"Despite boasts by Mexico, drug cartel remains strong" by William Booth and Nick Miroff, Washington Post / April 1, 2011
APATZINGAN, Mexico — Aided by technology and intelligence from the United States, including overflights by drone aircraft and sophisticated software to eavesdrop on cellphone calls, Mexican forces have hit the La Familia drug cartel harder than any other criminal organization in Mexico.
Now, for the first time, Mexican officials are declaring that a major cartel is on the brink of collapse.
But if the government sees victory at hand, the reality in the hot farmlands and mountain hamlets in the western state of Michoacan feels very different.
Wary locals say little has changed....
With 18 months left in his six-year term, President Felipe Calderon is desperate to show that his US-backed strategy of sending thousands of soldiers and police against the traffickers is working and that his government can calm the storm of gruesome violence that has killed more than 35,000 people and threatened the nation’s stability....
Oh, they are going to legalize?
Compared with more powerful Mexican crime syndicates such as the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas, La Familia is a regional franchise, characterized by a penchant for antigovernment propaganda and a peculiar brand of evangelical Christianity, forbidding drug use in local communities while reaping millions from narcotics sales and lopping the heads off rivals....
Oh, look, the "Al-CIA-Duh" of Mexico. Smells like it to me.
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Related: Mexican Oil Siphoning Story Stinks
"One suspect is Jesus Rejon, a former corporal in the elite Mexican army unit who defected to the Zetas gang."
Yeah, "former" government drug gangs. Gimme a break.
Strange how that printed copy was cut from the web rewrite, huh?
"Gang clashes kill 18 in Mexican town" by Associated Press / March 8, 2011
CULIACAN, Mexico — Gun battles between rival gangs killed 18 people in a northeastern Mexican town yesterday, a day after seven police officers and an inmate died in an ambush of a convoy transporting prisoners in northwestern Mexico....
In a separate development, a 20-year-old woman who made international headlines when she accepted the job as police chief in a violent Mexican border town was fired yesterday for apparently abandoning her post after receiving death threats....
Also yesterday, police in the resort city of Acapulco reported finding three severed heads in plastic bags outside a tunnel that connects central Acapulco to the outskirts of the city.
We know who must have done that, huh?
Police also announced the capture of a suspected prominent drug gang member who allegedly oversaw kidnappings, extortion, bribery, and drug distribution for the “independent cartel of Acapulco.’’
We must be losing the war because it looks like the Mexican drug gangs are mushrooming.
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As the war expands:
"US drones secretly aid Mexico drug war" by Associated Press / March 17, 2011
MEXICO CITY — US Customs and Border Protection has been surreptitiously flying Predator drones into Mexico for two years, helping Mexican authorities spy on suspected drug traffickers, the Associated Press has learned.
Related: Drug cartels using submarines
The border security agency’s surveillance flights, approved by Mexico but never announced by either nation, predate occasional flights into Mexico by the US Air Force’s $38 million Global Hawk drone that began last month....
The flights greatly escalate the US role in the drug war....
Apparently that is all this government knows how to do; escalate phony wars.
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"7th child killed in Acapulco drug violence this week" by Associated Press / March 18, 2011
ACAPULCO, Mexico — Police in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco say they found the body of a 4-year-old girl who had been shot in the chest — the seventh child killed in drug-related violence in the city in less than a week...
At least seven minors have been killed in drug violence in Acapulco since Sunday, including a 2-year-old and 6-year-old boy who died along with an elderly woman who tried to protect them when gunmen opened fire at their home.
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But, hey, at least BANKS MAKE OUT LAUNDERING OODLES of DRUG DOUGH!!
Also see: Mexico’s ‘King of Heroin’ pleads guilty
"US Embassy officials in Mexico City found Chavez’s appointment to be “totally unexpected and politically inexplicable,’’ according to a diplomatic cable from September 2009 posted by WikiLeaks three weeks ago....
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Can you see the invisible ink (never made my printed paper, but did make the web)?
"Leaked cable prompts ambassador to quit" by Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post / March 20, 2011
WASHINGTON — The US ambassador to Mexico has resigned after the publication of US diplomatic cables criticizing that government’s antidrug fight, infuriating the Mexican president.
Carlos Pascual appears to be the first senior US diplomat to lose his job because of the WikiLeaks revelations. He had been stationed in Mexico for 19 months.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement last night that she had accepted Pascual’s resignation “with great regret.’’
Calderon has publicly criticized Pascual, saying early this month that he was angered by the ambassador’s characterization of the Mexican army as “risk-averse’’ in going after drug traffickers.
Calderon also said the cables laid bare US attempts to play Mexican agencies off against one another in the drug fight.
The White House and Clinton have steadfastly expressed support for Pascual, a 23-year veteran of the State Department and US Agency for International Development.
Pascual has been a leading architect of US policy toward Mexico, particularly the latest developments in the Merida Initiative, a joint effort to fight soaring drug violence.
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Wikileaks just Mossad's way of saying we have your balls.
The important events in rest of the region (according to the Boston Globe):
Haiti postpones results of presidential election
Why?
"a multibillion-dollar reconstruction effort.... a deadly cholera outbreak"
Latest related: Sunday Globe Special: The Return of Aristide
Someone else ought be returning:
Ecuadoran is charged; return sought
Prosecutors charged 40-year-old Luis Guaman yesterday in the bludgeoning deaths of a young mother and her 2-year-old son and predicted that he will be returned from his native Ecuador to stand trial.
The face of a system failure
The passport photo didn’t look like him, and yet Brockton murder suspect Luis Guaman, was waved through, fleeing the country.
Latest related: Slow Saturday Special: Elevating Ecuador to the Front Page
Don't forget to clean the cabinets:
"Another Cabinet chief resigns
LIMA — President Alan Garcia announced yesterday that his Cabinet chief has resigned just three weeks before nationwide elections and four months before the end of Garcia’s term. José Antonio Chang presented his resignation Friday for personal reasons and will be replaced immediately, Garcia said. “This afternoon I will swear in as the new Cabinet chief the current minister of justice, Rosario Fernández,’’ the president said. Chang, 52, was Peru’s fourth Cabinet chief since September and also minister of education. He plans to return to academic life."
Latest related: Peru Pooh
Panel faults Chilean mine owners in collapse
Latest related: Chilean Miners Back in the Hole
Also see: Chile
"Another Cabinet chief resigns
LIMA — President Alan Garcia announced yesterday that his Cabinet chief has resigned just three weeks before nationwide elections and four months before the end of Garcia’s term. José Antonio Chang presented his resignation Friday for personal reasons and will be replaced immediately, Garcia said. “This afternoon I will swear in as the new Cabinet chief the current minister of justice, Rosario Fernández,’’ the president said. Chang, 52, was Peru’s fourth Cabinet chief since September and also minister of education. He plans to return to academic life."
Latest related: Peru Pooh
Panel faults Chilean mine owners in collapse
Latest related: Chilean Miners Back in the Hole
Also see: Chile
