Merida Initiative Supports Mexican Organizations to Advance Bilateral Efforts on Crime & Violence Prevention

US Embassy: The Embassy of the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide funding over the next three years to support local Mexican organizations working in the area of crime and violence prevention in Mexico. The funding is part of the Merida Initiative, a historic cooperation mechanism that acknowledges the shared responsibilities of the United States and Mexico to counter drug-fueled violence threatening citizens on both sides of the border.

USAID/Mexico is partnering with four local organizations to support crime and violence prevention efforts in Mexico.  The work by these organizations will focus on two objectives: 1) Generating opportunities for at-risk youth to contribute productively in their communities; and, 2) Supporting efforts to facilitate the replication of successful crime prevention models through strategic partnerships. Read more.

Mexican police accused of shooting demonstrators point-blank in the head

World News Report: Mexican police shot unarmed protesters in the head as they were cowering on the ground, according to a hard-hitting report compiled by Human Rights Watch.

Demonstrators against the government were beaten with metal pipes, dragged to the ground and shot. A 20-year-old pregnant woman, Rosa Isela Orozco Sandoval, said she was punched, kicked and dragged across the ground. One witness told HRW that a policeman put a gun against his head, and only refrained from pulling the trigger when another policeman warned his colleague that locals were filming the confrontation.

Sun, Sex, Slaughter and Social Disaster: Summer Vacation in Acapulco 2015

FNSNews: Bullets and bodies haven’t stopped Mexican tourists from visiting the traditional summer playground of Acapulco. Despite a cresting wave of violence in recent days, local authorities tagged the hotel occupancy rate at 69.8 percent on July 21, when summer vacation 2015 was in full gear.

But since the beginning of the month, Acapulco’s streets have been painted in blood, with three, four, five or more homicides registered practically every day. In some cases, roving bands of gunslingers have shot it out with rivals in low-income residential neighborhoods. Read more. 

Pre-Election Day Violence Spikes in Mexico

Frontera NorteSur: Less than two weeks before Mexicans are scheduled to go to the polls in mid-term Congressional, municipal and state elections, violence is on the upswing. The most affected regions include the border city of Tijuana, the Chihuahua-Sinaloa borderlands, and the states of Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Michoacan and Jalisco.

Tijuana killings between groups of street-level drug dealers apparently connected to the Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) and Arellano Felix cartels, the last group repeatedly declared finished by U.S. and Mexican authorities, recalls the bloodletting of the past decade when the city was considered one of the most violent in the country.

Later touted for its presumed public safety, Tijuana recently has been replete with narco banners threatening individuals displayed in public, executions in broad daylight and the dumping of victims’ severed heads on public streets.

Mexican Government Compensates Kin of Victims of Army Massacre

Latin American Herald Tribune: The Mexican government announced it will distribute more than 50 million pesos ($3.3 million) to the families of 22 civilians killed by soldiers in a June 2014 incident that has become known as the Tlatlaya massacre.

The Executive Commission on Assistance to Victims, or CEAV, said in a statement it has begun integral reparation actions as recommended by the independent National Human Rights Commission. Read more. 

Mexico charges three with 'terrorism' after cartel violence

AFP: A Mexican judge has charged three people with terrorism over their roles in a day of violence launched by a drug cartel in Jalisco state last week, authorities said.

Three other people were released because they were "arbitrarily" detained, the council said.T he suspects were accused of organized crime "with the goal of committing ... terrorism" by burning vehicles and using them to block roads around Mexico's second biggest city, Guadalajara, the Federal Judicial Council said. Read more. 

The Mexican morass

Note: This editorial by The Economist has caused waves in Mexico. It's a very strong condemnation of the Peña Nieto administration, combining the deteriorating security situation, especially the case of Ayotzinapa, and the corruption scandals  of conflict of interest. Here in Mexico, Peña nieto gained few points with his commitment to be investigated by a hand-picked investigator.

The Economist: In a new year message Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, promised to work to “liberate” his country from crime, corruption and impunity. His cabinet has duly set these as its priorities. The message is the right one. But unfortunately for Mr Peña, Mexicans are increasingly cynical about the messenger.

Mexico is still seething over the government’s leaden response to the kidnap in September of 43 students by municipal police in the south-western state of Guerrero and their apparent murder by drug traffickers. The investigation of the case seems to have stalled. Mr Peña’s main policy response to the massacre is a proposed constitutional amendment to abolish municipal police forces. But Congress may not approve it, not least because some are less rotten than the state forces, which would take their place. Read more. 

"Not Counting Mexicans or Indians": The Many Tentacles of State Violence Against Black-Brown-Indigenous Communities

TruthOut: "They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds." - Popul Vuh

Between my eyes, I bear a scar in the shape of a "T" that I received on March 23, 1979, on the streets of East Los Angeles. It functions as a reminder that my skull was cracked, but more importantly, that I did not remain silent and that I won two police violence trials, for witnessing and photographing the brutal beating of a young man by perhaps a dozen sheriff's deputies.

These events are seared into my memory because of how I remember them. After coming back to consciousness, amid violent threats, I was handcuffed and left facedown on the cold street, bleeding profusely from my forehead. While in shock and unable to even lift my head, in my own pool of blood, amid flashing red and blue lights everywhere, I could see many dozens of officers giving chase and arresting everyone in sight. What I also witnessed in the reflection of my own blood was everything that I will relay here. Read more. 

In 2014, missing students buried 'Mexico's Moment'

AFP: Mexico finally seemed poised to write the drug war's final chapter this year -- the world's most wanted cartel kingpin was captured, homicides fell and the world hailed economic reforms.

"Everything was working like clockwork. Everything was in place. It will no longer be like this," Lorenzo Meyer, one of Mexico's most prominent historians, told AFP. But the apparent massacre of dozens of students buried "Mexico's Moment," sparking nationwide protests and triggering the biggest crisis of President Enrique Pena Nieto's two-year-old administration. Read more.

Child homicide rate more than doubles in Mexico

Southernpulse: Homicides among children under the age of 18 years in Mexico rose from 924 in 2000 to 1563 in 2011, according to a UNICEF report released the week of 30 October 2014. The study showed that men account for 78 percent of the homicide victims. From 2005 to 2011 the homicide rate per 100,000 population between the ages of ten and nineteen more than doubled from 4.6 to 11.8. The national average homicide for the population 18 years and younger in 2011 was 3.9 per 100,000 but that year some states recorded rates far higher including Chihuahua (17.3) and Guerrero (12.3). The study further highlighted that in a single year, from 2009 to 2010, there was a 34 percent increase in the number of teenagers arrested on charges relating to organized crime in Mexico. Read more. 

11 Numbers To Help You Understand The Violence Rocking Mexico

Huffington Post: On Sept. 26, dozens of students at a Mexican teachers' college went missing after a protest in the city of Iguala. They were last seen being hauled off into police vans and haven't been heard from since.

While searching for the missing students, investigators have uncovered a string of mass graves, police working for drug cartels and government officials at the helm of criminal operations.  Read more. 

Behind Mexico’s latest massacre: Authorities were warned but didn’t listen

The Hill: The U.S. government-funded Merida Initiative was supposed to bolster Mexican government efforts to promote the rule of law and human rights. The accountability failures exposed by the Iguala atrocity suggest that it’s time to take a closer look, to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money is part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Yet so far, Mexico’s government has long treated Guerrero’s civil society as a threat rather than as a partner – jailing its leaders – like Nestora Salgado, a migrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in the state of Washington. She returned to her hometown of Olinala to lead the community police, taking on rapists and murderers. Her “crime” was to challenge her local government’s collaboration with organized crime, naming names. She remains in federal prison even though a court dismissed the charges – and her daughter has recently received death threats. Read more.

22 police held following southern Mexico violence

AP: Authorities in Mexico say 22 local police have been arrested following the deaths of six people in Guerrero state.

Unidentified gunman and numerous officers were involved in several violent incidents that killed six people late Friday and early Saturday in Iguala, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Mexico City. Read more. 

Army unit in Mexico killings has past controversy

AP: An army officer and seven soldiers who face disciplinary action for their participation in the killing of 22 people in rural southern Mexico belong to an army battalion with a history of incidents.

The Mexican Defense Department said the eight were involved in the June 30 incident in San Pedro Limon, an encounter that the military initially reported as a shootout but that a witness has described as a massacre. Read more, 

Borderland Beat: Mexico questions travel alert issued by U.S.-cites EPN's "impressive results"

Borderland Beat: Mexico's government,  questioned the travel alert issued by the United States in which it cites warnings  of the risk of violence prevailing in 19 states.  Mexico's position is that  the information must be contextualized and detailed to be useful to US countrymen.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) pointed out that the security strategy of President Enrique Peña Nieto has achieved "impressive results", as reflected in the reduction of 22 percent in the number of incidents of kidnapping, compared to last year. Read more. 

A Bad Day or a New Bloodbath?

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Ciudad Juarez News

May 28, 2014

In one of the bloodiest days in the last year or more, nine people were murdered Monday, May 26, in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.  In separate incidents, guns, knives, hammers and possibly bare hands were the instruments of homicide.

A prominent lawyer, Salvador Urbina Quiroz, along with Judge Cesar Cordero, was gunned down by assassins as the two men were meeting in Urbina’s office on Monday afternoon.  The state prosecutor’s office (FGE), which is offering a $20,000 reward for the information leading to the arrests of the killers, said two suspects were captured on videotape at the crime scene.

Urbina was well-known in Ciudad Juarez for his leadership in professional associations, as well as his critical, published commentaries on legal affairs and the so-called drug war.

The 52-year-old criminal defense attorney handled controversial cases including the 2011 defenses of teacher Ana Isela Martinez, a young woman popularly known as “Miss Ana” who was imprisoned and falsely accused of trying to transport drugs to the United States, as well as four members of the Jaguars unit of the municipal police accused of killing four men.

In Mexico, activist mother of missing man is slain

Los Angeles Times 
By Tracy Wilkinson
May 20, 2014

For 2 1/2 years, Sandra Luz Hernandez, like so many Mexican mothers, searched for her missing son.

Her activism grew steadily over time. She hung posters of her son and others who had disappeared. She led marches through her hometown of Culiacan, in the infamous drug cartel state of Sinaloa. She staged sit-ins outside the governor's office to demand justice. She scoured morgues and clandestine mass graves.

Last week, friends and colleagues say, her activism got her killed. Gunmen leaped from an SUV, put on masks and shot Hernandez dead in broad daylight on a Culiacan street. Read more. 

"Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2013" Now Available

Justice in Mexico Project 
April 15, 2014

The Justice in Mexico Project (JMP) based at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of San Diego is pleased to announce the publication of “Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2013.” Thanks to the generous funding of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, this is the project’s fifth annual report providing a detailed analysis of the problem of crime and violence in Mexico, which has been a major preoccupation for both policymakers and ordinary people in Mexico, as well as a shared concern for the U.S. government and its citizens. Justice in Mexico’s annual reports have compiled the latest available data and analysis to evaluate problems of crime and violence related to drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico. These reports are especially intended to inform a U.S. and English language audience, since international news media coverage of Mexico tends to be fleeting and gravitates toward sporadic, sensationalistic incidents rather than the analysis of broader issues and longer-term trends.  Read more. 

On Mexico’s western front, cartel violence escalates

The Washington Post 
By Nick Miroff
July 25, 2013

Mexico City -  Last week, Mexican authorities were celebrating the capture of one of the country’s most notorious drug lords.

This week, they are facing a stunning escalation of cartel-related violence in an entirely different region — a sobering reminder that the grinding battle here against organized crime is being fought on multiple fronts.

In the past three days, gunmen in the convulsive western state of Michoacan have staged eight guerrilla-style ambushes on Mexican federal police convoys, killing four officers and wounding at least 15.

Open combat involving government security forces, criminal gangs and the local militias that have emerged to fight them have left at least 42 people dead in the past week in Michoacan, according to tallies by Mexico’s Reforma newspaper. Mexican officials said they are sending an additional 2,000 soldiers and police officers to prevent the violence from spiraling further out of control.  Read more. 

Torture in Mexico: ‘I still think it was a nightmare’

Amnesty International 
June 21, 2013

The Mexican National Human Rights Commission recently reported that during 2012 alone, it had received 1,921 complaints of human rights violations committed by the armed forces and 802 against federal police.

“Security forces across Mexico continue to target people perceived as the enemy, particularly those believed to have links to drug trafficking – without necessarily possessing any real evidence. This has resulted in arbitrary detentions, torture, enforced disappearances and unlawful killings,” said Rupert Knox, Mexico researcher at Amnesty International.  Read more.