tagged w/ La Familia
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Mexico has brought its army to bear on the battle against warring drug gangs, but local business leaders say it's not enough. They want international peacekeeping troops to come in and help out the 5000+ Mexican soldiers.
Groups representing maquiladora assembly plants, retailers and other businesses said they will submit a request to the Mexican government and the Inter American Human Rights Commission to ask the U.N. to send help.
"This is a proposal ... for international forces to come here to help out the domestic (security) forces," said Daniel Murguia, president of the Ciudad Juarez chapter of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism. "There is a lot of extortions and robberies of businesses. Many businesses are closing."
We're used to seeing blue helmets drop in on failed or close-to-failing states and so this call for peacekeepers to come to Mexico (and to a city within walking distance from the US) could be a worrying signal. The UN's other deployment in the Western Hemisphere is Haiti. Is Juarez headed that direction?
This is a short piece about UN peacekeepers at work in Haiti - it gives you a good sense of the level of challenge in a nation that they typically respond to.
A Blue Helmet in Haiti (Video)
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We've been wondering when Mexico's drug war would spill across the southern US border and, unsurprisingly, it's apparently been happening for a long time. La Familia, one of the most dangerous of the cartels, was dealt a heavy blow today by US agents:
“While this cartel may operate from Mexico, the toxic reach of its operations extends to nearly every state within our own country,” [Attorney General Eric Holder] said.
In Dallas alone on Wednesday, he said, 77 people were arrested.
Beyond the arrests, Mr. Holder said, the authorities seized more than $32 million in United States currency, more than 2,700 pounds of methamphetamine, nearly 2,000 kilograms of cocaine, about 16,000 pounds of marijuana and 29 pounds of heroin during the 44-month effort. More arrests are expected.
(Clipped to Current News by user frank_runyeon)
Vanguard's Laura Ling went down to Mexico in Narco War Next Door. After she got back from her trip she received a call about the beheading of a journalist. This clip will give you an idea of just how gruesome the conflict has become.
Journalist Beheaded in Mexico's Drug War (Video)
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We know it's bad in Juarez. It's been bad for a while now. But with the apparently accidental killing of at least fifteen at a Juarez high school party, it just seems like it keeps getting worse. The LA Times reports on a suspect who acted as a lookout for the shooters:
Officials summoned reporters to see the suspect, who said in their presence that the main Juarez-based drug cartel targeted the party because it had received reports that members of a rival trafficking group were in attendance. The suspect, identified as Jose Dolores Arroyo Chavarria, said he acted as a lookout for the 24 or so gunmen he said took part. He said they were ordered to kill everyone inside.
Just horrible. Meanwhile, it continues. From yesterday: 3 headless bodies found in 'narco-grave,' Mexican military says - CNN.com. That article puts the death toll in Juarez (just in Juarez) so far this year (just over a month) at 230 as of Monday.
How much longer will Juarez residents have to suffer this? What can we do in the US to help?
We know it's bad in Juarez. It's been bad for a while now. But... more
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GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) -- Police arrested a man Tuesday who they say headed the operations of the "La Familia" drug cartel in the western state of Michoacan.
Abel Valadez Oribe, 32, was reportedly heading for a cockfight when police stopped his car and arrested him, authorities said. They said police were tipped to his whereabouts by several informants.
Police said that Oribe, known as "El Clinton," was allegedly the mastermind behind several murders, including the assassination last year of Salvador Vergara, the 33-year-old mayor of Ixtapan de la Sal, a popular weekend retreat.
U.S. authorities arrested more than 300 people Friday in a sting focused on La Familia.
Also on Tuesday, Mexican police found dismembered remains of a man in plastic bags by the side of a road in Uruapan, another city in Michoacan, which is one of the areas most affected by drug gang violence. He was believed to around 30 years old.
Cracking down on another cartel, police said Tuesday that they had detained five suspected associates of the Gulf drug cartel for alleged involvement in violent clashes that killed four people in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo last week.
The Hidalgo state prosecutor's office said the suspects are affiliated with the Zetas, the drug ring's infamous hit men. It said the five had firearms and a grenade when police apprehended them last Thursday.
A federal judge ruled they can be held for 40 days while authorities continue the investigation.
Drug gang violence has surged in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and ordered a nationwide crackdown on drug traffickers.GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) -- Police arrested a man Tuesday who they say headed the... more
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Gunmen broke into a drug rehabilitation center and shot 17 people dead in a northern Mexican border city, an official said.
The attackers on Wednesday broke down the door of El Aliviane center in Ciudad Juarez, lined up their victims against a wall and opened fire, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the regional prosecutors' office. At least five people were injured.
Authorities had no immediate suspects or information on the victims. Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, is Mexico's most violent city, with at least 1,400 people killed this year alone. Most of the homicides are tied to drug gang violence.
Dozens of sobbing relatives rushed to the center to find out if their loved ones were among the dead. Soldiers and federal agents patrolled the streets surrounding the center in the Bellavista neighborhood.
President Felipe Calderon sent thousands more troops and federal police to Ciudad Juarez earlier this year, but the surge has done little to stem the raging violence. The city is home to the Juarez drug cartel, which is battling other gangs for trafficking and dealing turf.
The government is struggling to revamp Ciudad Juarez's police force, which is plagued by corruption and the assassination of many of its officers. Other police have quit the force out of fear of being targeted.
The massacre capped a particularly bloody day in Mexico's relentless drug war.
Gunmen killed the No. 2 security official and three other people in Calderon's home state of Michoacan, where the government is locked in an intensifying battle with the ruthless La Familia cartel, blamed for a string of assassinations of police and soldiers.
Jose Manuel Revuelta, who was promoted less than two weeks ago to state deputy public safety director, is the highest-ranking government official killed in the wave of assassinations sweeping Michoacan, the cradle of La Familia drug cartel.
Attackers drove up alongside Revuelta as he headed home and opened fire, state Attorney General Jesus Montejano said.
Revuelta tried to speed away, but only made it a few blocks before he was intercepted by two vehicles. Six gunmen got out and sprayed Revuelta's car with bullets, killing him, two bodyguards and a truck driver caught in the crossfire, Montejano said.
An AP reporter at the scene saw the bodies of Revuelta and his bodyguards in the car, which had at least 15 bullet holes in the front windshield. Soldiers and federal police rushed to the site - just three blocks from the headquarters of the Michoacan Public Safety Department - and a helicopter circled overhead.
Soldiers and federal police have intensified their fight against La Familia since accusing the cartel of killing 18 federal agents and two soldiers last month. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning.
It was the boldest cartel attack yet on Mexico's government. Authorities said say La Familia was retaliating for the arrest of one of its top members...
:(Gunmen broke into a drug rehabilitation center and shot 17 people dead in a northern... more
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