Mexico drug violence intensifies as elections approach

LA Times: A month before national elections, Mexico is witnessing a level of violence in which drug traffickers have directly confronted the army, raising questions about whether the government's progress in combating crime might be a hollow victory.

In an apparent first for the nation, a drug cartel in the prosperous state of Jalisco used rocket-propelled grenades to shoot down a military helicopter, killing at least six soldiers. Read more. 

Journalist: Drugs destroying Mexico

CNN
November 8th, 2013

Becky Anderson talks with Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernández about the country's war on drugs who also wrote an Op-ed for CNN.com. You can read it below:

Since December 2010, I have lived with death threats because I have documented and revealed corruption at the highest levels in the Mexican government. My family has been attacked, I have to live with bodyguards and some of my sources have been killed or are in jail.

But my case is just one of many. A large number of journalists and human rights activists - as well as those who denounce corruption in Mexico - receive similar threats or have been killed. And the biggest danger is not in fact the drug cartels, but rather the government and business officials that work for them and fear exposure.

My new book "Narcoland" is the result of five grueling years of research. Over this time I gradually became immersed in a shadowy world full of traps, lies, betrayals, and contradictions.  Read more. 

On Location Video: Mexico's drug cartels recruit migrant labor

GlobalPost
By: Deborah Bonello
August 4, 2013

Mexico — As the US Congress mulls legislation to increase fencing and manpower on the United States southern border, migrants from Central America face increasing perils as they cross Mexico. The Mexican crackdown on drug trafficking, partly financed by the US government, is prompting criminal gangs to exploit other revenue streams such as kidnapping and extortion. And these gangs are now tapping migrant streams for new recruits. Those fleeing poverty back home find it hard to resist the lure of a life of crime, and some are being given no choice.  Watch here. 

Mexico Violence: Clashes Between Federal Police, Gunmen Leave 14 Dead

Huffington Post 
April 11, 2013

Morelia, Mexico - At least 14 people died Wednesday in a series of clashes between gunmen and federal police in Michoacan state, a western area that has seen a surge of violence in recent years attributed to drug cartels, authorities said.

Federal police said in a statement the first gunbattle began when officers aboard a helicopter spotted armed men traveling in four vehicles in the town of Gabriel Zamora.

The gunmen opened fire on the agents, who shot back and killed five assailants, the statement said.

It said one of those killed was high in the leadership structure of a Michoacan-based drug cartel, but didn't identify the group.

Hours later in the town of Apatzingan, federal agents were accompanying a caravan of citizens commemorating the anniversary of the death of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata when gunmen fired shots at some of the participants. Police killed one of the gunmen, authorities said.  Read more. 

Why Killing Kingpins Won't Stop Mexico's Drug Cartels

The Atlantic
By Keegan Hamilton
February 27, 2013

The rumor started Thursday afternoon when the newspaper Prensa Libre reported that several narcos were killed during shootout in Guatemala's remote Petén region. Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez said one of the corpses was "physically very similar" to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, top boss of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. Other outlets, including the unfiltered drug war diary Blog del Narco, spread the word on Twitter, piquing the interest of the international press, and sending Mexican and Guatemalan officials scrambling to confirm the powerful drug lord's purported demise.

The rumor was soon thoroughly debunked. There was no shootout, let alone one that claimed the life of the modern day Pablo Escobar. (Lopez, the Interior Minister, later apologized for the "misunderstanding" and blamed contradictory reports for the confusion.) Not only is El Chapo still very much alive, his legend has grown larger than ever. Already a billionaire according to Forbes, the Sinaloa capo has supplanted Osama bin Laden as the State Department's top international target, and the Chicago Crime Commission recently named him Public Enemy No. 1, a title originally reserved for Al Capone.  Read more. 

New urgency to cross along tougher U.S. border

The Washington Post

That’s when many of these men crossed over for the first time, in their late teens or early 20s.

Today the area is perhaps the toughest part of one of the most heavily guarded and closely watched international boundaries in the world. The Department of Homeland Security has doubled border security and immigration enforcement spending since 2006 to $18 billion a year, deploying sensors, cameras, fencing, surveillance drones and federal agents.

The immigration overhaul proposals from Congress and the White House promise to harden the border even more.

The Department of Homeland Security does not estimate how many illegal migrants make it across, but researchers and the migrants themselves say the odds of getting caught are greater than ever.

Since 2005, the United States has doubled the number of Border Patrol agents deployed along the Mexico boundary to 18,516, an all-time high.  Read more. 

Honoring Drug War Dead, and Spurring a Debate

The NY Times

By Randal Archibold
Published: January 23, 2013

MEXICO CITY — Reeling from a drug war that has killed tens of thousands and a boom in violent crime in general, Mexico has built a memorial to victims of violence. But like a crime scene still under investigation, it sits off limits behind white tarp, wrapped in questions and uncertainty.

A series of rusted metal slabs amid reflecting pools in a corner of Mexico City’s biggest park, the memorial now stands as an accidental metaphor for the fog and doubts that swirl around the country’s layered debates on violence and victimhood.

Rushed to completion by President Felipe Calderón, whose six-year term was overwhelmed by the explosion of violence, the site has not yet publicly opened. On Nov. 30, in Mr. Calderón’s last 90 minutes in office, his administration sent a short e-mail to reporters announcing that the memorial was complete and in the hands of the civic groups that had called for it.

But in fact the transfer of the military-owned site has been mired in bureaucratic delays, and there remains disagreement over who the victims are — particularly in the bloody war against drug cartels and other organized crime that has consumed the country.  Read more. 

In Mexico, self-defense squads are springing up against drug-fueled violence

The Washington Post: January 21, 2013

AYUTLA, Mexico — The young man at the roadside checkpoint wept softly behind the red bandanna that masked his face. At his side was a relic revolver, and his feet were shod in the muddy, broken boots of a farmer.

Haltingly, he told how his cousin’s body was found in a mass grave with about 40 other victims of a drug gang. Apparently, the cousin had caught a ride with an off-duty soldier and when gunmen stopped the vehicle, they killed everyone on the car.


“There isn’t one of us who hasn’t felt the pain ... of seeing them take a family member and not being able to ever get them back,” said the young civilian self-defense patrol member, who identified himself as “just another representative of the people of the mountain.”

Now he has joined hundreds of other men in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero who have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings that local police are unable, or unwilling, to stop.

Vigilantes patrol a dozen or more towns in rural Mexico, the unauthorized but often tolerated edge of a growing movement toward armed citizen self-defense squads across the country.  Read more. 

Mexico enacts law to compensate victims of crime

BBC: January 10, 2013

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has enacted a law to trace and help thousands of victims caught up in drug violence and other crimes.

The bill sets up a compensation fund and establishes a national registry to record what happened to victims.

Some 70,000 people have died in drug violence since 2006, with at least several thousand more missing.

Campaign groups say the law is a first step but needs to go further to be effective.

The legislation was passed last April but was held up after the former President, Felipe Calderon, argued that it was flawed.

But Mr Pena Nieto, who took office on 1 December, signed the bill into law on Wednesday, saying it was an important step in recognising victims' rights.

"There are thousands of people who sadly have lost a loved one, their children, their spouses, their siblings. There are thousands of people who have suffered the havoc wrought by violence," he said. Read more. 

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jody Williams' Message of Support to the Mexican Peace Caravan

The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity demanded an end to the drug war in the capital of the nation that launched the war. After setting off from AFL-CIO headquarters where the nation's largest federation of unions saluted its efforts, the caravan planted itself in front of the White House, then proceeded to Freedom Plaza.

In the Plaza, as the sun set over the Capitol, Xochitl Espinosa of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities read a statement of support from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams. Below is the statement in its entirety:

-->

MESSAGE FROM NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER JODY WILLIAMS TO THE MEXICAN CARAVAN FOR PEACE WITH JUSTICE AND DIGNITY.

As a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, as director of the Nobel Women’s Initiative and as a sister peace activist, I send this message to express my support for the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, and to congratulate all the members of the caravan for the sacrifice and commitment that have brought you across the country to share your pain-- and your hope-- with the U.S. public.

I’m really sorry that I can’t be with you in person today, to welcome the Caravan for Peace to Washington DC, to stand beside you as you deliver your message to stop the drug war that has devastated your country and your families, to support you as you ‘speak truth to power’ here, in the center of power.

I have lived and worked in Mexico and consider that great country not just a neighboring nation, but another home. It has grieved me to see Mexico, and Mexicans, immersed in violence over the past years. As a result of that growing concern, my organization, the Nobel Women’s Initiative along with Just Associates led an international delegation to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. We heard hundreds of testimonies from women who are confronting violence. Many of those terrible stories and most of the pain we listened to was caused by the war on drugs.

Our conclusion was that: the war on drugs has become a war on women. We see on this caravan many examples of brave women who have turned their pain into action, who have converted grief into a tireless demand for justice.

And so I send a warm greeting to the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity.

For there is no other kind of peace. There can be no lasting peace without justice. There can be no peace as a result of militarization, and fighting violence with violence. There can be no peace not founded on respect for human rights and dignity.

It is only through collective, non-violent action--where women are recognized as equal partners and leaders--that we can build peace.

That is why the work of Mexico’s peace movement is so important. That is why your presence here in the United States—a nation that continues to support the war on drugs that has claimed the lives of so many of your loved ones--has such meaning for all of us who work for peace.

Thank you. I wish you much success.

Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the 10th woman - and third U.S. woman - in its almost 100-year history to receive the Prize.  Since her protests of the Vietnam War, she has been a life-long advocate of freedom, self-determination and human and civil rights.  www.nobelwomensinitiative.org

Ciudad Juarez Launches Aggressive Campaign For Female Crime Victims

Fox News Latino, by Joseph Kolb
Published September 19, 2012

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico –  In a small room at the Fiscalía Especializada en Atención a Mujeres Víctimas por Razones de Género, Bernardo Manzano stood pensively with his hands cuffed behind his back, while two police officers stood on either side of him as he was photographed and questioned by more than a dozen reporters.

Not a drug dealer this time. The 43-year-old maquiladora worker was about to be charged with sexually assaulting his wife.

Parading suspects accused of committing crimes against women in front of the media have become increasingly common here, in the wake of a combined and aggressive campaign by Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua state to curb these kind of offenses.

A 20-year legacy of crimes against women, especially the well-publicized killing of women in the late 1990s – popularly known as ‘femicides’-- has given this border city international notoriety.
The new prosecutor's office, which opened in March, deals exclusively with crimes against women but is not limited to legal matters. The modern three-story building houses a one-stop service center that includes special prosecutors and investigators, but also provides child care, medical, counseling and financial support services. In the coming months it will also provide temporary shelter for women and children facing domestic violence.

"Crimes against women are not going down, but now we have better collaboration with the municipal, state and federal police, as well as the forensic lab," said Silvia Najera, spokeswoman for the agency.  Read more. 

Laura's Blog: HSBC: How laundering drug money fuels the drug war violence

Today the Peace Caravan will pay a visit to HSBC Bank, to protest the financial crimes that enable drug cartels to launder their huge illegal earnings. These crimes are rarely punished because of the importance of illegal money to the financial system. HSBC was caught with highly questionable practices between its US and Mexican branches and currently faces charges. They expect to settle for record fines, while avoiding criminal charges.

But financial crimes are not victimless, nor are they non-violent crimes. What looks like white-collar crime on the books is red with blood in the streets. The Caravan will challenge the bankers on Wall Street to look the victims in the eyes and will also call for stricter enforcement and punishment.

HSBC Money-Laundering Fuels Violence in Mexico

FACTS:

* HSBC is a British bank and the largest European bank. HSBC has vast interests in Mexico since 2002, when it bought Banco Bital, Mexico’s fifth largest bank. HSMX (HSBC in Mexico) has $2 billion dollars in assets.

* A Senate investigation found that HSBC transported $7 billion dollars in cash from Mexico to the United States in armed cars or aircraft in 2007 and 2008 alone. The Mexico-U.S. transfers far surpassed that of any other branch. Despite this highly suspicious activity and known cartel activity in the country, HSBC gave Mexico a low-risk rating for money laundering and permitted the transfers.

* A typical strategy of drug cartels to launder money is to smuggle US dollars from drug sales into Mexico, and then use international banks to send them back to the U.S. This is what HSBC did.

* HSBC was also found to have established accounts for Mexican money exchange businesses and other suspicious entities, and cleared billions of dollars in travelers cheques.

* The bank opened US dollar accounts in the Cayman Islands for Mexican clients for more than $2 billion dollars.

* The Mexican regulatory commission fined the bank $27 million in July of this year—a slap on the wrist for one of the world’s largest transnational financial institutions.

* On July 17, a Senate sub-committee published a lengthy report on HSBC case, concluding that it failed to apply anti-money laundering measures.

The over 300-page Senate report, from which most of these facts are taken, can be found here: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/us-vulnerabilities-to-money-laundering-drugs-and-terrorist-financing-hsbc-case-history

HSBC in the United States:

* HSBC is being sued in a class action suit for foreclosing on homes of veterans in the U.S. 

As hundreds of families are evicted from their homes due to a crisis caused by the banks themselves, drug money assures the banks themselves see growing profits.

We call for: 

* Real vigilance and strict enforcement of anti-money laundering laws

* Exemplary fines for banks found guilty of money-laundering, like HSBC.

* Divert military/police drug war funding to increased public funding for enforcement of money-laundering laws—destroy the financial structures of the drug cartels, not human lives.

American Community In Mexico Disappointed By American Drug Policies

Huffington Post: Andrew Burmon.


This post is part of the HuffPost Shadow Conventions 2012, a series spotlighting three issues that are not being discussed at the national GOP and Democratic conventions: The Drug War, Poverty in America, and Money in Politics.

Michael Haskett has been busier since Mexican police discovered two vans full of dismembered bodies sitting near Lake Chapala in May. According to Haskett, who runs the Vida Alarms safety and emergency response service, that horrific discovery frightened many of the American expats living nearby, who had long worried about the incursion of narco-violence on their sunny idyll.

"Some of them were just deciding that they'd thought about this for a long time and there was finally catalyst," says Haskett. "Some of them were afraid to see their own shadow."

American retirees and tourists had historically flooded into the lakeside communities of Chapala and Ajijic, which boast affordable housing and excellent medical services, as well as perpetual spring temperatures, but locals say that flow has begun to slow. Though these idyllic communities -- all colorful main streets and aging monasteries -- sit well away from the drug corridor, Jalisco's expats are beginning to feel the effects of U.S. drug and gun policies. Read more.