More Mexico youths die from violence than car wrecks, report says

As Mexico's drug war grinds on, violent homicide has overtaken car accidents as the leading cause of death of young people in the country, reports the Mexico City daily El Universal (link in Spanish).

Government statistics reviewed by the newspaper show that in 2008 and 2009, the second and third complete years of Mexico's drug war, violent deaths of people between 15 and 29 shot up about 150%. The figures rose almost equally across various narrower age brackets within that group.

Half of those homicides occurred in five states that include some of those worst hit by the current violence: Chihuahua, Baja California, Guerrero, Sinaloa and the state of Mexico, on the border with Mexico City. Violence is now the leading cause of death among Mexicans between the ages of 15 and 29, overtaking car accidents, the report said.

The federal government's database on deaths tied to organized crime shows 1,638 young people were killed in suspected drug-related attacks in 2008, a number that rose to 2,511 in 2009 and 3,741 in 2010 (graphic link in Spanish). 

Poor education and job prospects often pull young Mexicans into the poorly paid informal economy or into organized crime. Citing a congressional report, El Universal reported in June that some 23,000 young people had been recruited into the ranks of Mexico's powerful drug cartels since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels soon after taking office in 2006 (link in Spanish). The same report said the drug war has left at least 10,000 orphans.

Separately, Mexico's drug war appears be changing young people's attitudes toward security and penal measures.

A national survey on "constitutional culture" conducted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and released in August found that the largest segment of the population that approves the use of torture and death penalty against suspected cartel criminals was between 15 and 19 years old (link in Spanish).

According to the report, that age group has the most hard-line views on security, approving of the killing of suspected drug traffickers without trial as well as the use of torture to gain information from drug suspects.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Young people pose for a cellphone portrait at the incineration of marijuana and other drugs at a military base in Ciudad Juarez in March. Credit: Gael Gonzalez / Reuters 

The week in Latin America: His defense is cheese

Here are stories that made headlines this week in Latin America, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

Corruption scandal grows in Monterrey with cheese claim

The mayor of Monterrey -- Mexico's affluent city in mourning over the casino attack that left 52 dead -- has a brother who is apparently a cheese salesman and receives payments at blackjack tables at the rear of casinos. At least, that's how Manuel Jonas Larrazabal, brother of  Mayor Fernando Larrazabal, attempted to explain videos that surfaced this week showing him receiving bundles of cash at Monterrey casinos (link in Spanish).

The videos suggest corruption ties between Monterrey's political class and the casinos that have proliferated there and are considered magnets for organized crime, including the Casino Royale, which was attacked by suspected Zetas in the extortion-related firebombing that shocked the country. Local firefighters say exits were blocked, contributing to the high death toll. The owner of the Casino Royale has fled the country, authorities said.

Jonas Larrazabal, proved not to be a cheese salesman in any capacity, has been detained for questioning (link in Spanish). The mayor said he could not be held responsible for his sibling's actions.

2 female journalists found slain in Mexico City

The attacks on, threats against and killings of journalists that have risen in Mexico's drug war made a troubling entry to the relatively safe capital with the discovery Thursday of the bodies of two female former journalists, found naked, bound, and shot to death in the rough southeastern borough Iztapalapa, reports Tracy Wilkinson in The Times. 

Ana Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocio Gonzalez Trapaga were linked to the muckracking news magazine Contralinea. Yarce helped found the magazine and was most recently in charge of selling advertising, a crucial role for a publication that does not receive the lucrative government ads that most others in Mexico enjoy. Gonzalez had been a reporter for media giant Televisa and was most recently working independently and also running a currency exchange booth at Mexico City's airport.

Mexico City Atty. Gen. Miguel Angel Mancera made calls to the families of the victims and promised that their deaths would be investigated and solved, and Congress held a moment of silence for the slain women, La Jornada reports (link in Spanish).

2 held on terrorism charges in Veracruz for tweets 

Veracruz is looking to press terrorism and sabotage charges against a man and woman who spread rumors online of an unconfirmed attack on a school, raising a host of questions about free-speech and the role of social networking sites in a drug war that has seen increasing self-censorship in the traditional news media.

The attack rumor panicked parents and prompted admonishing tweets from the Veracruz state government. But should @gilius_22 and @MARUCHIBRAVO spend 30 years behind bars for a few misinformed tweets?

Migrants return to a more prosperous Brazil

Brazil's economy is attracting migrants to return home to cash in on the strong currency and low unemployment rate, reports special correspondent Vincent Bevins from Salvador da Bahia. Brazilians are returning from the United States, Europe, and Japan as those economies struggle to regain ground after the global financial crisis.

"I never planned on leaving, really. I love it there," said Victor Bahia, 25, who had returned from California. "But my mom and everyone here kept telling me that this economy was exploding like never before, and all the work had dried up in the Bay Area. It's the same reason that the majority of the Brazilians I knew there were also leaving."

Gun scandal creeps closer to the White House

Times reporter Richard Serrano in Washington reports today that at least three officials in the White House were made aware of the failed gun-tracking program that saw hundreds of weapons "walked" into and lost in Mexico, fueling drug-related violence.

The officials who received emails about Operation Fast and Furious were Kevin M. O'Reilly, Dan Restrepo and Greg Gatjanis, all national security officials in the Obama administration. The U.S. gun bureau chief in Phoenix, where the failed operation was overseen, sought help from the White House to persuade Mexico's government to let U.S. agents recover weapons south of the border, Serrano reports.

"This is great," O'Reilly replied to one email referencing the gun operation. "Very informative."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: An image from a surveillance video that shows Manuel Jonas Larrazabal, brother of Monterrey's mayor, receiving cash from a woman at a casino. Credit: Animalpolitico.com

Who is responsible for the casino tragedy in Mexico?

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.

The week in Latin America: Unrest continues in Chile

Here are stories that made headlines this week in Latin America, and highlights from our coverage of the region by Times reporters and your blogger here at La Plaza:

1 dead in Chile national strike

A two-day national strike in Chile led to hundreds of injuries, more than a thousand arrests and the death of a teenage boy after violent clashes between workers and students and Chilean police. The strike was the latest large-scale demonstration challenging the conservative government of President Sebastian Pinera, Chile's first non-leftist leader since the return to democracy.

What started as a student movement for education reform has grown into calls for a reshaped constitution aimed at what demonstrators call an unequal distribution of wealth in Latin America's most stable economy. Pinera on Friday invited the movement leaders to a dialogue to discuss their demands (link in Spanish). The president's approval ratings have tanked since the demonstrations started.

Casino attack leaves Mexico in mourning

The deadly casino attack in Monterrey on Thursday shocked a nation already too accustomed to narco-related violence. Most of the 52 identified victims were women in their 40s and 50s, demonstrating that gambling in Mexico is a middle-class diversion in a country where the term "terrorism" is now shifting closer to everyday life.

Presidents Barack Obama of the U.S. and Felipe Calderon of Mexico both issued statements condemning the attack, while disdain, sadness, and outrage with the current drug war lit up social networks in Mexico. Read more in recent posts here at La Plaza and in the print version of The Times.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A demonstrator aims a bottle at an armored vehicle in Santiago, Chile, August 25, 2011. Credit: Associated Press

Mexican cartels splinter, branch out as drug war rages

The news just gets grimmer in Mexico as the drug war nears the end of its fifth year and claims more and more innocent lives. On Thursday, gunmen burst into a casino in the northern city of Monterrey and set fire to the place, killing more than 50 people, Ken Ellingwood reports in The Times.

The attack was described by the federal government as an act of terror. President Felipe Calderon has ordered three days of national mourning, but no official decree was needed to observe a palpable sense of gloom among ordinary citizens on Friday morning even here in Mexico City, far from Monterrey.

In Mexico's current armed conflict, when a night-life or entertainment establishment is attacked, authorities assume an extortion deal gone wrong. A business owner refuses to pay a hefty "tax" to an organized crime group, or is being extorted by more than one group, a deal frays, and eventually, innocent lives are lost. In other instances, a business might be attacked out of sheer competition between cartels.

In the past year, Monterrey has seen such attacks more than its people probably care to count. In early July, more than 20 people were killed when gunmen assaulted a crowded bar in downtown Monterrey on a Friday night. The hitmen even killed the hot-dog vendor outside.

The violence in Monterrey is presumed to be a result of the localized war between the two major cartels that seek control over Mexico's wealthiest city -- the Gulf cartel and their former armed wing, the Zetas -- which were founded by ex-members of an elite Mexican military unit.

The Zetas in particular are known for their brutal attack techniques, so much so that late last month a new self-described cartel announced its debut with the online video: the Mata Zetas, or "Zeta Killers."

The Spanish-language video link shows a group of men in flack jackets, hooded masks or helmets, and holding high-powered military-grade assault rifles. They stand in silence as a voice-over announces the group's fight against "these filthy Zetas" in the state of Veracruz. The image achieves its goal, striking fear in the observer. The group looks fierce, cold-blooded and trained.

The Mata Zetas identify themselves as a subgroup of the so-called Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. If that's the first time you've heard of that cartel, you're likely not alone. Even journalists these days have trouble keeping track of all the organized-crime groups.

As Mexico's military and federal police seek to arrest or take out top cartel figures, the drug groups inevitably splinter in the subsequent power vacuums, and new self-described "cartels" are formed, although it is practically impossible to know how large or organized the new groups can be. Out of those, subgroups branch out, often seeking to claim new territory or "clean up" against a rival. Since last year, for example, three new cartels have emerged in the battle over the southern port and resort city of Acapulco.

In the western state of Michoacan, a new cartel giving itself the medieval name of Knights Templar has begun terrorizing communities there. That group is said to have splintered off from the fearsome La Familia. As Tracy Wilkinson reported in The Times, the June arrest of the reigning La Familia leader ensures only one thing: "Removing the top capos, which is Calderon's stated strategy, provokes violent power struggles as potential successors compete for their share of the ever-lucrative drug trade."

Yet the U.S. and Mexico governments argue the fight against Mexico's transnational organized crime groups must continue, despite more than 40,000 dead in Mexico alone.

How many more new cartels can form before the conflict runs its course?

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Image: Screen-grab of video announcing the formation of the so-called 'Zeta Killers.' Via YouTube

Hotel owner sought in Dominican journalist killing

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have alleged that a hotel owner is a key conspirator behind a plan to kidnap and assassinate a prominent muckraking journalist who made allegations of links among drug traffickers, antidrug prosecutors and business leaders in the small Caribbean nation.

Jose Silvestre, publisher of the Voice of Truth weekly newspaper and host of a radio program of the same name (link in Spanish), was shot to death while four suspects attempted to kidnap him on Aug. 2 in the city of La Romana. His body was found later on a roadside east of Santo Domingo. 

Authorities suspect businessman and resort owner Matias Avelino Castro ordered Silvestre's murder and remained at large. Avelino wanted Silvestre dead after a July report in the Voice of Truth referred to the alleged criminal links of several of the businessman's associates, Dominican prosecutors said in a statement (link in Spanish). Four arrests have been made in the case, Dominican Today reported.

The Dominican Republic is becoming a key drug-trafficking route from South and Central America into the United States.

Avelino uses several aliases including Joaquin Almeida, Franklin Linaira and "Daniel." News outlets in the Dominican Republic identify him as a leader in a group known as the Samana cartel, named for the Samana peninsula where his Las Galeras resort is located (link in Spanish). That hotel's website presents it as a luxurious tropical getaway and has information in five European languages.

Silvestre was jailed for six days this year on libel charges after he published allegations linking a local antidrug prosecutor to narcotics trafficking. The journalist sometimes made criminal allegations against officials and others without sourcing the claims, the Associated Press said. Prosecutors also said they have testimony from three people who claim Silvestre was paid to publish some of his allegations.

Nonetheless, the journalist's killing has received attention from Amnesty International and other rights groups. According to a sibling, shots were fired at Silvestre's house in May, Amnesty International reported, and because of the threats against the journalist, the Dominican Republic's national press workers union had requested police protection for Silvestre, which was never granted.

-- Daniel Hernandez

Photo: Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic hold a news conference on Aug. 9 detailing updates in their investigation into the death of journalist Jose Silvestre in Santo Domingo. Credit: Procuraduria General de la Republica Dominicana

Internal migration flows below the radar in Mexico

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

A few weeks ago, I took a late Friday night bus from Mexico City to Queretaro to visit friends.

I spent the weekend relaxing at bars, cafes and restaurants. I took a day trip to an officially designated "pueblo magico," Bernal, where an ancient stone monolith is a regional tourist draw. I finished the weekend in a crowded "college-style" bar to watch a big soccer match for Mexico over a BBQ hamburger and a Mexican lager, with U.S. school pennants hanging overhead.

Queretaro is welcoming and clearly prosperous. Over two days, I met Mexicans who had moved there from Chiapas, Veracruz, Guanajuato and elsewhere.

"Why do you live here?" I asked a guy outside a bar one night.

"They pay better than in Veracruz," the fellow replied. "And, well ... it's safe, right?"

The exchange stuck with me. Contradictions abound in Mexico, especially when it comes to the country's current overall stability.

Mexico's economy is growing at a healthier pace than that of the United States and has a lower official unemployment rate (5.3%) than its northern neighbor (9.2%), though the joblessness rate is deceptive because it doesn't include millions of Mexicans who work in the poorly paid informal economy as sidewalk vendors, day laborers and the like. 

Yet, at the same time, Mexico is home to more than 52 million people living in poverty, nearly half the national population. That figure is up by 3 million from three years ago, according to an independent government study released Friday and reported in The Times. Overall, Mexico's recovery from the 2009 global recession is among the slowest in Latin America, a disappointing figure after a decade of free-market policies under federal governments led by the National Action Party, or PAN.

In other words, realities on the ground in Mexico are often more complicated and contradictory than the headlines or government propaganda can tell us.

The week in Latin America: A smuggler named John

The Times this week published a four-part series by reporter Richard Marosi on the U.S. face of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, considered one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world. Here are highlights from the series, and other stories that made top headlines in Latin America this week:

Welcome to Calexico

In the first part of the series, Marosi introduces readers to a Drug Enforcement Administration operation tracking Sinaloa cartel distributors in Southern California. The article highlights the exhaustive surveillance strategies that U.S. anti-drug authorities employ to track smugglers, which includes permitting loads of drugs to pass from Mexico in order to gather further intelligence on suspects.

The tactics of psychics

"Mexican psychics have been known to rub white pigeons up and down a person to absorb negative forces before releasing the birds, and any evil, into the sky," reads part two of the series. "They suggest herbal baths and sometimes add hallucinogenic morning glory seeds to teas they serve their clients." Fascinating and creepy stuff.

Meet John, a cartel drug pilot

John Charles Ward made a living out of piloting drugs from Mexico into the United States, as part three of the series describes. Ward, now serving a sentence in a federal prison in California, managed to escape the law for decades. He tells Marosi of his high-flying times: "It wasn't just a smuggling job. It was my career."

The cartel flow continues

The final part of Marosi's series recounts a confrontation between a U.S. cocaine distributor and his boss in Sinaloa, a top cartel lieutenant. While the DEA operation targeting them eventually netted major arrests and seizures of cash and drugs, Marosi writes: "More than four years later, the cartel continues pumping drugs through the Calexico border crossing."

 

In other news:

'El Ponchis' is sentenced in Mexico

It was another week of horrific incidents in Mexico's drug war. A newspaper reporter was found decapitated in Veracruz. Shootouts in the municipal prison in Ciudad Juarez left 17 dead and fueled a spat between the local police chief and federal forces. And Edgar Jimenez, also known as "El Ponchis," was sentenced in Morelos, a reminder that Mexico's 4-1/2-year conflict is breeding ever-younger victims and perpetrators. 

Humala assumes presidency in Peru

Ollanta Humala, a leftist former military officer, was sworn in as president of an increasingly prosperous Peru on Thursday. Among his first appointments was naming Susana Baca, the celebrated Afro-Peruvian singer who was recently profiled by The Times, as his government's culture minister.

Guatemala election heats up

From Guatemala City, special correspondent Alex Renderos looks at the state of the campaign to replace President Alvaro Colom in elections in September. More than 30 people have been killed in campaign-related violence, a troubling figure, Renderos reports. One of the candidates is Colom's ex-wife; Sandra Torres, the former first lady, had to divorce her husband in order to be eligible to run.

— Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Convicted cartel smuggling pilot John Charles Ward, in federal prison in California in 2009. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Police chief in Ciudad Juarez claims Mexican feds tried to kill him

The police chief of Ciudad Juarez has alleged that officers with Mexico's Federal Police attempted to kill him during a chaotic operation on Monday night, ratcheting up an increasingly bitter turf war over who gets to police the troubled border city.

Police Chief Julian Leyzaola said that Federal Police officers fired on his vehicle without warning during a massive police response to a series of shootouts late Monday in the municipal prison. In a statement, the Federal Police said Leyzaola's vehicle had crossed a security line, "out of protocol," while federal authorities attempted to contain what they called a possible prison break.

One television news crew caught a federal officer saying "Who was that?" when Leyzaola's convoy passed, the El Paso Times reported.

"Why did they fire at me?" Leyzaola said during a news conference Wednesday (link in Spanish). "This was a secured zone. They had no reason to fire on me."

The spat suggests another breakdown of coordination among security forces in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 8,000 people have died since the flare-up of narco-related violence in 2008. It's not the first time such an incident has grabbed headlines; federal and local police officers have openly confronted each other at crime scenes in the past (link in Spanish).

Leyzaola, a former military officer, most recently served as "top cop" in Tijuana, where he was praised by U.S. authorities for significantly bringing down the crime rate. But for the international human-rights community, the chief is a red flag.

In Tijuana he faced allegations of routine torture of police officers suspected of corruption. Less than a month into the job in Ciudad Juarez, as The Times reported, he again faced claims from human-rights lawyers, this time for unlawfully rounding up and disappearing suspects.

Seventeen people died in the Monday night incident in Juarez, including one woman. Eleven of the victims were not serving sentences but in "preventive" detention, in most cases for just days or weeks before their deaths, reports El Diario de Juarez (link in Spanish). Surveillance footage from inside the prison showed masked gunmen with assault weapons firing into the temporary cell where those 11 inmates reportedly died. Six others were killed in other cells, reports said.

Leyzaola filed a court claim against the Federal Police on Wednesday. He's also calling for the federal force stand down and leave the local police work to him, but President Felipe Calderon's top national security spokesman said Wednesday that the agency has been successful in the city and will not be leaving.

In June, Leyzaola survived an alleged assassination attempt in downtown Juarez. He reportedly survived four assassination attempts during his time in Tijuana. In a U.S. diplomatic cable from 2009 that was leaked earlier this year, a U.S. official wrote of allegations that Leyzaola favored one cartel capo over another as they battled for Tijuana's smuggling route.

— Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola, former police chief in Tijuana, is sworn in Ciudad Juarez in March. Credit: Agence-France Presse.

Slain Veracruz reporter wasn't killed over her work, officials say

A reporter who wrote crime and police stories in the Mexican port city of Veracruz was found dead Tuesday morning, but officials made an early denial that she was killed for her newsgathering.

Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz worked at Notiver (link in Spanish), the same employer of a columnist who wrote critically about politics and was killed in an ambush in his home in late June, along with two members of his family, as The Times reported.

Yet state authorities denied in a statement Tuesday that Ordaz was killed for her "journalistic work," hinting that the motive behind her death was "links to organized crime" (link in Spanish). The statement did not elaborate.

Veracruz is a critical drug- and human-trafficking route along the Gulf of Mexico that is presumed to be controlled by the violent Zetas cartel.

Ordaz had been missing for two days and was found decapitated in the Boca del Rio municipality neighboring the Veracruz port, reports said. Her body was left with a note, a tactic often employed by cartel hitmen. The contents of the note were not immediately known.

The reporter is the third to be killed in Veracruz state this year and among more than 70 killed since 2000, according to press rights groups and media tallies.

Attacks on journalists in Mexico -- including kidnapping, torture and intimidation -- have risen since the start of the government's military-led campaign against organized crime in 2006. An international report released in June by the Committee to Protect Journalists said "anti-press violence continued to climb in Mexico, where authorities appear powerless in bringing killers to justice."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Reporter Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz. Credit: Notiver