Thread: M3 Report 5/20/2008 The Other War

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
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Foreign News Report



The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.

El Universal (Mexico City) 5/20/08

1) (The main editorial, "The other war", follows):
If someone were to assert that despite all its problems the country is in the process of vanquishing the drug cartels few would believe it. The reality is that according to the numbers and the terrible images of violence which accompany them the country is at least in a situation in which it might be able to reduce narcotraffic significantly - although perhaps never completely -.
But at the same time another terrible truth: according to all the information and polls, Mexicans believe
this a little or half way so and President Felipe Calderon's government does not seem to have a persuasive discourse so that the advances may have an echo. According to public opinion polls, citizens are not so much skeptical as unsatisfied with the results and divided about them. Something isn't being communicated adequately. According to figures gathered up to date, Mexico seized 49.3 tons of cocaine in 2007 and 1,841 of marihuana, while Colombia, scenario of a no-holds-barred combat against narcotraffic, seized 76 tons of cocaine and 40 of marihuana.
As far as weapons and currency, the last two years have produced much larger seizures than those of the six years of the previous administration; they are the largest as to firearms in at least twenty years and the largest in world history when it comes to money (from Zhenli Ye Gon: 205 million dollars). Likewise, the unthinkable has been achieved: changing the discourse of the United States and having it assume the phenomenon as a shared problem.
But if all these are data, not speculations, and if the government's say so is based on facts, what is happening? In this war which offers results, the one which the government loses is that of public opinion, an important one for the success of the first one."

2) A total of 23 executions were recorded around Mexico in the last few hours; these are on top of the 20 reported on Sunday. The newest group includes five unidentified victims found in the Ciudad Juarez area.

3) (Also from El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia) )
In Cali, Colombia, military personnel searched a house used by the "Los Rastrojos" gang and found:
- 350 CQ rifles (Chinese version of the U.S. M-16)
- 257 AQM rifles (equivalent to the Russian AK-47)
- 1,487 loaders for rifles.
One person was arrested. Wilbur Varela, leader of the gang, was murdered in Venezuela in January. Last year, 18.8 million dollars were found in a house in the same block.
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El Nuevo Diario (Managua, Nicaragua) 5/20/08

Narcotraffickers abandoned a 40' long fast boat ("cigarrette boat") equipped with four 240 HP engines. The load: 113 sacks of cocaine weighing a total of three thousand 172.2. kilos. The event was in front of Bismuna Lagoon, on Nicaragua's extreme northern Caribbean coast and just south of the border with Honduras.
"The narcotraffickers abandoned the launch at seven in the evening in front of Bismuna when they were hounded by an aircraft from the gringo frigate that patrols the Caribbean waters."
The occupants fled and are being sought.
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La Jornada (Mexico City) 5/20/08

A four hour long shootout between rival drug gangs this dawn (Tues.) resulted in eight deaths and could reach fifteen. The battle was at Nombre de Dios ("Name of God") & Vicente Guerrero, in the state of Durango.
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Diario de Yucatan (Merida, Yucatan) 5/20/08

"At least" six persons, two of them police officers, were executed yesterday (Mon.) in Culiacan, Sinaloa. The two officers were the targets of a vehicle chase and were found "wrapped", tortured and shot.
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Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 5/20/08

After that "night of terror" in Villa Ahumada, Chih., the local police in effect gave up. They left a note on the door of the police facility saying "The keys are a City Hall" and then they left. The two men in custody at the local jail were abandoned. Fear reigns in town because of the possible return of armed groups. And in Parral, Chih., Jose Martinez was executed yesterday morning. He was the head of the forensic services of the state's A.G. office for the southern portion of Chihuahua.
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El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) 5/20/08

Mario Beltran Quintero was an officer of the Sonora State Investigative Police until November of 2007 when he failed a drug detection test. Now he and five accomplices have been arrested after a series of armed robberies in the area.
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El Sol de Mexico (Mexico City) 5/20/08

Panamanian officials confirmed the detection and seizure of a small "narcosubmarine" that transported cocaine destined to Europe. The submersible was chained to a ship, allowing crew members to rid themselves of it if necessary as if it were common ballast.
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La Hora (Guatemala City, Guatemala) 5/20/08

(Op/column by Eduardo Villatoro follows):

"The hypocrisy ( "Pharisseism" ) of United States immigration policy" (Quote)

(subheadline): The Political Constitution of the United States guarantees various rights to all persons who reside in its territory, independently of their immigration status, that is to say, not only to the citizens of that country nor to the undocumented immigrants. (sic)

The Fourth Amendment protects all persons against unreasonable searches and seizures and the 14th Amendment guarantees the right of due process and the equality before the law to all persons who live in that nation.
But such announcements resemble closely the TV series about judicial and police themes in the sense that one is theory and fiction, and another far distant one is the crude reality especially because undocumented immigrants lack minimal rights. In the detention centers, in the hearings before immigration authorities and in the deportation processes, human rights are toilet paper.
If not, there are the 290 captive Guatemalans, with another hundred Latin Americans in Iowa, less than two weeks after President Bush offered his Guatemalan colleague, Alvaro Colom, that he might intercede so that the massive captures and deportations of undocumented Guatemalan immigrants might not continue, but almost nobody believed him due to his reputation which he has gained as a liar. Remember the number of times he has lied in the case of the invasion of Iraq,
A short while ago I wrote in this same space that the United States is a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved in 1948, of the International Pact of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and of the International Civic and Political Rights Pact which aim to protect the citizens of any country in all signatory countries.
Leaving those general application juridical considerations aside, citizens and governing officials of that nation brag that the United States was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles and values, and their presidents swear with a hand upon the Bible; but they don't even remember that in the book of Leviticus it says that "When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt" and they forget the commandment of the good Jesus when, in Matthew, he exhorts "feed the hungry, take care of the sick and welcome strangers."
Ah, vanity of vanities, the Preacher used to say. Hypocrisy of Pharisees, the Son of God used to say.
(The American general Romuald Rice harangues his Marines in a defenseless Caribbean island: "Now you know it, soldiers! If there are many of them, we run; if they are a few, we hide, and if there is no one in front , to battle, for we were born to die! ") - (Unquote) -
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But such announcements resemble closely the TV series about judicial and police themes in the sense that one is theory and fiction, and another far distant one is the crude reality especially because undocumented immigrants lack minimal rights. In the detention centers, in the hearings before immigration authorities and in the deportation processes, human rights are toilet paper.

A short while ago I wrote in this same space that the United States is a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved in 1948, of the International Pact of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and of the International Civic and Political Rights Pact which aim to protect the citizens of any country in all signatory countries.
Leaving those general application juridical considerations aside, citizens and governing officials of that nation brag that the United States was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles and values, and their presidents swear with a hand upon the Bible; but they don't even remember that in the book of Leviticus it says that "When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt" and they forget the commandment of the good Jesus when, in Matthew, he exhorts "feed the hungry, take care of the sick and welcome strangers."
Ah, vanity of vanities, the Preacher used to say. Hypocrisy of Pharisees, the Son of God used to say.

How about cleaning up your country before dispensing advice.