Pubdate: Wed, 14 Feb 2007
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2007 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times Service

DRUG RIVALS WAGE A WAR OF GRISLY IMAGES

Rival Drug Traffickers Are Sprinkling The Internet With 
Often-Gruesome Video Depictions Of Their Retribution

MEXICO CITY - For months, video artists and videographers of varying 
skill have been peppering the Internet with a gruesome cavalcade of 
images: a woman slain in the cab of a pickup truck, an alleged Mafia 
hit man being tortured and executed, an assassinated singer's body 
splayed on a coroner's table.

Many of the videos are posted at one time or another on the website 
YouTube. They seek to cheer on or denigrate the opposing sides in 
Mexico's drug wars, the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin "El Chapo" 
Guzman and the Gulf cartel believed led, until recently, by Osiel 
Cardenas. Mexican authorities extradited Cardenas last month to face 
charges in a U.S. courtroom.

Last week, assassins armed with assault weapons and cameras appeared 
to take the cultural battle to a new level. Police said two groups of 
gunmen videotaped themselves assassinating five officers and two 
secretaries at police stations in Acapulco.

Those images have yet to surface on the Internet. But a vibrant 
subculture has emerged to celebrate and document the deeds of the 
drug traffickers. Although many of the people who post videos 
probably are not directly involved in the drug trade, people made 
explicit threats on one blog, since shut down, that were followed by 
real-life killings.

The deeds of Mexico's drug traffickers have long been celebrated in 
the folk music genre known as narcocorridos. The Internet video 
postings are a new venue to spread the mythology and allow people who 
identify with one of the cartels to delight in humiliating their rivals.

The videos hint at the growing mystique of the cartels, which have 
formed competing bands of hit men who are said to have received 
paramilitary training. Although YouTube often removes the violent 
videos from its site, they usually reappear quickly. Last week, many 
of the postings had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Video Of Arrest

"Now you can see that they're not that brave -- ha, ha, ha," one 
YouTube poster wrote in Spanish in response to a four-minute video 
posted there called Los Sicarios, (the Hit Men). The video shows a 
suspected member of the Gulf cartel, popularly known as the Zetas, 
arrested after a firefight in the state of Tabasco.

Handcuffed and lying on the floor, the suspect meekly asks to talk to 
his family and declares, "They're going to kill me. I know I'm going 
to be killed."

"This is great," the YouTube poster wrote in response. "Pure Sinaloa 
Productions."

Such mocking might be just empty bluster, but other statements posted 
on the Internet are not. In September, Marcelo Garza, a high-ranking 
federal investigator in the border state of Nuevo Leon was 
assassinated 18 days after a blogger stated: "We swear to you that 
soon we will knock him down." The blog accused Garza of working for a 
rival cartel.

In 2005, The Dallas Morning News obtained a copy of a DVD showing 
unknown kidnappers interrogating four men allegedly working for the 
Gulf cartel. One of the captives is executed on camera. A Mexican 
official told the newspaper that video was part of a rival cartel's 
"counterintelligence strategy."

The video of that killing is reproduced in several YouTube postings, 
including one that threatens revenge for the killing of singer 
Valentin "the Golden Rooster" Elizalde, whose narcocorrido ballads 
were taken up as anthems to Sinaloa cartel leader Guzman.

Death Threat

"This is directed to all those who call themselves Zetas . . . and to 
the Gulf cartel," the YouTube video begins in a hip-hop cadence. 
"You'll pay with your lives for what you did to our Golden Rooster."

A 30-second video of Elizalde's autopsy in the border city of Reynosa 
after his assassination in November circulates widely on the 
Internet, with one version on YouTube having more than 850,000 views 
as of last Wednesday.

A YouTube spokesman said in a written statement that the company 
relies on users to report inappropriate content. Such content is 
removed if it is found to be inappropriate.

"Real violence on YouTube is not allowed," said the spokesman, who 
declined to be identified. 'If a video shows someone getting 'hurt, 
attacked, or humiliated,' it will be removed as according to our 
Community Guidelines."

Luis Astorga, a drug trafficking analyst at the National Autonomous 
University of Mexico, says it is likely that the vast majority of the 
videos posted on YouTube and other sites are produced by people with 
no links to the cartels themselves.

Often, reporters arrive at crime scenes before the police do. 
Officers don't always close off crime scenes, and bystanders can 
shoot footage with the hope of selling it later.

Indeed, some video available on YouTube appears to have been filmed 
by police themselves, including a dramatic eight-minute sequence shot 
from the inside of a jail in Tabasco state during a shootout.

'We're Under Fire'

"We're in the Palace of Justice, and we're under fire," one man in 
the video says as he calls out for help on his cellphone. Explosions 
are audible outside the building, and blood covers the floor.

A woman cries out: "Please, call the army!"
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