PrintThe wave of violence associated with narco-trafficking along the US/Mexico border took a bizarre turn on December 9. Murders of the members of the various Mexican crime syndicates have escalated in recent months even while President Felipe Calderón this year declared war on the illegal narcotics business nation-wide.
A total of 17 bodies of murder victims were found in the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Baja California, just a few miles away from U.S. territory. In Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California, five bodies were found. Two murdered men were found in one locality of Tijuana; one of these was found wearing a diaper and had a baby pacifier hanging from his neck, while the second was wearing women’s clothing, according to police authorities. Not far away were found three more victims dressed in pyjamas in a pickup truck. One of these was a woman.
In Chihuahua, which borders New Mexico and Texas, a farmer found the bodies of three young men – apparently under the age of 25 – near the village of Corralejo. One of these was decapitated. Three more male victims were found, apparently tortured, in an abandoned house between the cities of Lázaro Cárdenas and Rosales.
Another six victims were found in various places in Chihuahua, Mexico’s largest state. One of these was a well-known lawyer.
Juárez, the largest city of Chihuahua, is the bastion of a drug cartel sometimes called the “Golden Triangle” since it covers three states. It is at war with another criminal organization led by the fugitive Joaquín Guzmán. Based in the northern state of Sinaloa, Guzmán’s organization covers the states of Baja California, Sinaloa, Durango, Sonora and Chihuahua. However, there are factions within the organization that are apparently at war with each other.
So far in Mexico, 5,400 murders have been attributed to narcotics-related crime. In 2007, drug-related crime stood at 2,477. The toll continues to ratchet upwards despite the deployment of Mexican troops, which now stands at 36,000 men deployed in areas most affected by drug trafficking.
Juarez, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, has been plagued by violence for years. In 2004, a number of bodies were found buried in a backyard there but the tally increased to 36 by March 2008 when federal authorities discovered dismembered murder victims. Death in these cases sometimes take a bizarre turn: one victim several years ago was found wearing a mask resembling a pig. Homicidal and sexual violence is also directed at women in Juarez and the maquiladoras along the border where hundreds of cases of murdered and violated women remain unsolved.
The Mexican police and military are sometimes outgunned by the narcos. Arms smuggling favors drug gangs in Mexico, while the police must use legal means to obtain comparable armaments. An expert at a Mexican educational institution estimated that 2,000 weapons cross the border illegally into Mexico each day, many of these being automatic and large calibre weapons. The police, on the other hand, have restrictions imposed upon them by federal law that limits the kinds of arms that they may bear.
The weapons used by narcotics gangs include the Russian designed AK-47, but also fragmentation grenades that are ostensibly made solely for military use. Authorities in Mexico theorize that these may be crossing their borders from the U.S. or in shipments of goods imported from China such as clothing and shoes. The ammunition used by the narco-traffickers is also for military use and therefore penetrates the body-armor typically used by Mexican police forces. Chihuahua and Baja California are the two states where most of the illegal arms reach Mexico through its borders, which are porous in both directions.
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