Tag Archives: drug war

Mexican drug cartels reach new low as gangs hang rival members from city-center bridges

Life in Mexico. Note the guy on the left had his leg chopped off.

What strikes me as rather odd is that a story like this would never appear in American media outlets. I found this article on The Daily Mail UK website. For those of you that do not know, UK stands for United Kingdom, or Great Britain.

The reason you would never see this in the American media is because we have a government that seems to believe that Mexicans have some sort of God given right to live here in America.

Here we are flying about the globe killing terrorists like Osama Bin Laden yet we are opening the flood gates for home grown terrorism at our southern border. Because that’s exactly what gang members are, right? Terrorists? Bob

From The Daily Mail UK

They are the gruesome images that are testament to the trouble that has hit one Mexican city which has become a flashpoint for the war on drugs.

Two young men, cut down in the prime of their life, were left hanging from a pedestrian bridge as warring drugs cartels continue to fight in Monterrey

One of the men was was missing a foot and had been stripped down to just his underwear while the other’s clothes were splattered with blood.

Their bodies were discovered early yesterday morning and both had placards that said: ‘This happened to them for supporting the CDG.

The manufacturing city where they were found has changed dramatically over the last four years. With a population of 4million people, it has gone from being a model for developing economies to a symbol of Mexico’s drug war chaos.

It has been sucked down into a dark spiral of gangland killings, violent crime and growing lawlessness.

Trouble has escalated since late 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led war on the cartels. In that time, grenade attacks, beheadings, firefights and drive-by killings have surged.

The city is home to some of Latin America’s biggest companies and average incomes are double the Mexican average.

Both men had signs next to them that said ‘This happened to them for supporting the CDG (Gulf cartel)’. Right, a forensics team removes one of the victims

Across the country almost 40,000 people have now been killed since 2006 and Monterrey’s violence has risen to the point that questions are being raised over the government’s ability to maintain order and ensure its viability.

Although Mexico City has avoided most of the troubles, killings have started in the second city of Guadalajara.

If the cartels were to declare war in the capital, Monterrey’s experience shows that Mexico’s long-neglected police and judiciary are not equipped to handle it.

Javier Astaburuaga, chief financial officer at Latin American drinks maker, Femsa, said: ‘If we can’t deal with the problem in Monterrey, with all the resources and the people have here, then it is a serious concern for the rest of Mexico.’

Since the beginning of this year, 600 people have been killed already – in the whole of 2010 there were 620 deaths.

Among them are local mayors, innocent civilians – including a housewife caught in crossfire, a newlywed systems engineer killed by soldiers on his way to work and a young design student who was killed in one of the city’s busiest shopping streets.

Hanging people from bridges happens with increasing regularity and is designed to intimidate.

On New Year’s eve, gunmen hanged a woman from a road bridge. Severed heads have been dumped outside kindergartens and traffic police have been shot as they guide children across roads.

On two days in April, a record 30 people were killed in shootouts, mainly hitmen and police, but also a student run down and fatally wounded when a police officer fled from gunmen.

3 Comments

Filed under Breaking News, Broken Society

13 killed in Acapulco area, 11 others elsewhere in Guerrero

At least 13 people were killed Saturday, some of them beheaded, around the popular beach resort of Acapulco, just as foreign visitors have begun arriving for spring break.

Elsewhere in the Guerrero state where Acapulco is located, 11 other people, including soldiers and suspected traffickers, were killed, authorities said.

The dead in Acapulco included five police officers, authorities said, who were ambushed while on patrol on the city’s outskirts about 2 a.m.

Over the next four hours, the bullet-riddled bodies of eight men were discovered in three locations, police said. Four had been beheaded, in the style typical of drug traffickers who have been at war with one another and with government forces for three years.

The government is especially sensitive to reports of drug-war violence in tourist destinations such as Acapulco and Cancun. But no region is immune. Guerrero state is one of Mexico’s most violent: Its position on the Pacific coast makes it a prime transit route for smuggling narcotics to the U.S. and coveted turf for warring cartels.

In June, as Acapulco was putting its hopes on a recovering tourist industry, 18 gunmen and soldiers were killed in battles one weekend in one of the city’s seaside neighborhoods.

News channels have been showing video of young U.S., Canadian and European tourists already frolicking on the beaches of Acapulco, as if to say “maybe this year” and convey a sense of normality. And this weekend is a holiday; thousands of Mexican tourists were headed to Acapulco to take advantage of a three-day weekend marking the birthday of 19th century President Benito Juarez.

Heriberto Salinas Altes, head of public security for Guerrero, said authorities were expecting an increase in violence because of newly exploded power struggles among drug gangs.

“We wish to say that security for visitors [to Acapulco] as well as for people who live here is guaranteed,” Salinas told La Jornada newspaper.

More than 18,000 people have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon deployed the army to battle cartels in December 2006.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Breaking News