Mexican Army falters under influence of drugs...

U.S.- inspired militarization of drug war seen as growing security threat...

By Frank Levine
Hispanic Universal/InterPress

This story was originally published by Hispanic Universal and posted in February, 2007. It will be followed by a story on the Mexican oil industry and the growing number of attacks on it by Mexican revolutionary forces.

AUSTIN, Texas--The stench of death rises above the Rio Grande, chilling the social and political landscape from Mexico City to Washington.
It comes from a horrific bloodbath between rival drug gangs and their “partners in crime”-- elements within Mexico’s local, state and federal governments –all fighting to control billions of dollars generated by the massive illegal international drug trade.
The slaughter has claimed over 2,000 lives in the past year, and nearly 200 in January alone, including law enforcement officials, priests, journalists, army soldiers, politicians, popular singers, actors, cartel soldiers and scores of innocents. Hundreds are simply “missing,” their bleached bones, strewn from the Guatemalan border to Tucson, San Antonio and beyond.
Even as Colombia slid to the gates of Pablo Escobar’s hell in the 1980s, the drug connected death toll averaged about 3,500 annually, barely less than double that of Mexico’s current pace. And although the Mexican Government reports deaths seemed to diminish in late 2006, a series of horrific killings recently have propelled the rate to meet or exceed the 2006 toll.
In Mexico, as in Colombia, the rich and powerful die just as easily as the poor. Heads of policemen are found on rooftops and fences in Acapulco, dozens of tortured and charred bodies are found scattered in Nuevo Laredo and Juarez. Some victims are found in pieces strewn along the highways.
Last week, 12 men wearing army fatigues stormed two police stations near Acapulco, murdering seven police officers and two secretaries. They reportedly left a videotape behind, announcing that they “don’t give a s--- about the federal government…and this is our message.”
Both the mayor of Acapulco and the head of Mexico’s Tourism Department lamented the impact of such violence on tourism and business.
Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado, who is surrounded by 12 body guards, 24 hours a day, believes his days are numbered and unless massive help arrives soon, all hell will break loose.
“The situation is out of control and the only way to stop the violence is with federal troops...but their presence here will only hurt tourism and the economy.”
Although the carnage also continues along the northern border – in the Monterrey area alone, 14 police officials have been murdered in recent months—Acapulco remains the focal point of some of the most horrific violence, as it straddles a vital drug route from Colombia to the Mexican Pacific Coast, where Colombian pure cocaine and heroin join Mexican heroin, marijuana and methamphetames on their final push into the U.S. market.

New president opens military offensive against cartels with mixed results...

In December, newly installed Mexican President Felipe Calderon deployed nearly 25,000 national police and soldiers to fight “narcoterrorism,” in the states of Guerrero, Baja California and Michoacan, among others; but so far there is little to show for his efforts other than piles of bodies, the extradition to the United States of a few alleged drug kingpins, and the continuing, if reserved, diplomatic, military and law enforcement support from the United States.
Calderon also allowed the extradition of the leader of the Gulf cartel, Osiel Cardenas Guillen. The move by Calderon was praised as “unprecedented” by U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, but it required that Calderon break a long-standing Mexican doctrine in the face of bitter political opposition. The move was finally made after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled –apparently under considerable pressure—that extraditions of prisoners facing a life sentence in a foreign country, “was not cruel and unusual punishment.”
Last year Mexico extradited a record 63 suspects to the United States, many of whom were connected to the drug trade. But the greatest victory against the cartels came in August, when Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix, leader of the notorious Tijuana cartel was captured by the U.S. Coast Guard on the high seas off the coast of La Paz, Baja California. He awaits trial in San Diego on charges of racketeering, conspiracy to import drugs, and money laundering, among others. His brother Eduardo reportedly now runs a weakened family empire besieged by its cartel competitors and authorities.
As in Colombia, the cost of Mexico allowing such extraditions could be very high, creating a political backlash, and an extremely dangerous climate for courts and government officials, including the president.
Meanwhile, last week, Calderon received the traditional Mexican Army oath of loyalty in the annual “Army Day” ceremonies held in Tula. In grateful response, he increased the average soldier’s pay from $317 per month to $474 per month, but it will do little halt the influence of drug cartels on the military, especially when compared to the average $3,000 a week a drug cartel soldier earns shooting real and imagined enemies.
“The challenges the country faces today are enormous ... and for that reason, as supreme commander, I have ordered a redoubling of efforts in the job of protecting people and the nation," Calderon said. He then announced additional troop deployments to the states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, and promised increased interdiction efforts in the states of Guerrero, Durango, Sinaloa, Coahuila and Baja California—especially in the Tijuana area where there were reportedly 399 drug trafficking related murders last year.
Although the 160,000-strong Mexican Army has maintained much of its traditional honor and has remained somewhat aloof from the pervasive corruption of nearly every other government institution, there are numerous reports that the drug cartels are recruiting and corrupting elements within the Mexican armed forces, posing a serious security threat for the nation, and by extension, U.S. interests.
“It is in the interest of the United States and Mexican governments that the Mexican Army be vaccinated against narcoterrorism,” said one high-ranking Mexican official, who prefers not to be identified. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to ensure complete loyalty within the military, as witnessed by the recruitment of soldiers and former soldiers into paramilitary groups; however, a livable wage paid to the average soldier is a good start, and should reduce some of the temptation.”

Mexican Army loses elite soldiers to cartels big bucks recruiting campaign

In recent weeks, U.S. officials released redacted intelligence assessments indicating that narco-corruption is spreading rapidly within the Mexican Army, and that new paramilitary groups like, “Los Negros” and “Los Numeros,” have also recruited members from the military, many of whom were once trained by their government and the U.S. to fight drug trafficking. These new groups are positioned to challenge the weakened Gulf cartel led by Guillen and his “Los Zetas”—a bloody assassination squad created in the late 1990s by former army special operations and intelligence veterans to control the Nuevo Laredo-Laredo smuggling routes, referred to as "plazas.”
The newest paramilitary groups, meanwhile, are reportedly working for the Sinaloa or Sanely cartel, headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, joining his group of paramilitary assassins, “Los Pelones.” Since his escape from prison in 2001, he has extended his organization's control of the Mexican cocaine market and is now locked in a death grip struggle with a weakened Gulf cartel for dominance along the border.
Meanwhile, the Juarez cartel, said to have once controlled more than 14 percent of the cocaine trade to the U.S., has fallen into disarray following the arrest of its financial wizard Ricardo Garcia Urquiza. The cartel’s weakness opened opportunities for competing cartels to grab larger shares of the profits and control more distribution points. “El Chapo,” was the first to challenge the Juarez cartel, and to begin wrestling control of the Nuevo Laredo plaza from the Gulf cartel, precipitating the latest violence there. The violence soon spread to Acapulco, as the battle over control extended from border distribution points to the points of procurement and entry.
Acapulco’s role has become a natural cocaine disembarkation point as it rests on a beeline north from Buenaventura, Colombia, were many of Colombia's drug trafficking organizations ship pure cocaine north through relatively un-patrolled waters, circumventing the heavily patrolled Caribbean areas. Speed boats pick up the drugs at sea, then transfer them to Acapulco, where they are loaded onto trucks destined for Nuevo Laredo and other crossings to the U.S.
Nuevo Laredo is just one of many entry points; but to dominate the market, control must also be established over the reception point—in this case, Acapulco. Unfortunately, the port is not big enough to handle the avarice of more than one cartel at a time.
Meanwhile, the greatest fear is that the cartels will continue to “paramilitarize,” further destabilizing the country’s political and social climate.
“Further paramilitarization….will propel the violence to a whole new level,” says Mexican drug expert Luis Astorga, a professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) in Mexico City. “If this trend continues, Mexico will indeed be another Colombia at the doorstep of the United States.”
Ironically, it was the U.S. government in 1996 that cajoled the Mexican government into pushing the relatively uncorrupted Mexican Army into a central role in the war against drug trafficking. At the time, many senior Mexican Army officers protested that the army was ill-prepared to participate in what is essentially a police matter -- especially when it is confronting sporadic guerrilla activity in remote areas of the country. They worried that the temptation of billions of dollars passing through their country could be a corruptive influence upon soldiers—and they were right. Furthermore, they complained that the Mexican Army’s structure and lack of modern equipment, combined with insufficient transportation capabilities, made it difficult to deal with multiple rapid deployments over a wide area.
Even to the most optimistic observers, Mexico appears to looking more and more like Colombia – it emerging as a narco-state where political and military power is split between the drug cartels, a U.S.-backed government alienated from the masses, unrestrained paramilitary formations, and a mounting Leftist insurgency, portrayed as “narco-terrorists” by the U.S. and its dwindling number of hemispheric allies.
Unofficially, the Mexican government security reach extends far beyond its formal military and law enforcement formations; but it is focused primarily on gathering intelligence on political and criminal threats, rather than drug trafficking. Some experts estimate that the Mexican government’s combined paramilitary and military forces actually total more than 500,000; with about half that number described as “supportive paramilitary cadres,” often working secretly and independently as extrajudicial “muscle,” attached to local law enforcement units.
In opposition are an estimated 10,000 individuals described as active in the drug trade, with another 30,000 considered “amateurs.” Second and third tier participation boost the total to more than 100,000. Furthermore, there are millions who wink and nod—through popular music and word—at the lifestyle of the drug trafficker, undermining the government’s ability to gather intelligence against the cartels. Leftist guerrilla formations, meanwhile, reportedly total about 7,000 to 10,000 combatants in various levels of competence on all fronts; with an additional 40,000 to 60,000 described as “active non-combatant” supporters.
“It is ironic that the success of the Mexican Army against insurgencies during the 1970s and 80s was due in great part to its human intelligence capacity, and its ability to infiltrate and destroy radical groups from the inside,” says one former Mexican intelligence official. “If the people weren’t arrested, tortured, killed or disappeared, they were paid off to abandon their cause…The technique was extremely successful. Now, however, the cartels have too much wealth and power to be bought off so easily, and in many parts of the country the community, either tacitly supports the traffickers, or is afraid to get involved.
Although the government can report some recent success in the dismantling of two major cartels, the tables are being turned, as it is now the Army that is being infiltrated and compromised by very sophisticated drug traffickers and their highly trained and heavily armed paramilitary units.”
It is estimated that the Mexican cartels earn more than $50 billion a year, with a sizeable portion of the money used to purchase more cocaine and heroin from the Colombians, and weapons from the United States and the international market. The more than 7,000 weapons confiscated in 2005 from traffickers—most were traced back to the U.S. — have been described as “a drop in the bucket,” by one Texas law enforcement official.
Along the way, hundreds of millions of dollars are siphoned off to law enforcement officials, politicians, and anyone else potentially blocking the drug flow. Nearly 10 percent of revenues are reportedly used to pay off officials. If true, that means that possibly $5 billion a year is lining the pockets of corrupt officials—including elements within the army—on both sides of the border.
Little can be done to stop it, as many officials are offered the "plata o plomo," choice between money and cooperation, or a bullet to the brain.

New world order creates more disorder in Mexico...

Some researchers believe at least part of the growing social violence and the expanded role of the illegal drug trade is due, in no small part, to the economic and social fallout of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its overall negative impact on Mexico’s socioeconomic fabric—especially in rural areas where compesino farmers and small collective farms simply can not compete against international agro-corporations.
Mexico’s slide into chaos is but the latest chapter in a long and sangrienta chronicle that erupts at least once every century.
Where once there was class warfare, cynical exploitation, greed, and competing ideological visions, there remains now little more than greed and exploitation, revitalized, in part, by a neoliberal ideology that defines the poor masses as somehow deserving of their fate.
Mexico’s internal strife differs only in scale from the pre-revolutionary era, having burgeoned in direct proportion to the country’s population. In some ways, few of the underlying factors have changed, as there remains a pressured middle class, predatory foreign capital investments, urban youth seeking expression, working class and rural poor in spasmodic anti-government violence, intellectuals dreaming of change, and a handful of guerrillas hurling their lives against walls of a powerful and corrupt system.
Mexico’s neoliberal economic and social agenda under successive Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN) presidencies, perceived the country’s masses only in terms of its exploitive potential for the benefit of a ruling oligarchy and its allied foreign interests.
This unrestrained entrepreneurial spirit in the pursuit of wealth and power, regardless of its impact on Mexican culture and humanity, only cheapens and alienates life. From the wanton pollution and destruction of the Mexican environment, to the pollution of the Mexican spirit, neoliberalism has given narco-violence, and for that matter, all violence, a fertile ground upon which to flourish.
“With so many desperate people, a dog-eat-dog mentality has placed many at odds with their government and themselves,” says Jacobo Sanchez Villareal, a small business owner in Nuevo Laredo. “Our traditional respect for human life has been undermined by a virulent media propaganda extolling the virtues of individualism over societal needs, profits over life, materialism over culture and humanity. Believe it or not, the drug traffickers –even if they are criminals and ruthless killers— are considered heroes by a very large segment of society, as they often share their wealth with the poor, while at the same time, challenging the corrupt and hypocritical governments on both sides of the border.”

Intelligence agencies tracking Spanish-speaking Jihadists in Mexico, Central America

By Frank Levine
InterPress News Service

BULLETIN --U.S. and Mexican intelligence officials are searching for at least 300 Arab extremists reported missing earlier this year from North Africa, after eluding surveillance by local and international intelligence agencies.
Many of the missing "potential terrorists," according to the officials, are Spanish-speaking Moroccans, previously surveilled by both Spanish and Moroccan intelligence agencies following the March 11, 2004 attacks on the Madrid rail system that killed 190 and injured and estimated 2,000.
"They seemingly vanished into thin air about the same time," observed one U.S. source. "It would be an understatement to say we are not concerned that some may find their way to Central America and Mexico, blend in with the local population, learn some of the expressions and customs, then infiltrate in the U.S."
The escape of the jihadists has reportedly angered some U.S. and European intelligence officials, who are undiplomatic in blaming Moroccan agencies for their apparent "looking away" while the jihadists absconded.
Officially, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other U.S. government agencies will neither confirm nor deny the reports.
"It was just too easy," the U.S. source said. "People simply can't disappear like that from under surveillance without someone noticing something was up."
The report coincides with another of a massive FBI hunt this week for 11 missing Egyptian students in the United States; however, preliminary interrogation reports indicate that none was involved with "terroristic activities."
Meanwhile, there have been unconfirmed reports that a small number of the North African jihadists have already been detained in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.
Their current whereabouts, however, remain unknown.
Of great concern is their ability to utilize their language abilities and training to move through Spanish-speaking countries relatively unnoticed.
"U.S. Border Patrol agents are now being forced to take a good hard look at even the most mundane immigration arrest, as the North Africans can pretend to be of Mexican or Central American origin, especially if they stay in a country for a few months to learn some of the local expressions and accents," the source said, adding: "Therefore, the immigration authorities throughout the region must ask probing questions, far beyond the standard questions of name and country of origin."
The post Madrid bombings investigation by Spanish authorities, supported by the combined resources of U.S., French, German, Israeli and other international agencies, including INTERPOL, indicated that some of the Madrid bombing conspirators were directly linked to some of the alleged jihadists in Morocco.
The massive multi-national investigation reportedly tagged 300 and 600 individuals to be kept under moderate to tight surveillance in the aftermath of the Madrid attacks, but by June, 2005, most of those being watched had seemingly vanished, according to confidential intelligence sources.
Meanwhile, as a result of a recent series of secret intelligence meetings between Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and the United States, the exchange of information on the movement of suspected jihadists and other potential "terrorist threats" in the region has been increased to unprecedented levels. U.S. "advisers" have been strategically placed at key transportation hubs throughout the region, including airports, train and bus stations.
In a separate development, it has been reported that U.S. Special Operations Forces and heavily armed civilian intelligence elements have been sighted throughout the region, including the South American countries of Paraguay and Uruguay.

Possible US serial killer in Juarez slayings?

By Frank Levine

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico,May 18--Although Mexican law enforcement officials claim they've arrested most, if not all, of those allegedly responsible for the killing and torture of hundreds of young women in Juarez in recent years, skepticism remains among human rights activists and relatives of the victims, that the killers are actually behind bars -- preferring, instead, to believe that most recent killings indicate that at least one serial killer remains at large, possibly finding sanctuary in El Paso, Texas, just across the border.
The story of the murders is a long and grisly one. More than 400 women and girls have been killed and tortured in Juarez since 1993, with most of their bodies brutalized and dumped in shallow desert graves. An additional 70 women are missing, according to local women's rights activists and government sources.
"We have no indication that any serial killer travels to and from the United States," said one former Federal Judicial Police investigator, who prefers anonymity."But the rhythm of the killings may indicate that at least one killer may be leaving the area on a consistent basis."
The cross-border theory has been bounced around for more than a decade--ever since an unmistakable pattern of torture-killings developed in the early 1990s. Lending credence, are unconfirmed reports that at least one individual has been scrutinized as a possible suspect by investigators on the U.S. side of the border.
At first, Mexican law enforcement officials all but ignored the murders; however, after mounting public and political pressure, they began looking at co-workers, bus and taxi drivers--people who would have access to the women when they were returning home late at night after finishing their shifts at some the dozens of so-called "in-bond" factories and assembly plants in Juarez. Most of the victims were poor and uneducated. They migrated to Juarez for the dream of a decent job and better life than in the crushing poverty of Mexico's interior. Finally, after years of frustration and some questionable well-publicized arrests, local police began looking at themselves for possible suspects and clues.
According to recent published reports and North American Free Trade Agreement documents, about 80 Fortune 500 companies have facilities in the Ciudad Juarez area. Among them are, Alcoa, 3M,General Electric, Du Pont, Thomson RCA, Honeywell, Amway, Ford,TDK and Kenwood.
Meanwhile, in response to continuing tragedy, both the United States House and Senate last week passed resolutions condemning the continuing abductions, torture and murder of women in Juarez. The legislators, while commending the Mexican government for its recent actions to help stop the killings, also agreed that much more must be done.

Mexico braces for wave of political violence

By Frank Levine

MEXICO CITY (May 10,2006)--There are rumors of war drifting across the Mexican landscape, like tiny wisps of smoke from a long-dormant volcano. It may not be war in the true sense of the word, as there are yet no massive armies in the field, no bombs bursting, cities burning, or streams of terrified refugees.
But the country is facing an unparalleled seismic political, social, and economic upheaval for the first time since the Revolution. Such an upheaval could push the nation into utter chaos, while further threatening the vunerable southern flank of the United States.
Some believe Mexico will elect a Left-leaning populist president in July, overtly hostile to American interests and foreign policy. Such an election, according to U.S. analysts, could result in widespread civil unrest and international conflict, similar to what occurred recently in Venezuela, with the United States supporting the political opposition--the wealthy oligarchy and business interests--while subverting a democratically elected government.
The consequences for U.S.-Mexico relations could be grave.
Although President George W. Bush is ready to announce the deployment of National Guard troops along the border in a "supportive role" to stem the tide of undocumented workers, Mexican analysts see this further militarization of the border as a strong message that the United States will protect its interests in Mexico; while at the same time stemming the flow of unchecked immigration.
In a way, a real line has been drawn in the sand along the Rio Grande.
The move is seen as politically expedient for a U.S. president on thin ice; while at the same time serving as a warning to the Mexican people that any radicalization of Mexican politics and threats to "business as usual" between the countries, would surely have severe consequences.
"If Mexico elects Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a populist candidate in the mold of Venezuela's Chavez, rest assured the United States will not stand idly by while Mexico becomes one more oil-producing country hostile to American interests," one analyst observed.
In a world where true friends of the United States can be counted on one's fingers, it is unlikely the United States will stand by, while a government hostile to American interests is at its border.
Already, there are rumors of assassination plots and U.S. intelligence operations directed at undermining Lopez Obrador's campaign. If he does win, many believe his administration would be severely undermined by a host of domestic and international enemies.
A Lopez Obrador victory, however, is not assured, even without the foreign and domestic conspiracies and plots.
Historically, the Mexican electorate, when confronted with a choice between a relatively progressive candidate "outsider," and a known moderate or conservative--regardless of their history of malfeasance and corruption-- the progressive invariably loses...At least in most of the elections since 1940, or since the imposition of presidential candidate Avila Comacho by the country's ruling oligarchy, with the unbridled support of covert U.S. operations.
"The United States has a long history of corrupting the Mexican political process," said Roberto Zaragoza, a political analyst in Mexico City. " If they can't buy influence, then they simply take it through brutal force."
Sure, often the losses are attributed to electoral fraud, but even in Mexico, consistent fraud on such a wide scale is virtually impossible. The fault, more often than not, rests with the defeated, many of whom have never learned that most of the electorate would rather eat today, than dream of tomorrow. There is little time or energy left among the masses to contemplate and debate lofty ideological principles.
"Although it is distasteful, most Mexicans will vote for someone they can count on being who they are, even if they are crooks and liars," said one newspaper executive. "The problem with many candidates on the Left is that they are often perceived hiding personal agendas and greed behind a flimsy wall of progressive rhetoric; whereas the more conservative candidates -- equally corrupt and hypocritical--seem to present their corruption and hypocrisy openly, almost as a given."