De War on Drugs in Mexico - hier verder

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Op dinsdag 15 februari 2011 22:58 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

Nog meer faal

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TEHERAN/KERMAN/ROME - Vier mannen die in het centrale deel van Iran ter dood zijn veroordeeld wegens drugshandel, zijn in de stad Kerman opgehangen. Plaatselijke media berichtten dat zaterdag. De vier waren veroordeeld wegens bezit van verschillende hoeveelheden heroïne, opium en crack-cocaïne.

In Iran zijn dit jaar daarmee al 75 doodvonnissen voltrokken, volgens tellingen van het Franse persbureau AFP. Eind vorige maand werd er de Nederlands-Iraanse Zahra Bahrami op beschuldiging van drugshandel opgehangen. Vorig jaar zijn voor zover bekend 179 mensen geëxecuteerd. De autoriteiten stellen dat het in 80 procent van de executies gaat om drugscriminaliteit.

Oorlog tegen drugs
Het land voert een permanente 'oorlog tegen drugs', maar de aanvoer van drugs uit het aangrenzende Afghanistan en de Pakistaanse regio Beloetsjistan lijkt onstuitbaar. In de strijd tegen drugscriminaliteit verliezen volgens Iraanse gegevens elk jaar gemiddeld 106 politiemensen of militairen het leven sinds 1979. Er zijn in die periode aan de zijde van de Iraanse drugsbestrijdingsdiensten circa 12.000 gewonden gevallen.

Volgens Iraanse media geeft Iran jaarlijks 750 miljoen euro uit aan de strijd. De afgelopen vijf jaar heeft Iran Afghaanse inspanningen de drugssmokkel en -productie tegen te gaan met elk jaar 37,5 miljoen euro gesteund. Teheran verwijt Washington en diens NAVO-bondgenoten sinds de aanval op Afghanistan in 2001 de drugsproblematiek over het hoofd te zien. De productie van illegale drugs in Afghanistan, met name heroïne, is volgens de Iraniërs sinds de Amerikaanse aanval in 2001 in omvang verveertigvoudigd.

De Italiaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Franco Frattini prees afgelopen week tijdens een bezoek van Iraanse parlementariërs aan Rome Iran als een toonaangevend drugsbestrijder. Hij drong aan op meer samenwerking met Iran in de strijd tegen drugs en terrorisme in Afghanistan.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)18/drugs-trade-drugs

Mexico, chief casualty of America's 'war on drugs'

With the death toll ever rising, it's high time the US stopped sponsoring a bloody, unwinnable conflict with the drugs cartels

Tuesday's brutal attack on two US law enforcement agents in Mexico has led to the normal sabre-rattling. Representative Michael McCaul of Texas has called it a "game-changer" and a "wake-up call" to the "war on our nation's doorstep". Last week, James Westphal, undersecretary of the Army, had already spoken of an "armed insurgency" in Mexico, and the possibility of sending "armed and fighting" troops across the border to prevent a "takeover of government". Secretary Janet Napolitano continually speaks of the "war" south of the border. James Clapper, national intelligence director, recently announced that Mexico has been promoted to being a top national security threat.

Mexico has, indeed, reached a tipping point. But an escalation of the present military strategy will only make the situation worse. The best response to recent events is to end the war and proceed towards disarmament, instead of aggravating the conflict. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, has declared the end of the metaphorical "war on drugs" within US borders. The time has come also to bring a stop to the very real war on the drug cartels south of the border.

The central problem with the military strategy is that it does not distinguish between violent and non-violent criminals, or serious and less harmful crimes. As Kerlikowske has pointed out, the Mexican cartels are not "insurgents" or "terrorists", but "multivalent criminal organisations", which have diversified into a wide variety of activities including kidnapping, extortion, piracy, human trafficking, money-laundering and government corruption, as well as the transportation and sale of illegal drugs.

Of all of these crimes, by far the least harmful for social and economic development is the transportation of drugs. Although drug consumption is clearly damaging, simply transporting illegal substances does not, in itself, create violence, economic crisis or human suffering. And even the harm of drug consumption pales in comparison to the effects of kidnappings, beheadings and human trafficking, especially when the consumption involves marijuana, sales of which make up two thirds of the profits of the Mexican cartels.

Nevertheless, due to pressure from the US government, the Mexican authorities have been forced to concentrate their scarce law enforcement resources on pursuing the least harmful crimes. This strategy has had the obvious consequence of pushing the criminals towards more dangerous and violent activities. The result: a stratospheric increase in violence, with over 35,000 assassinations in the past four years, 15,000 during 2010 alone. The problem in Mexico is, therefore, not a lack of firepower or support for the "war on drugs", but the very strategy of "war" itself.

The real priority should be on punishing violent crimes, not the transportation of drugs. By turning the typical strategy on its head, Mexico would slowly start to separate the violent, dangerous criminals from those drug traffickers who are in the business principally for the money. Although this might not bring down the prices of illegal drugs on the streets of US cities, it would help end the violence, which today is paramount and may at some point spill over to the US.

This proposal should not be confused with either legalisation or negotiation approaches. Increased liberalisation of marijuana consumption would reduce the urgency of controlling transportation routes, but this strategy is by no means dependent on the legalisation of drug use. And this idea in no way implies a pact with the cartels, in the style of the past authoritarian Mexican governments. On the contrary, the proposal is to increase, not reduce, the pressure on the most serious criminals.

Such a change in strategy would immediately receive vigorous applause from the Mexican people. A growing number of Mexicans have come to the conclusion that peace and prosperity are more important than stopping the flow of drugs towards eager consumers in the United States. A broad new citizen movement has even emerged, rallying around the cry of: "No more blood!" Movement leaders agree that the drug cartels need to be controlled – but in a way that does not destroy the very fabric of society. It makes no sense to win the war, if it leaves the country in shambles.

It is time for the Obama administration to listen to the Mexican people and not only to his military advisers. The roots of the problem obviously lie in the lack of regulation of the sale of assault weapons and in the high drug consumption in the US: 90% of weapons confiscated from Mexican cartels come from the US. But if it is not politically feasible to attend to these issues, the Obama administration can at least change the emphasis of its policy towards Mexico. The central objective should be the reduction of violence and the establishment of the rule of law. Without this, everything else is doomed to fail.

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Bloedig weekend in drugsoorlog Mexico
© afp
Sinds vrijdag zijn zeker veertig moorden gepleegd in de Mexicaanse stad Ciudad Juarez. Dat heeft het Mexicaanse federaal parket meegedeeld. Ciudad Juarez wordt zwaar getroffen door geweld dat te maken heeft met drugshandel aan de grens met de Verenigde Staten.

"Vrijdag waren er twintig moorden, zaterdag negentien en vandaag een. Het zijn moorden die de handtekening dragen van de georganiseerde misdaad", aldus het federaal parket. "Het is een van de meest gewelddadige weekeindes in Ciudad Juarez in weken."

De Mexicaanse president Felipe Calderon lanceerde bij zijn aanstelling eind 2006 een grote campagne tegen de drugskartels. Daarbij werden 50.000 militairen en duizenden federale politieagenten gemobiliseerd. Sindsdien kwamen meer dan 34.600 mensen om bij afrekeningen tussen kartels of bij confrontaties met de ordetroepen. (belga/odbs)

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Op maandag 21 februari 2011 13:00 schreef waht het volgende:
Het lijkt erop alsof het niet eens meer puur om het winstbejag gaat maar een soort doldwaze-moordpartij is geworden die steeds gruwelijker in praktijk wordt..

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Op maandag 21 februari 2011 13:00 schreef waht het volgende:
Het lijkt erop alsof het niet eens meer puur om het winstbejag gaat maar een soort doldwaze-moordpartij is geworden die steeds gruwelijker in praktijk wordt..

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http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2668/Buitenland/article/detail/1850902/2011/02/23/Drugsgeweld-in-Mexico-wordt-een-videogame.dhtml

SANTA CRUZ - Een gewelddadige videogame met de Mexicaanse grensstad Ciudad Juárez als setting heeft tot ergernis geleid bij de plaatselijke autoriteiten, die hun handen vol hebben aan de bestrijding van ware criminelen.

De parlementsleden van de deelstaat Chihuahua maakten deze week bekend dat ze de federale regering hebben verzocht de verkoop van Call of Juarez: The Cartel, een videospel gebaseerd op vuurgevechten tussen rivaliserende drugskartels, te verbieden.

Ciudad Juárez, dat grenst aan El Paso in Texas, heeft 1,3 miljoen inwoners en geldt als een van de gevaarlijkste steden ter wereld.

Twee jaar geleden werd het programma Somos Todos Juárez (We zijn allemaal Juárez) gestart, waarmee de regering de openbare onveiligheid probeerde in te dammen. Maar de cijfers tonen aan dat dit is mislukt. De afgelopen twee jaar eiste de drugsoorlog in de stad ruim 6.000 doden. Volgens oud-burgemeester José Reyes zijn naast de kartels honderden jeugdbendes actief, met in totaal 80.000 leden. 'Onze stad is een ongekende kweekvijver voor de georganiseerde misdaad', aldus Reyes.

Zomer
Ubisoft Entertainment SA meldt op zijn website dat het spel van de zomer wordt gelanceerd. De site toont drie personages - met een pistool, een geweer en een windbuks - gereed om erop los te schieten in een van de straten van de stad. De reclame: 'Speel voor eigen rechter en beleef de anarchie van het moderne Wilde Westen.'

Ricardo Boon Salmon, congreslid van de deelstaat Chihuahua, zegt dat de parlementariërs met een verbod 'het imago en de waardigheid van de stad en het land' willen verdedigen. 'Het is schokkend dat bedrijven door de verheerlijking van drugsgeweld commercieel willen profiteren van een reële, tragische situatie.'

Enkele maanden geleden leidde de lancering van Call of Duty: Black Ops, waarin Fidel Castrooet worden vermoord, tot protest van Cuba. In de laatste versie van Medal of Honor, waarin een speler in de huid van een Talib kan kruipen, is na klachten van de VS de naam van het belangrijkste gamepersonage veranderd

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Op maandag 28 februari 2011 12:42 schreef djdg het volgende:
Ik weet niet of ik hier op de juiste plaats post, maar ik heb een vraag;

Is het niet héél toevallig dat deze mensen voor het grote verval gefotografeerd zijn? Heel toevallig dat toen ze nog op het 'juiste pad' (zo wordt de vergelijking neergezet) waren al op de picca stonden? Waarom zijn het bijna dezelfde foto's en niet een foto in een totaal andere omgeving?

http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)m_campaign=DTN+UK%3A

Het zou me niet verbazen als hier flink gefotoshopped is.

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Op maandag 28 februari 2011 12:47 schreef Disana het volgende:

[..]

Ze zien er echt uit hoor. De eerste foto's zijn mug shots, genomen bij de eerste arrestatie. Dat lijkt me een logische verklaring.

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Op maandag 28 februari 2011 12:42 schreef djdg het volgende:
Ik weet niet of ik hier op de juiste plaats post, maar ik heb een vraag;

Is het niet héél toevallig dat deze mensen voor het grote verval gefotografeerd zijn? Heel toevallig dat toen ze nog op het 'juiste pad' (zo wordt de vergelijking neergezet) waren al op de picca stonden? Waarom zijn het bijna dezelfde foto's en niet een foto in een totaal andere omgeving?

http://www.dailymail.co.u(...)m_campaign=DTN+UK%3A

Het zou me niet verbazen als hier flink gefotoshopped is.

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Op maandag 28 februari 2011 12:50 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Maar let wel op het gaat hier om meth gebruikers, de oorlog in mexico gaat over cocaine en marhijunana. De meth productie vindt plaats in de VS zelf en meth is een van de slechtste middelen om te gebruiken. Maar ja als er een oorlog gevoerd wordt tegen middelen die veel minder je lichaam aantasten wordt het natuurlijk voor dealers lucratiever om lokaal geproudceerde rotzooi te gaan verkopen.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)er-fence-immigration

Charlie Bruce was a Texas police chief of the old school. In more than four decades on the force he gave homegrown criminals good reason to steer clear of Del Rio, his small town on the United States's southern border, but held no grudge against the steady flow of Mexicans across the frontier in search of opportunity. He admired them for their hard work and the chances they took to better themselves. Besides, some of them built his house.

What happened on the other side of the border, in Mexico, was another matter. There, Bruce unashamedly admits that for years he used his authority as a Texan police officer to run a lucrative smuggling racket. Mostly he dealt in duty-free whisky and cigarettes shipped in to Mexico, bribing officials with tens of thousands of dollars a time to avoid taxes, and then promptly selling the contraband on to Americans who brought it back across the border.

Occasionally Bruce branched out. He laughs when he recalls the handsome profit made from exploiting a sugar shortage in the 70s by paying off an official to illegally sell him a stock of subsidised sugar sitting in a Mexican government warehouse, which he shipped to a pie-maker in Philadelphia.

Now 75 and retired to a new house a stone's throw from the border, he recounts his years as a smuggler with undisguised pride and admits that it was all made possible by being a police officer. "That's exactly why I got by with it, because I was well known over there. My shield was law enforcement. I got by with murder more than other people," he says. "Other people may think it's wrong but the border's its own world."

Bruce laughs derisively at Washington's grand scheme to change that world. In the coming weeks, the US department of homeland security expects to complete the final parts of a nearly 700 mile (1,100km) fence and wall along the Mexican border intended to curb the perpetual flow of Latin Americans in search of work, and to block the ceaseless caravan of drugs feeding a very demanding American habit. The spur, though, was 9/11 and the ever-present fear of terrorist infiltrators.

The barrier covers one-third of the US's entire southern frontier with Mexico. In parts it is a fence about 5 metres (17ft) high built of a strong steel mesh and painted the same rust colour as the surrounding earth. In some places it is topped by coils of barbed wire; in others it is a solid steel wall. The fence cuts through towns and divides the desert. Its length is patrolled by thousands of armed border, drug enforcement and FBI agents. In Arizona they are complemented by an armed vigilante militia, the Minutemen.

The remaining 1,300 miles of border will be protected by a "virtual fence" – a network of electronic sensors, cameras, towers and high-flying drones that can see for more than 300 miles – that's already in place along parts of the frontier, setting off border patrols in pursuit of figures seen scurrying across screens or picked up by the motion detectors. The whole project is costing more than $4bn (£2.6bn), with the border fence alone working out at about $5m a mile.

The barrier's supporters say it is good value for money in the face of what they portray as an onslaught of illegal immigrants – increasingly scapegoats for economic blight and unemployment as they are accused of "stealing our jobs" – drug traffickers and the threat of terrorism. Others back the fence as a means to discourage what they describe as a flood of Mexican women pouring in to the US to have "anchor babies" – children who automatically gain American citizenship by being born inside the country.

Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer, has backed the fence because, she says, her state has become "the gateway to America for drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and crime". Fear in the state was stoked by the death in March last year of an Arizona rancher who authorities believe was shot on his farm by a drug-smuggling scout. In December, a border patrol agent was murdered by smugglers.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)-discover-mass-grave

Soldiers have unearthed 17 bodies buried in two clandestine graves in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero and authorities said they are searching for more.

The bodies were found in the town of San Miguel Totolapan, which is in a region known for marijuana and opium production and as a shipment route for cocaine, said the Guerrero state investigative police director, Fernando Monreal.

This is the third time in less than a year that authorities have discovered mass graves in the Pacific coast state, which has seen a spike in violence since a turf war began between rival factions of the Beltran Leyva cartel after the December 2009 death of capo Arturo Beltran Leyva.

In November, authorities found a grave outside Acapulco with 18 bodies. They had been part of a group of 20 travellers kidnapped while visiting the resort city from neighbouring Michoacan state. Two men remain missing.

In May police discovered 55 bodies inside an abandoned silver mine on the outskirts of Taxco that had become a dumping ground for apparent victims of Mexico's drug violence.

Also on Tuesday, police found four bodies dumped along a highway connecting Acapulco to Mexico City. The four men had been shot to death, Guerrero state prosecutors said.

The bodies were found about 30 miles (50 km) from the spot along the same highway where four state police officers were ambushed and killed on Monday. The officers were guarding state police commander Humberto Velazquez, who was travelling in a different car and was unhurt in the attack.

Another four people, including a couple shot to death inside the hotel they managed in the coastal town of Atoyac de Alvarez, were killed on Tuesday in three separate attacks in Guerrero, prosecutors said.

More than 35,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, launched a military offensive against the country's drug gangs shortly after taking office in December 2006.

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Op dinsdag 1 maart 2011 17:05 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

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Op woensdag 2 maart 2011 11:17 schreef StormWarning het volgende:

[..]

Wtf, ziet er gewoon precies hetzelfde uit als de Berlijnse muur. En dan te bedenken dat ze die wachttorens eerder juist gesloopt hebben omdat ze zoveel op die in Berlijn leken.

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Op woensdag 2 maart 2011 11:22 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Sorry hoor, maar die foto's zijn een resultaat van een google-query op "police state". Misschien dat er toevallig ook een foto tussen zit van de Mexicaanse grens, maar dat is dan toeval.

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Op woensdag 2 maart 2011 11:38 schreef StormWarning het volgende:

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Ok, en what's the point dan precies?

Investigation: US ATF Secretly Arming Mexican Drug Cartels (Mar 3, 2011 - CBS)

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ATF memo after CBS report: We need positive press

As CBS News investigates "gun walking" allegations -- that ATF let thousands assault rifles and other weapons get into the hands of criminal suspects -- ATF bosses have remained largely silent.

We've had ongoing requests for information and on camera interviews with both ATF and the Department of Justice since prior to our first report which aired Feb. 22.

A similar lack of response has been reported by Senator Charles Grassley, who has asked for documents and briefings from ATF

Now, we learn that after our Feb. 22 report, ATF's Chief Public Affairs officer sent an all-call internal memo to ATF Public Information Officers in an effort to "lessen the coverage of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about ATF."

The memo asks ATF PIO's to "Please make every effort in the next two weeks to maximize coverage of ATF operations/enforcement actions/arrests at the local and regional level" in hopes it would drown out the "negative coverage by CBS News."

At the time, the memo noted "Fortunately, the CBS story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and seems to have fizzled."

However, last night, CBS News continued reporting on this issue and will be staying on the story.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/04/mexico-usa

The young mother hailed as the bravest woman in Mexico when she became a small-town police chief in one of the bloodiest fronts of the country's drug wars has reportedly fled to the United States.

Marisol Valles attracted global attention last October when she took command of the municipal force in Praxedis G Guerrero on the Rio Grande border with Texas.

An unnamed relative told France-Presse agency Valles had gone to the US with two relatives to seek asylum after receiving death threats from a gang trying to force her to work for them. The municipal spokesman, Andres Morales, however, said Valles had merely asked for a few days off to tend to her sick baby and given no indication she was under pressure. "We are expecting her to come back to work on Monday," he said.

Praxedis has suffered acutely from the kidnappings, arson attacks and assassinations that plague Juárez valley, which stretches south-east from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico's most violent city.

Valles's predecessor's head was dumped outside the police station a few days after he was abducted in August 2009. Of the 17 officers he commanded, 15 were killed in separate attacks.

Valles, a criminology student, had always stressed she would leave the job of addressing organised criminal violence to the state and federal authorities. Instead, she instructed her unarmed force of 10 officers to make house-to-house calls aimed at encouraging residents to do such things as send their children to play sports in the town square to rebuild a sense of community. Morales said since then serious crime in the town had reduced.

Valles is not the only Mexican woman to take on law enforcement duties in a dangerous community. In the neighbouring town of Guadalupe, Erika Gandara was the sole officer until she was kidnapped before Christmas. She has not been seen since.

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Op zaterdag 5 maart 2011 13:26 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Ze was onze laatste hoop op het oplossen van het drugs-probleem

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)attles-leave-18-dead
Gunbattles between rival gangs have killed 18 people in a northeastern Mexican town, a day after seven police officers and an inmate died in an ambush of a convoy transporting prisoners in western Mexico.

The fighting in the town of Abasolo erupted on Monday morning and left at least 18 people dead, the Tamaulipas state government said. The shooting came a month after shootings in the nearby town of Padilla also killed 18 people, several of them innocent bystanders.

Tamaulipas has been wracked by a turf war between the Zetas and Gulf cartels, and information on violence in some of the smaller towns is notoriously scarce. Often official confirmation does not come for hours or days, leaving residents to cower in their homes and communicate through social media.

Tamaulipas residents sent Twitter messages about Monday's shootings hours before the government confirmed the bloodshed. Some tweets warned people to stay indoors and others demanded official information. Under constant threat from drug gangs, the Tamaulipas state media often ignore drug-gang violence completely.

In northwestern Sinaloa state, meanwhile, gunmen swarmed a convoy transporting two prisoners, shredding three police vehicles with bullets and killing seven officers and one inmate, Sinaloa state Attorney General Marco Antonio Higuera said. Six officers and the second inmate were wounded.

Attackers travel

ling in about 20 vehicles caught the police convoy in a crossfire on Sunday near the city of Guasave, Sinaloa state Attorney General Marco Antonio Higuera said.

"The patrol vehicles were destroyed. It was practically a massacre," Higuera said. "Initial reports indicate there were 1,200 shell casings at the scene."

The three state police patrol vehicles were travelling to the state capital of Culiacan when they came under fire from attackers who apparently lay in wait on a highway. Higuera said the officers fought off a first attack but were later caught in concentrated fire from a larger number of vehicles.

The government of President Felipe Calderon has brought down an unprecedented number of cartel bosses since launching a military offensive against drug traffickers in December 2006.

However, violence has soared as Mexico's drug cartels have become increasingly splintered and aggressive. More than 35,000 people have been killed nationwide in the past four years.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)lles-seeks-us-asylum
A young woman who received death threats after recently becoming police chief of a violence-plagued Mexican town is in the US and seeking asylum, Mexican and US officials said.

Marisol Valles Garcia, 20, made international headlines when she accepted the top law enforcement job in Praxedis G. Guerrero, a township near the Texas border that has been overcome by drug violence. Her predecessor was shot to death in July 2009.

Garcia is now in the US and will be allowed to present her case to an immigration judge, according to a statement from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The town is in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where ombudsman Gustavo de la Rosa confirmed that Garcia was in the US and said she has initiated a formal asylum petition.

Neither ICE nor De la Rosa would say where Garcia was staying, citing privacy and security concerns.

Drug violence has transformed the township of about 8,500 people from a string of quiet farming communities into a lawless no man's land only about a mile from the Texas border. Two rival gangs the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels are battling over control of its single highway, a lucrative drug-trafficking route along the Texas border.

Residents have said Garcia had received death threats, and the ombudsman said there may have been at least one attempt to kidnap her. Local officials said they had given her a leave of absence from March 2 through March 7 to travel to the US to tend to personal matters, but she never returned.

Garcia was officially fired on Monday for apparently abandoning her post. Police will answer to the mayor until a new chief is appointed, the city government's statement said.

Garcia was still a criminology student when she accepted the job in October to oversee 12 police officers. At the time, she said she wanted them to go door-to-door looking for criminals and teaching values to the families.

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Nearly 1700 special forces troops desert Mexican army
Mexico City Some 1,680 Mexican army special forces soldiers have deserted in the past decade, the Milenio newspaper reported, citing Defense Secretariat figures.

The army does not know where the deserters are or whether some of them went to work for organized crime groups as happened in the past, documents obtained by the newspaper from the Federal Institute for Access to Information, or IFAI, show.

The best known case of special forces soldiers who went to work for criminals is Los Zetas, a group of elite troops who signed on as hired guns for the Gulf cartel in the late 1990s.

Defense officials have "lost track" of 125 special ops soldiers in the past two years, a period marked by a wave of drug-related violence that left thousands of people dead, the secretariat said.
Some 50,000 soldiers have been providing security and fighting drug traffickers across Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon militarized the conflict with the country's cartels.

Human rights activists have filed numerous complaints against soldiers allegedly involved in abuses.

The desertions have continued even though the government has increased soldiers' pay by 115 percent since the end of 2006, Milenio said.

The deserters include snipers, paratroopers, survival experts, intelligence analysts and rapid reaction specialists, the newspaper said.

The Mexican press has reported previously about U.S. concerns that deserters who went to work for the cartels may have possessed security information obtained from U.S.-Mexican cooperation programs.

U.S. specialists have trained police and military personnel in Mexico as part of the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative, a security cooperation pact aimed at fighting drug trafficking and other forms of transnational organized crime.

Information about Mexico's special forces units is classified, and the army currently lacks a program to track deserters, Milenio said.

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Juarez, Mexico, the murder capital of the world; the Congo, where mutilation and rape are used as weapons of war; Chicago, the heroin capital of the United States; Haiti, a country no stranger to disaster, natural or man-made; and finally the UK, where, more than two hundred years since it was abolished, he discovers that slavery is thriving.

Extreme World has tackled these issues head-on and everything the viewer witnesses is happening right now.

His chosen destinations are Mexico, Congo, Chicago, Haiti and even the UK. In each episode, Ross confronts criminals responsible for drug dealing, human trafficking, murder and rape. He also sees the human cost of these crimes and meets those who risk their lives in the pursuit of justice.

Ross Kemp Overlooking BorderRoss travels to Juarez in Northern Mexico, the murder capital of the world. More than 3000 people were gunned down in the city last year, victims of a bloody drug war being played out on Americas doorstep. Ross investigates the ruthless cartels fighting for control of the drug trade between Mexico and the US-a business worth more than $40 billion a year. Cartels rule and run the city through a policy known as silver or lead. Anyone who stands in their way is offered huge bribes-those who refuse are shot.

Ross also visits the Democratic Republic of Congo, scene of the deadliest yet least reported conflict since WWII. The war has claimed over six million lives over the past ten years. Those fighting in the Congo use rape and mutilation as a weapon of war. At a remote hospital Ross meets some of the thousands of innocent women who are gang raped, tortured and unspeakably disfigured in the region every year, and travels to some of the most hostile areas in Africa to confront the men responsible for these atrocities. He discovers this is not only the rape of the people but of an entire nation.

Ross KempRoss travels to Chicago-scene of Americas biggest heroin problem- to investigate an epidemic that is destroying lives, families and entire communities and is now moving from the citys ghettos to its most affluent suburbs. Granted rare access into the citys secretive and highly lucrative underworld, Ross visits shooting galleries and witnesses gang members preparing wholesale consignments of heroin in underground stash houses. He joins dealers on street corners, meets women addicts who walk the streets selling sex for drugs and men forced to beg for change, shoplift and rob to get their fix.

Ross then goes to Haiti , scene of possibly the worst natural disaster of modern times. The quake claimed almost a quarter of a million lives and made over a million Haitians homeless.

The international community pledged more than ten billion dollars-$37,000 for each Haitian affected by the quake- to help rebuild Haiti, yet today the countrys plight is as desperate as ever. One year on, Ross Kemp travels to Port au Prince to meet Haitis lost generation, the end product of Haitis long history of violence, corruption, exploitation and natural disaster, a generation that symbolises the failure of one of the biggest relief efforts in modern history.

Ross Kemp At A Border CrossingOn returning to British shores Ross reveals the trafficking of men, women and children from around the world to the UK, an international crime that generates staggering profits by turning millions of people around the world into modern day slaves.

The UN estimates that traffickers earn in excess of $32 billion every year and that 2.5 million people around the world are victims of the traffickers. Unbelievably, 125 years after abolition, slavery is flourishing here in the UK and Ross investigates the silent tragedy occurring on our own doorstep.

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Op woensdag 9 maart 2011 13:21 schreef StormWarning het volgende:
Zelfs de meest verstokte war-on-drugs-dogmaticus kan er ondertussen toch echt niet meer omheen dat het in Mexico met epische proporties faalt?

quote:

http://www.volkskrant.nl/(...)ndes-in-Mexico.dhtml

WASHINGTON De Verenigde Staten zetten sinds kort onbemande vliegtuigjes in om informatie te verzamelen over Mexicaanse drugsbendes en hun smokkel­routes.

Vorige maand voerden de onbemande en onbewapende drones voor het eerst vluchten uit boven Mexicaans grondgebied. Dankzij de toestellen zouden de Mexicaanse autoriteiten enkele verdachten op het spoor zijn gekomen die verantwoordelijk worden gehouden voor de moord op Jaime Zapata, een Amerikaanse douanebeambte die vorige maand werd vermoord.

Ligt gevoelig
President Obama kwam onlangs met zijn Mexicaanse ambtgenoot Felipe Calderón overeen dat de observatievluchten zouden worden voortgezet. Tot nog toe werd er geen ruchtbaarheid aan de samenwerking gegeven, omdat iedere Amerikaanse assistentie gevoelig ligt in Mexico.

Een dergelijke samenwerking zou enkele jaren geleden nog ondenkbaar zijn geweest, maar het drugsgeweld heeft de laatste vier jaar zoveel slachtoffers geëist dat de Mexicaanse autoriteiten er anders over zijn gaan denken. In die periode zijn ruim 43 duizend personen omgekomen als gevolg van het drugsgeweld.

Veiligheidseenheden
De VS helpen de Mexicaanse autoriteiten ook met het trainen van grenswachten en politiemensen. Verder werken ze samen met speciaal geselecteerde Mexicaanse veiligheidseenheden.
De Mexicaanse grondwet verbiedt het inzetten van buitenlandse militairen of politieagenten op Mexicaans grondgebied, behalve in extreme situaties.

Volgens een Amerikaanse functionaris worden alle gezamenlijke antidrugsoperaties op verzoek van de Mexicaanse autoriteiten gehouden en hebben zij er ook de leiding over.
Volgens Mexicaanse zegslieden hebben de autoriteiten zeker 20 kopstukken uit de drugswereld kunnen oppakken dankzij informatie van Amerikaanse inlichtingendiensten.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)as-mass-grave-bodies

Forensic workers indentify the first of 59 bodies in a mass grave discovered in one of the states worst affected by cartel violence

Forensic workers have begun identifying 59 corpses from mass graves in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas in the latest atrocity to be uncovered in Mexico's drug wars.

Security forces found the graves on Wednesday while investigating reports that cartel hitmen in the area had been pulling people off buses, possibly in a forced recruitment drive.

The discovery came as tens of thousands of people marched in simultaneous protests held in cities across Mexico demanding an end to the violence. The marches were prompted by the torture and murder of Juan Francisco Sicilia, the son of a well-loved poet, along with six other people with no links to the cartels.

"This is a national emergency," Sicilia's father Javier said during the biggest of the marches held in the city of Cuernavaca, just outside the capital, where the murders took place. "Mexico doesn't want to labour under this stupid war any more."

More than 35,000 people have died in violence related to the drug war since President Felipe Calderón launched a military-led offensive against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

The government blames the death toll on a series of turf battles raging on different fronts across the country and involving at least six different cartels. It insists that the vast majority of the victims are associated with the gangs, and that the federal forces are having significant success in weakening them. Although Calderón accepts that civilians uninvolved in the drug war are also dying, he rejects growing demands for a change of strategy that formed one of the main themes of this week's protests.

"We should all join the condemnation of the violence generated by the criminals and the absolute conviction of the federal government to continue to confront criminality," he said in a statement released in response to the discovery of the graves in Tamaulipas.

The eight pits, one of which contained 43 corpses, were found not far from the ranch were 72 Central and South American migrants were massacred eight months ago.

The state authorities said the first three to be identified from the latest grisly discovery were Mexicans, and that two were women. Social media buzzed with rumours that there were more bodies yet to be officially accounted for.

"Tamaulipas has become a narcograve," @algomendez tweeted on Thursday. The phrase was retweeted throughout the day, as residents described their sense of impotence in a state terrorised by a war between the Gulf and Zeta cartels which federal forces seems powerless to stop.

The killings in Cuernavaca, meanwhile, have had a profound impact on the middle classes and the intelligentsia in and around the capital, who previously felt themselves somewhat immune from the violence. One banner in the Mexico City march read: "Today a student, tomorrow a corpse."

The six were killed on 28 March after leaving a bar in Cuernavaca. They had been reportedly talking about the violence that has shaken the area since last year, though it is still much more sporadic than in Tamaulipas.

Local authorities said they had issued warrants for the arrest of two suspects who are former members of the security forces.

quote:

Members of the Colombian Navy stand guard on top of a seized submarine built by drug smugglers in a makeshift shipyard in Timbiqui, Colombia February 14.

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Op maandag 11 april 2011 02:48 schreef epicbeardman het volgende:
Er is een documentaire over die subs die ze gebruiken, Heet volgens mij Inside Cocaine Submarines.
Laten ze ook een "basis" zien waar ze de subs maken, er worden zelfs russische ontwerpers/sub bouwers ingevlogen,

Inside Cocaine Submarines 1 of 4

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Op maandag 11 april 2011 10:32 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:
Ga met drugshonden Amsterdam in op een vrijdagavond en stop iedereen die sporen van cocainegebruik vertoont 3 maanden de cel in.

quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9591590

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A suspect in the kidnapping and killing of bus passengers near the U.S. border led Mexican soldiers to another set of clandestine graves containing 16 bodies, bringing to 88 the number of corpses found in mass pits in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

The latest batch of bodies was found in four pits in the township of San Fernando, where prosecutors had previously found 72 corpses in 10 pits, the Defense Department said in a statement Sunday.

When detained, Armando Morales Uscanga had a rifle and almost $3,000 in cash, the statement said, adding that he told soldiers he had participated in kidnapping passengers on March 24 and 29 in the township of San Fernando, Tamaulipas.

He also said he had helped kill and bury 43 people found in pits April 6.

San Fernando is a town about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas, on a well-traveled stretch of highway that runs near the Gulf Coast. It is an area regularly patrolled by the Mexican military.

It was the second-such gruesome find in less than a year: In August, investigators found the bodies of 72 migrants in San Fernando.

The federal Attorney General's Office said there was evidence that most of the suspects belonged to the Zetas drug gang, the same group blamed for the August massacre. Some were detained with military-style uniforms, and others were found driving a pickup truck displaying false Mexican navy insignia.

Fourteen men and two women, including local leaders of the gang, have been detained as suspects in the latest cases, the federal Attorney General's Office said in a statement. The Zetas and rival Gulf Cartel are fighting in Tamaulipas over lucrative drug transit routes to the U.S. The state shares three major border cities with Brownsville, Laredo, and McAllen, Texas. Prosecutors say the kidnappings may have been part of a forced-recruitment effort by the Zetas gang.

Dozens of families and passengers complained of gunmen pulling people, mostly young men, off intercity travel buses starting in late March, leading investigators to last week's grisly discovery.

Authorities are working to identify the bodies, one of which may belong to a U.S. citizen, through DNA samples and other techniques.

A warden's message posted on the website of the U.S. Consulate in the Tamaulipas city of Matamoros on Sunday said that a U.S. citizen was among dozens of men who witnesses said were pulled off passenger buses by armed attackers in Tamaulipas. The statement did not say exactly when or where the man went missing.

quote:

De lokale leider van het Mexicaanse drugskartel Los Zetas die wordt verdacht van de moord op 145 mensen is aangehouden. Dat heeft het Mexicaanse leger zaterdag bekendgemaakt.

Martin Omar Estrada Luna, alias El Kilo, is de leider van de cel van Los Zetas in San Fernando in de noordelijke staat Tamaulipas. Ook de dood van 72 migranten in augustus vorig jaar wordt hem aangerekend. De lichamen van de 145 mensen werden de afgelopen tijd in 26 massagraven aangetroffen.

De Mexicaanse regering loofde vorige week een beloning van vijftien miljoen peso (ruim 890.000 euro) uit voor informatie die zou leiden tot zijn arrestatie.

Mexico wordt al jaren geteisterd door drugsgeweld. Kartels bestrijden elkaar op leven en dood en vermoorden mensen, veelal immigranten, die geen drugskoerier willen worden. Sinds de regering van president Felipe Calderon vier jaar geleden een offensief tegen de kartels lanceerde zijn al ruim 34 duizend mensen bij drugsgeweld om het leven gekomen.

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Op zondag 17 april 2011 20:17 schreef El_Matador het volgende:
De hele boel platgooien. Is het nou zo moeilijk om die mansions van die drugsbarons te volgen op de satelliet en wat bommen op te planten?

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Op zondag 17 april 2011 20:30 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Dat kunnen ze zeker doen, maar de volgende dag staan dan nieuwe barons op die de zaken overnemen.

Vraag en aanbod zullen elkaar vinden, tegen de natuur van de mens kan geen enkele overtuiging op.

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Op zondag 17 april 2011 20:36 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

[..]

Dat zijn leuke filosofische discussies, maar praktisch gezien moet dit probleem ook opgelost worden.