Banners accuse Mexican administration of corruption

August 27, 2008 - 9:15PM
The Monitor
REYNOSA - About a dozen banners criticizing Mexican President Felipe Calderón showed up on pedestrian overpasses along this city's major thoroughfares early Wednesday morning.

"Mr. Calderon, you want to stop crime," one of the signs read in Spanish. "Start with your corrupt cabinet."

Other banners claimed Mexican army generals take orders from the wanted leaders of drug cartels and other organized crime syndicates based in the country.

The signs hung above both Hidalgo and Morelos boulevards, two major thoroughfares that run through downtown Reynosa, local media reported.

But by mid-morning Wednesday, the banners were nowhere to be seen. Mexican army soldiers had taken them down, according to a report from MetroNoticias de Tamaulipas, a Reynosa-based news Web site.

Similar banners were also placed early Wednesday morning in cities west of Reynosa - including Ciudad Miguel Alemán, Ciudad Mier and Nueva Ciudad Guerrero - and in the states of Nuevo León, Coahuila, Veracruz and Quintanna Roo, according to several Mexican media reports.

The mysterious banners appeared just two days after Calderón interrupted nationwide television broadcasts Monday evening to tell the country he would eradicate crime, which he called "a cancer."

Calderón said in his address that 100 federal police, 62 soldiers and five navy personnel have been killed in Mexico this year.

In April, recruitment signs for the Zetas - believed to be hit men for the Gulf drug cartel - appeared over the streets of Nuevo Laredo, calling on current and former Mexican army soldiers to join their ranks for good pay, food and benefits.



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