Thread: Mexico - Crackdown called 'total failure'

Crackdown called 'total failure'
Mexican leaders criticized after recent violence
July 11, 2008

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau


MEXICO CITY — It was a crime that seemed intended to mock President Felipe Calderon's 18-month campaign to bring the country's underworld bosses to heel.

Within just eight minutes Thursday in a city known as Mexico's Cradle of Gangsters, gunmen wielding AK-47s ambushed state police officers near their headquarters and massacred nine civilians near an auto body shop.

Investigators blamed "organized crime" for the killings but did not name suspects or make arrests. The killings took place on the downtown streets of Culiacan, capital of Mexico's Sinaloa state, despite the presence of thousands of federal police and troops who have been deployed there by Calderon in a highly publicized effort to bolster public security.

"It's a failure, a total failure," Mercedes Murillo, the president of a citizen's group in Culiacan, said of the federal deployment.

"We are completely defenseless," said Murillo, whose brother was killed last September. "Things are completely out of control."

State authorities offered no details of how the body shop killings might be tied to Culiacan's notorious drug smuggling organizations. But the killings of two policemen were similar to attacks that have killed hundreds of officers across Mexico in recent months.

Among Thursday's victims were the repair shop's owner, several of his employees and a father and son team of university accounting professors who were picking up their car.

Neither army troops, nor local or federal police were in the vicinity when the attacks occurred, according to local press accounts. Calderon deployed nearly 3,000 troops and federal police to patrol Culiacan and other areas of the state in May.

"When the federal authorities are on the east side of town, the killings take place on the west side," Murillo said. "When they are on the north side, the killers hit on the south side.

"It seems the only ones organized are the criminals," she said.


Violence claims 5,000
Some 5,000 people have been killed in gangland-style violence across Mexico since Calderon launched his campaign in December 2006, more than 2,000 of them in the first six months of this year. Those killed include about 500 policemen, many of whom officials acknowledge were slain for their relationships with organized crime rather than their fight against it.

At least 260 of the underworld killings this year have taken place in Sinaloa, most of them in Culiacan. By one media count, 62 local, state and federal police have been killed in the state this year.

Sinaloa, an agricultural state on the northwest Pacific coast, is considered the birthplace of Mexico's narcotic trade. It's home to some of Mexico's most powerful crime families, including that of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who in recent months has been fighting former allies, with battles sweeping from Culiacan north to the Texas border.


Gunmen attack
Thursday attacks began shortly after 11 a.m., when assassins opened fire on two policemen as they rode in a pickup truck on a downtown street, killing an agent and severely wounding a commander. The commander is in charge of the state police's auto theft unit.

Another police commander gave chase of the gunmen in his car, but he was ambushed and fatally injured by another assassination squad.

Within minutes, either those gunmen or another team attacked the body shop, killing three men on the sidewalk in front and then gunning down the shop's owners and mechanics inside and the two professors.

Earlier this week, the bodies of six men who had been tortured, killed and set afire were discovered in Tijuana, the border city across from San Diego. Thousands more federal troops and police are patrolling that city as part of Calderon's campaign.

So far this year, 600 people have been killed gangland style in Chihuahua state, most of them in Ciudad Juarez, which lies across the Rio Grande from El Paso. More than 160 others have been slain in Baja California, the state that includes Tijuana.


Regrettable consequence
Calderon and other senior federal officials have routinely shrugged off the killings as a regrettable consequence of the gang crackdown.

They argue the deployment of federal forces is a first step in the effort to regain control of crime-ridden areas of the country.

Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico's secretary of public security, said in a recent radio interview that the drug gangs have ramped up the violence both to maintain control of their own members and to terrify communities into submission.

"Using violence as a means of internal control is a historic tool," Garcia said of Mexico's smuggling organizations, which send billions of dollars in cocaine and other narcotics to U.S. consumers each year.

"What's new is the criminal tactic of causing a propagandistic effect," he said. "It's intended to build social support or to intimidate or frighten the community."

It seems effective enough. Murillo, the Culiacan activist, said a protest march against Sinaloa's wave of violence organized by her group earlier this week drew just 50 participants, while similar marches in the past have drawn thousands.

"There is panic, but people don't do anything," she said. "Society is silent."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hea ... 84347.html

State authorities offered no details of how the body shop killings might be tied to Culiacan's notorious drug smuggling organizations.

The body shop could be connected to the cartels by fitting vehicles and trucks with false compartments for smuggling and repairing bullet holes for rival cartels or by refusing to work for the cartels.

Mexico makes billions annually from illegal drug and alien smuggling--how truly dedicated is the government to halting this smuggling? Thanks to the $1.6 billion anti-drug package the military and the cartels will have new technology and equipment to aid their smuggling.

Mexican cartels and criminals control Mexico's northern states--not Calderon's government. NAFTA should be withdrawn on that point alone.

We need armed and fully equipped National Guard on our border with power to use whatever force necessary to prevent these Mexican terrorists from entering the U.S.

It's a failure, a total failure," Mercedes Murillo, the president of a citizen's group in Culiacan, said of the federal deployment.



Of course it's a failure. For it to be successful, Calderon would have to be actually serious about this and he's not.

Mexico has always been a savage, lawless, criminal society with those in leadership positions corrupt in the interest of becoming wealthy and powerful. This has been the case for time eternal and is never going to change. Being on this continent and attached to a successful nation such as the United States may lend an air of respectability to Mexico but the fact of it is that there is nothing respectable about that country anymore than if it were another barbaric, uncivilized nation on the other side of the world.

This "crackdown" Calderon is making such a big show of, is exactly that....a show. A means to collect billions in free money, boost Mexico's military, and arm and fund the cartels, all on the backs of America's taxpayers.

lets just keep sending them money. Of course they will use it to fight the drug cartels. HA HA HA

MyAmercia wrote

Mexican cartels and criminals control Mexico's northern states--not Calderon's government. NAFTA should be withdrawn on that point alone.

Great point, MyAmerica, can you imagine if the gansters that control Mexico's northern border were starting to affect the shipping of goods and services because of truck hijackings, robberies, assasinations of drivers, etc, whatever these thugs can reach in their black bags and pull out? If that happens, I think our military would have to step in where Mexico fails and control the border..but only in a fashion by the designers of the SSP (NAU). The powers that be will never abandon NAFTA because they are traitorous idiots.

I'm all for taking our military and wiping out all of the cartel and gangs along the border, thus ensuring what commerce transportation that crosses the borders is protected, but this idea shouldn't give credence to Mexican trucks crossing our border and not subject to inspection until they are hundreds of miles inside our country.

Mexico is a failed country, run by corruption and anarchy. Crime is the word of the day and Calderon is a joke. He doesn't run his country..Criminals, villans and thugs run his country. Wiping them out might be an excuse by the architechs of the SSP to bring forth the merging of our nations since Calderon is either not doing as much as he can on purpose, hoping for an NAU merge, or, he is totally incompetent, ignorant, or just doesn't really care.