Intersections

Nearly a third of Mexico households targets of crime, study says

** Originally published at World Now:

Nearly a third of households in Mexico suffered a crime in 2011 and only in 8% of those cases was a preliminary investigation opened, according to new figures from the national statistics institute.

The numbers demonstrate that crimes with victims, including robbery, assault, car theft, extortion, identity theft, and kidnappings, are widely under-reported to authorities in Mexico and that the true scope is probably unknown. 

The National Institute of Statistics and Geography, or Inegi by its Spanish acronym, polled 95,903 homes this spring and asked respondents to list instances of crime victimization in 2011, not including homicides.

In 30.6% of households polled, at least one adult resident was victimized in 2011. When the victim was present, "physical aggression" occurred in 26.6% of the cases.

The most common crimes were robberies or muggings, car thefts and burglaries. In 91.6% of the cases, preliminary investigations were not started, as victims widely distrust the police or see reporting crimes as a "waste of time," Inegi said in an analysis released Sept. 27.

The government of President Felipe Calderon, who is leaving office late this year, says that violence tied to the drug war is diminishing. Inegi's Public Safety Perception Index, a figure calculated on a monthly basis, shows that Mexicans' sense of personal safety is steadily rising.

However, a separate poll conducted in Mexico by the U.S. firm Gallup showed that Mexicans felt less safe walking alone at night in 2011 compared with 2007, the first full year of Calderon's campaign against the cartels.

In that struggle, more than 55,000 people have been killed, media estimates say, though independent analysts and activists say that figure is under-counted.

Inegi's new analysis also estimates that Mexicans lost $16.6 billion to crimes in 2011, or about 1.38% of the country's gross domestic product. Most of that amount was in stolen money or valuables, Inegi said, while 24.8% of that was money spent on preventive measures such as new locks, windows, and doors on homes.

* Photo: Armed police officers patrol in Mexico City in 2004. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Marines in Mexico detain 35 Veracruz police officers

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico's marines on Monday said they detained 35 Veracruz state police officers who were allegedly working for the Zetas drug cartel.

In a short statement, authorities said the police officers were detained Saturday in two groups, 16 at the airport in the city of San Luis Potosi, in a neighboring state of the same name, and 19 in Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz.

The marines released the names of the suspected officers but did not offer other details on the arrests or say why they were suspected of working for the Zetas. Four of those arrested were women, the marines said.

Veracruz's government did not have an immediate response to the announcement. 

The state has endured intense drug-related violence and crimes as its crucial port on the Gulf of Mexico becomes disputed turf for the Zetas and their rivals, including the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, and a paramilitary group calling itself the "Zeta-killers." Reporters and photojournalists have been targeted and killed.

The marines are considered a leading elite force against organized crime in Mexico's ongoing drug war.

Marines this month captured suspected Gulf cartel leader Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, alias "El Coss," in the city of Tampico. In August, a naval officer was involved in a wild shootout that left two U.S. government employees injured on a road south of Mexico City.

The arrested Veracruz police officers were taken to Mexico City for questioning, authorities said.

Five arrested amid false rumors of attacks in Mexico City

** Originally published at World Now:

Five people are under arrest for allegedly driving through low-income neighborhoods in eastern Mexico City warning residents of pending attacks, part of what police called a string of false rumors that have sown fear across the city's east side since Wednesday.

Authorities said five people, four men and a woman, were arrested Thursday evening in the Agricola Oriental neighborhood of the Iztacalco borough.

They allegedly were warning residents through a megaphone to close their shops and stay indoors because a political group known as Antorcha Campesina was heading there to commit crimes, authorities said.

At least one of the people detained told authorities that they were being paid 400 pesos each, or about $31, to spread the warnings, Mexico City Atty. Gen. Jesus Rodriguez said in a radio interview, but the source of the payments was not yet known.

"The cyber branch of this agency is searching for the origin" of the rumors, Rodriguez said.

The incident recalled the 2011 case of the so-called Twitter Terrorists in the state of Veracruz. In that case, two people were arrested and faced charges of terrorism for spreading rumors of attacks on a school in the Veracruz port, but those charges were later dropped.

On Friday, news video showed closed shops, schools and markets across the eastern region of Mexico City encompassing the boroughs of Iztacalco and Iztapalapa, and the suburb of Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl in the state of Mexico, where the rumors started.

Authorities said the source of the panic might have been a confrontation between groups of rival bicycle taxi drivers that left one person dead Wednesday in the neighboring suburb of Chicoloapan.

Law enforcement agencies repeatedly affirmed Thursday and Friday that no systematic attacks were occurring in the area. And yet, on social-networking sites, rumors continued to flow of violence at the hands of the Antorcha group or the cartel known as La Familia Michoacana, which operates in the area.

The void of verified information led conspiracy-minded Mexicans to speculate about possible local political interests at play after Mexico's July 1 general election.

Antorcha Campesina is a known arm of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. In Chicoloapan, one report said, the group might be seeking to muscle away business from bicycle cabbies backed by the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, which also governs Iztacalco and Iztapalapa.

Again, confirmation was elusive. A representative of Antorcha Campesina denied the allegations to the newspaper El Economista, calling the group "serious" and not "a criminal organization."

The rumors rattled Mexico City, which has been largely spared of the violence and fear attributed to organized crime in many other regions of the country. The five arrested Thursday were held for "disturbing the peace," as defined by Mexico City's civil code.

"The delicate part is, who was paying them, why and with what interests," said Pablo Fuentes, a spokesman at the legal counsel ministry of City Hall. "There must be more at play, and we have to corroborate that."

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Perspective: What Mexico's presidential election results mean

** Originally published at Vice, Friday, July 6:

On Wednesday, the agency in Mexico that manages elections began a recount for the tens of millions of votes in the race that was apparently won by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the party that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000. The PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto won by about six points over old-school leftie Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. AMLO, as the progressive candidate is known, is contesting the election results, just like he did in 2006. He won’t accept defeat because defeat means accepting what he and his supporters believe is an inherently corrupt system. Nevertheless, he’s a pacifist and doesn’t believe in violence or armed conflict. And as a result, the rest of us over the past 72 hours have been groaning, sleeping, shrugging, or drinking a lot. The worst that can happen is that AMLO could call for another plantón, a permanent sit-in on the main drags of Mexico City, and shut down the urban center like he did in 2006. But that only ended up hurting his base and made his enemies in the establishment cry “I told you!” On Sunday, AMLO swept dense, voter-rich Mexico City by nearly 27 points.

Outside the Instituto Federal Electoral campus, rows of police officers in bright neon lime jackets and caps are lined up to protect the institute from a small band of young protesters still holding court on the sidewalk after a near-riot the night before. The protestors’ faces are covered in folded-over bandanas and they look like porros, Mexican street slang for paid provocateurs. The emergent #YoSoy132 movement had to send out a comunicado saying that whoever was outside the IFE at this point was not a member.

Inside the IFE, most of the foreign press has left. That leaves behind the bureaucrats, the Mexican beat reporters, the TV crews, and the hostesses in gray pantsuits. I take a seat in the IFE’s big-tent press hall, where dozens of computer terminals face huge screens projecting the state-by-state vote counts. We wait around for a press conference. The IFE councilors come and take their places on an elevated stage. The bureaucrats and the reporters have a back-and-forth in impenetrable jargon. The basic point, from what I gathered, is that with a difference of more than three million votes between Peña and AMLO, nothing much will really change at this point no matter how hard the progressives try. No matter how much evidence exists out there of vote-buying and vote “influencing.” It is the same basic message that is repeated over and over in Mexico—nothing will really change here, people, let’s be honest (but say it in a language no one else understands).

Every cabbie I’ve met in Mexico in the past few weeks has ended up admitting that they don’t believe democracy exists in this country. To them, Peña Nieto looks and sounds like an invented candidate, a puppet, a nice-looking avatar for the ominous Atlacomulco group from one of the PRI’s oldest, darkest wings. ...

** Read the rest here, and here in Spanish for Vice Mexico.

* Photo: Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador during a campaign stop in Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.

Leftist leader trailing in Mexico election but won't concede

** Originally published at World Now:

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the veteran leftist leader in second place in Mexico's presidential election, says he will wait for a final vote count before deciding whether to concede.

As hundreds of ardent supporters chanted and rallied in an impromptu demonstration outside a downtown hotel early Monday, Lopez Obrador took to a modest podium. His speech was brief and simple, his mood mellow.

He announced that he would not concede defeat on election night in Mexico. For many, it was a flashback to 2006, the last presidential election in which Lopez Obrador refused to accept defeat, declaring fraud and sparking a series of protests that paralyzed Mexico City.

"The position that I assume is to wait," Lopez Obrador said before media and supporters in a ballroom at a downtown Hilton Hotel. "We need to know all the results. We're going to wait for those results before making any final positions. There is no final word yet."

But in a way, there was a final word. Just moments earlier, shortly after a speech by the head of the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, a smiling President Felipe Calderon went on national television to announce that the institute's "fast count" had a winner, Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI.

Lopez Obrador, upstaging the man who ultimately defeated him in 2006, began his speech before Calderon had finished his, forcing media networks to momentarily scramble between the two feeds.

"I'm not disqualifying what is being said officially, there is simply not enough information," Lopez Obrador calmly stated. "We will not in any way act irresponsibly."

The 58-year-old former mayor of Mexico City had kept much of the country in suspense Sunday in the hours after candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota of Calderon's ruling National Action Party (PAN) conceded. Lopez Obrador held what was described as an emergency meeting with senior figures in his Democratic Revolution Party at campaign headquarters in the Roma district. By 11 p.m., he was on his way downtown, as supporters gathered and chanted, "It's an honor to be with Lopez Obrador!"

His announcement came as the IFE preliminary count showed a narrowing between Lopez Obrador and Peña Nieto. At one point, it reached a difference of just 3.3%. Later Monday morning, with about 80% of the vote tallied, the margin stood at about 5%.

Campaign members said Lopez Obrador was making a good decision, and that fears of another planton protest camp in Mexico City (akin to a permanent sit-in) would be unfounded. But they also didn't discount the prospect of contesting the vote to the last possible moment, when the president-elect is formally recognized by Congress in the fall.

[ *** UPDATE, 20:11 p.m., July 2: Lopez Obrador reiterates in press conference tonight that he will not concede and will work his way through the "legal process" of contesting results *** ]

"In 2006 there were doubts about the result; what we have now is a start" to the vote-counting, said Oscar Mondragon, the campaign's social-media strategist. "We're halfway through a process that will finish in September."

Peña Nieto, meanwhile, wasted no time in claiming victory and seeking to allay fears about his party's authoritarian past. He pledged to rule on behalf of all Mexicans and to lead a government willing to listen to criticism.

"We're a new generation," he said. "There is no return to the past."

[ *** More soon ... *** ]

* Photo: A propaganda poster for presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto is defaced and vandalized on Avenida Juarez in downtown Mexico City, on election night, July 1, 2012.

Mexico election candidates rally thousands in final days of race

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexico's presidential campaign entered the home stretch Monday, with less than a week left until voters cast ballots in a race that could return the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to power. The PRI ruled virtually unchallenged and often with a heavy hand for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000.

The top three candidates crisscrossed the country over the weekend rallying thousands of supporters at huge events in the final days of official campaigning.

The PRI's poll-leading candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, on Sunday held a closing rally at the cavernous Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Leftist coalition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the 2006 election, closed his campaign in the capitals of western states Nayarit and Jalisco.

Josefina Vazquez Mota of the incumbent National Action Party, or PAN, rallied supporters in the port city of Coatzacoalcos, in the state of Veracruz.

"I am not like the PRI candidate who has brought a foreigner to take care of our families," Vazquez Mota said, in reference to Peña Nieto's appointment of Gen. Oscar Naranjo of Colombia to be an external advisor in security matters if he wins.

Mexicans will vote Sunday, in balloting that will also pick senators and deputies in Congress and six governors in races that could similarly see gains for the PRI, polls show. The PAN could lose two states it currently governs, Morelos and Jalisco, which have seen increases in violence tied to the government's campaign against organized crime.

The presidential campaign took an interesting twist after student-led demonstrations against the possible return of the PRI began in Mexico City in May and spread across the country.

The #YoSoy 132 movement managed to organize Mexico's first non-official "citizens debate" online June 19, with three of four candidates. Peña Nieto declined to attend, saying he believed the movement opposed his candidacy.

Another large demonstration against Peña Nieto was held in the center of Mexico City on Sunday. But despite the protests, most polls still show him withstanding early fumbles and maintaining his lead.

Throughout the campaign, Peña Nieto, 45, has been forced to reassure observers of his credentials to govern. In December, he was unable to name three books that influenced his life, and allegations have surfaced during the campaign that a former PRI governor of the violence-plagued state of Tamaulipas, Tomas Yarrington, has ties to drug traffickers.

The PRI ruled the country from the end of the Mexican Revolution until it was voted out in 2000. Opponents fear its return could lead to authoritarian echoes of the past, such as repression and censorship.

Peña Nieto has campaigned on a message of inclusion, and has mostly refrained from attacking his opponents.

"I propose to the nation a plainly democratic presidency," he said Sunday. "I am part of a generation that has grown up with democracy and I aspire to be a president that governs by respecting liberties, listening to all and including the voices of everyone."

All three candidates have essentially similar security platforms, The Times reported Sunday, suggesting that the election is unlikely to reshape the drug war that has left more than 50,000 dead and scores missing in nearly six years.

Since 2000, two successive center-right governments under the PAN saw economic stability but few significant reforms. Drug-related violence has exploded since 2006. Vazquez Mota has dipped to third in some polls, in a sign of weariness with the results of the drug war.

On the left, charismatic populist Lopez Obrador remains at least 10 points behind Peña Nieto. He asked supporters Sunday to use social networks to "guard the vote" to avoid a repeat of the contested results in 2006, which saw him lose by 0.56 point.

"I want to clarify this so that no one will think it's a small thing we're looking for," Lopez Obrador said in Guadalajara. "It's not only about reaching a public office. What we want is to achieve the rebirth of Mexico."

Also on Sunday, at least 26 people died when a passenger bus plunged off a road in the southern state of Guerrero. The victims were identified as supporters of the Democratic Revolution Party who were headed to a campaign event to support a minor leftist party candidate for a local mayoral race.

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Mexico election unlikely to reshape drug war

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-- Daniel Hernandez

* Photo: Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, center in white shirt, rallies supporters at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on Sunday. He stands with Beatriz Paredes, PRI candidate for mayor of Mexico City, left, and his wife, actress Angelica Rivera. Credit: Alex Cruz / European Pressphoto Agency

Mexico candidate Peña Nieto seeks Colombia drug fighter as advisor

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Former Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto, leading in polls to become Mexico's next president, has appointed the former chief of Colombia's national police to work as an "external advisor" for public security if he wins the July 1 election.

The appointment of Gen. Oscar Naranjo, announced Thursday, is read as a signal to observers in Mexico and the United States that Peña Nieto would make the pursuit of drug trafficking a high priority amid growing allegations that top members of his party have had ties to organized crime.

Peña Nieto maintains a steady lead in polls as candidate for the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. He called Colombia a model for success in the U.S.-backed fight against drug traffickers.

Naranjo, 55, is credited with helping take down top Colombian trafficker Pablo Escobar in 1993, as well as for recent successes to curtail coca production and battle the country's largest guerrilla army,  the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Both Mexico and Colombia are recipients of U.S. security aid.

As he introduced Naranjo, Peña Nieto said that if elected he would seek collaboration with the U.S. on security issues.

"Mexico has accumulated achievements, it's delivered lives, enormous sacrifices," Naranjo said. "Security, understood as a democratic value, is expressed in policies that are totally inclusive, that protect everyone."

Naranjo told the Associated Press that he expects to be traveling regularly between Mexico City and Washington if Peña Nieto wins the election, hinting at closer ties with U.S. drug fighters if the PRI returns to power. It was voted out in 2000 after 71 years.

An official biography of Naranjo distributed to reporters lists him as an "honorary member" of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a point that rivals and political observers have latched on to in recent days.

"Unlike the PRI candidate, who trusts more in a foreigner than in our armed forces, I do trust in Mexico's soldiers," said Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of the ruling National Action Party, referring to the current government's military-led campaign against traffickers.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, running under the banner of a leftist coalition, said bringing in Naranjo would violate Mexico's Constitution, which he said prohibits foreigners' participation in national security matters in Mexico.

"What is basically evident here is that the [PRI] is also betting on the same policies of force," Lopez Obrador said.

On Thursday, Naranjo said he would work "non-operationally, outside of hierarchies" in a Peña Nieto administration.

The announcement was made as the former state governor seeks to beef up his security credentials as the campaign heats up heading toward the July 1 election. Drug-related violence is growing during the campaign.

* Photo: Presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, right, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Colombian retired Gen. Oscar Naranjo greet each other at a news conference in Mexico City on  Thursday. Credit: Christian Palma / Associated Press

Mexico students plan protests as second presidential debate nears

** Originally published at World Now:

It's looking more and more like a two-way race in Mexico's July 1 presidential election. That is, a contest between Mexico's former ruling party and everyone opposing its return.

Four candidates gather Sunday night in Guadalajara for the second and last officially scheduled debate of the campaign. The session offers another chance for one of the trailing contenders to alter the shape of the race.

Polls show the once-reigning Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, comfortably in the lead with its fresh-faced candidate, former Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto. Student demonstrations are planned nationwide to coincide with the debate, potentially raising the stakes. The grass-roots social media movement known as I Am 132 is gaining reach and influence as it has gone after the PRI and big Mexican media companies, especially Televisa, the nation's biggest TV network and the target of accusations that it has sought to manipulate public opinion in Peña Nieto's favor.

Here's an update on the campaign leading into Sunday's debate.

Enrique Peña Nieto

The PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional in Spanish, and pronounced  "pree") ruled Mexico for much of the 20th century until it was ousted by voters in 2000 after decades of corruption, scandal and economic crises. This year, it is poised to return to power.

Peña Nieto, former governor of the central state of Mexico, faces two main rivals: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, representing a leftist coalition, and Josefina Vazquez Mota, a conservative. The parties are poles apart ideologically but united in their disdain for the PRI, with histories of struggle against its authoritarian leanings.

The Peña Nieto campaign has been forced to confront corruption allegations against former PRI state governors and accusations that the party shells out cash for favorable polls and media coverage. The party and Peña Nieto's campaign on Friday were denying a newly published report that his office appeared to have paid millions to Televisa after taking the governor's office in 2005, for favorable coverage on TV and in Televisa publications.   

Nevertheless, the PRI's campaign has been run smoothly and holds a double-digit lead in most polls.

Its main opponents -- Lopez Obrador's leftist coalition led by the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and Vazquez Mota's National Action Party, or PAN -- have long ruled out forming a broader alliance to challenge the PRI in the presidential vote. But a grass-roots student-led movement opposed to the PRI has provided a jolt to the race and is a likely factor in Peña Nieto's slight dip in support in several polls.

Though his lead remains strong, analysts note that as many as a quarter of voters say they remain undecided.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Lopez Obrador, who barely lost in the 2006 race and never accepted the results, is running again and has moved into second place in most polls.

On Wednesday night, during a tense conversation with panelists of Televisa's "Third Degree" program, Lopez Obrador said calmly that he was sure to "win again" and that his campaign's tracking polls showed he had moved two points ahead of Peña Nieto.

Even if that proves to be a bluff, recent developments are a reminder that Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, commands a formidable base and that he has been boosted by the I Am 132 movement.

Lopez Obrador's opponents are eager to remind voters of his less than flattering image as a polarizing figure. Attack ads against him were rolled out this week, including one by the PAN that doctors a fragment of a recent Lopez Obrador speech to make it seem as if he supports armed revolutions.

Lopez Obrador called the new ads the start of a "dirty war."

Josefina Vazquez Mota

The PAN also has some supporters in the I Am 132 movement. But Vazquez Mota, a former Cabinet member under the two PAN presidencies since 2000, has lost traction overall, slipping to third in the polls.

The first woman to bid for Mexico's presidency from a major party, Vazquez Mota has sought to convince voters she would be a "different" president, but she has so far been unable to connect broadly with female voters.

Perhaps worse, she's taken hits from senior figures in her own party, some of whom appear to be breaking for Peña Nieto.

On Sunday, former PAN President Vicente Fox suggested he would support Peña Nieto and that other party members should do the same. Vazquez Mota's campaign denounced Fox vehemently for the apparent betrayal. Fox, after all, is the man whose victory removed the PRI from power.

A former PAN president also said he would be supporting Peña Nieto.

The Student Factor

The presidential campaign took on a new player May 11, when Peña Nieto was surprised by a tempest of jeers from students during an appearance at the private Ibero-American University in Mexico City. He and PRI leaders then came under fire when they suggested initially that the protest was staged or orchestrated by a rival party.

In reply, 131 Ibero students who participated in the protest recorded themselves holding up their university ID cards or repeating their student ID numbers. The video went viral on social networks and spawned a movement taking its name from a Twitter hashtag, #YoSoy132, or "I am 132."

Counterparts at some 35 universities across Mexico have joined. The students have held demonstrations calling for more transparency in the news media and protesting the PRI's history of corruption and repression. They have also taken aim at the soaring drug-related violence during the PAN's tenure.

The I Am 132 phenomenon has already had an impact on the race. Under pressure, the two dominant networks, Televisa and TV Azteca, agreed to show Sunday's debate on their main channels, after relegating the first debate, on May 6, to secondary channels.

Last week, the students held a "general assembly" on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and, after hours of debate, agreed on a 15-point platform, declaring the movement officially nonpartisan.

Students have called for a third debate between the presidential candidates, to be organized and moderated by the I Am 132 movement. Lopez Obrador, Vazquez Mota and a fourth candidate, Gabriel Quadri, of the fringe New Alliance Party, have agreed to attend. Peña Nieto has not.

Photo: A Mexican university student member of the I Am 132 movement holds a banner in Mexico City on May 31. Credit: Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images

Mexican reporter killed in another case unlikely to be solved

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- If the long list of unsolved murders of journalists in Mexico offers any indication, there is little likelihood that justice will be reached in the weekend death of magazine reporter Regina Martinez.

Little chance of a credible arrest. Little chance of charges or a successful prosecution for her killer or killers.

The 49-year-old journalist was found dead in her home in the state of Veracruz on Saturday, beaten and strangled to death. She was a correspondent for the national investigative news magazine Proceso and based in Xalapa, the capital of a coastal state where violence and corresponding impunity are widespread.

A neighbor called police after noticing Martinez's front door was left open since morning. The day before, Martinez was reporting on municipal police officers arrested for alleged links to organized crime. Throughout her career, Martinez reported on organized crime and corruption, including a 2007 case of the rape and killing of a indigenous woman at the hands of Mexican soldiers.

Martinez, a native of the state she covered, is at least the fourth journalist killed in Veracruz since Gov. Javier Duarte took office in late 2010, reports have noted.

Last year, a newspaper columnist and his wife and son were shot to death during an ambush in their home. A woman covering crime in the port of Veracruz was found decapitated. And a rural Veracruz columnist was kidnapped in March and found dead in May.

All those cases remain unsolved, said Mike O'Connor, a representative in Mexico for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which says that more than 40 journalists have been killed or have disappeared throughout the country since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006.

The Duarte administration said it was investigating Martinez's murder and formed a special commission Sunday that includes the participation of Proceso's founder, Julio Scherer. But "given the history, there's very little likelihood that there will be justice in this case," O'Connor said.

Already, Veracruz prosecutors said one line of investigation is that Martinez may have been killed in a robbery. Two cellphones, a laptop computer and plasma television screen were stolen, they said.

"That is how they are going to minimize the gravity of this murder," Jose Gil Olmos, a fellow reporter for Proceso, said in an interview on Monday. "It is a message of power and impunity. That is the lesson of this act."

Calls made to the Veracruz state government were not returned.

Nationally, efforts to protect news gatherers during 5-1/2 years of high drug violence have been feeble or ineffective. The post of special federal prosecutor to investigate crimes against "freedom of expression" was created in 2006. But it has mainly operated as a revolving door for bureaucrats, and closed no significant cases. The latest official tapped to head the post was appointed in February.

On Monday, as previously scheduled, the lower house of Congress unanimously passed legislation meant to further help protect reporters (link in Spanish). Martinez's killing was memorialized from the chamber's floor with a minute of silence. But press advocates, in exasperation, said the basic problem remains. Killers are rarely brought to justice.

"There is simulation by the state," said Antonio Martinez, spokesman for Articulo 19, a free-speech advocacy group. "We have more than enough mechanisms for protection. Nevertheless, they fail to attack the impunity."

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Photos, from top: Journalists embrace during a demonstration in Mexico City condemning the killing of fellow journalist Regina Martinez in Veracruz on Saturday (Credit: Marco Ugarte / Associated Press);  Martinez, in an undated photograph (Revista Proceso).

In Monterrey, Mexico, a culture of fear is evident

** Originally published on March 15 at World Now and in a different form on April 3 in the L.A. Times print edition:

MONTERREY -- Javier Guzman, a 25-year-old industrial engineer, eased his SUV toward the curb on a recent Sunday as a masked state police officer in the middle of the road signaled him to pull over.

Guzman rolled down his window, greeting the officer with a "Buenas tardes."

"Do you live here? Where are you coming from?" the officer asked.

"I live here, this car is mine," Guzman replied. He had nothing to hide, yet began coughing nervously.

The officer, dressed all in black, from combat boots to hooded ski mask, circled the vehicle. A long automatic assault rifle dangled at his side. After a few more questions, he let Guzman drive on.

Such checkpoints are now part of daily life in Monterrey, a metropolitan region of more than 4 million -- Mexico's wealthiest and third-largest city. The brief anxiety that these encounters produce in people is probably the least of residents' worries.

Monterrey, the sleek capital of Nuevo Leon state, is said to be in danger of "falling" to organized crime.

The city is beset by shootouts, armed robberies and "mass panic" incidents over any sign of danger.

More than 400 people have been killed in the state so far this year, compared with 315 in the same period in 2011, one local report said. Extortion by cartels or petty criminals is believed to be widespread. And, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2009, "all of the region's police forces are controlled by organized crime."

Mexico's 'Popo' volcano shoots glowing rocks

** Originally published at World Now:

Glowing red rocks were thrown from the top of the active Popocatepetl volcano at dawn Friday, producing more spectacular (and slightly frightening) images from the peak southeast of populous Mexico City. But authorities did not raise the alert level for a potential major eruption.

"Popo" or "Don Goyo," as the volcano is affectionately known, has been shooting plumes of ash, gas and rocks for a week. Residents of the semirural communities near the volcano have reported hearing hours of "low-pitched roaring" emanating from the 17,887-foot Popocatepetl.

President Felipe Calderon said Friday during a meeting with governors of the peak's neighboring states that the government is prepared, in case evacuations become necessary. Authorities said contingency plans are ready if the volcanic activity threatens residents in the states of Mexico, Puebla and Morelos.

"The volcano is in command," said Roberto Quaas, director of Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Center. 

The government has not raised its alert level on the volcano since Monday. Yet a week of sustained exhalations has produced worry among some Mexicans who live near "Popo," which is visible from some points of Mexico City on days with relatively low pollution.

An estimated 5 million people would be directly affected by a large-scale eruption, and some 19 million other people live near the volcano.

Popocatepetl, which means "smoking mountain" in the Aztec's language Nahuatl, dominates much of the landscape in central Mexico along with its "twin" volcano, the dormant Iztaccihuatl.

Poll: Mexicans more afraid to walk alone at night

** Originally published at World Now:

Mexicans' trust in their military and national police has steadily declined since 2007, the first full year of President Felipe Calderon's war against drug cartels, a new Gallup poll says.

The poll released last week also finds that most Mexicans said they felt less safe walking alone at night in 2011 than they did in 2007.

The findings suggest that two key points of perception in Mexico's conflict -- safety and confidence in authorities -- have eroded since the start of the military-led campaign in late 2006.

In the poll, 56% of Mexicans said they didn't feel safe walking alone at night in their city or neighborhood in 2011, in contrast to 57% who said they felt safe walking alone at night in 2007.

The poll shows a steady decline of confidence in the military, from 64% in 2007 to 58% in 2011. Only 38% of respondents expressed confidence in the government in 2011, and 35% said they trusted the federal police, down significantly from 50% in 2007, Gallup reports.

allup said it has polled approximately 1,000 Mexican citizens 15 or older, in face-to-face interviews, starting in July 2007.

As Mexico's drug war nears the six-year mark, more than 50,000 people have been killed in related violence and thousands more are missing.

The Gallup poll measures public perceptions of safety and security institutions in Mexico through  December. Recent data released by Mexico's national statistics institute, however, indicate that public safety perception has improved as recently as last month.

INEGI, as the institute is known by its Spanish acronym, said its Public Safety Perception Index rose 5.5 points in March 2012 from March 2011 (pdf link in Spanish). The index measures how safe Mexicans feel walking in the area where they live between 4 and 7 p.m.

ALSO:

Mexico's defense secretary acknowledges errors in drug war

Who is responsible for the casino tragedy in Mexico?

Coping with fear in Monterrey, Mexico, or leaving it

Photo: Soldiers and federal police inspect a car that police said contains four human heads in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco on March 22. Violence continues in Acapulco as drug gangs battle for control of the region. Credit: Bernandino Hernandez / Associated Press

Caught on video, Mexico 'gentleman' faces charges in beating

** Originally published at World Now: 

 

A wealthy businessman surrendered this week to a municipal prison to face charges that he beat and violently berated an employee in his building for not obeying him.

The case of Miguel Sacal Smeke is the second scandal in recent months involving the release of video footage that captures what social-media users decried as acts of classist rage.

A judge denied bail for Sacal, a textile businessman.

He faces assault-with-injuries charges after a video emerged of him knocking out the teeth of a lobby employee in his upscale apartment building. The worker, Hugo Enrique Vega, had declined to fetch a car jack and change a tire for him.

In August, two women -- a beauty queen and a reality-television personality -- were filmed slapping and pushing a uniformed traffic officer on a swanky street in Mexico City's Polanco district over a parking dispute. The media dubbed them the "Ladies de Polanco."

Sacal's incident happened in July, before the "Ladies de Polanco" scandal, but the footage emerged on YouTube only in early January.

Disgust at the video of the two women spread for months in Mexico. Some said the "Ladies de Polanco" clip proved that race and class discrimination persist in Mexican society. Others said the video showed the lack of respect for uniformed authorities in Mexico, and the inability of authorities to enforce the law no matter anyone's class standing.

The "ladies," Azalia Ojeda and Vanesa Polo Cajica, still face charges for the August incident and had a court date on Wednesday in which they had their last interview with the judge. They are free on bail.

Sacal earned the nickname the "Gentleman de Las Lomas" (for the super-rich Las Lomas district) after the footage of his incident surfaced. In a television interview afterward, worker Vega was eloquent and even gracious when asked what he thought of Sacal's actions.

"I am not a businessman. I am simply a worker, I receive a salary, but at the end of the day, I offer services," Vega told Milenio TV. "We can't let ourselves be taken by the economic standing of each person. What's important here is to see us all as human beings."

From behind bars at the Reclusorio Oriente, a large city prison, Sacal apologized "to society" for attacking Vega, in a letter read by his lawyer Thursday. If convicted and sentenced, he faces between three and eight years in prison.

* Photo: Mexico City businessman Miguel Sacal in a mug shot distributed to reporters. Credit: Attorney general's office of Mexico City

Mexico's PRI splits from teachers union party heading into election

** Originally published at World Now:

It turns out a political party founded by powerful teachers union boss Elba Esther Gordillo won't be joining hands with the resurgent Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in Mexican elections this year -- a surprise wrinkle as the PRI seeks to recapture the presidency.

The two parties announced the split, described by both as amicable, in dual statements over the weekend.

Gordillo's New Alliance is a relatively minor party founded in 2005, ostensibly on a platform focused on education. It has stayed alive as a party by making short-term alliances with bigger groups.

But on Friday, both parties said they would go their separate ways. The alliance openly rankled some PRI veterans because it meant committing congressional seats to the smaller party, and was one of the factors leading to the resignation of the PRI's ex-president, Humberto Moreira, in December.

Rivals and political analysts have long argued that New Alliance operates as a reservoir of political seats and appointments for personal allies of Gordillo, the feared leader of the national teachers union who is said to command 1.5 million votes.

(La Maestra, as she is known, remains largely absent from the party's public events and messages amid persistent allegations of corruption.)

Its split from the PRI means New Alliance's allegiance in July is in effect up for grabs. Already, one trailing candidate vying for the nomination of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, suggested he would consider accepting an alliance with the group for the 2012 vote.

PRI leaders, meanwhile, said Monday the split with will not affect the presidential fortunes of their party's candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto. The telegenic former state governor has made several public stumbles in recent months that have led some to question his merits as a candidate.

In an online forum at AnimalPolitico.com, one analyst said Gordillo's marks with the public are so low, losing New Alliance's support could theoretically benefit Pena Nieto, who might gradually become attractive to independents.

* Photo: Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico's presidential candidate for the PRI, speaks at a news conference in Mexico City on Wednesday / Associated Press.

Disapprove

** See also this. "No you don't."

Mexicans confront racism with white, black doll video

** Originally published at World Now:

Is Mexico's an inherently racist society? Does the culture overwhelmingly favor those with light skin over those with dark skin? And if so, is that a legacy of European colonialism or present-day images in television and advertising?

These are among the thorny questions emerging in online forums in Mexico since a government agency began circulating a "viral video" showing schoolchildren in a taped social experiment on race.

The kids are seated at a table before a white doll and a black doll, and are asked to pick the "good doll" or the doll that most resembled them. The children, mostly brown-skinned, almost uniformly say the white doll was better or most resembled them.

One child in the video with mixed-race features says the white doll resembled him "in the ears."

"Which doll is the good doll?" a woman's voice asks the child.

"I am not afraid of whites," he responds, pointing to the white doll. "I have more trust."

Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination, or Conapred, in mid-December began circulating the video, modeled on the 1940s Clark experiments in the United States. The children who appear in it are mostly mestizos, or half-Spanish, half-Indian, and a message said they were taped with the consent of their parents and told to respond as freely as they could.

Mexicans who saw the video said online that they were dismayed but not surprised by its results, and also offered some criticism for the agency that produced it.

Commenters have noted that the options were "very limiting" by offering only black and white, or good and bad, when in Mexico the majority of the population is mixed-race, mostly European and indigenous, and to a lesser extent African and Asian backgrounds.

"It is a poorly formulated question, it is pretentious," one user said on the website VivirMexico.

Yet many also said the video reveals a deep-seated prejudice that is taught to children in Mexico from an early age.

In 2010, the Televisa network was criticized for showing actors in black face during the World Cup in South Africa. In May, the case of a black man who died after a confrontation with police in Mexico City led to protests against Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.

Wilner Metelus, a sociology professor and leader of a committee advocating for Afro-Mexicans and black immigrants, said the doll video shows how far the country must go to recognize the prevalence of racism and the need to educate young people. 

"The Mexican state still does not officially recognize Afro-Mexicans. There are few texts that talk about the presence of Africans in Mexico," Metelus said. "We need a project in the schools to show that the dark children are just the same as them, as the lighter children. And not only in schools; it is also necessary in Mexican families."

On Friday, the daily La Jornada published a report saying black immigrants in Mexico and the Afro-Mexican minority still suffer racism and discrimination that is not adequately acknowledged by the government.

"[Dark] skin color is still associated with foreignness," Luz Maria Martinez, a leading anthropologist on Afro-Mexican culture, told the newspaper. "We do not know how to value the indigenous culture, which is very rich, or the African culture, which is as great as any in the world."

Margarita Zavala, Calderon ask God to change the hearts of 'violent ones'

** Originally published at World Now:

President Felipe Calderon and First Lady Margarita Zavala on Sunday appeared with their children at Mexico's most revered site for Roman Catholics, the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and prayed for peace in a public display of devotion.

Calderon, a year from the end of his term, attended Mass at the church less than a week after the feast day for Our Lady of Guadalupe, the deeply charged national symbol dating to the conquest of the Aztec empire and a unifying cultural icon today.

On Sunday, the first lady offered the third prayer of the Mass, saying, according to one report, "In our family we have prepared this petition. We pray, Lord, for our dear Mexico. Give the Mexican nation the peace, hope and justice that it so needs."

Zavala also asked in prayer, "Touch with your love the hearts of the violent ones," a reference to the ongoing conflict embroiling the government, organized crime and paramilitary groups. News outlets later published photographs of the family crossing themselves in prayer.

The two are lifelong members of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, which was founded partly as a haven for devout Catholics during the long and aggressively secular rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Calderon has not shied away from referring to his religious ideology in public. Last year, he told U.S. journalist Charlie Rose in an interview that he expects to reunite with his father in heaven, in response to a question about whether the president thought his deceased father would approve of his government.

Calderon is the second PAN president to occasionally cross into religious territory while in office. His predecessor, Vicente Fox, sparked criticism in 2002 when he bowed and kissed the hand of Pope John Paul II during the pontiff's final trip to Mexico.

Sunday also marked the launch of campaigns of the three major parties in next year's presidential election and, in a way, the beginning of the end of Calderon's six years in office.

Since assuming the presidency in December 2006, amid chaos over disputed election results, the Calderon administration launched a military-led campaign against organized crime that has left at least 43,000 dead. Some peace activists here place the figure as high as 60,000.

Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City, speaking on Sunday, said there was a healthy separation of church and state in Mexico, and asked Mexicans to not give in to fear in face of threats from crime groups.

"Imagine if our president fell into fear," the bishop said.  

The sharp division that once existed between Mexico's PRI-led governments and the Catholic Church has blurred in recent years, said George W. Grayson, a Mexico specialist at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

Pope Benedict XVI is expected to visit Mexico for the first time next spring. He has already met presidential front-runner Enrique Peña Nieto during an audience at Vatican City in 2009.

Grayson noted that the church has had known ties to the country's drug cartels, most notably in the practice of some drug lords of funding construction or renovations of local churches. "So the church has contact, and maybe they can reach out and touch a capo's heart," he said. 

* Photo via La Primera Plana.

Two 'normalistas' dead in clash with police in Guerrero

** Originally published at World Now:

Two students are dead after a confrontation between police and rural teaching students in the southern state of Guerrero, in an incident that is reminding many here of the history of brutal crackdowns against leftist protesters in Mexico.

Authorities promised an investigation, but student groups and several leftist-identified sections of the national teachers union called the deaths  acts of "repression" and "murder" and said they would hold protest demonstrations this week.

The clash occurred Monday on a stretch of the federal highway that connects Mexico City and the resort of Acapulco, just south of Guerrero's capital city, Chilpancingo.

According to accounts, between 300 and 500 unarmed students and activists affiliated with a   teachers college blocked the Autopista del Sol as part of their ongoing demands related to improvements and funding for the Raul Isidro Burgos normal college in Ayotzinapa, a town about 90 miles east of Chilpancingo.

When police arrived at the blockade with the intent to clear the highway, the normalistas, as they are known, threw projectiles. Tear gas was fired, and a gasoline station caught fire, news reports said.

In the chaos that followed, shots were fired into the protesters. Two students died. They were identified as Gabriel Echeverria and Jorge Herrera.

Photos published in Mexican newspapers showed the bodies of two young men, one wearing a backpack, lying on the highway.

Federal, state and ministerial police were present, as well as armed men in plainclothes and, later, the army, the reports said. It remained unclear Tuesday who fired at the students and who ordered the use of force.

The "normal school" system -- in which rural campesinos are trained to be teachers -- is one of the few remaining socialist-styled legacies of the period after the Mexican Revolution. The system's students and teachers often clash with authorities. The powerful chief of the national teachers union, Elba Esther Gordillo, described the system in comments made earlier this year as a "hotbed for political scheming."

In Chilpancingo, at least 20 demonstrators were detained, at least two were seriously injured, and one reporter was arrested, beaten and later released, several reports said. There were also several police injuries.

Many demonstrators dispersed into the hillsides near the highway after the gunfire and remain unaccounted for, union leaders and students said at a news conference in Mexico City on Tuesday.

A witness identified as a student from Ayotzinapa, wearing glasses and a U.S. university sweatshirt, described the incident in detail, saying the federal police fired first toward the demonstrators. The man, said to be 22, was not identified by name for fear of reprisal.

"We never had arms," said the student witness, speaking at a local teachers union branch. "When the aggression started, we used what we had in our reach -- stones and sticks."

The incident led to promises of justice from Mexico's federal Interior Ministry and Gov. Angel Aguirre of Guerrero. On Tuesday, Aguirre said in a radio interview that he had fired his top prosecutor and the head of public security in the state and asked federal authorities to take over the investigation.

Amnesty International released a statement condemning the violence, and Mexico's national human rights commission also promised to investigate.

"Some [protesters] managed to make it up to the hills, and some came down, but 20 others, we don't know where they are," the student witness said Tuesday. "We don't know if they're still up on the mountain or if they were picked up by authorities."

The student also said one female activist from the community was missing.

* Photo: A 22-year-old man identified as a teaching student from Ayotzinapa describes the confrontation with police in Guerrero.

Mexico detains man over tweet alluding to Blake Mora crash

** Originally published at World Now:

A Mexican Twitter user was detained and questioned by federal investigators about a message on the social media site that seemed to allude to the helicopter crash that killed Mexico's interior minister, Francisco Blake Mora.

The tweet by @mareoflores appeared Thursday, a day before the suspected accident that killed Blake and seven others, and referred to the 2008 Learjet crash that killed a previous interior minister, Juan Camilo Mouriño.

That accident also occurred in early November and its anniversary was a source of buzz among Mexican social media users in the days before Friday's crash.

"I haven't left work so early since the fall of Mouriño's plane," the tweet said. "Be careful, flying officials."

The federal attorney general's office said it detained the Twitter user Sunday under its duty to "exhaust all lines of investigation" in the Blake crash. A spokeswoman said Monday that the user was found by the agency's cyber-police unit.

Identified as a 26-year-old publicist named Mario Flores, the latest tuitero to enter the news in Mexico said in interviews Monday that agents dressed in civilian clothing approached him in his Mexico City driveway, tackled him and pushed him into a civilian vehicle. He said he was taken to meet investigators and was in custody for eight hours.

After his release Sunday night, Flores was greeted with news cameras and cheers outside an attorney general's office building in the capital (link in Spanish). Flores said he told authorities that the tweet was a coincidence and that it was rooted in his experience living through the 2008 Mouriño crash, which occurred just a few blocks from his place of work.

"It's in the collective consciousness," Flores said in a radio interview with journalist Carmen Aristegui (link and audio in Spanish). "It's the same way that Americans still talk about 9/11."

Flores joins a growing list of social media users in Mexico who have been targeted by criminals or government authorities for messages posted on Twitter.

In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, a string of grisly unsolved killings is spreading fear among Twitter users who keep one another informed on criminal activity. This year, two social media users in Veracruz became a political flash point after they were jailed over tweets that state authorities said spread rumor and panic.

And in the hours after the Friday helicopter crash, the Twitter user @morf0 became a brief media sensation when a message of his seemed to predict the Blake crash, saying: "Tomorrow on 11/11, a secretary will fall out of the sky."

For his part, Flores said Monday that Twitter users should be protected, not targeted, by authorities.

"I am a user, I am Mexican, I just want peace for me, my family and more than anything for my country," he told Aristegui. "I don't want ministers to fall from the sky and I don't want tuiteros to be taken from their homes for saying something."

* Photo: A memorial service for interior minister Francisco Blake in Tijuana on Sunday / Reuters

Facts also fall victim in Mexico 'social media' killings

** Originally published at World Now:

Four people have been killed in gruesome fashion in Mexico since September for posting about drug cartels on social-media websites, the headlines and news reports say.

Trouble is, the reports could be wrong.

Information is the latest battleground in Mexico's drug war, as a string of brutal deaths in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo has produced alarming reports that social networks are under attack by the infamous Zetas cartel.

Most of the reports, however, are not built on verifiable facts. And facts have become a rare commodity in many regions of Mexico that are dominated by drug cartels.

In each case, such as a man found decapitated near a monument in Nuevo Laredo on Wednesday, the victims have been left with hand-lettered messages suggesting that they were using Twitter and the local chat board Nuevo Laredo En Vivo to report on cartels. 

In each case, the messages have warned against cooperating with the Mexican military and have been signed with multiple Zs, presumably referring to the Zetas.

But how can anyone know for sure?

Anonymous threat to Zetas, media, both falter *

* UPDATE: Fulfilling any decently skeptical person's expectations but failing those of info-war-mongers, including major U.S. media outlets and some heroin addict in Dallas, #OpCartel is basically a bust tonight. Here's my report from Friday.

** Originally published at World Now: 

A story that at first seemed to point ominously to a dangerous new development in Mexico's drug war was spiraling into confusion Friday as social-media users claiming ties to the hackers group Anonymous announced -- and then retracted -- a threat against the Zetas cartel in Mexico.

Some Twitter users who claim membership in the secretive hackers collective said they would be carrying out the attack against the ultra-violent Zetas by revealing the identities of the cartel's associates and businesses starting Saturday.

Others, however, were reporting that the attack was canceled and warned that the operation, dubbed #OpCartel, would put innocent lives at risk.

Adding to the confusion, the reason for the supposed cancellation of the attack shifted throughout the day. Did the Zetas release the Anonymous member allegedly kidnapped in Mexico, an abduction that purportedly inspired the hackers' threat? Or did Anonymous receive threats itself and cancel the operation for the safety of its members and their families?

In the dual worlds of shadowy cartels and shadowy hackers, there is almost no way of knowing, and no way of verifying such claims.

Anyone can claim membership of the leaderless hackers group. And anyone, in theory, can start a hash-tag on Twitter and call it an "operation" -- even before a single action is taken.

* Read more at the original post.

** ADD: Watch trailer of documentary on Anonymous at Wired.

*** Image: Gizmodo.

Does U.S. deportation program put migrants in harm's way?

Originally published at World Now:

In an effort to further discourage illegal crossers, the United States says it has found success in the practice of transferring illegal immigrants and deporting them at a border crossing far from where they initially entered the United States, The Times reports.

But does the practice place undocumented migrants in harm's way when they are sent to a region of Mexico that is not familiar to them?

Under the strategy, deportees are often flown hundreds of miles from where they illegally entered the country and returned to Mexico through another port of entry, preventing them from reconnecting with human smugglers and attempting the crossing once more. 

Some, for example, have been apprehended in Texas and then transferred and deported through Calexico, Calif., Richard Marosi reports in The Times. U.S. customs authorities say the Alien Transfer Exit Program, as it is called, "breaks the smuggling cycle." 

It also brings to mind a troubling headline that largely slipped below the radar this summer.

In June, dozens of illegal immigrants held at a private detention facility in New Mexico wrote letters to a border activist group pleading for help to avoid being transferred and deported through Texas, which they said would place their lives in danger.

The Zetas cartel is said to control human and drug smuggling through much of northeastern Mexico, across from Texas, and is also known to commit atrocities against migrants making passage through the region. Zetas are believed to have massacred 72 mostly Central American migrants last year in a town in Tamaulipas state, in a case that drew international reproach.

They're also suspected in the hijacking of low-cost buses that run through the area, which may be connected to the many mass graves  that have turned up hundreds of bodies in Mexico's northern region, as The Times has reported. Cartels also practice forced recruitment of migrants, even slavery, Mexican authorities and immigrant advocates have said. (Links in Spanish.)

The number of migrants held at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico and who asked not to be deported through Texas this summer eventually reached 52, said Hannah Hafter, a coordinator for the No More Deaths project in Nogales, Ariz. 

"As far as I can tell, at this point all have served their sentences and been deported," Hafter said in an email message Thursday. It was not clear whether these migrants were deported to the Mexican state of Sonora, as some requested, or elsewhere.

"Since that time, we have not heard from any of them and have not had the capacity to follow up," she added. "To me, it demonstrates a severe inflexibility in the system including at the risk of human life."

In a statement to No More Deaths, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had said,  "While ICE recognizes the current situation relating to violence in Mexico, the agency is not in the practice of allowing detainees to request repatriation to specific locations in Mexico."

* Photo: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times / Sept. 20, 2011

Nuevo Laredo: Killing social media users in Mexico

** Originally published at World Now at the L.A. Times, the paper's new international news blog. My recent base at LAT.com, La Plaza, is hereby retired, but links remain live and available. Thanks for the follows and re-posts and continued tips and feedback.

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- A woman found decapitated in the border city of Nuevo Laredo is being mourned as an apparent member of a social networking site used by local residents to share information on drug cartel activity.

The victim was found early Saturday with a note nearby saying she was killed for posting messages online about violent or criminal incidents in Nuevo Laredo.

The Tamaulipas state attorney general's office identified the woman as Maria Elizabeth Macias Castro, 39, and said she was an editor at the newspaper Primera Hora (links in Spanish). The Associated Press, however, quoting an employee of the newspaper, identified the victim as Marisol Macias Castaneda, and said she held an administrative and not an editorial post at Primera Hora.

A web search of the newspaper's website found no mention of the woman's death or the discovery of a decapitated female body on Saturday.

But on the website Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, a banner image appeared memorializing a member known as NenaDLaredo. "You'll always be present," the display says.

'Miss Bala' and Independence Day

At least ten people were reportedly killed during fiesta patrias celebrations across Mexico last night.

That's an extremely low figure relative to Mexico's population and relative to an expectation that rises quietly every recent mid-September when Mexico celebrates its Independence Day. Inevitably, some people worry that a narco-terror attack will strike somewhere around the Grito like in 2008 in Michoacan. (See here.)

This week at La Plaza, I used the occasion to consider the implications for Mexico's current drug war and its future as a nation bound on democratic principles (supposedly) through the new Canana release "Miss Bala."

Read my thoughts on the flick here. And definitely go see it.

9/11

I stayed away from the news on Sunday, then logged on and looked at pictures and newspaper front-pages. From Patrick Smith at Salon:

It's not the anniversary itself that irks me. The 10-year mark is -- or should be -- worthy of our solemn respects and a national timeout. But commemorating the attacks would feel a lot more meaningful if, in fact, we had ever stopped commemorating them. Our healing process has been never-ending -- occasionally introspective and edifying, but all too often maudlin and suffocating.

Yes, exactly. Where we going with all this? What happens to America on Monday? And every Monday thereafter? More of the same, seems to me. That's the truly sad part.

* Photo via Framework at LAT. * Salon link via FAY0LA.

La Plaza: Veracruz panic started before 'terrorist' tweets, reports say

Cracks are appearing in the case against the Twitter users in Mexico accused of terrorism for spreading rumors of an attack.

Local reports and claims suggest that the "panic" that spread over rumors of child abductions at school campuses started at least two hours before the online messages that could put a man and woman behind bars for 30 years.

** Read the rest of this story here. 

La Plaza: Who is responsible for the casino tragedy in Monterrey?

(Hint: A lot of powerful people who'll most likely get away with it.)

** Originally published at La Plaza:

Four days after the deadly casino attack in Monterrey in northern Mexico, the owner of the burned-out Casino Royale has not emerged in public or spoken with authorities.

In fact, little is known about the owners and operators of the casino, despite initial reports (later contradicted) that said emergency exits in the establishment were blocked, contributing to the high death toll of 52. The dead included one pregnant woman, and over the weekend, as families buried their loved ones, another large demonstration against violence and insecurity took place in Monterrey (link in Spanish).

The demonstration ended in scuffles for some as activists made competing calls for the resignations of the Monterrey mayor, the Nuevo Leon state government, and President Felipe Calderon (video link in Spanish).

Nuevo Leon authorities said the investigation into the arson blaze is ongoing. On Monday, Gov. Rodrigo Medina announced the arrest of five men suspected of being involved in the attack. The suspects were identified as Zetas, the drug gang that is seeking control over Monterrey in a campaign that has spread fear and violence in the affluent industrial city.

Authorities said they were eager to speak with Raul Rocha Cantu, a Monterrey businessman identified as one of the owners of the casino. One newspaper said the casino owners had not complied with an extortion demand of 130,000 pesos a week, or about $10,000 -- common deals that often lead to brutal attacks against bars and other businesses in Monterrey.

Another report said Rocha has lived in the United States for at least the last two months, but no location was specified (link in Spanish).

In a series of interviews since Friday, the casino owners' lawyer, Juan Gomez Jayme, said attorney-client privilege would not permit him to divulge where Rocha was or whether he would present himself to Nuevo Leon authorities as they have requested (link in Spanish).

Gomez defended the establishment, saying the casino operated lawfully under municipal, state, and federal regulations. Yet questions were raised almost immediately about word of blocked emergency exits, which were reported by the chief of civil protection in Monterrey after firefighters put down the arson blaze.

** Continue reading at La Plaza.

Stadium shooting in Torreón, the corrido

 

That was fast. Within hours of a shootout near the Torreón football stadium that caused pandemonium among thousands of fans, a group calling itself Los Gallos Alterados uploaded on Youtube a corrido documenting the incident.

Really, the song gives about as much if not better detail on what happened than your average news story. He sings that the cause of the shooting was a checkpoint set up by the "gobierno militar," then calls for safety at sporting venues for the sake of the children.

Mexico, no matter what, I love you. 

* Previously, "'I'm a cokehead and I won't deny it'," "In Mexico, more deaths than we can imagine."

A different way to die in the drug war

This one stuck with me. From the daily story in Friday's La Jornada rounding up the drug-war deaths of the day:

En Tepic, Nayarit, hombres armados irrumpieron en el hotel Colonial en busca de un grupo de personas que se hospedaba ahí; la mayoría alcanzó a huir mientras una corrió a la azotea y al verse cercada se lanzó al vacío y falleció.

Translation:

In Tepic, Nayarit, gunmen burst into the Colonial Hotel in search of a group of people staying there; the majority of them managed to escape while one ran to the roof, and upon realizing he was surrounded, he threw himself into the void and died.

A local news source identifies the victim as a young man, and has photos. What image could this guy have had of his death had he been caught up by the assassins who were hunting him? What was going through his head?

In all, 46 people died in suspected drug-related violence in Mexico in 10 states on Friday, La Jornada reported. Just on Friday. And that's more or less a daily tally. Day after day, day after day, if you can make it through the daily carnage story back in the 12th or 13th page of the paper or whatever.

This leaves me ... nodding in agreement with Debra Saunders?

* Previously, "In Mexico, more deaths than we can imagine."

** IMAGE: 'More than numbers,' a pic via Yfrog from the Sicilia caravan.

Barrios, beats, and blood in Ciudad Juarez

Above, the documentary short "Barrios, Beats, and Blood," on the hip-hop scene in Ciudad Juarez, now on YouTube in its entirety. (I covered the premiere of the film last year at the Morelia Film Festival for La Plaza; see here.)

Directed and produced by journalists Ioan Grillo and John Dickie, "Barrios, Beats, and Blood" offers a direct window into the worldview of youth in a U.S.-Mexico border city that is drowning in death. The voices here direct their protest MCing at the cartels and the government alike: "Queremos que se jode y ya que se quede un puto cartel."

I bet Gil Scott-Heron would be nodding his head right now.