Thread: Protests may be Mexican drug cartels' latest tactic

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Protests may be Mexican drug cartels' latest tactic to fight military presence

07:01 AM CST on Thursday, February 19, 2009
By LAURENCE ILIFF, The Dallas Morning News
liliff@dallasnews.com

MEXICO CITY – Drug cartels unleashed a new and potentially powerful weapon this week in their battle with the government, analysts say – the use of unarmed civilian protesters to demand the withdrawal of army soldiers in drug hot spots along the Mexico-Texas border.

Protesters paralyzed nine bridges linking Mexico to Texas on Tuesday, and local, state and federal authorities allege that the demonstrators were paid by drug-trafficking groups.

If true, it puts the government in a delicate position. The protesters have a constitutional right to demonstrate peacefully, and they face increasingly tough economic conditions, including growing unemployment and a $5-a-day minimum wage.

"It's an evolution of the strategy of groups fighting the government to demonstrate and to signal their areas of control," said Arturo Yañez, a commentator on security issues. "These are people without AK-47s, without grenades, who can take control of international bridges, and the government doesn't do anything about it."

Officials in Ciudad Juárez, where all U.S.-Mexico traffic was shut down Tuesday, said in a statement that they respected the right of people to protest "when it does not affect third parties." But they cited opinion polls showing that 80 percent of residents support the military presence.

President Felipe Calderón has sent tens of thousands of troops to drug hot spots to contain spreading cartel violence.

Alfredo Quijano, editor of the Norte newspaper in Ciudad Juárez, said some – but not all – of the taxi drivers and other protesters had apparently legitimate grievances. Many of them were women and children.

About 150 formal human rights complaints have been lodged against soldiers in and around Juárez since the army arrived there more than a year ago.

But, he added, the demonstrators were probably organized, paid and encouraged by trafficking groups in a coordinated effort not just along the border, but also in other cities, including Monterrey, where Calderón will visit this week to celebrate "Army Day."

Given massive border unemployment, he said, recruiting protesters is not difficult.

Media reports quoted some protesters who anonymously said that they had been paid to hold anti-army signs. But others said they had legitimate grievances against the army for illegal detentions of loved ones, who they say were taken away in military vehicles and have not been seen or heard from since.

Taxi drivers also said they were demanding the release of a colleague detained by soldiers.

The government said the detained taxi driver was monitoring army patrols and had drugs in his vehicle when soldiers searched it.

Quijano said that nearly everyone detained by the military seems to end up in possession of drugs, which raises the question of whether the drugs were being planted, a practice human rights investigators have documented in the past.

The Mexico-Texas international bridges have long been used for protests and are closely associated with the democracy movement of the 1980s and 1990s, when blockages were used to denounce vote fraud and to get the attention of the U.S. government.

What the cartels want, Quijano said, is respect for their traditional areas of influence and a level playing field when it comes to government law enforcement.

One of the recurring themes since Calderón declared war on the cartels more than two years ago is the accusation by some trafficking groups that the government and the army protect the Sinaloa cartel to the detriment of others.

Last summer and fall, a dozen top federal law enforcement officials, including the drug czar, were jailed and accused of helping the Sinaloa cartel and its allies.

Calderón has said the government fights all the cartels equally and will not be intimidated by them.

Mexican government officials attributed Tuesday's protests to the Gulf cartel and its paramilitary enforcement wing, the Zetas.

Those groups operate in the Texas-Mexico border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, but have moved into Chihuahua to help the Juárez cartel hold off its Sinaloa rivals, analysts say.

Quijano said police are being targeted in Ciudad Juárez because the "local" Juárez cartel believes that law enforcement and soldiers have sold out to the "outsiders" – the Sinaloa cartel.

He also said it was noteworthy that all of Tuesday's protests were held in areas that the Juárez and Gulf cartels consider part of their traditional drug routes to the U.S.: Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Veracruz.

"It's a plan to pressure the government," he said.

On Wednesday, "narco-banners" appeared in Juárez threatening the head of public security, Roberto Orduña Cruz, and demanding his resignation. One of his top subordinates, police operational director Sacramento Pérez Serrano, was gunned down Tuesday along with two other officers.

Quijano said some of the banners were signed by "La Linea," the enforcement arm of the Juárez cartel.

What the cartels want, Quijano said, is respect for their traditional areas of influence and a level playing field when it comes to government law enforcement.

What the cartels want? And what the heck are their "traditional areas of influence"? --bribery, theft, murder, kidnapping, escorted shipments of illegal drugs, etc. Gimme a break. What the cartels want is to eliminate their government law enforcers altogether!

The cartel's sound more organized than our own government!