Pubdate: Thu, 29 Sep 2005
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Ginger Thompson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

MEXICO FEARS ITS DRUG TRAFFICKERS GET HELP FROM GUATEMALANS

MEXICO CITY - The Ministry of Defense reported this week that a 
feared organization of hit men that was started by corrupt officers 
of the Mexican military had forged an alliance with deserters from an 
elite Guatemalan military unit to help the Mexicans fight for control 
of drug-trafficking routes across the United States border.

The ministry's report confirmed a warning in July by the United 
States Department of Homeland Security that said "unsubstantiated 
reports" had indicated that some Guatemalan military officers were 
training the Mexicans on a ranch just south of the border from McAllen, Tex.

The Mexicans call themselves the Zetas, Spanish for the Z's.

The defense minister, Clemente Vega Garcia, described the alliance 
between the Zetas and the Guatemalan officers, deserters of a special 
forces unit called the Kaibiles, during an appearance on Tuesday 
before a Senate committee.

He said soldiers had detained seven former members of the elite 
Guatemalan unit earlier this month along Mexico's southern border. 
The men who were captured had six automatic machine guns and the 
equivalent of about $100,000 in Mexican and Guatemalan currencies.

On Wednesday, the Guatemalan Defense Ministry reported that four of 
the men in custody were deserters from the Guatemalan military.

Col. Jorge Antonio Ortega Gaytan, a spokesman for the Guatemalan 
ministry, said in an interview on Thursday that an explosives expert, 
a driver trained in defense tactics and a squad leader were among the 
deserters.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have reported 
that the Kaibiles, named after a revered Mayan warrior who avoided 
capture by Spanish conquistadors, are considered some of the most 
skilled jungle fighters in Central America.

They are believed to have been responsible for some of the most 
egregious human rights abuses during Guatemala's civil war.

Kate Doyle, a specialist on Guatemala for the National Security 
Archive, said that a 1983 intelligence report by the State Department 
said that the Kaibiles killed "every one of several hundred 
inhabitants in the village of Las Dos Erres."

The Zetas have been linked to the wave of violence raging across 
Mexico's border with the United States as rival drug traffickers 
fight for control of lucrative drug routes.

The most vicious fighting has occurred in Nuevo Laredo, a town where 
one drug-trafficking group known as the Gulf Cartel is struggling to 
fend off an invasion of its territory by another group, known as the 
Sinaloa Cartel.

Mexican law enforcement officials say the Zetas work primarily as 
gunmen for the Gulf Cartel.

Deputy Attorney General Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos said in a 
recent interview that most of the original members of the Zetas, many 
of whom had received training at the United States School of the 
Americas when they were in the Mexican military, had been killed or captured.

But the intelligence alert in July by the Department of Homeland 
Security said that a new generation of Zetas, called Zetitas, or 
Little Z's, had been recruited among young Gulf Cartel operatives and 
that the group had opened its own methamphetamine-trafficking 
networks as far as Arkansas and Tennessee.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman