The soldiers took them in the night. First they came for Nitza Alvarado Espinoza and Jose Alvarado Herrera. The 31-year-old cousins were sitting in a van outside a family member's house when troops forced them into a military truck. Minutes later, soldiers arrived at the house of another Alvarado cousin, 18-year-old Rocio Alvarado Reyes. She was carried away screaming at gunpoint in front of her young brothers and baby daughter. It was Dec. 29, 2009 -- the last time the cousins were seen alive. [continues 1279 words]
Mexican police guard a crime scene near the beach resort of Mazatlan, where 19 suspected drug cartel members died in clashes with police on July 1. On Wednesday, cartel violence claimed 26 more lives in neighboring Chihuahua state. Mexican police guard a crime scene near the beach resort of Mazatlan, where 19 suspected drug cartel members died in clashes with police on July 1. On Wednesday, cartel violence claimed 26 more lives in neighboring Chihuahua state. (Mario Rivera Alvarado / Associated Press) [continues 755 words]
ALBERT EINSTEIN, the most influential physicist of the 20th century, reportedly said that if he were given one hour to save the world he would devote 55 minutes to defining the problem and five minutes to finding the solution. I think that is a rather lopsided proportion, but it does illustrate the point that we should not jump into solving a problem without spending time to understand it. Before rushing to solve a problem, whether it be the traffic mess, poverty, or drug addiction and crime, it is best to view it from different perspectives so as to come up with various insights. [continues 964 words]
MEXICO CITY - Two days after Jorge Antonio Parral Rabadan was kidnapped by a criminal gang, the Mexican Army raided the remote ranch where he was a prisoner and killed him. As he instinctively raised his hands in defense, the soldiers fired over and over at point-blank range. A brief army communique about the event asserted that soldiers had returned fire and killed three hit men at the El Puerto ranch on April 26, 2010. But Mr. Parral had fired no weapon. [continues 1106 words]
MEXICO CITY - In the history of modern war, fighters are much more likely to injure their enemies than kill them. But in Mexico, the opposite is true. According to the government's own figures, Mexico's armed forces are exceptionally efficient killers - stacking up bodies at extraordinary rates. The Mexican authorities say the nation's soldiers are simply better trained and more skilled than the cartels they battle. But experts who study the issue say Mexico's kill rate is practically unheard-of, arguing that the numbers reveal something more ominous. [continues 1414 words]
MEXICO CITY - In the history of modern war, fighters are much more likely to injure their enemies than kill them. But in Mexico, the opposite is true. According to the government's own figures, Mexico's armed forces are exceptionally efficient killers - stacking up bodies at extraordinary rates. Mexican authorities say the nation's soldiers are simply better trained and more skilled than the cartels they battle. But experts who study the issue say Mexico's kill rate is practically unheard-of, arguing that the numbers reveal something more ominous. [continues 744 words]
Ex-Mexican President Says Both Sides of the Border Should Be Scared Former Mexican President Vicente Fox isn't the guy you would expect to see sporting a bright pink Donald Trump brand tie. Fox has had plenty to say about the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee - and none of it is complimentary. But then he has a point he wants to make: "Look at the back, hidden here," he says, pointing to the manufacturer's label. "'Made in China.' So he's really protecting workers in the United States, protecting jobs in the United States." [continues 1005 words]
Kingpin's Plea With U.S. Triggered Years of Bloodshed Reaching All the Way to Southlake Zetas Saw Gulf Cartel Leader As Traitor, Declared a War That Has Killed Thousands of People A plea agreement between a Mexican drug kingpin and the U.S. government helped generate a violent split between two drug cartels that led to the deaths of thousands of people in Mexico and along the Texas border, a Dallas Morning News investigation has found. A masked gunman fired multiple times at Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa with a 9 mm handgun through the passenger window of his Range Rover at Southlake Town Square in May 2013. Three Mexican citizens were arrested more than a year later and charged with stalking, and aiding and abetting in the hit. [continues 4074 words]
MEXICO CITY - Armando Santacruz is a clean-cut father of five and successful business owner. Nothing at all about him screams "pothead." Yet, Santacruz, 54, is at the forefront of a growing movement to legalize marijuana in Mexico - a move that could have seismic repercussions both in Mexico and the USA. He talks about legalizing pot with the same impassioned fervor many here use to describe soccer clubs or favorite restaurants. Santacruz was one of four plaintiffs who won a pivotal Supreme Court case here in November, which allowed him and his co-plaintiffs their private consumption of cannabis and galvanized a national debate. [continues 639 words]
America will never get control of illegal drugs or immigrants until it accepts the failure of the "war on drug." For over four decades, the U.S. government has been on a quixotic mission to stamp out drug use through prohibition, mass incarceration and international interdiction. One trillion dollars and millions of arrests later, 49.2 percent of Americans aged 12 or older reported illicit drug use in their lifetimes, 16.7 percent in the past year and 10.2 percent in the past month, according to the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. [continues 554 words]
The capture of Joaquin "El Chapo (Shorty)" Guzman in February 2014 was lauded at home and abroad as one of the most important accomplishments of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who restored Mexico's longtime ruling party to power after a 12-year hiatus. However, on July 11, 2015, Guzman escaped from Mexico's top maximum-security prison. Now, one of Pena Nieto's greatest feats is widely seen as his greatest failure, and a possible setback to U.S.-Mexico relations. Since Guzman's escape through a 1.5-kilometer ventilated tunnel, pundits are debating who is to blame and what comes next in the fight against Mexican organized crime. [continues 807 words]
Shortly before 9 p.m. on Saturday, Joaquin Guzman Loera, the Mexican drug kingpin whose capture last year had been trumpeted by his country's government as a crucial victory in its bloody campaign against the narcotics trade, stepped into the shower in his cell in the most secure wing of the most secure prison in Mexico. He never came out. When guards later entered the cell, they discovered a 2-by-2-foot hole, through which Mr. Guzman, known as El Chapo, or Shorty, had disappeared. [continues 1295 words]
If Bans Do More Harm Than Good, It's Time to Try a Different Approach Who suffers most from drug prohibition? The conventional wisdom is that Western countries pay a very high price for illicit drugs originating from and transiting through some developing countries. But the truth is the highest price for our failed "war on drugs" is paid by those relatively few countries where the drugs are produced or through which they move. This perspective was usefully analysed in a recent report from the United Nations Development Program, headed by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark. Entitled Perspectives on the Development Dimensions of Drug Control Policy, it shows the worst damage from global drug prohibition is not in places such as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Mexico. [continues 838 words]
After last week's visit to the White House by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, it's time to rethink our support for the Mexican government's war against the drug cartels. Why? Because something is not right. Thousands of Mexicans in the United States greeted Pena Nieto's arrival by doing what thousands of their compadres have done in Mexico for several weeks - screaming bloody murder. Protesters say that Pena Nieto is either incompetent or in cahoots with the cartels, and it's hard to believe anyone could be this incompetent. [continues 669 words]
Report Recommends Treating Drug Abuse as Public-Health Problem MEXICO CITY--A commission composed mostly of former world leaders will recommend Tuesday that governments move beyond legalizing marijuana and decriminalize and regulate the use of most other illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine. The international drug-control system is broken, says a report to be released Tuesday in New York by the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Governments should be allowed wide latitude to experiment with the regulation of drugs, except for the most lethal, says the commission, whose 21 members include former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, and former presidents such as Brazil's Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Mexico's Ernesto Zedillo and Colombia's Cesar Gaviria. [continues 809 words]
There is a strong parallel between what is happening on our southern border with the large numbers of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing or attempting to cross into our country and what happened at the beginning of World War II. Then Jewish parents in Germany sent their children to England to protect them from the Nazis. Today Central American parents are sending their children to our country to protect them from the violence of drug gangs. It took a huge world effort to destroy the Nazis. However, only the United States can reduce the violence caused by these drug gangs by ending our failed war on drugs and controlling the distribution of all drugs. Note what is happening with marijuana in Colorado and Washington. [continues 694 words]
MEXICO CITY- As the last class was finishing at the school in northeast Mexico, the four pupils grabbed 12-year-old Hector Alejandro Mendez by his arms and legs and swung him, banging his head against the wall. Mendez - "Mini," to his friends - made it home, where he told his mother about the assault before losing consciousness. He died a week later. The injuries had caused fatal bleeding in his brain. At his funeral, weeping family and friends wore white T-shirts with messages to the departed child. "Alejandro, we always love you," said the epistle from his mother. "Justice for my baby." [continues 735 words]
The arrest of the powerful and elusive Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman will, for at least a short time, be a major notch in the belt for the government of Enrique Pena Nieto, who promised to reduce Mexico's drug violence after the carnage that took place under his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. During Calderon's tenure, nearly 60,000 Mexicans lost their lives in drug-related violence. Pena Nieto has promised to focus more attention on the economic causes of drug violence rather than just breaking the cartels, but he still likely relishes the sight of men like Guzman - or Zetas boss Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, who was arrested last summer - in handcuffs. [continues 481 words]
The arrest of the powerful and elusive Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman will, for at least a short time, be a major notch in the belt for the government of Enrique Pena Nieto, who promised to reduce Mexico's drug violence after the carnage that took place under his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. During Calderon's tenure, nearly 60,000 Mexicans lost their lives in drug-related violence. Pena Nieto has promised to focus more attention on the economic causes of drug violence rather than just breaking the cartels, but he still likely relishes the sight of men like Guzman - or Zetas boss Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, who was arrested last summer - in handcuffs. [continues 509 words]
A child tries to help his father arrange weapons at a checkpoint set up by the Self-Defense Council of Michoacan in Tancitaro, Mexico. Authorities fear self-defense groups could turn into the organized crime forces they're fighting.A man belonging to a self-defense group holds an AK-47 as he stands at a checkpoint in Antunez, Mexico, on Jan. 11. Vigilante groups have formed to confront drug cartels in parts of Michoacan.Armed men belonging to the Self-Defense Council of Michoacan stand guard at checkpoint at the entrance of Antunez, Mexico.Vigilantes in Michoacan state insist they won't lay down their guns until top leaders of a powerful drug cartel are arrested, defying government orders as federal forces try to regain control in a lawless region plagued by armed groups.The window of a bank is riddled with bullet holes Jan. 11 in Apatzingan, Mexico. Residents from various towns in Michoacan are destroying property to protest the arrival of vigilantes, or members of "self-defense" groups, to their communities. Federal police and soldiers stand guard in Apatzingan, Mexico, on Jan. 15. The unrest is in a farming region of Michoacan known as Tierra Caliente, where vigilante groups have been trying to drive out the Knights Templar drug cartel. A city employee looks out as a cordon of soldiers guard the government building in Apatzingan, Mexico. Soldiers and federal police kept a tense standoff with vigilantes after a new government campaign to stop violence in the western Michoacan state turned deadly. A federal police officer patrols the entrance to Apatzingan, Mexico, on Jan. 14. A clash occurred as the government sent more troops to where the vigilantes have been fighting the Knights Templar cartel. A child tries to help his father arrange weapons at a checkpoint set up by the Self-Defense Council of Michoacan in Tancitaro, Mexico. Authorities fear self-defense groups could turn into the organized crime forces they're fighting. [continues 806 words]
