"Thank You, Gringos !"
Saturday, 17 May 2008

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.

Milenio (Mexico City) 5/17/08

(Following are the first and last three paragraphs from an op/column by Francisco Garduno titled "Thank You, Gringos !" re the approval by the U.S. House of Representatives of Operation Merida)

- Just when I thought that my capacity for astonishment was completely gone, something happened last Thursday evening which showed me that it wasn't so.
If we consider that this aid package was originally part of the supplementary budget request for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, for 103 billion dollars !, which was approved last week, we realize the abysmal difference and level of importance that the narco war in Mexico has for Americans, compared with two wars which though important in the middle term will not have repercussions for the future of the region and that many remember what happened in Vietnam.
It is inconceivable that the level of arrogance and blindness may not permit the gringos to see that the war against narcotraffic is a task not only for the Mexican government and that the repercussions will be felt on both sides of the border.
It isn't a question of the meager resources for the size of the task but the level of ignorance and compromise there is in the United States regarding the war against the narco, a war which, though they might not know it or want it, will affect their society directly, not as in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan.
- In Tlataya, Guerrero, state police officers stopped a vehicle and found a load of over 21 thousand rounds of ammo inside. A 51 and a 19 year old were arrested. The ammo was supposedly headed for Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero.
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Prensa Libre (Guatemala City, Guatemala) 5/17/08

(In a long op/column by Carolina Escobar about the recent arrest of hundreds of illegal aliens in Pottsville, Iowa, she says that a witch hunt against undocumented immigrants has begun in the U.S. and that it all points to xenophobia against Hispanics. She ends by saying):
"In short, migration is not going to stop because a country so decides or because there might be laws backing that decision; the law might be powerful, but necessity is even stronger."
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Cuarto Poder (Tuxtla, Chiapas) 5/17/08

City mayors of five border communities in Chiapas agreed that the entry of undocumented persons into the region places the health and security of the area citizens at risk. They coincided in that severe actions are needed to control these social evils.
And in Pijijiapan, Chiapas, a semitrailer with fake fiscal seals was searched and 92 Central Americans "sin papeles" (without papers) were found hiding inside. 53 Guatemalans (6 minors), 37 Salvadorans (3 minors) & 2 Hondurans.
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Norte (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 5/17/08

The Juarez City Police will be under the command of high ranking military officers beginning Monday.
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Diario de Yucatan (Merida, Yucatan) 5/17/08

- In the pre-dawn hours of yesterday (Fri.) an armed commando dressed in "AFI" (Mex. Fed. Inv. Agency) uniforms entered a prison in Coatzocoalcos, Veracruz, subdued the guards and freed six inmates, all believed to be "Zetas", Gulf Cartel henchmen.

- 23 telecommunications antennas used to monitor law enforcement radio frequencies were placed by narcotraffickers on a hill near Culiacan, Sinaloa.
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El Sur (Acapulco, Guerrero) 5/17/08

Zirandaro, a small town in the state of Guerrero, is now without a police force after "more than" fifteen of the local force, including the chief, resigned their post following the second firearm attack by armed men against their personnel. The estimate is that more than ten persons have been killed and it is known that this is the area whence officers have fled to the United States.
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El Universal (Mexico City) 5/17/08

- There were nine executions in Chihuahua from Thursday until Friday a.m.; seven of them occurred in the border area of the state despite the arrival of 400 additional military. Sinaloa also recorded two more.
In Juarez, three men were executed with AK47 rifles inside the Juarez Hospital where they had gone after having been wounded elsewhere. A fourth person was also wounded.

- At the signing of a regional accord, the governor of Coahuila, Humberto Moreira, said that the United States government must assume its share of the responsibility in order to control the flow of firearms since this is how organized crime gets its supplies.. The head of the Nuevo Leon state government, Natividad Gonzalez, expressed his pleasure because of the approval of the Merida Plan in the U.S. and added that "the government of that country must assume its responsibility in the combat against narco."
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La Cronica de Hoy (Mexico City) 5/17/08

At Jaumave, Tamaulipas (so. of Ciudad Victoria) a truck was found to be carrying 593 packages of weed weighing somewhat more than four tons. And in Ciudad Juarez, five men were arrested after officers found six containers with two tons of weed in their trailer.
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La Jornada (Mexico City) 5/17/08

That load of one ton 270 kgs. of cocaine seized in the state of Campeche (our report of 5/16 relates) was reportedly to be transported to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. There are now eight detainees in relation to that event.
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