Out Of Control Violence Erupts In Mexico’s Drug Heartland - Travel Alert
Courtesy of the State Department:
MEXICO
Travel Alert / Violence Near Border / Kidnapped and Murdered American Citizens
This travel alert was issued on April 14, 2008 and still stands.
CULIACAN, Mexico, May 20 (Reuters) - Violence has exploded in Mexico’s drug smuggling heartland in a three-way battle between rival gangs and security forces, the biggest challenge yet to President Felipe Calderon’s war against the cartels.
About 300 people have died in drug murders so far this year in Sinaloa, an arid western state that serves as the home turf of one of Mexico’s main drug gangs and where traffickers worship a bandit as their own patron saint.
The killing spilled over to Mexico City this month when assassins hired by Sinaloan smugglers shot dead one of Mexico’s top federal policemen at his home, in a direct challenge to the government.
Calderon has staked his reputation on weakening the cartels, and responded to the murder by sending an extra 2,700 soldiers to Sinaloa to try to tame the state.
But Sinaloa’s hitmen, known for their swagger, were undaunted. A gang threw grenades at a police station and machine-gunned three houses just hours after the troop deployment, killing one person in the town of Guamuchil.
Synonymous for many Mexicans with drugs and “narcocorrido” folk ballads that glamorize the lives of leading traffickers, Sinaloa had a tradition of growing marijuana and opium long before U.S. illegal drug demand took off in the 1960s.
The cartel now mostly smuggles methamphetamines and South American cocaine up the Pacific coast.
“There has always been violence here because this is where drug trafficking was born … but before it was under control,” said 73-year-old Culiacan native Juan Murray.
Residents of state capital Culiacan say they now rarely go out at night because of the violence which they fear will worsen after rival drug hitmen killed the son of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, Mexico’s most wanted man.
In a military-style attack, armed men from a rival faction gunned Edgar Guzman down at a strip mall in central Culiacan, on May 8, leaving 500 bullet casings strewn on the ground. Some 20 cars nearby were damaged in the withering gunfire.
The murder is widely attributed to the Beltran Leyva family, former allies in the cartel who have recently split with Guzman. The city expects bloody recriminations.
“The gangs are fighting each other and now with the army here the only thing we can do is hide in our houses,” said Yira Sanchez, 26, holding her one-year-old daughter.
BRUTAL FIGHT
Beyond its own internal strife, the Sinaloa gang is locked in a nationwide turf war with the Gulf cartel and both sides abduct, torture and murder their rivals, sometimes beheading them.
While the Sinaloans have managed to stage attacks in Gulf territory just south of Texas, outsiders rarely penetrate Sinaloa.
Calderon, who has sent 25,000 troops against the crime syndicates since taking office in Dec. 2006, has scored successes against the Gulf cartel, extraditing its leader Osiel Cardenas to the United States last year.
But the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration complains that Mexico’s federal forces are hindered by corrupt local police and the respect shown to Sinaloan drug bosses by the state’s residents.
“This is the center of gravity of narcotics activity from a historical perspective and its going to take a very concerted effort to be successful,” said Fred Burton, an analyst for the U.S.-based private intelligence firm Stratfor.
Despite the gang’s power, residents say the Sinaloa cartel is now splitting after the January arrest of senior member Alfredo Beltran Leyva, seized with almost $1 million in cash.
The Beltran Leyva family is playing a more prominent role and has been blamed by the Mexican media for the killing in the capital earlier this month of Edgar Millan, the No. 2 in one of Mexico’s federal police forces.
That shooting raised fears that Mexico could spiral down into a drug conflict like the one in Colombia in the 1980s and ’90s, when traffickers planted car bombs and even downed a commercial jet in a terror campaign against the government.
“The attack on Millan has taken it to another level,” said Statfor’s Burton. “It is a signal to Calderon that these groups are very capable of reaching out and killing who they want to, where they want to.”
Some 1,300 people have died in Mexico’s drug conflict this year but most of the deaths are still among rival traffickers.
In Sinaloa, the local economy is closely linked to drugs and traffickers even have their own patron saint.
Near the old statehouse in Culiacan, devotees flock to the shrine of Jesus Malverde an outlaw figure who, according to local legend, robbed from corrupt officials and gave the spoils to the poor in the early 1900s.
Vendors hawk everything from keychains to tequila glasses with his image.
Soldiers wearing ski-masks in the sweltering heat last week shut down foreign exchange stores on Culiacan’s Juarez Street to crack down on money laundering.
“The economy of Culiacan is half tomatoes … and half marijuana and poppies. If they are really going to fight the narcos here, the economy of the state will completely collapse,” said one street vendor too scared to give his name.
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Thats great. my uncle is right in the center of this shit too. and no im not joking, just flew out last night. he has been travelling back and forth teaching the new ‘employees’ down there how to do his job since the company is moving down there. hope hes alright
May 20th, 2008 at 1:20 pmToo all those companies who moved to mexico for cheap labor and abandoned our working people—–
May 20th, 2008 at 1:41 pmeat, shit, and die !
“But the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration complains that Mexico’s federal forces are hindered by corrupt local police and the respect shown to Sinaloan drug bosses by the state’s residents.”
Well, it’s like this: you’re either with us, or you’re against us. Since we’re the side with the napalm-dropping aircraft, those corrupt police and commie-sympathizing assholes might want to reconsider where their loyalties lie.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:30 pmMexico sucks. Mexico is not a friend to the U.S.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:59 pmBoycott everything Mexican.
And don’t hire the mo fo’s.
We need the border fence built YESTERfckngDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 21st, 2008 at 5:17 amThis is yet another reason why we have so many crime related problems from the illegal immigrants. The Mexicans, and many other south americans have for decades (in some cases centuries) idolized the criminal life, and looked down on solid citizens.
That same attitude comes into this country with 98% of the illegal immigrants. Until we start planting the guilty 6 feet under, every time a thug gets arrested and released on bail, that is another feather in their cap, then after they spend a littel time they add another feather. They do not realize or accept the concept on being out on bail. They look at it as those thugs were released because the police do not have the power to hold them.
Those two border agents that are in prison for shooting that puke awhile ago? the only thing they should have had done to them is a requirement they spend more time at the range, improving their accuracy.
Too many of those south of us only understand toughness. Anything else is a sign of weakness, and so they consider our country and legal system weak, and theirs to exploit.
An american citizen cannot work there without government permission, FOR EACH JOB HELD, and those non-citizens working with permission are required to have identification, including passports with them at all times. If they forget them and the federalis check and find out, straight to jail, with no quick bailouts. You are screwed for days. Figuatively, possibly literally.
I posted the other day how Hoover and Eisenhower shipped millions of illegals out of the country, it has been done twice before, to hell with the bleeding hearts, let’s do it again, political precedent has been set, once during the depression, and once during war. We have a war going on now, and we have a depressed economy. Even more reason for the POTUS to issue a directive, and let sheriff Arpaio kick ass and so everyone how to do it.
Start knocking on doors, if the hispanic residents do not have valid legal proof allowing them here, toss them on a bus with what ever they can carry, and ship them out.
Screw the opinion of the Mexican president, adn of all the other socialists out there.
No one wants to be the first to be a real hard ass on illegal immigration on a national scale, but you all can bet your sweet little asses that the Europeans that are having the Muslim problems would just love for the U.S. to set a current precedent, and stick to it, because if we did, and stuck to our guns, you can damn skippy bet one by one the other countries would follow suit.
Right now, the only real ballsy country is Australia, and they don’t get much press in the US, because they do not support liberal socialist bullshit. and that is a big no-no for our liberal, facist, socialist MSM.
One other thing, from the local Cleveland political mess,
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora on Tuesday blasted a plan to reform local government, even saying the idea — proposed by a fellow commissioner — exposes a plot to dismantle the local Democratic Party that he chairs.
Dimora proclaimed the conspiracy is between the Republican Party and The Plain Dealer.
“The newspaper is synonymous with the Republican Party. Whether you want to believe it or not — it is,” said Dimora during a commissioners meeting. “They continue — week after week, month after month, year after year — trying to find a way to break apart the Democratic Party.”
Anyone who reads the PD, which is a real rag, knows it is one of the most far left rags out there, barely outdone by the NY Slimes
May 21st, 2008 at 9:13 am