Jay GW
06-05-2005, 11:59 AM
U.S.-MEXICO BORDER - (KRT) - The dead include university students, assembly-plant workers, farm hands, businessmen, journalists, money couriers, drug gang henchmen and dozens of police officers.
At least 550 people have lost their lives in drug-related executions in Mexico so far this year - with 300 of those killings in the six Mexican states bordering the United States. All are thought to be linked to organized crime, according to a review of press accounts by The Dallas Morning News.
Among the latest: A police commander assassinated in Nuevo Laredo early Thursday. Enrique Cardenas Saldana was gunned down in front of his 9-year-old daughter. He was the sixth police officer - and the fourth commander - killed in the border city this year.
"The recent rise in drug-related killings is extremely disturbing," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas. "I think it's clear we have a real problem on our hands that needs to be dealt with."
The killings have rattled residents on both sides of the border. A State Department warning about travel in the region is in effect through the end of July. And the rising death toll is shaking many Mexicans' faith in their government's ability to stop the violence brought on by drug gangs caught in a bloody turf battle.
"It's a war," said human rights activist Mauro Cruz, who compared his country's anti-drug fight to America's conflict in Iraq. "Kidnappings, murders and disappearances are the order of the day."
Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca told reporters last week the execution total had reached 550 this year. But accounts indicate the number could be higher. El Universal newspaper says it has documented 545 such murders just since February. And the Mexican Editorial Organization, which owns 62 newspapers, last week put the number at 800 - about 37 per week.
Some hit men in northern Mexico dispatch their victims in broad daylight. Others leave the scene in Humvees, not exactly an inconspicuous getaway vehicle. They are brazen, human rights workers say, because they aren't worried about getting caught.
Outmanned and heavily outgunned, police officers who aren't working in cahoots with the criminal organizations often would rather not get involved, said Raymundo Ramos, a journalist and head of a Nuevo Laredo human rights committee.
"There are only 15 federal officers in Nuevo Laredo," he said.
In February 2004, the report said, a U.S. resident asked a Tamaulipas police commander to arrest kidnappers who were holding his wife captive at a local hotel. When the police commander refused, the assailants got away with the ransom, leaving the couple unharmed but broke.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/11821458.htm
Mexico has, over the last few years, become another Colombia. Drug gangs run everything now. It used to be so safe and peaceful too, but not anymore.
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At least 550 people have lost their lives in drug-related executions in Mexico so far this year - with 300 of those killings in the six Mexican states bordering the United States. All are thought to be linked to organized crime, according to a review of press accounts by The Dallas Morning News.
Among the latest: A police commander assassinated in Nuevo Laredo early Thursday. Enrique Cardenas Saldana was gunned down in front of his 9-year-old daughter. He was the sixth police officer - and the fourth commander - killed in the border city this year.
"The recent rise in drug-related killings is extremely disturbing," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas. "I think it's clear we have a real problem on our hands that needs to be dealt with."
The killings have rattled residents on both sides of the border. A State Department warning about travel in the region is in effect through the end of July. And the rising death toll is shaking many Mexicans' faith in their government's ability to stop the violence brought on by drug gangs caught in a bloody turf battle.
"It's a war," said human rights activist Mauro Cruz, who compared his country's anti-drug fight to America's conflict in Iraq. "Kidnappings, murders and disappearances are the order of the day."
Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca told reporters last week the execution total had reached 550 this year. But accounts indicate the number could be higher. El Universal newspaper says it has documented 545 such murders just since February. And the Mexican Editorial Organization, which owns 62 newspapers, last week put the number at 800 - about 37 per week.
Some hit men in northern Mexico dispatch their victims in broad daylight. Others leave the scene in Humvees, not exactly an inconspicuous getaway vehicle. They are brazen, human rights workers say, because they aren't worried about getting caught.
Outmanned and heavily outgunned, police officers who aren't working in cahoots with the criminal organizations often would rather not get involved, said Raymundo Ramos, a journalist and head of a Nuevo Laredo human rights committee.
"There are only 15 federal officers in Nuevo Laredo," he said.
In February 2004, the report said, a U.S. resident asked a Tamaulipas police commander to arrest kidnappers who were holding his wife captive at a local hotel. When the police commander refused, the assailants got away with the ransom, leaving the couple unharmed but broke.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/11821458.htm
Mexico has, over the last few years, become another Colombia. Drug gangs run everything now. It used to be so safe and peaceful too, but not anymore.
:(