Pubdate: Sun, 20 May 2007
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Hector Tobar, Times Staff Writer
Note: Carlos Martinez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to 
this report.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Mexico (Mexico)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon

A MEXICAN CARTEL ARMY'S WAR WITHIN

Hit Men Known As the Zetas Are Aiming at Their Own As a Power Struggle Spreads.

VERACRUZ, MEXICO -- The two thoroughbreds sprinted down a country 
track, a few million dollars in the bettors' kitty and an 
old-fashioned camera waiting at the finish line.

When the race was over, as veterinarians guided the expensive equines 
back to their air-conditioned trailers, gamblers at the private track 
began to argue over the nose-to-nose conclusion. Among them were 
members of a band of hit men known as the Zetas, employees of the 
Gulf cartel of drug traffickers.

Let's just wait for the film to be developed, someone said.

Then, above the din, another voice rang out. "I've come to kill you!"

A new chapter was being added to the violent saga of Mexico's most 
notorious drug ring. More than a dozen people may have been killed in 
the gunfire that followed, an ambush in which the hit men appear to 
have attacked one another.

The Zetas were Mexico's first drug cartel army, and in many ways they 
and their employers are responsible for the militarization of the 
country's drug conflict. President Felipe Calderon deployed the 
national army this year to fight traffickers in several Mexican states.

The March shootout at the Villarin track was one of many bloody 
episodes in what appears to be an escalating power struggle within 
the Gulf cartel. Experts say the increase in tension was triggered by 
the January deportation of reputed cartel leader Osiel Cardenas to 
face trafficking charges in the U.S.

"The cartel has split," Genaro Garcia Luna, public security minister 
and Mexico's top cop, said last week. "This has generated a new wave 
of violence as they fight over the regions Osiel controlled."

The cartel, based in the border state of Tamaulipas, grew wealthy and 
powerful thanks to the U.S. appetite for Colombian cocaine, and both 
of its branches remain potent forces in Mexico. Almost every week, a 
new act of cruelty, boldness or stupidity by the Zetas plays out in 
the country's tabloids and newscasts.

Military Roots

Before the 1990s, groups based in the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa 
dominated Mexico's drug trade. The country's traffickers were 
becoming cash-rich as Colombian cartels increasingly ceded key 
smuggling routes into the U.S. to them.

To challenge the dominance of the Sinaloans, the ascendant Gulf 
cartel began recruiting soldiers from the army. The Zetas were born.

Their founder was a former army officer who had deserted: Lt. Arturo 
Guzman Decena, known as Zeta 1. He reportedly received training from 
the Israeli military.

According to the attorney general's office, Guzman is believed to 
have recruited several soldiers from his paratrooper brigade and at 
least 40 former members of the Mexican special forces.

"They brought the ideas of counterinsurgency and psychological 
warfare to the drug business," said Luis Astorga, an expert on the 
industry. "The idea is that if you paralyze your adversaries with 
fear, you've won half the battle."

The Zetas' mission was to wrest from Sinaloa and other groups the 
Gulf cartel's "right" to smuggle drugs through a given port or border city.

"The drug world is like any other business," Astorga said. "You try 
to take territory and profits from your rivals. But there are no 
courts to settle disputes. There is only violence."

The Gulf traffickers took advantage of the low pay and high desertion 
rate of the Mexican army, where one in eight soldiers deserts every 
year. Cartel members reportedly enticed the troops with large sums of 
cash and positions of responsibility, something the Sinaloa 
traffickers still shy away from.

"With the Sinaloa group, family ties have always been important," 
Astorga said. "To them, bringing in soldiers and giving them power 
was like admitting a Trojan horse into the fold."

Raul Benitez, a Mexico security expert at American University in 
Washington, says the Gulf cartel valued the army veterans for their 
knowledge of weapons and explosives. (In Mexico, the army regulates 
all firearms.)

As the Zetas gained strength, they brought increasingly powerful 
weaponry into the drug war, including .50-caliber machine guns 
originally designed as antiaircraft weapons. In recent years, grenade 
attacks on police stations have become common.

New Recruits

In popular legend, the Zetas are gunslingers with bazookas and 
military experience. They pull off killings that suggest a certain 
level of tactical training: In February, for example, they donned 
army uniforms to enter two Acapulco police stations and kill seven 
officers and employees.

But like many legends, the Zeta myth is built around a core truth 
that fades deeper into history each year.

Guzman -- Zeta 1 -- was killed in 2002 in a shootout with the army in 
Matamoros. As many of the other original hit men fell, the cartel 
sought new firepower, first recruiting members of the Guatemalan 
special forces, the Kaibiles.

Many of the original Zetas are dead or in prison, Mexican authorities 
say. U.S. officials say current members probably were recruited from 
the ranks of Mexico's urban and rural poor.

"It's gotten to the point where you get drunk, shoot at some cans and 
paint your face black, and that makes you a Zeta," said a U.S. 
official who asked not to be named. "A lot of it is image and myth."

"They are young people between 25 and 30 years old," said Garcia 
Luna, the public security minister, adding that the recruits are 
drawn by the aura of wealth and power surrounding the Zetas. "If you 
look at them face to face, you can see who they really are: people of 
lower social status and poor education."

In the racetrack shootout, the number and names of those killed 
remain a mystery, like much about the Zetas.

According to news reports, at least one high-ranking hit man died: 
Efrain Torres, also known as Zeta 14 or the Spark. Federal 
authorities say one other man was killed. But his name is a state 
secret and won't be released until 2019.

Residents say the Zetas may have secretly buried as many as a dozen other men.

After the shootout, attacks and counterattacks spread throughout 
Veracruz state. A police chief was killed. Several journalists and 
government officials were accused of being Zeta collaborators and 
went into hiding. Someone dumped a severed head at a newspaper office.

The violence even reached a cemetery 100 miles away.

"They tied up the guard, broke through a few layers of concrete and 
pulled out the coffin," said Raul Vargas, director of a funeral home 
and cemetery in the town of Poza Rica, describing how men believed to 
be Zetas stole the corpse of the recently buried Zeta 14.

"This was one of our deluxe coffins, so it was pretty heavy. They 
loaded it on a truck and then they were gone."

Spreading Violence

The escalating violence has gone beyond internal strife. In recent 
weeks, Zetas and the Gulf cartel have been linked to slayings in 
Sonora, Guerrero, Michoacan and other states. In some cases, the 
Zetas have been the victims of gruesome attacks.

In March, a half-naked man with a Z painted on his stomach was 
videotaped while being tortured and interrogated by unidentified 
captors. On tape, the man confesses to his role in the Acapulco 
police killings. In video posted and then quickly removed from 
YouTube, he is strangled and decapitated.

The tape is one of dozens of "narco messages" that have surfaced as 
the drug cartels wage propaganda wars against one another and the authorities.

The messages usually take the form of notes left next to corpses. 
Often they are attempts to spread disinformation, analysts say. They 
may name government and police officials as being the accomplices of 
rival cartels, creating the sense that anyone and everyone is tainted 
by drug corruption.

One such message aired in March on the Azteca television network, 
three weeks after the racetrack shootout. In a videotape, two alleged 
Zetas from Veracruz confess to their unseen captors that they 
committed a series of crimes, including 23 killings. A local police 
chief was killed, one says, because he failed to prevent federal 
police from arresting Zetas wounded in the shootout "even though he 
knew he was getting money from the cartel."

A newspaper editor was killed, one man says, "because he wrote a lot 
of things against the cartel, affecting our relationship with the authorities."

The tape names two columnists, including one from the newspaper 
Notiver, as paid Zeta collaborators. In the newsroom, a reporter 
called that allegation pure fiction.

"I know those two people, and they live ordinary lives," said the 
reporter, who asked not to be named. The reporter sees the missive as 
an attempt to spread fear and confusion.

"There's a collective psychosis because every night there are new 
reports of attacks," the reporter said. "This kind of drug war is 
something we've never seen in Veracruz before."

About 20 more people have been killed in Veracruz since the racetrack shooting.

All along the Gulf Coast, in the small towns where they commonly 
operate, the cartel's gunmen remain as conspicuous as an invading 
army. The residents learned quickly never to stare, despite the 
gold-plated rifles the men carry and the late-model SUVs they drive.

In Coatzacoalcos, 130 miles south of Veracruz, a newspaper 
photographer encountered five armed men on the street one day in 
March as they were being detained by police. The suspects had 
military-style haircuts, machine guns and designer shoes, said the 
photographer, who asked not to be named.

They seemed unfazed by their detention, telling the officers, "You 
probably just better let us go now before this problem gets more serious."

Only later did the photographer realize what had happened. He had 
looked into the faces of some of Mexico's most dangerous men and 
lived to tell the tale.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake