Posted on 12/13/2011 10:22:39 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
Outlaws lurking as many nationals soon will return from U.S. for holidays.
Alfonso Cabañas isn’t driving to Monterrey, Mexico, to visit family this Christmas. Not after what happened the last time.
Three years ago, the 31-year-old lawyer was headed south on one of Mexico’s toll roads when he pulled over for a group of men who had placed orange traffic cones across the highway and were directing motorists to the shoulder. It was too late when he saw the guns.
“As you’re driving, you see these people waving you down, asking you to pull over and pull you aside. You have no other choice but to do it,” Cabañas said. “You pull over and they approach you and say, ‘Hey, give us all your belongings and possessions and don’t alert the authorities.’”
In mid-December begins what’s known along the border as paisano season, when hundreds of thousands of Mexican nationals living in the United States visit family and friends in Mexico for the holidays. Paisano is the Spanish word for “countryman.”
Miguel Angel Isidro, the Mexican consul general in Laredo, said, “There’s enough security all along the border, and of course some of the states in the border area and the Mexican government are going to do whatever it takes to have enough security during paisano season,” Isidro said.
That security will include caravans, said Carlos Franco, a regional delegate for Mexico’s National Institute of Migration.
“They gather in one place,” Franco said. “Local authorities escort them through the city limits, and federal authorities escort them through the highways.”
He said it’s difficult to estimate the total number of paisanos traveling into Mexico this year but that about 60,000 people are expected to pass through Laredo.
This year more than ever, attention is focused on the insecurity of Mexico’s highways, where motorists and commercial bus passengers are preyed on by outlaws. High-profile incidents in Mexico have focused international attention on those highways, including the January fatal shooting near the Texas border of U.S. missionary Nancy Davis, 59, and the discovery this spring of mass graves around the Mexican city of San Fernando. Nearly 200 bodies have been unearthed.
After authorities discovered the graves, stories began circulating about passengers disappearing from commercial buses headed north on area highways.
The problem has even attracted the attention of the online “hacktivist” group Anonymous, which last month made a list of demands of Mexican bus companies and government agencies intended to protect motorists and bus passengers. This weekend, the group said, it began launching attacks against those companies’ and agencies’ websites.
The attacks, timed for the launch of paisano season, included targeting the Mexican bus and insurance companies and government agencies. At least one bus company’s website went down over the weekend, and a Web page dedicated to cataloging the attacks showed screen shots of defaced government websites.
Some had images of Mexican President Felipe Calderón altered to put a Santa Claus hat on his head, and others bore the Anonymous logo of a suited figure with a question mark hovering where its head should be.
But the group announced Saturday night that it was calling off the attacks after an earthquake struck Mexico’s western coast.
“What do we hope from all this?” a spokesman wrote in an email. “The same thing Rosa Parks did in Alabama in the civil rights movement — get people talking. Causing a national debate in the press, the politicians and the people — to focus on this problem and a solution. No more kidnappings of bus passengers and no more rapes on our roads.”
Isidro, the consul general in Laredo, rejected the notion that the government is abdicating its duty to protect paisanos.
For lawyer Cabañas, the security situation in Mexico is foremost in his mind, and this year he’ll forego visiting family in Monterrey and Ciudad Victoria and instead will stick to the Rio Grande Valley border cities of Reynosa and Nuevo Progreso.
One of those who is forsaking driving this year to fly is David Garza, 59, a city employee in San Antonio. Garza doesn’t fit the definition of a paisano: He’s a San Antonio native, and he’s visiting friends, not family, during the holidays. But for the first time, he’s going to fly rather than drive when he goes to San Miguel de Allende.
“It’s just wanting to be safe, not wanting to have any problems, not knowing what to expect,” Garza said. “I’d rather be safe than sorry and just make sure I have a nice trip. So I decided it would just be easier to fly, and also it will save me a lot of time.”
“I’d love to drive, and it’s a beautiful country and I don’t mind the drive. ... I don’t know who to trust,” he said. “You could be driving in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden you think there’s military people right in the middle of the road stopping you, and it could be anybody.”
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/mexico/article/Mexico-aims-to-ease-fears-on-highways-2396243.php#ixzz1gREbVnRX
It’s as if Mexico had adopted “X? Heads in a Duffle-bag” as the national movie, and were trying to emulate it as closely as they could.
Yep, ever so much safer... /s
When the government does not control the highways the government does not have control of the territory. Ergo, Mexico is a failed state.
These Anonymous "hackers" are such simple-minded dolts.
Duh, let's get a dialogue going. We'll make funny pictures of politicians and demand no more rapes! Oh, and more marshmallows in our hot chocolate!
skip Mexico any time of the year...
CHiPS: Baja
Coming to the NBC programming schedule soon
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