Mexico’s Deadly Cities: Ciudad Juarez

M3 Report
September 27, 2008  
Mexico: Ciudad Juarez – a deadly city – over 1000 homicides from January 1st to date-Just Across the border from El Paso
Cuarto Poder  (Tuxtla, Chiapas)  9/25/08
The spokesman for Chiapas’ Masons, Isauro Mendoza, said that the greatest problem facing Mexico is corruption, since it is the source of impunity and organized crime. “Corruption is a cancer which has been growing at an alarming pace in the country even among officials and keepers of the peace.

That’s why it’s deplorable that we hear active duty police are organized crime members and leaders who are involved in kidnappings, assassinations and various criminal activities.” He added that the federal government, the states and cities must undertake a “deep cleansing” of the police agencies under their command. (Note: a lengthy op/column which appeared in two other publications began and ended with exactly the same theme, that Mexico’s greatest problem is corruption.)
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Publico (Guadalajara, Jalisco) 9/25/08 (part of “Milenio group)
 
An ad on the front page of this paper reads as follows:
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El Diario de Coahuila  (Saltillo, Coah.)  9/25/08
 
A digest of selected items from the “National” news section follows:
–   Five police officers in Cabo San Lucas (note: at the tip of the Baja Calif. peninsula) were charged with the beating death of a U.S. citizen tourist from Oregon.
–   Mexico’s Secretary of Public Security, Genaro Garcia, has asked for a budgetary appropriation so that he “and the principal functionaries” of the agency may have vehicles armored to the highest level.
–   Mexico’s AG said that the government’s optimism in being able to defeat organized crime does not arise from a naive attitude or even less an illusory one; that they are certain they are on a correct strategy and that for this the citizenry is needed. (Note: at least one op/column strongly disagreed with this perception and called for emphasis on intelligence gathering rather than sending the military out on the streets.)
–   The sister of President Calderon made a public appeal to prevent narcotraffic money from infiltrating the 2009 political campaign.
–   In an address at the UN’s General Assembly, Pres. Calderon said that migration cannot be “reduced to the issue of security or its function as an economic phenomenon”; he called for the international community to adopt an integral vision which will provide for legal, secure, orderly migrations respectful of human dignity.
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 Diario de Yucatan  (Merida, Yucatan)  9/26/08
 
According to Isaac Moscatel, “director of Institutional Development” (not otherwise identified) : Corruption and “mordidas” cost Mexico the equivalent of 8% of its GNP and its eradication, beginning at childhood, is fundamental for the nation’s economic progress. This percentage is double the amount destined for education in Mexico, according to knowledgeable persons.  He added: ” If we are able to eradicate the corruption in our society we can begin to be competitive, for which reason we want to promote values as the cornerstone for the development of the country in every sense.” (Note: “mordidas” [literally “bites”] is a slang term for bribes paid either to avoid a harsher penalty or to make possible the completion of a desired application or other objective)
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El Debate  (Culiacan, Sinaloa)  9/26/08
 
(Three more persons were reported as homicide victims in the Culiacan and Guasave areas of Sinaloa yesterday. The last two paragraphs of the main editorial follow):
Laws are approved in the nation’s Congress; the national public security cabinet meets and reaches accord; the Army and federal police carry out vigilance operations, but none of these work to inhibit the narco triggermen  who have demonstrated that they have no respect at all for the authorities.
The wave of executions of the last few days demonstrate that the law of the jungle rules in Sinaloa, that the drug cartels are stronger and more violent than ever, and that the government agencies have to modify their strategies to counteract them.
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El Diario  (Ciudad Juarez ed.)  9/26/08
 
–   A man in his late 60’s became the year’s 1,000th homicide victim in Juarez when he resisted an armed robbery yesterday upon arrival at a Juarez shopping center parking lot.
–   Forty-five and 1/4 kilos of cocaine were found by Mex. military yesterday at Ciudad Jimenez, Chihuahua. The drug was hidden in the ceiling of the relief driver’s sleeping compartment of a passenger bus en route to Juarez.
–   Other violent events took place at different times and places in Juarez. The result, according to this paper, is that the number of homicide victims has now risen to 1,004 for Juarez this year.
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El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) , Frontera  (Tijuana, Baja Calif.)  9/26/08
 
–   Oscar Montoya was just promoted to Federal Police captain in Hermosillo. Yesterday, as he opened his home’s garage door, he was repeatedly shot with an assault rifle and killed. “Around” forty shell casings were found at the scene. The killer(s) fled.
–   Samuel Martinez, Sub-Commander of the Rosarito, Baja Calif. police, was assassinated yesterday evening on his way home. He fell victim to a car-to-car gunfire assault. “At least” two hundred cal. .223 shell casings were found.
–   In Tijuana, two police officers answered a call for assistance at a convenience store. Upon arrival they were fired upon by an unknown number of assailants who then fled. The police agents were wounded, one of them critically. Two other Tijuana police officers were wounded in a separate incident.
–   In Ensenada, Baja Calif., three men in a parked vehicle were killed by a gunfire attack. This, in broad daylight and in the town’s tourist zone.
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El Universal  (Mexico City)  9/26/08
 
–   Mexico’s Sec. of Defense, Guillermo Galvan, told senators that army troops will remain deployed on the streets some two more years to combat criminality.
–   Saul Hernandez, director of the Chihuahua state police, now resides in El Paso, Texas, since the last several weeks and crosses the border on a daily basis to carry out his duties. All this for “reasons of security.”
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Milenio  (Mexico City)  9/26/08
 
An e-mail allegedly sent by the “Zetas” ( a drug cartel’s hired hit men ) to the “El Sol de Morelia” newspaper (and published in the “La Voz de Michoacan”) warns that the death of state governor Leonel Godoy is at hand. It adds that the governor ought to strive for the withdrawal of the army because otherwise the Zetas will execute soldiers “one by one.”
(Note: the message wording itself is replete with vulgar, coarse language and profanities.)
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El Diario de Yucatan  (Merida, Yucatan)  9/26/08
 
(Note: the following is an op/column by Alexis Ortiz, a Venezuelan journalist. Though the column is noted at its end  “Caracas, Venezuela (Firmas Press)”, we were unable to determine its precise origin.
The column is presented because it is a Latin American’s rare approval of our nation from a historical perspective. It is presented as such and not for the purpose of endorsing any particular point of view or candidate.)
 
“The Great Historical Challenge of the United States”
“An issue for everyone”
 
The British historian Arnold J. Toynbee as well as the Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro were in accord that, throughout history, the peoples who were able to succeed were those which were able to overcome the challenges that reality imposed on them.

It was in that fashion that the Egyptians dominated the Nile and Engineering; the Greeks, navigation and thought; the Mayans, the jungle and astronomy; the Romans, laws and military organization; the Byzantines, the Romans’ decadence, theology and thus ad infinitum.

During contemporary times, if there has been one people who have demonstrated the competence to discern and overcome the challenges imposed by its historical conditions, but without betraying its avocation to democracy, it has been the North American people. (read: United States citizens)

It reached its independence from the British Empire by means of an inevitable war, but without incurring in hatred for the enemy, and with the object of establishing a society of solid institutions, pluralism and a progressive spirit.
In those challenging moments they counted on leaders with much wisdom and perception: Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, the two Adams, Franklin….

Then came the civil war, or of secession, in which they were able to abolish the abomination of slavery without sacrificing national unity. In order to do that the winning northerners knew to treat the southern slavers with fraternity. 
All that was possible due to the inmeasureable leadership of Abraham Lincoln, as voiced by the poetic strength of another spokesman for liberty, Walt Whitman.

Then came the presence of the North Americans in two great world wars. In both of them they acted as guarantors of free societies and they defeated expansionism and fascism.
Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower furnished the necessary leadership in those circumstances. Later came the confrontation with communism, in which the United States was the tip of the lance to avoid a planetary dictatorship and a nuclear Apocalypse.

Presidents Kennedy and Reagan are the representative figures of those years, during which the defense of civil rights by Martin Luther King also shone.

Today the world’s great challenge is the convergence of the national and ideological terrorisms (North Korea, ETA, Byelorussia, Cuba, Shining Path….) with those of narcotics traffic (FARC and Paras), with the ones from neo-communism (Chavez, Evo Morales, Correa, Ortega, Ollanta, among others) and of the Islamic fanaticism (Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas…)
The challenge of world terrorism, with the clear possibility that it arms itself with nuclear devices, is not only a threat to the North Americans but for the destiny of all humanity.
North America is once again the vanguard of liberty to resist the very real danger of terrorism. And the experience and clarity of its leaders are the great ally of men and women of good will on the planet in order to save peace and coexistence.
This is precisely why we believe that the North American elections concern all of us and that  John McCain is the correct option to preserve the values which encourage our compromise with Democracy.
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NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
Visit our website: http://www.nafbpo.org
Foreign News Report

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis.