Posted on 09/27/2006 5:27:45 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president-elect says murder and mayhem fueled by drug smuggling have overwhelmed the governments of the nation’s capital and key states across the country. Felipe Calderón said the wave of bloodshed knows no politics; it is ravaging state governments controlled by each of Mexico’s three major parties. He singled out Mexico City, the northern states of Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, the southern state of Guerrero and his home state of Michoacan, as being especially hard-hit.
“It seems to me that drug violence has overwhelmed the governments of the PAN, the PRI and the PRD,” Calderón said in a radio interview.
The PAN is the ruling National Action Party, while the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, controlled Mexico’s presidency from 1929 until losing to President Vicente Fox in 2000. In the July 2 presidential election, Calderón, of National Action, barely beat leftist former Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD, or Democratic Revolution Party.
Calderón called for legislative and law-enforcement efforts to curb drug violence across party lines “in a very coordinated way.”
Fox spokesman Rubén Aguilar agreed with Calderón on Tuesday, saying “we coincide completely with the president-elect.”
He said during his daily briefing with reporters at Los Pinos, the Mexican equivalent of the White House, that “the fight has not been overwhelmed, but there’s still much to do.”
Calderón will take office Dec. 1, replacing the term-limited Fox.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City has long expressed concern about the growing wave of violence along the northern border, where people are gunned down with automatic weapons almost daily, and dozens of Americans have been kidnapped.
Authorities say more than 1,500 people have died in Mexican drug violence so far this year.
Narcotics investigators on both sides of the border attribute the spike in killings to a territorial war between drug gangs battling for control of lucrative smuggling corridors into the United States.
But U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza recently extended warnings to say Americans should use extreme caution when traveling anywhere in Mexico.
“The bottom line is that we simply cannot allow drug traffickers to place in jeopardy the lives of our citizens and the safety of our communities,” Garza said in a statement Sept. 14.
Calderón said drug violence “is generating much more diplomatic pressure” from Washington, adding that upcoming U.S. congressional elections have made Mexico even more of a hot issue than usual.
Most of Mexico’s top drug lords hail from Sinaloa. Drug killings that have included beheadings have occurred in Guerrero, home to the Pacific resort of Acapulco; in Baja California, where the violent border city of Tijuana is located; and in Calderón’s native Michoacan state, in central Mexico west of the capital.
On Sept. 6, gunmen with their faces covered burst into a seedy nightclub in the Michoacan city of Uruapan, fired guns in the air and rolled five severed human heads onto the dance floor.
The gunmen left scrawled notes on pieces of cardboard, a tactic that has suddenly become common in Michoacan and elsewhere. The notes made reference to “the Family,” while other beheadings in Acapulco and elsewhere have referenced the letter “Z,” suggesting the involvement of “Las Zetas,” a group of former elite Mexican soldiers now working as hit men for the Gulf drug cartel.
On Tuesday, police recovered the body of a man who had been shot 24 times with machine guns in the Michoacan city of Turicato. Messages had been attached to the unidentified 35-year-old victim’s body, including “Anti Z” and “greetings, Z family. This is for the traitors to their country,” the government news agency Notimex reported.
Investigators say Michoacan is a base for powerful cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine smugglers with ties to some of the country’s largest and most-violent drug gangs.
Me too, Presidente electo!
***Cesspool Alert***
Old Mexico Ping!
Well then, I guess it's time to run a big superhighway of dubious jurisdiction and security from Mexico right into the heartland of the US. < /sarc>
He's right about Tamaulipas! That's for sure!
Pretty soon they will be running San Diego and San Francisco.
If the Mexicans have an army it looks like time to call them up. Although in actuality the army is probably filled with drug dealers too.
Maybe the best way for the US to help Mexico is to close off those lucrative smuggling corridors.
BUILD the FENCE now !!!
Will wonders never cease?
This has been going on for years. Nothing new. I wonder if Calderone just found out.
Meet the new boss, same as the old bosses.
"Excuse me Sir but, those DrugLords pay half your salary"
"Really?"
Nothing like that is planned, that is a myth perpetuated by conspiracy kooks and the ignorant fools who lap it up instead of bothering to get any actual facts.
What is proposed is a tollway from San Antonio to Dallas, later to be expanded north and south to the Oklahoma and Mexican border. It would not cross the border, no new border crossing would be built, all cargo would still be subject to the same level of border inspections, the road would only serve traffic that has already cleared the border checkpoints. Some have proposed other tollways that would connect with the Texas one and run north to their states, just like some have always proposed new highways to better connect their areas and spur economic development. The Texas road would still be patroled by DPS troopers and local law enforcement, just like every other road in Texas, and subject to the exact same laws.
But don't let facts and common sense get in the way of knee-jerk rants.
"Nothing like that is planned, that is a myth perpetuated by conspiracy kooks and the ignorant fools who lap it up instead of bothering to get any actual facts.
Here are your facts that were obtained from the Freedom of Information Act.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/SPP.shtml
My printer is not working. Can anyone tell me how to turn these papers so I can read them? I'll be gone most of the day but will be back this evening.
What is Larry Klayman's success record in court, won 1 in 100?
This isn't about Larry Klayman. I will say this though. It is sad that it took a lawyer to get the facts. Maybe you can answer this question. Why have the facts been kept a secret since 2005?
EEE: I pinged you to read #15 as I know you like to keep up with the facts.
Oops! Read #14.
"Nothing like that is planned, that is a myth perpetuated by conspiracy kooks and the ignorant fools who lap it up instead of bothering to get any actual facts.
What is proposed is a tollway from San Antonio to Dallas, later to be expanded north and south to the Oklahoma and Mexican border. It would not cross the border, no new border crossing would be built, all cargo would still be subject to the same level of border inspections, the road would only serve traffic that has already cleared the border checkpoints. Some have proposed other tollways that would connect with the Texas one and run north to their states, just like some have always proposed new highways to better connect their areas and spur economic development. The Texas road would still be patroled by DPS troopers and local law enforcement, just like every other road in Texas, and subject to the exact same laws.
But don't let facts and common sense get in the way of knee-jerk rants."
You won't mind providing links that support your claims? Unwilling to be labeled as an ignorant fool or conspiracy kook, I wouldn't mind doing a 'common sense' comparison before letting my usual knee-jerk rants in support of President Bush get in the way of the truth. TIA
"My printer is not working. Can anyone tell me how to turn these papers so I can read them? I'll be gone most of the day but will be back this evening." |
Thank you for the link Texastoo.
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