Posted on 10/10/2010 9:46:44 AM PDT by AuntB
OAXACA, Mexico — The mayor-elect of a small town near Oaxaca state's Pacific coast has been shot to death, the latest in a string of politicial figures who have been slain in Mexico this year.
Antonio Jimenez Banos, 47, who would have taken office in January in Martires de Tacubaya, was killed Friday afternoon by an assailant as he was returning to his farm. He was hit in the head and chest apparently with a shotgun, prosecutors said.
Eleven sitting mayors have been killed so far this year in Mexico. Two of them were also in Oaxaca, but most of the killings have been in northern states plagued by drug gang violence.
Candidates and representatives-elect have also been assassinated. The most brazen was a deadly ambush of a gubernatorial candidate earlier this year in the border state of Tamaulipas, where two drug cartels are fighting a bloody battle for territory and transit routes to the United States.
Mexican drug cartels have increasingly targeted local elected officials as they fight the government and each other. They use isolated, lightly patrolled towns to hide and to stash kidnap victims, weapons and drugs and seek to co-opt or eliminate authorities to assert their control.
The prosecutor's office said it didn't know if the attack on Jimenez, a member of Mexico's once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, was politically motivated. After Jimenez was elected in July, several groups protested the vote.
Just three days ago, Manuel Benitez Manzanares, Oaxaca's representative-elect for Mexico's Congress of Deputies, was kidnapped by a group of hooded gunmen. He was elected from President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
NAFBPO news from south of the border.
Mexican UN spokesman claims abuses against aliens in the U.S.
Thursday, 10/7/10
Prensa Libre (Guatemala City, Guatemala) 10/6/10
Jorge Bustamante, a Mexican “UN special spokesman for immigrants’ human rights,” said that the “atmosphere of xenophobia” in various parts of the United States is bringing about abuses of immigrants, despite the suspension of parts of the Arizona law. “In the interim, situations are occurring derived from that ambience of xenophobia that predominates in the state of Arizona and in other parts of the United States, and which lead to vulnerable conditions for the immigrants and lead to abuses.” Bustamante labeled the law as “racist” because it gives the police the right to detain and expel persons “on the basis of their appearance, and the main appearance is the color of the skin.” He recalled that the approval of this law “constitutes a violation of what is established in the Constitution of the United States, which stipulates that immigration may only be legislated at the federal, not state, level.”
On the other hand, he defended the sovereign right of nations to decide about their immigration laws, and deemed that the concept of universal citizenship is practically impossible to bring about.
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El Universo (Guayaquil, Ecuador) 10/5/10
A remote coyote
In Cuenca, Ecuador, Ramon Severo Maldonado-Avila, 61, used various scams on people anxious to reach the U.S.; in one, he’d tell them that he had friends in the U.S. Embassy and that he could get visas for them in exchange for money. In another, he’d tell women that he was a U.S. citizen and could get them a resident visa if they married him. He also offered conventional illegal trips to the U.S. without any documents. A number of his victims have complained because he has done nothing for them. Now Ramon is in jail.
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El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia) 10/5/10
Millions of narco money seized
On Monday, with support from U.S. officials, Colombian police found and confiscated a cache of 29 million dollars and 17 million euros hidden in houses in Bogota. It was part of the “Pacific Basin Operation” by the U.S., Mexico and Colombia against narcotraffic. Other seizures by this joint force have taken place recently: 24 million dollars were found in the trunk of a car in Bogota on Sep. 14, and another 28 million was found earlier in that month.
http://www.eltiempo.com/justicia/caleta-con-20-millones-de-dlares-en-bogot_8068741-4
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Banderas News (Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco) 10/6/10
Mexico to expand weapons tracking (See link below for English language article)
http://www.banderasnews.com/1010/nr-weaponstracking.htm
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El Diario (El Paso, TX, on-line edition of the Ciudad Juarez paper) 10/6/10
Blood keeps flowing in Ciudad Juarez
“Nine persons, among them a Municipal Police captain, were shot yesterday afternoon, and during the morning another five Juarenses (read: Juarez residents) were deprived of life violently, so that Tuesday’s total number of victims reaches 14.” (The article then goes on to give a brief report of the times and various streets where the bodies were found.)
http://www.diario.com.mx/notas.php?f=2010/10/06&id=7cc077f509708ba32b81580aca04b285
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El Financiero (Mexico City) 10/6/10
More illegals nabbed after bypassing border by sea
A group of 20 illegal aliens was detained after they reached the Mission Beach area of San Diego aboard a boat around 2 a.m. Monday. Some of the detainees said they’d paid from 4 to 6 thousand dollars to be brought over by sea. Two other persons fled; they’re believed to have been the boat’s operators.
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El Universal (Mexico City) 10/6/10
A quick snapshot of headline items around Mexico
* Three killed in Sinaloa in less than 2 hours
* Cadavers of policeman and his two sons found
* “Pemex” (Mexican gov’t. petroleum monopoly) worker killed in (town of) Lazaro Cardenas
* Two executed outside “table dance” in Monterey
* Police looking for kidnapped congressman in Oaxaca
* Juarez police supervisor killed with some 50 shots
* Chihuahua records 18 dead
* Police ambushed in (state of) Guerrero: one dead, seven wounded
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/
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El Informador (Guadalajara, Jalisco) 10/6/10
Calderon: Problems for Mexico if California legalizes marihuana
Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon stated today that if the state of California legalizes marihuana in November “it’s going to put Mexican authorities in a serious bind.” “It’s going to put us in a problem difficult to resolve. It’s going to have an impact on the Mexican market, and I don’t know in what sense, frankly, it’ll have to be examined.” “It’s really very difficult for a government to jail a farmer who is growing marihuana for sale to the Californians.”
The President pointed out, “The inconsistency in the public policy of the United States about the issue is something reprehensible. I don’t exactly know what the North Americans may want, but, at least, they’re not consistent, and they do generate a major problem for us.”
Other Latin American heads of state, such as the Colombian Juan Manuel Santos (the new president of that country) have also expressed their concern about the possible legalization of marihuana in California. Santos even set forth the option of a joint reaction with Mexico and Peru if that drug is legalized in the United States.
Calderon insisted that legalization of drugs does not benefit Mexico: “It’s finally done, in Mexico, and the truth is that it has solved absolutely nothing.” He added that if a country legalizes drugs, it must resign itself to have youths, adolescents and children be able to access the drug market with the same ease as they do with a package of cigarettes, which would generate a terrible harm for our society.
Friday, 10/8/10
El Universal (Mexico City) 10/7/10
Obama forgot to look south [Full transl. of main editorial]
Yesterday the United States announced a new record of deportations: 392 thousand 863 persons during 2010. Those are bad news for Mexico, not so much due to the number, but because no other action or characteristic distinguishes Obama’s administration from its predecessors on the issue of immigration.
Mexico, like the rest of the world, had high expectations placed on the first African-American president of the power to the North. Being the son of an alien, a man of simple origins and “progressive” ideals – by American standards – it was hoped that he would innovate and confront the neighboring nation’s old problems with new vigor.
As presidential candidate of the Democrat Party, Barack Obama offered a migratory reform in his first year in office. President Calderon was the first one to be received by then President Elect Obama. Expectations were renewed when the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and then Obama himself visited this country in 2009 in response to Mexican complaints about his lack of involvement in the war against drugs. An unprecedented mea culpa! The government of the United States recognized for the first time its responsibility in the consumption of drugs and the traffic of weapons to the south. By 2010, the American drug czar announced a new social focus (read: effort) on the fight against narcotraffic, which again raised expectations in Mexico.
Up to now they have only been words.
Perhaps the only action of the Democrat in favor of the Mexicans in the United States was the legal onslaught against the Arizona SB1070 law, which criminalizes the undocumented. In defense of the President, it has to be said that the conservative current in the American Congress, including legislators from his own party, would never allow him a legalization of the undocumented, not even a partial one, as was the case with the failed “Dream Act” that aimed to legalize foreign students. Nor would he be allowed to relax the controls on the border with Mexico or to tolerate crossing without documents to the other side of the Bravo River (read: Rio Grande River) which represents a “crime” to the majority of Americans.
In any event, his administration in relation to Mexico must be considered a failure because our country was ignored, as was the rest of Latin America, in all bilateral issues and actions. The feeling remains that the President doesn’t have any idea of what to do with the countries to the south of its border.
During decades, Latin America lamented about American interventionism. Today we know that the opposite extreme doesn’t help either.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/editoriales/50150.html
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Armada Nacional (Bogota, Colombia) 10/6/10
Nearly a ton of cocaine seized on the Caribbean
A joint effort by the Colombian navy, the country’s Security Agency (DAS) as well as by a citizens’ support group resulted in the seizure of 906 kilos of cocaine. The drug was found aboard a “go-fast” boat which had left Barranquilla, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, and was headed toward Central America. The load’s value was estimated at 22 million dollars. Three crewmen were arrested, two of whom had outstanding arrest warrants for drug and people smuggling.
http://www.armada.mil.co/?idcategoria=771790
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El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa, Honduras) 10/7/10
More cocaine seized in Honduras
Honduran National Police & U.S. DEA agents seized “at least” 500 kilos of cocaine during an operation near Brus Laguna, on the east coast of Honduras. Also seized and destroyed were 3 “fast boats,” 4 ATV’s and a light aircraft. As the police & agents approached, by helicopter, the smugglers heard them and fired at them before fleeing into the jungle. Officials stated that some 100 tons of cocaine pass through Honduras each year en route to the United States.
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Banderas News (Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco) 10/7/10
Can America stay out of Mexico’s drug war? (See link below for English language article)
http://www.banderasnews.com/1010/edop-americastayout.htm
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El Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 10/7/10
Mexican immigration agents linked to organized crime
Three hundred-fifty agents of Mexico’s National Immigration Agency (INM) have been fired from 2002 to date for suspicion of links to organized crime. Twenty-six are currently under criminal proceedings and 4 are serving jail sentences. Among the crimes involved are “traffic of undocumented,” organized crime, extortion and corruption. Within the same time period, at least three agents – two in Cancun and one in Tijuana – have been murdered in the manner of drug cartel victims. Currently, the INM has 2,200 agents.
Jorge Santibanez, an immigration specialist & past director of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Northern Border College) asserted that the agents who work in the areas of power of organized crime have only four options: collaborate with the criminals, close their eyes, leave the area or risk their life. He added that the agents lack the ability and institutional backing to face criminal organizations.
http://www.eldiariodecoahuila.com.mx/notas/2010/10/7/nacional-198620.asp
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El Diario de Coahuila (Saltillo, Coahuila) 10/7/10
Ten bodies found on Mexican highway
Police in various cities of Mexico’s state of Michoacan have reacted to the finding of ten bodies at a place known as San Pedro Barajas, on the Siglo XXI (Century 21) highway in that state. No further details are known at this time. Twelve bodies were found near there last year. They turned out to be federal police.
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http://m3report.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/mexican-un-spokesman-claims-abuses-against-aliens-in-the-u-s/
ATTENTION!
For an important report from NAFBPO, open the hyperlink below.
A proposal for Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement and Reform
http://www.elkhound.net/proposal.htm
Oct. 10, 2010
(CNN) — Mexican authorities are offering a $1.2 million (15 million pesos) reward for information on 14 children who may have been taken from orphanages by child traffickers, according to a release from the attorney general of Mexico.
The attorney general also is offering about $400,000 (5 million pesos) in the search for three people in the “Casitas del Sur” case, a statement said Friday.
The children disappeared in February 2009 from the Casitas del Sur orphanage in Mexico City and from homes in Nuevo Laredo and Quintana Roo...[snip]http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/09/mexico.missing.children/
Mexico City, Mexico (CNN) — A Mexican father who said his two young children had been kidnapped — and later told authorities he had sold them to pay a debt — confessed after their bodies were found that he had killed them, prosecutors say.
Javier Covarrubias Gonzalez, 20, said he suffocated daughter Isis Liliana and son Darien Isai just hours before he reported them missing on May 18, the Mexico City district attorney’s office said in a statement issued Tuesday.
He cited financial difficulties for the slayings, saying he could no longer afford to take care of the children, the state-run Notimex news service said Wednesday.
Covarrubias said he buried his son in a bag in Tepeyac National Park and his daughter in a backpack nearby [snip]
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/06/09/mexico.father.charged/index.html?iref=obinsite
Mexican Supreme Court upholds gay marriage law
— Mexico’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Mexico City law that legalized same-sex marriage. In an 8-2 vote, the high court found the law, which went into effect in March, constitutional.
The ruling comes a day after a court in the United States found a law banning gay marriage unconstitutional.
The justices upheld the law in Mexico City, but did not decide whether their decision affects jurisdictions in the rest of the country. The court will take up the issue again next week, the state-run Notimex news agency reported.
Mexico City’s law also allows same-sex couples to adopt children[snip]
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/08/05/mexico.gay.marriage/index.html?iref=obinsite
But it’s the fault of the racist US.
Mexican cartels and ensuing violence leave mark on Texas border town
Oct. 10, 2010
[snip]ZAPATA, Texas — Sgt. Jimmy Mendoza is so baby-faced he could pass for a high school student, but he has helped drag bodies from the Rio Grande, bullets in their heads.
He has sped to a San Ygnacio school after gunfire south of the border hit perilously close to the building, sending students ducking under their desks.
And he’s stood above the Rio Grande and looked across the water, watching members of a drug cartel walk nonchalantly along the Mexican side of the river, machine guns slung over their shoulders.
That violence has been news for months, but it took on new urgency north of the border after the apparent death Sept. 30 of Colorado native David Hartley, who investigators believe was shot and killed by pirates ...in Mexican waters on Falcon Reservoir.
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“I think we could stop it with the help of Mexico.”
But in recent years, as natural-gas production has moved east and north, it is Falcon Reservoir that has been the key economic engine for Zapata, attracting televised bass-fishing tournaments.
The 44-mile-long lake, which straddles the border, is home to black bass, alligator gar, tilapia and other species that grow to record size in its warm waters.
“Total chaos” yards away
The world across the border, where whole towns are controlled by well- organized drug cartels, is “totally out of control,” he says.
“This year has made me realize we are yards away from total chaos — total disregard for law, total disregard for human life,” Gonzalez says.
The cartel members are brazen, like the kid busted in his county running drugs who calmly described how easy it was take a couple of Rohypnol, also known as the date-rape drug, wash them down with beer, and shoot someone in the head. And how it was a matter of honor to look the victim in the eye before pulling the trigger.
The cartels are also awash in drug money, making it easy to bribe Mexican law officers, to control things on the south side of the border.
A 17-year-old arrested in Zapata for drug running told a stunning story, how he came across three times a day with marijuana in his small fishing boat, dumping it on the American side of the lake on the south edge of town.
He was paid $5,000 a load.
“In three-and-a-half days, he makes what I make in one year,” Gonzalez said.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16300367
RIP.
Sounds like the best job in Mexico these days is being a funeral director!
Coming to a town near you. Mexico is out of control and it got this way due to many accepting a culture of crime and corruption. Illegal immigration is the number one issue facing this country. It affects our economy and social structure in so many ways, jobs, welfare, education, crime, food stamps, housing, identity theft, medical, depleting our resources, voter fraud, etc.....
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