Thread: Mexico sends troops to fight Sinaloa drug cartel

Mexico sends troops to fight Sinaloa drug cartel

By Barbara Obeso
REUTERS

2:17 p.m. May 13, 2008

CULIACAN, Mexico – Mexico dispatched thousands of troops Tuesday to the state of Sinaloa, the heartland of a powerful drug cartel run by the country's most wanted man, following a wave of police murders.
Helicopters hovered over state capital Culiacan and newly arrived soldiers patrolled with federal police as President Felipe Calderón's top security officials met in the steamy city.

Sinaloa is home to a federation of drug gangs run by Joaquin “Shortyâ€

Mexican military presence expands; 3 more killed in Juárez
By Daniel Borunda / For the Sun-News
Article Launched: 05/13/2008 06:14:36 AM MDT



EL PASO — Mexican military operations will expand in response to a wave of violence in Juárez and the Mexican state of Chihuahua that an expert described as unprecedented and part of a narcotics war being waged across Mexico.

The fighting has yet to escalate into the narco-terrorism that rocked Colombia in the 1980s but it is still a national security concern for Mexico, said Tony Payan, a political science professor who studies Mexico at the University of Texas at El Paso.

On Monday, the violence in Juárez continued with three deaths, which came after the weekend slaying of Juárez police director Juan Antonio Roman Garcia and the killing of seven men in the town of Palomas, across the border from Columbus, N.M.

"You had never seen the kind of violence you are looking at in Ciudad Juárez," Payan said. "The only other time you had seen a tremendous violent time in Juárez was after the Lord of the Skies (the nickname of reputed Juárez cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes) died in the operating table (causing) an internal war within the cartel for control," Payan said.

Payan said that the nearly 300 homicides so far this year in the Juárez area could surpass the 500 murders in the years after the 1997 death of Carrillo Fuentes, whose organization has allegedly continued under the leadership of brother Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.
Payan said there appears to be a war between drug-traffickers aligned with Carrillo Fuentes and those associated with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (the reputed leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel whose son was killed last week in Culiacan) and brothers Hector and Arturo Beltran Leyva.

"I am more and more convinced there must have been some breakdown in the three or four more powerful criminal organizations. I don't think you can talk about cartels anymore, that language is old," Payan said.

As traffickers battle each other, the Mexican army and federal forces have been cracking down in an attempt to stop the bloodshed. More than 2,500 people have died throughout Mexico this year in crime and drug-related violence, the Associated Press reported.

The current violence is unpredictable because it is being committed by small independent drug cells fighting over regional territories, Mexico Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora Icaza said Friday at a Chihuahua City meeting among federal, state and local officials.

"The crimes committed, especially those with a high-degree of violence, without a doubt notably affect the tranquility, peace and safety of citizens," Medina Mora Icaza said according to a transcript. "The way they (drug traffickers) systematically infiltrate and tear the social fabric to take control of public spaces will no longer be acceptable to Mexicans."

After the meeting, officials said that Joint Operation Chihuahua -- which sent more than 2,000 Mexican soldiers and federal police officers to Juárez in March -- will expand to the southern and western regions of the state.

Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, said the governor is concerned about the border violence and has directed New Mexico public safety officials to be vigilant "to ensure the problems don't spread into the United States," the Associated Press reported.

Shipley also said Richardson plans to ask the state Legislature to approve funding for an increased state law enforcement presence in the region.

El Paso County Sheriff Jimmy Apodaca echoed previous comments by El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen, that he does not feel the violence will spill across the border. "We have a real good law enforcement community in El Paso and right now we don't anticipate anything will come across," Apodaca said Monday.

The fighting has claimed the lives of some bystanders, including a police officer's son and two taxi drivers fatally shot on the Avenida Juárez tourist strip, but the vast majority of those killed were likely involved in drug trafficking, Payan said.

"Most of the targets are individual members of organizations and cops that worked for them. I think people underestimate that," Payan said. "In the 1980s and into the mid-1990s, there was an unspoken code between the police forces and criminal organizations where there was (a line), 'I am a cop and you are a malandro (criminal). I may take money from you to look the other way but I don't work for you.' That consensus broke down in the '90s. What happened, the police forces, well, a lot of them, became employees of the criminal organization."

In January, hit lists were posted on a memorial to fallen police officers in Juárez. Payan has since tallied the death of 16 law enforcement officers. There were 40 names on the lists, including of the police director killed Saturday, he said.

Roman Garcia was buried Monday in a ceremony that included police honors and a singer who sang "La Respuesta esta en el Viento," or "Blowin' in the Wind," the popular 1960s anti-war song by Bob Dylan.

Payan added that the average person, if not involved in drug trafficking, should not worry about falling victim to violence.

"I think El Pasoans should not panic," Payan said. "They should not worry about going to Juárez. I think fear is the worse thing that people can have."


Daniel Borunda reports for the El Paso Times, a member of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership, and may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.

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