Jeweledchameleons
Avid Member
In prep for the supershow.... some might wanna know.
It was one thing when all of my mexican friends refused to go down to Tijuana anymore
("because I ain't stupid" was the common reply last year)
It's another to have close to a hundred average americans snatched off the street, raped
beaten the crap out of and held for ransom last year.
But when the TJ police chief's have started running to the border
with their family in tow to get political asylum in the USA.... it's just insane.
It's not like they don't all have good reason too be scared.
Their entire force is basically working for the cartels or running their own schemes
and the whole rule about "No women, No Kids"
has gone out the window.... they're all easy targets now when someone doesn't play ball.
There's a news media blackout on the whole thing.
The TJ reporters are being killed off if they write anything
about the cartels that they don't like
(which is just about anything that mentions them).
The government also is attempting to protect it's tourist money and NAFTA
by way of a desperate attempt to keep things quiet by not reporting the violence
Mexico has moved in thousands of army troops and disarming/ firing the local police force
(for the 3rd time in recent years) to get a grip on the situation.
But it's kinda hard when they have shootouts like the one last month
between different groups and over a dozen bodies littering the street.
Kidnappings are so bad that all the local doctors in TJ
went on strike last and this month to stop their being nabbed themselves
and ransomed (at the rate of about 2 per week).
Just try googling "Tijuana + violence / death / cartel / war / kidnapping
and see what kinds of results there are.
More: massive shootout
here's a list of *some* of the stuff from may alone:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0531742620080515?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20080515-0503-mexico-tijuana-.html
It was one thing when all of my mexican friends refused to go down to Tijuana anymore
("because I ain't stupid" was the common reply last year)
It's another to have close to a hundred average americans snatched off the street, raped
beaten the crap out of and held for ransom last year.
But when the TJ police chief's have started running to the border
with their family in tow to get political asylum in the USA.... it's just insane.
It's not like they don't all have good reason too be scared.
Their entire force is basically working for the cartels or running their own schemes
and the whole rule about "No women, No Kids"
has gone out the window.... they're all easy targets now when someone doesn't play ball.
There's a news media blackout on the whole thing.
The TJ reporters are being killed off if they write anything
about the cartels that they don't like
(which is just about anything that mentions them).
The government also is attempting to protect it's tourist money and NAFTA
by way of a desperate attempt to keep things quiet by not reporting the violence
Mexico has moved in thousands of army troops and disarming/ firing the local police force
(for the 3rd time in recent years) to get a grip on the situation.
But it's kinda hard when they have shootouts like the one last month
between different groups and over a dozen bodies littering the street.
Kidnappings are so bad that all the local doctors in TJ
went on strike last and this month to stop their being nabbed themselves
and ransomed (at the rate of about 2 per week).
Just try googling "Tijuana + violence / death / cartel / war / kidnapping
and see what kinds of results there are.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20080514-0015-borderviolence.htmlViolence in Mexico spills across U.S. border
“They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases,” Ahern told AP.
Associated Press
In this May 9, 2008, file photo, Mexican army soldiers patrol the area near the site of a high level security cabinet news conference after meeting with various sectors of society to address the growing violence in the region in Tijuana.
At a glance: Recent Mexican drug-war violence
WASHINGTON – Three Mexican police chiefs have requested political asylum in the U.S. as violence escalates in the Mexican drug wars and spills across the U.S. border, a top Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.
In the past few months, the police officials have shown up at the U.S. border, fearing for their lives, according to Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.
Ahern said the Mexican officials – whom he didn't name – are being interviewed and their cases are under review for possible asylum.
In the most recent high-level assassination, a top-ranking official on a local Mexican police force was shot more than 50 times and killed. Drug-related violence killed more than 2,500 people last year alone in Mexico.
“It's almost like a military fight,” Ahern said Tuesday. “I don't think that generally the American public has any sense of the level of violence that occurs on the border.”
As the cartels fight for territory, this carnage spills over to the U.S., Ahern said – from bullet-ridden people stumbling into U.S. territory, to rounds of ammunition coming across U.S. entry ports.
U.S. humvees retrofitted with steel mesh over the glass windows patrol parts of the border to protect agents against guns shots and large rocks regularly thrown at them. At times agents are pinned down by sniper fire as people try to illegally cross into the U.S.
Mexico's drug cartels have long divided the border, with each controlling key cities. But over the past decade Mexico has arrested or killed many of the gangs' top leaders, creating a power vacuum and throwing lucrative drug routes up for the taking.
President Felipe Calderón, who took office in December 2006, responded by deploying more than 24,000 soldiers and federal police to areas where the government had lost control. Cartels have reacted with unprecedented violence, beheading police and killing soldiers.
In general, violence along the U.S. border has gone up over the years. Seven frontline border agents were killed in 2007, and two so far in 2008. Assaults against officers have also shot up from 335 in fiscal 2001 to 987 in fiscal 2007.
There have been 362 assaults against officers during the first four months of 2008, according to Border Patrol statistics. The pattern has been that when more security resources are deployed along the U.S. border, violence against officers spike in response.
Most assaults are along the San Diego and Calexico, Calif., border, as well as the Arizona border near Yuma and south of Tucson.
Now, about 14,000 U.S. border agents work on the southern border, up from more than 9,000 in 2001.
The Bush administration has requested $500 million to fight drug crime in Mexico. Congress is currently considering the proposal.
More: massive shootout
here's a list of *some* of the stuff from may alone:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20080514-0016-borderviolence-glance.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0531742620080515?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20080515-0503-mexico-tijuana-.html
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