiding smugglers, says report
Border drug war backfiring
By Mason Stockstill, Staff Writer

A report outlining hundreds of incursions into the United States by Mexican armed forces over the past 10 years supports what many officials have known for a long time: The corruption once thought endemic only to Mexico's police forces has spread to its military.
The Daily Bulletin reported Sunday on a Department of Homeland Security document that outlines 216 incidents since 1996 where Mexican military personnel crossed the U.S.-Mexican border and were spotted or confronted by the Border Patrol.

Additionally, a map bearing the seal of the president's Office of National Drug Control Policy, dated 2001, shows the locations of 34 of those incursions spread across the southwest United States.

The documents are a striking reminder that steps intended to bolster official action in the drug war can backfire in unexpected ways.

During the past decade, Mexico's military has become involved with anti-drug efforts to a greater degree than ever before, a trend furthered by President Vicente Fox in 2001, when he disbanded the nation's federal judicial police, saying it was too corrupt to successfully fight drug trafficking.

However, while the Mexican armed forces once had a better reputation for avoiding corruption than the nation's police departments, the huge amount of available bribes means many soldiers and high-ranking army officials are now on the payroll of the cartels, according to a report from the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit policy and research organization.

Dozens of officers, including several generals, have been tried for crimes related to drug trafficking in the past 10 years. In 1997, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was accused of using military resources to target one drug cartel at the behest of another. He was later sentenced to 71 years in prison.

Ironically, involving the military in Mexico's drug war has done little to slow the production of illicit drugs or their movement into the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration's seizures of heroin, cocaine and marijuana have remained relatively steady during the past five years.

"Available data indicate that Mexico's supply of marijuana and heroin to the United States has not changed substantially; transport of cocaine through Mexico to U.S. cities also appears to have remained relatively stable," the nonprofit's report found. "Furthermore, Mexican cartels are responsible for a growing trade in methamphetamines."

Deserters from Mexico's military are known to work for drug cartels, including a paramilitary unit called Los Zetas -- a U.S.-trained anti-narcotics force connected to violence as far north of the border as Dallas.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security did not return calls for comment Monday.

Mexican officials contacted by the Daily Bulletin denied that the military has crossed the U.S. border at all in the past 10 years, except on occasions when units got lost in the desert.

Rafael Laveaga, a spokesman for the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., said the incursions recorded by the Border Patrol could have resulted from drug smugglers using bogus uniforms to disguise themselves.

But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, discounted that idea.

"On many instances, (officers) can confirm that these are Mexican military units," Bonner said. "There's corruption there. The drug lords have been able to buy the military and police, and it makes it difficult for us to cooperate."

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said he was shown a report by the Border Patrol in 2001 that detailed incursions by military units. His complaints to the State Department and Mexican ambassador were brushed off, he said.

"The military is as dirty as any other part" of the government, Tancredo said. "They're part of the cartels, or many are. It's all got to do with money and drugs -- and it's bad."

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Mexico denies U.S. border incursions
PHOENIX, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Mexico is denying its military has been making incursions into the United States, blaming drug smugglers dressed as commandos for the sightings.

The denial came after U.S. Border Patrol agents in Tucson were advised in a memo of increased sightings of heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border.

Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora confirmed to the Washington Times a "military incursion" warning was given to Tucson agents, but said it was designed to inform them how to react to any sightings of military and foreign police in this country and how to properly document any incursion.

But in Washington, Rafael Laveaga, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy, said the sightings were not of genuine military forces.

"I strongly deny any incursions by the Mexican military as inaccurate allegations," Laveaga said.

Laveaga said drug smugglers headed "both north and south" wear uniforms and drive military-type vehicles, and might have "confused" U.S. authorities.

A Department of Homeland Security said a total of 216 incursions by suspected Mexican military units have been documented since 1996 -- 75 in California, 63 in Arizona and 78 in Texas, the report said.