Mexico governor: Cartels behind northern protests

By MARK STEVENSON, The Associated Press
4:59 p.m. February 13, 2009

MEXICO CITY — Street protests against the army's presence in the northern city of Monterrey were organized by drug cartels in an apparent bid to disrupt the government's anti-drug crackdown, Mexican officials alleged Friday.

Gov. Jose Natividad Gonzalez of Nuevo Leon state said this week's protests have snarled traffic in Mexico's third largest city, home to 3.7 million, and "severely disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens."

About 150 masked people blockaded a main avenue and burned a truckload of wooden pallets on Thursday, the fourth day of evening rush-hour demonstrations.

Officials said Friday that the drug gangs were also responsible for the killing of the police commander in charge of investigating the protests.

"Organized crime groups that are part of a national network have decided to use local residents ... to seize the main streets and paralyze traffic in our city," Gonzalez said.

He did not say why authorities specifically suspect the cartels.

The army said in a statement that it had detained the alleged protest organizer, Juan Antonio Beltran, and that he had acknowledged paying people 200 to 500 pesos ($14-$35) to participate.

Beltran purportedly also handed out backpacks stuffed with school supplies – 71 of which were found in his truck – to entice youths.

Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez Mont said Friday the cartels "have tried a strategy of mobilizing some youths, the great majority of whom ... are on drugs, to block the streets."

He said the cartels are "trying to undermine the authority of the government," but called the attempts a sign of desperation.

Human rights activists say there are legitimate complaints about abuses by soldiers, including cases in which patrols opened fire on civilians at military checkpoints.

But they say it is unclear who is behind the demonstrations in Monterrey, about a two-hour drive south of Laredo, Texas.

"We think there is somebody behind (the demonstrations), but we don't know if it is organized crime, the government or some political party," said Consuelo Morales of the Monterrey-based Citizens in Support of Human Rights. "What worries us is that they could use this as a pretext to pass laws against hard-won rights like the right to protest."
Since taking office in 2006, President Felipe Calderon has dispatched thousands of troops to patrol Mexico's drug hotspots.

Jose Luis Pineyro, a sociologist at Mexico's Autonomous Metropolitan University who studies the drug trade, said there are indications that drug gangs may be trying to foment complaints against the army. The army accused cartels last year of disguising hit men as soldiers and committing abuses so residents would demand the patrols leave.

Anti-army protesters briefly blocked two border bridge crossings in the city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, on Jan. 31.

The Mexican government has said it wants to withdraw the military but cannot do so until police forces are able to take on the heavily armed cartels.

More than 6,000 people died last year in a wave of drug violence that has hit the nation especially hard in drug trafficking regions.

Authorities said Friday they had discovered fragmentary remains of 14 to 16 people in a grave in northern Coahuila state.

Meanwhile three hit men were killed in a shootout with soldiers in the outskirts of the town of Villa Ahumada, 80 miles south of El Paso, Texas, said Enrique Torres, spokesman for the joint federal police and military operation in Chihuahua state. Just three days earlier, gunmen kidnapped nine people from the town and later killed six of them, setting off a series of gunbattles that left another 15 dead.

Also Thursday, gunmen ambushed a police patrol in southern Pacific coast highway, injuring four officers, the Guerrero state prosecutor's office said.

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