Thread: Ariz. Gov. Janet Napolitano feels the Heat by Mexico's Pres.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... o0210.html

Napolitano feels heat in Mexico

Arizona's leader grilled on migrant slayings, other violent episodes along border recently

Chris Hawley
Republic Mexico City Bureau
Feb. 10, 2007 12:00 AM

MEXICO CITY - The shooting deaths of three migrants in Arizona cast a pall over Gov. Janet Napolitano's trip to Mexico City on Friday, as the Mexican government demanded an "exhaustive investigation" and Mexican citizens worried about a recent string of attacks at the border.

News of Thursday's attack near Tucson appeared on the front page of every major newspaper in the Mexican capital, and Napolitano was peppered with questions about the clash at a news conference after her first meeting with President Felipe Calderón.

"The practice is, and I'm sure it will be followed in this case, is to fully investigate," Napolitano told about 40 Mexican and foreign journalists.

Napolitano's two-day trip had been aimed at downplaying border friction and pushing trade, and several Arizona business leaders were brought along to emphasize that.

But the shooting brought border problems back into the spotlight.

Four gunmen opened fire on a pickup truck carrying undocumented immigrants on Thursday in the Ironwood Forest National Monument, killing two men and a 15-year-old girl. A Guatemalan woman and a Mexican man were wounded. Authorities did not know if the attackers were Americans or Mexicans.

During her news conference, Napolitano noted her history as a federal and state prosecutor and promised Mexicans there would be no impunity for those who attack migrants.

The shooting followed a mass robbery of migrants Wednesday night near Sasabe, a Jan. 27 confrontation between immigrants and gunmen wearing berets near Eloy, and the Jan. 12 shooting of a migrant by a Border Patrol agent.

Napolitano had tried to emphasize positive parts of the Arizona-Mexico relationship during her trip.

But on Friday, border strife came roaring back into the headlines.

"Arizona: Three migrants killed," the Gráfico newspaper announced in letters an inch high. "ILLEGALS EXECUTED" blared the Excelsior newspaper over a picture of detectives at the crime scene.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Ministry issued a written statement urging Arizona authorities to conduct "an exhaustive investigation in regard to the incident."

The statement was issued just before Napolitano arrived for a meeting with Patricia Espinosa, the foreign minister.

Robberies and violent clashes are nothing new along the Arizona-Mexico border. But as the United States ratchets up security, Mexicans have become especially sensitive about attacks on their countrymen. That's especially true in the media-saturated capital, where politicians are under pressure to defend Mexico's national pride.

"I am profoundly indignant with the violence we are seeing on the U.S. side," said Sen. Heladio Ramírez López. "The governor has got to take action."

The border problems also came up during the 30-minute meeting between Calderón, Napolitano and Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours.

"The president expressed to the governor of Arizona his worry about the anti-immigrant sentiments that are being shown ever more openly in that state," Calderón's office said in a statement after the meeting.

Napolitano also met with the head of Aeromexico, the Mexican airline that recently began daily non-stop service between Mexico City and Phoenix. Tourism officials are hoping the airline will help bring affluent chilangos, as Mexico City residents are known, to golf and shop in Arizona.

During meetings with other Cabinet members, Napolitano urged the Mexican government to sink money into road and infrastructure in northern Sonora to ease the flow of goods.

She also discussed a proposal that would allow U.S. inspectors to check produce exports in Mexico, speeding their transit over the border.

Several of the business and community leaders who accompanied Napolitano met Friday with Carlos Slim, a Mexico City businessman who is the world's third-richest person.

Slim discussed cross-border trade and showed his visitors some of his vast art collection, delegation members said.

"I am profoundly indignant with the violence we are seeing on the U.S. side," said Sen. Heladio Ramírez López. "The governor has got to take action."

Apparently the slaughter on his side is of no consequence.

During meetings with other Cabinet members, Napolitano urged the Mexican government to sink money into road and infrastructure in northern Sonora to ease the flow of goods.

I think mylady is alluding to illegal aliens and drugs here. After all, when was the last time you heard about shoot outs, beheadings, or robberies related to the LEGAL trade of goods between the U.S. and Mexico.

She also discussed a proposal that would allow U.S. inspectors to check produce exports in Mexico, speeding their transit over the border.

Bwaaahahaha! Yeah, ok.

Robberies and violent clashes are nothing new along the Arizona-Mexico border. But as the United States ratchets up security, Mexicans have become especially sensitive about attacks on their countrymen. That's especially true in the media-saturated capital, where politicians are under pressure to defend Mexico's national pride.

Yes we urge you to come and defend Mexico's national pride, Maybe then our government will finally get that border shut down.

Does anyone know of any U.S. citizens that are drug cartel? or of any U.S. citizens trying to smuggle U.S. citizens into Mexico? Seems to me all the people doing the killing down there are mexican citizens or from So. America which whom came across their southern border.

Stay home Govenor if you don't have the knowledge or the guts to defend the citizens of your country.

Stay home Govenor

My very thought ..stay the hell home...or move

But as the United States ratchets up security, Mexicans have become especially sensitive about attacks on their countrymen. That's especially true in the media-saturated capital, where politicians are under pressure to defend Mexico's national pride.

Well, I can relate as I, too, have become sensitive to attacks on my fellow citizens by people who are not supposed to be in this country.

And if the Mexicans are concerned about their "national pride" they should fix their country so that half of their people don't want to leave for the US.

If these people would keep their butts at home this would not happen to them, they are here illegally, they put themselves out there, for these kinds of people to prey on them, people of their own race, we owe Mexico nothing, what did they do when our American reporter was shot and killed down there in that mess where people were rioting? Huh, nothing? Yea that is about what I expected, nothing. Mexico, kiss my royal butt, these people who killed "your citizens" were in fact just more of your citizens, keep your people home and thie won't be happening anymore, stay the hell out of America, unless you are invited and take your brute thugs with you!

I can see why President Calderon is so sensitive to the situation. Since he comes from such a pure, wholesome, country environment...


Mexican gangs displaying severed heads

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Sat Oct 21, 2006

VILLA MADERO, Mexico - The drug lords at war in central Mexico are no longer content with simply killing their enemies. They are putting their severed heads on public display.

In Michoacan, the home state of President-elect Felipe Calderon, 17 heads have turned up this year, many with bloodstained notes like the one found in the highlands town of Tepalcatepec in August: "See. Hear. Shut Up. If you want to stay alive."

Many in Michoacan's mountains and colonial cities are doing just that: They are tightlipped, their newspapers are censoring themselves and in one town, 18 out of 32 police officers quit saying they had received death threats from drug smugglers.

In the most gruesome case, gunmen burst into a nightclub and rolled five heads onto the dance floor. In another, a pair of heads were planted in front of a car dealership in Zitacuaro, a town best known until now as a nesting ground for monarch butterflies.

By a highway outside Tepalcatepec, suspected drug smuggler Hector Eduardo Bautista's tortured body was dumped on July 10. Near a black metal cross put up by his family at the spot, killers apparently avenging his death have been leaving severed heads — five so far — each with a threatening message.

Beheadings and accompanying notes in sometimes cryptic and misspelled Spanish are becoming a ghoulish vogue among the gangs that grow marijuana, cook methamphetamine and run cocaine in Michoacan. There have been 420 homicides in the state this year, including 19 police chiefs and commanders, and Juan Antonio Magana, the state's attorney general, says well over half the killings were drug-related — the work of smuggling gangs reorganizing after authorities captured some of their top leaders.

"These are groups that are very big, very strong and are out to dominate territory," Magana said in an interview.
Drug smuggling in Michoacan has traditionally been controlled by a syndicate known as Los Valencia. Police arrested its leader, Armando Valencia, in August 2003 and one of his lieutenants, Carlos Alberto Rosales Mendoza, a year later.

Now, anti-narcotics investigators say, the Gulf cartel based in northern Mexico is battling its way into Los Valencia territory, relying on "Los Zetas," ex-Mexican army operatives-turned hit men. Los Valencia loyalists have fought back fiercely.

Many notes attached to slaying victims are signed "The Family," a possible reference to Los Valencia. Some mention "La Chata," a known alias for a top reputed Gulf cartel hit man.

"They don't need to leave written messages. The mere fact that they are using such high levels of violence is sending messages of intimidation, causing fear," Magana said. "But doing it shows other gangs they can act in even more gruesome and violent ways than their rivals."
With a vast and sparsely populated Pacific coast and the rugged Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains, Michoacan is good territory for producing and smuggling drugs.

Many farmers have abandoned avocado, coffee and corn in favor of marijuana in the highlands, where roads are few and police can't easily penetrate. Smuggling gangs have cleared forests for airstrips. Small planes crammed with Colombian cocaine streak in, leaving loads that are ferried to the coast and stowed on fast boats that speed north toward the U.S. border.

Michoacan also has become a den for hidden meth labs.
Journalists statewide have covered the murders but some have avoided digging further after receiving death threats. On Oct. 13, police recovered the body of an unidentified man who had been shot 38 times and dumped outside the town of Tacambaro. An attached note in fluorescent yellow marker appeared to directly threaten the media: "The family and the ZZs are the same thing. Media outlets, don't sell out."
Calderon, who will be sworn in as president on Dec. 1, wants a new, better trained federal police force to investigate drug smuggling, longer prison terms for drug convicts and more extraditions of kingpins wanted in the U.S.

He says Mexico also needs more help from U.S. law enforcement, since Mexican smugglers are serving American drug users.
Attorney General Magana denies Calderon's contention that Mexican law enforcement is overwhelmed. But in Villa Madero, a logging town of crowing roosters and stray dogs asleep on cracked asphalt streets, the abrupt mass departure of police officers suggests a different picture.
"There's an enormous pressure here," said former officer Reyes Alberto Gamino, now retired at 21. "It's very dangerous."

Mayor Alberto Villasenor has said the police were fired for failing to show up to guard a municipal dance Sept. 16. The former officers claim they quit because gunmen were waiting to kill them for arresting a reputed drug boss.

One of the officers who resigned is Gildardo Villa. Interviewed in front of his home, Villa seemed nervous, looking over his shoulder constantly and answering questions in hushed tones.
"The threats had been coming for a long time," he said. "That's why we left."

Inside his cramped City Hall office, Justice of the Peace Apolinar Yanez acknowledged that police are afraid of the gangs, whom he described as "very well armed and very dangerous."

"I'm not going to tell you who they are, not going to give you names or tell you what kinds of activities they are involved in. I don't want problems," Yanez said. "But they were threatening the police."
Since the police officers quit, many in Villa Madero say they are afraid to leave their homes.

"There's a fear that affects everyone," said Enrique Acerra, 70, who runs a used-clothing store. "It's hard to feel safe."

This is a duplicate.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=53962