http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5000bac4-04c6-11dc-80ed-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=8fa2c9 cc-2f77-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8.html
Mexico hit by drug-fuelled wave of terror By Adam Thomson in Mexico City Published: May 18 2007 00:22 | Last updated: May 18 2007 00:22 Mexico admitted on Thursday that the recent increase in narcotics-related violence has common patterns with the bloody wave of drugs-fuelled terror that swept Colombia in the late 1980s. In a press conference on Thursday, Genaro García, the countrys security minister, said drugs gangs in Mexico had adopted similar working methods to those used by the notorious Colombian cartels, whose reign of terror led to the death of thousands of police and civilians. The [Mexican] context is different from that of Colombia but there are common patterns, he said. Their aim is to use violence to intimidate [the state] in order to achieve impunity. Mr García also said the Mexican governments attempts to combat the drugs trade were made all the more difficult by the ease with which the criminals could obtain firearms just north of the border with the US. There is a massive flow of firearms into Mexico [and] many of them come from the US, he said. Stopping short of demanding that the US government stiffen its gun-control laws, Mr García added: The big advantage of the drugs traffickers is that in the US the possession of arms is not against the law. The ministers comments come as Mexico grapples with the most acute period of violence in living memory. According to the El Universal daily newspaper, the number of drugs-related murders this year reached 1,000 on May 15. By contrast, that figure was only reached in mid July last year, and on September 12 in 2005. One example of how the gangs are becoming increasingly daring in their strategies came early Wednesday morning this week when a group of approximately 50 armed men stormed a police station in the municipality of Cananea in the northern border state of Sonora. An ensuing gun battle with state police left 22 people dead, including 15 gang members. The incident is the biggest clash between authorities and drugs groups since centre-right President Felipe Calderón sent thousands of troops to several hotspots around the country as part of a strategy to recover full control of government in those affected areas. Mr García conceded that much of the wave of violence stemmed from Mexicos anti-narcotics policy in recent years, which has centred on pursuing the leaders of the various cartels. It was assumed that by going after the head, the body would stop working, he said. However, it just generated internal violence. In spite of what many security and narcotic experts view as a failure of the heavily US-backed policy, Mr García insisted that Mexican authorities would continue undeterred. We will not take one step back, he said. Instead, he said that Mr Calderóns government was busy reforming the complicated organisational structure of the police, which operates under both state and federal management, and suffers immense inefficiencies in terms of information-sharing and intelligence-gathering. Yet he refused to specify a time by which Mexicans would see and end to the violence. Doing that is like trying to predict the day authorities catch [Osama] Bin Laden, he said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
