Mexico's Drug War - Page 43

On the main road into the Mexican town of Ayutla, about 75 miles southeast of Acapulco, about a dozen men cradling shotguns and rusted machetes stand guard on a street corner. Their faces are covered in black ski masks.

The men are part of a network of self-defense brigades, formed in the southern state of Guerrero to combat the drug traffickers and organized crime gangs that terrorize residents.

The brigades have set up roadblocks, arrested suspects and are set on running the criminals out of town.


They go over patrol shifts schedules, handwritten on wrinkled papers, and communicate with other checkpoints in town via walkie-talkies. One man, who wouldn't give his name but identified himself as a "lower commander," said the townspeople had no choice but to take up arms.

The 66-year-old cattle farmer and great-grandfather says it started at the beginning of the year. His cattlemen association was told each member had to pay 500 pesos — about $40 — to a local gang, or else.

"Everyone did as they were told," he says. "Everyone paid it."

But he says people started talking about fighting back. That's when the kidnappings started. He says the gangs snatched several heads of communities in the middle of the night. The townspeople grabbed their rifles and freed the victims. Then they started stopping cars coming in and out of town, checking IDs against lists of names of so-called "bad guys."

On January 28 2013 13:34 TheToaster wrote:
I get really annoyed when these democratic college students start discussing things like worker rights when the topic of American border control gets brought up. There's so much more to worry about than just worker opportunities, including the drugs mentioned here.

Mexico is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, both internally with their government as well as outside criminal organizations. Whenever border patrol gets discussed, this should really become the highest concern. Why do you think California and Texas are some of the most drug riddled states in the nation? Where do you think the stuff comes from, Canada?

Sure, you can talk all day about how Mexicans will do jobs that Americans won't work anymore. But in general, Mexico is just another armpit of the world that needs some deodorant. Because the rest of the world has to deal with its stink.

On January 28 2013 12:58 Deadlyhazard wrote:
I've been watching tons of documentaries/reading up on the gangs and cartels of Mexico. The Zetas scare me the most, because they're so well trained and absolutely brutal. Wish there was someway to stop it -- but because the corruption is so imbedded into even Mexican politics, I just don't see hope of recovery. Any resistance against the cartels is always met with brutality.


I honestly just don't understand how people can participate in such violent crimes. How can you torture someone or behead someone alive? Watching them scream as their vocal cords are being gutted and they die painfully? I mean, it's so fucked up. It's already starting to carry over into the Texan/Arizona/Californian/New Mexican borders pretty bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Treviño_Morales

This guy scares the shit out of me.

On January 28 2013 13:53 Nightfall.589 wrote:


Because more fences will definitely stop the flow of drugs, right?

Or, perhaps, those problems should be viewed through the same lens that caused them - that of American drug policy.

On January 28 2013 12:58 Deadlyhazard wrote:
I've been watching tons of documentaries/reading up on the gangs and cartels of Mexico. The Zetas scare me the most, because they're so well trained and absolutely brutal. Wish there was someway to stop it -- but because the corruption is so imbedded into even Mexican politics, I just don't see hope of recovery. Any resistance against the cartels is always met with brutality.


I honestly just don't understand how people can participate in such violent crimes. How can you torture someone or behead someone alive? Watching them scream as their vocal cords are being gutted and they die painfully? I mean, it's so fucked up. It's already starting to carry over into the Texan/Arizona/Californian/New Mexican borders pretty bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Treviño_Morales

This guy scares the shit out of me.

When getting rid of his victims, Treviño Morales favors a torture method known as the "guiso" (cook-out), where people are stuffed into an oil barrel, doused with gasoline, and then set on fire alive. His violent behavior helped him gain "the notoriety of a cult figure." Reports say that he would escape unharmed from gun battles, avoid making any alliances with anyone, dismember his victims while they were still alive and dump them in dozens, and "seemed unafraid to die." Reports from within the organization claim that Treviño Morales enjoyed driving around the city in a car and pointing at people randomly and saying, "kill this one and kill that one." Under Treviño Morales' leadership, Los Zetas are considered by the DEA to be highly sophisticated, advanced, and the most dangerous criminal organization operating in Mexico and the hemisphere.

On January 28 2013 13:34 TheToaster wrote:
I get really annoyed when these democratic college students start discussing things like worker rights when the topic of American border control gets brought up. There's so much more to worry about than just worker opportunities, including the drugs mentioned here.

Mexico is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, both internally with their government as well as outside criminal organizations. Whenever border patrol gets discussed, this should really become the highest concern. Why do you think California and Texas are some of the most drug riddled states in the nation? Where do you think the stuff comes from, Canada?

Sure, you can talk all day about how Mexicans will do jobs that Americans won't work anymore. But in general, Mexico is just another armpit of the world that needs some deodorant. Because the rest of the world has to deal with its stink.

On January 28 2013 13:34 TheToaster wrote:
I get really annoyed when these democratic college students start discussing things like worker rights when the topic of American border control gets brought up. There's so much more to worry about than just worker opportunities, including the drugs mentioned here.

Mexico is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, both internally with their government as well as outside criminal organizations. Whenever border patrol gets discussed, this should really become the highest concern. Why do you think California and Texas are some of the most drug riddled states in the nation? Where do you think the stuff comes from, Canada?

Sure, you can talk all day about how Mexicans will do jobs that Americans won't work anymore. But in general, Mexico is just another armpit of the world that needs some deodorant. Because the rest of the world has to deal with its stink.

On January 28 2013 15:09 VManOfMana wrote:


Those are some pretty bold words considering YOUR COUNTRY is the one providing the demand for the drug market to exist. You have to be pretty naive to think that fences are going to do much as long as the dollars keep calling in.

On January 28 2013 12:58 Deadlyhazard wrote:
I've been watching tons of documentaries/reading up on the gangs and cartels of Mexico. The Zetas scare me the most, because they're so well trained and absolutely brutal. Wish there was someway to stop it -- but because the corruption is so imbedded into even Mexican politics, I just don't see hope of recovery. Any resistance against the cartels is always met with brutality.


I honestly just don't understand how people can participate in such violent crimes. How can you torture someone or behead someone alive? Watching them scream as their vocal cords are being gutted and they die painfully? I mean, it's so fucked up. It's already starting to carry over into the Texan/Arizona/Californian/New Mexican borders pretty bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Treviño_Morales

This guy scares the shit out of me.

On January 29 2013 02:07 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:


It is this kind of fearful attitude that people like him feed off of. He is nothing more than a petty, uncivilized, sad little man who will inevitably be caught, executed and forgotten. If people didn't show such fearful reverence for people like him who are unnecessarily brutal they would not command nearly as much power or pseudo-respect as they do now. A short drop and a sudden stop is all that is befitting of him and all he hopefully gets.

The indigenous town of Cherán used to be like many places in Mexico, caving under the weight of drug-related crime and a police force that did little to stop it.

But about two years ago, citizens here threw out the police, and took over their local government, running the town according to indigenous tradition. So far, they’ve had remarkable success.

Indigenous autonomy movements, like the one in Cherán, are a trend throughout Latin America, scholars say, from movements like the Zapatistas in Chiapas in the 1990s; to communities seeking to self-govern today in places like Chile and Bolivia.

The response from national governments can vary wildly, says Shannon Speed, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.

“Cherán has been in part so successful because of the particular context in which it happened, one in which government doesn’t have much control to begin with. So it’s pretty happy to say, ‘Sure, go govern yourself,’” says Ms. Speed, who specializes in indigenous issues, human rights, and the law.