Mexican mayor slain ahead of elections

Associated Press, Mexico | Fri, 11/04/2011 10:32 AM

The mayor of La Piedad was handing out campaign fliers outside a fast-food restaurant when a black SUV pulled up, a hand holding a pistol appeared at its window, and he went down with a shot.

Ricardo Guzman, 45, died late Wednesday in an ambulance racing to the hospital, one of more than two dozen Mexican mayors who've been assassinated since 2006, the majority presumed victims of drug violence.

But Guzman's killing raised new questions about organized crime's impact on Mexico's democracy, specifically the Nov. 13 elections in the western state of Michoacan, where Guzman had been handing out campaign material for gubernatorial candidate Luisa Maria Calderon, President Felipe Calderon's sister.

Before Guzman's assassination, polling firm workers were kidnapped in August while trying to conduct surveys on the election, though they were later released unharmed. The three major political parties all say they have local candidates who have received some kind of pressure or threats in the Calderon family home state, where the president launched his drug war five years ago.

More than 40 bodies found in Mexican border state

Adriana Gomez Licon, Associated Press, Mexico City | Thu, 04/07/2011 9:32 AM | World

More than 40 bodies have been found in a mass grave in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas, near the site where suspected drug gang members massacred 72 migrants last summer, authorities said Wednesday.

Ruben Dario, a spokesman for the Tamaulipas state Attorney General's Office, said the site was being excavated to determine the exact number of dead and their identities.

State officials said the graves were found by a military patrol, but the press offices of both the Defense Department and Mexico's navy said they could not immediately confirm the discovery. The site is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the border at Brownsville, Texas.

The mass burial was discovered late Tuesday in the township of San Fernando, in the same area where the bodies of 72 migrants, most from Central America, were found shot to death Aug. 24 at a ranch.

Authorities blamed that massacre on the Zetas drug gang, which is fighting its one-time allies in the Gulf cartel for control of the region.

The victims in the August massacre were illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Brazil. An Ecuadorean and Honduran survived the attack, which Mexican authoritis say occurred after the migrants refused to work for the cartel.

Mexican drug cartels have taken to recruiting migrants, common criminals and youths, Mexican authorities say. Drug gunmen also operate informal checkpoints on highways in Tamaulipas and other northern states, where they hijack cars and rob ad sometimes kill drivers.

San Fernando is on a major highway that leads to the U.S. border, but it wasn't immediately known whether the victims found in the mass grave had been kidnapped from that road.

Drug gangs across Mexico also sometimes use such sites to dispose of thebodies of executed rivals.

The wave of drug-related killings - which has claimed more than 34,000 lives in the four years since the government launched an offensive against drug cartels - drew thousands of protesters into the streets of Mexico's capital and several other cities Wednesday in marches againstviolence.

Many of the protesters said the government offensive has stirred up the violence.

"We need to end this war, because it is a senseless war that the government started," said protester Alma Lilia Roura, 60, an art historian.

Several thousand people joined the demonstration in downtown Mxico City, chanting "No More Blood!" and "Not One More!" A similar number marched through the southern city of Cuernavaca.

Parents marched with toddlers, and protesters held up signs highlighting the disproportionate toll among the nation's youth. "Today a student, tomorrow a corpse," read one sign caried by demonstrators.

The marches were spurred in part by the March 28 killing of Juan Francisco Sicilia, the son of Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, and six other people in Cuernavaca.

"We are putting pressure on the government, because this can't go on," said the elder Sicilia. "It seems that we arelike animals that can be murdered with impunity."

Mexican cartel announces 1-month truce

The Associated Press | Mon, 01/03/2011 7:52 AM | World

A letter purportedly signed by La Familia drug cartel announcing a one-month truce circulated Sunday in the western state of Michoacan.

In the one-page message, distributed by e-mail and in some cities door by door, the gang claims it will halt all crime activity during January to demonstrate that the cartel "is not responsible for the criminal acts federal authorities are reporting to the media."

Prosecutors have not verified the letter's authenticity, according to an employee of the Michoacan bureau of the federal Attorney General's Office who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The government says La Familia has been weakened by a recent string of arrests and deaths of top leaders.

In another letter that circulated in November, La Familia purportedly offered to disband.

Last month, gunmen torched vehicles across Michoacan and used them as barricades to block all entrances into the state capital of Morelia after federal police killed alleged La Familia leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez.

La Familia has occasionally made public pronouncements seeking to convince the public that it is defending Michoacan against other drug gangs.

Federal officials, however, say the cartel has terrorized the state with kidnappings, extortion, hundreds of murders, decapitations and drug trafficking.

Kidnappers of 50 Mexican migrants make ransom call

The Jakarta Post | Fri, 12/24/2010 9:49 AM | World

The supposed kidnappers of 50 Central American migrants who disappeared in southern Mexico last week called a family in the United States demanding a ransom, a Roman Catholic priest who first reported the abductions said Thursday.

But they contacted relatives of a migrant who had escaped after the Dec. 16 assault, said the Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, who runs a migrant shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca.

The abductors probably thought he was still in the group, Solalinde told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, adding that he reported the call to Central American and Mexican authorities.

"We're calling the governments of Central America in case they know of any other calls for ransom," he said.

It was another apparent confirmation of the massive abduction, which Mexican authorities initially denied when they were contacted by the foreign ministry of El Salvador on Tuesday with the complaint.

Witnesses said the majority of those kidnapped are Salvadorans, and Salvadoran Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez continued his criticism of Mexico for initially ignoring the abduction, calling the government's response "hasty and unfortunate."

"We believe you can't deal with these problems by ignoring them," he told a news conference Wednesday night. "Rather, they should be recognized and thoroughly investigated."

Mexico's ministries of the interior and foreign relations released a joint statement Thursday promising to step up the investigation into the alleged abductions and asking Central American governments to provide them with any information they have on the case.

Besides El Salvador, the 30 men, 15 women and five children are from Honduras and Guatemala, according to witnesses, who are being interviewed by the Mexican Attorney General's Office. The kidnapping allegedly happened near Chahuites, Oaxaca, after gunmen held up a train in which the migrants were traveling.

The alleged crime comes just months after the horrific massacre of 72 mostly Central American migrants in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas in August, a tragedy that caused Mexico to replace its top immigration official in September.

That massacre has been blamed on the Zetas drug gang. Solalinde said he has information that the supposed kidnappers of the 50 also have ties to the Zetas. Mexican authorities would not comment on a possible connection.

It was not clear how the criminals would have gotten information about the family of an escaped migrant, but Solalinde said he knows of cases in which abductors travel for a while with migrants before kidnapping them to gain their confidence.

Mexico is the transit route for thousands of illegal migrants seeking to reach the United States, with many falling victim to gangs and organized crime.

Witnesses reported that those kidnapped were beaten with machetes and their belongings were taken.

The victims minutes earlier had escaped a raid on the same train by Mexican police and military, in which they arrested 92 alleged illegal migrants.

The National Human Rights Commission reported in 2009 that nearly 10,000 migrants are kidnapped a year by gangs. The commission also has opened an investigation into last week's reported abduction.