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The capture was worthy of an action thriller: elite Mexican troops rappelling from a helicopter onto the deck of a mysterious submarine, writes The Times' Ken Ellingwood.
The 33-foot vessel turned out to be crammed with parcels apparently containing cocaine, possibly tons of it. The disheveled crew of four had emerged in stocking feet and baggy shorts, claiming to have shipped out from Colombia a week earlier under threat of death.
Capt. Jose Luis Vergara, a spokesman for the Mexican navy, said authorities were hauling the "very well-constructed" vessel to shore and had yet to weigh the contraband, which he said probably amounted to tons.
The unusual episode suggests that the government, already struggling against drug traffickers by land and air, faces a vexing new front undersea.
Read more about drug smuggling submarines in Mexico here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
The nation's drug wars sank to new depths Wednesday as the Mexican navy announced it had seized a submarine that was transporting cocaine off the southern coast.
The navy intercepted the 33-foot vessel about 125 miles south of Puerto de Salina Cruz in Oaxaca state.
Jose Luis Vergara, a navy spokesman, said in a radio interview that special forces waited until the vessel surfaced before rappelling from helicopters and overpowering the four-man crew.
Read more about the drug trafficker's submarine here.
See the latest on Mexico's drug trade here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Photo: Mexican navy sailors ride on top of a seized drug smuggling submarine as it was being towed by a navy ship off the coast of the Pacific resort city of Huatulco, Mexico. Credit: Miguel Angel Tovar / Associated Press
After sunset Sunday, an immigrant couple who crossed into the United States illegally over a year ago set out down Hollywood Boulevard on foot, headed from work to their nearby apartment.
As they walked hand in hand, a former Marine steered his car onto the boulevard. Sergio Delgado, 29, was allegedly fleeing police who had tried to stop him for reckless driving.
Cecilia Diaz Vasquez, 32, and Pedro Davila, 40, stepped into the crosswalk at Wilcox Avenue about 8:45 p.m. just as Delgado allegedly ran a red light.
In a moment, the couple were dead. It took hours for officials to identify the bodies, and in the days that followed, details have emerged about them and the man charged with killing them.
Read more about Pedro Cordova and Cecilia Vasquez here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Photo: Felix Vasquez remembers his younger sister Cecilia Diaz Vasquez, who was killed along with her longtime companion, Pedro Davila, while crossing Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
A tiny insect that can carry a disease that kills citrus trees has been discovered just blocks south of the border in Tijuana, sending shock waves through the California citrus industry.
The disease, known as citrus greening, has already killed tens of thousands of acres of orange groves in Florida and has the potential to ruin much of California's $1.2-billion citrus-growing business, industry officials said.
Mexican agricultural officials found the Asian citrus psyllid in orange trees growing near homes in the vicinity of the California border.
But the officials are annoyed at the alarm sounded by California citrus farmers, saying there's no evidence that these bugs have come into contact with the bacterium that causes the disease, also known as huanglongbing or yellow dragon disease, or that citrus greening is infecting Mexican citrus groves.
Read on about the bug here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Scooped up by gunmen as she walked near her home, 12-year-old Alexia Moreno hardly had a chance. The gangsters were driving straight into a shootout. Within minutes, she was dead, shot in the head as she cowered in the back seat, writes the L.A. Times' Tracy Wilkinson from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
It was two weeks before her sixth-grade graduation.
Alexia's death in a city so accustomed to death struck a nerve because she was -- in this city tortured by killings, broad-daylight gun battles and rampant kidnappings -- an innocent victim.
Continue reading this story about drug violence in Mexico here.
Read more about Mexico's drug wars here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Photo: A relative of Alexia Moreno touches her coffin during the burial ceremony in Ciudad Juarez. Alexia was shot in the head while cowering in the back seat of the vehicle into which she and her companions had been scooped up by gang members. Credit: Luis Torres / Diario de Juarez
 On a recent weekend afternoon, under a sky so vivid and crystalline it actually was Dodger blue, a group of fans filled the courtyard outside the loge decks at Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine for Carne Asada Sunday. They gathered -- in baseball caps and vintage Dodgers jerseys, Vin Scully's voice still reverberating from the stadium -- for plates of carne asada tacos, a favorite of infielder Nomar Garciaparra.
Garciaparra is such a fan of carne asada that he showcases the dish at this twice-a-year event benefiting the Dodgers Dream Foundation, which provides athletic and educational opportunities for children.
Read on about the Dodgers Dream Foundation event here...
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Photo: Along with the carne asada, fans are treated to a chance to meet infielder Nomar Garciaparra, who had a hand in formulating the recipe. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times
"At least 21 people, including a 12-year-old girl and other ordinary citizens, have been killed by warring drug gangs since Thursday in the western Mexican state of Sinaloa, in one of the worst spasms of violence in memory in a region long conditioned to narcotics-related savagery," writes the Times' Marla Dickerson and Cecilia Sanchez.
The wave of deadly mayhem began with the audacious daytime shooting of a dozen people in the capital, Culiacan, and continued during the weekend and into Monday. The deaths of innocents, including the young girl, who had just left a party, have terrified the public and left many questioning the effectiveness of the federal government's ongoing crackdown on drug trafficking.
The United States Congress recently approved The Merida Initiative, which will give the Mexican Government U.S. $400 million to spend on their fight against the country's drug cartels.
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Americans may find it strange that Mexico has had to turn to its army in the savage battle now underway against drug traffickers (see a report here by Ken Ellingwood).
They figure it has to do with local police corruption.
But there’s more to it.
Read on »
John McCain, angling to win a bigger share of the fast-growing Latino vote, is taking the risky step of placing an immigration overhaul at the center of his appeal, write the Times' Peter Wallsten and Maeve Reston from Washington.
The presumed Republican presidential nominee, who trails Barack Obama among Latinos and was recently in Mexico City and Colombia, had been focused on assuring conservatives that securing the U.S. border with Mexico would be his top immigration priority.
But McCain has adopted a message that gives equal weight to helping employers and immigrant workers and their families. That suggests that as president he would back the kind of legislation that has roiled many in his party -- most notably, a legalization plan for undocumented workers.
Read on...
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Mexico City's police chief and head prosecutor resigned Tuesday amid growing public outrage over a bungled bar raid that resulted in 12 deaths, writes Marla Dickerson of the L.A. Times.
The resignation of Police Chief Joel Ortega and prosecutor Rodolfo Felix came the same day the city's Human Rights Commission issued a scathing denunciation of the deadly law enforcement crackdown last month on a club packed with teenagers celebrating the end of the school year.
Read on...
See earlier La Plaza reports on the issue here and here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Los Angeles
Photo: A relative of one of those killed reacts to a description by the city's Human Rights Commission of the raid on a Mexico City club where nine youths and three policemen died in the crush of people trying to escape. Police had barricaded the exits; credit: Gregory Bull / Associated Press
At the end of last month, the Merida Initiative -- a $400 million aid package for Mexico aimed at helping the country fight its powerful drug cartels and organized crime networks -- was approved by the United States Congress.
The Merida Bill faced stiff opposition across the political spectrum and from both sides of the border. Detractors in the United States worry that the funding will put more resources into already corrupt law enforcement agencies in Mexico. Here in Mexico, critics are concerned that the help from the U.S. administration signals American interference in the country's affairs.
Here on La Plaza, we receive many comments and questions in response to posts on the issue of what is also known as Plan Mexico, which we have covered extensively. So today, we put questions about the aid package to two specialists on the subject.
Laura Carlsen is the director of the Americas program for the Center for International Policy, which advocates foreign policy based on demilitarization and a respect for human rights. She writes extensively on Mexico.
Senator Patrick Leahy is a Vermont Democrat who heads the foreign operations subcommittee and is an advocate of the package.
Read on »
 "How many times have you picked up a memoir by some American or European nomad living the good life abroad, and wanted to toss the entire volume out the window after about, oh, two paragraphs?" asks the L.A. Times' Reed Johnson in his review of David Lida's new book about Mexico City, "First Stop in the New World."
"You know the type of book: a self-congratulatory saga of how the middle-aged author, suffering from chronic First World malaise, cashed in his tech stocks, fled the L.A. or New York rat race and escaped to some exquisite little corner of Provence or Marrakech to raise organic squash, commune with natives and find Enlightenment.
"Thankfully, "First Stop in the New World," David Lida's engaging and sanguine tour of the economic, social, cultural, political, culinary and sexual boulevards and back alleys of Mexico City, isn't that kind of book."
Read the review here...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Brad Will, the American independent journalist-activist shot dead more than two years ago while covering the social disturbances in Oaxaca, Mexico, for Indymedia, is to be honored as part of an exhibition in New York's Bellwether Gallery.
"If Love Could Have Saved You, You Would Have Lived Forever" opens next week, and will feature "art and objects that reference the aesthetics, material culture and traditional gestures surrounding death and remembrance." A video by Tanyth Berkeley and Todd Chandler will remember Will, who was shot and killed during a teachers' strike in Oaxaca. The depiction of his own fatal shooting was partially captured on his camera.
Will's death remains a source of controversy on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. No one has ever been prosecuted for his death. Brad's parents, Kathy and Hardy Will, who have campaigned tirelessly for justice since the death of their son, rejected an investigation into his death earlier this year which alleged that the journalist had been shot at close range.
The Wills believe that their son was shot by plainclothes government agents and have launched an independent investigation into the matter.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
During his visit to Mexico this week, John McCain reiterated his support for allowing more immigrant workers to enter the United States on a temporary basis. But he said broad immigration reform should come only after the U.S. government has tightened the border adequately, including by building fences, reports the L.A. Times' Ken Ellingwood from Mexico City.
Migration is a big issue in Mexico, the main source of undocumented immigrant labor to the United States. Mexican migrants in the United States sent home about $24 billion in remittances last year.
"We must have comprehensive immigration reform, but the American people want our borders secured first," McCain said.
McCain's visit to Mexico, seen by some commentators here largely as a play for Latino votes in the United States (as was reported in La Plaza yesterday), came as the Calderon government has pursued a crackdown on drug trafficking. That crackdown will receive additional funding from the recent U.S-approved Merida Initiative aid package, which McCain also praised during his trip.
Click here to read Ellingwood's full report on McCain's visit.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Sen. John McCain gets a blessing from Msgr. Diego Monroy Ponce at the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City as McCain’s wife, Cindy, looks on. The basilica, built where a 16th century Indian peasant described a vision of the Virgin of Guadalupe, holds strong symbolism for Latino voters; credit: L.M. Otero / Associated Press.
John McCain arrived in Mexico last night from Colombia, where he had praised Colombian President Uribe's efforts to crack down on the drug trade and where his visit coincided with the liberation of a number of long-held hostages.
At around 8 a.m today, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate of the United States paid a visit to Mexico City's Basilica de Guadalupe, a major center of worship for the nation's millions of devout Catholics, where he signed the visitors' book and toured the religious site.
Commentators said that McCain's visit to Mexico could impress the millions of Mexicans currently living in the United States. "Images of Mr. McCain at the basilica are being directed at the Mexican community in the United States because they are symbols Mexicans over there also identify with," said political commentator José Antonio Crespo in the Dallas Morning News.
McCain will also meet with President Felipe Calderón during his time in Mexico, at which point the two politicians will no doubt discuss the recently approved yet controversial cash injection from the United States of $400 million U.S. -- known as the Merida Initiative -- aimed at helping Mexico in its fight against powerful drug cartels and organized crime networks.
He is also expected to address the thorny issue of illegal immigration to the United States during his time here -- an issue about which detractors say the presidential candidate has flip-flopped.
Click here for our coverage of Merida Initiative developments.
Read the Dallas Morning News report on McCain's visit here.....
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Barack Obama and John McCain went head to head this past weekend in front of Latino officials at a conference of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) on the issue of immigration reported here and here on La Plaza.
Writing in Opinion today, Alberto R. Gonzales, former attorney general of the United States, has his say on what Latinos want from their next president.
"Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has reignited an examination of race relations in America. It has led some to question how deep the divide is between black and white Americans. From my perspective, the question ignores the reality of our diverse society. We must also consider the divide between the majority from another group, one that I happen to belong to: Latinos," Gonzales writes. "I have said often that Latinos share a common prayer: 'Just give me a chance to succeed.' I believe that the candidate who will win Latino votes is the one who understands that desire and who will engage the issue of racial equality for Americans of all colors. It's politically wise. More important, it is the right thing to do for our nation."
In June, a Gallup Poll summary of surveys taken in May showed Obama winning 62% of Latino registered voters nationwide, compared with just 29% for McCain, according to this report in The Times by Peter Wallsten.
Read the whole Opinion piece here ... and leave your own thoughts.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
 Videos that emerged in Mexico yesterday -- reported here on La Plaza -- that apparently show policemen in the city of León practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer have created an uproar in Mexico, the Associated Press reports.
The country has struggled to eliminate torture in law enforcement.
Following the emergence of the tape, human rights investigators in Guanajuato state are looking into the matter and the National Human Rights Commission also expressed concern.
"It's very worrisome that there may be training courses that teach people to torture," said Raul Plascencia, a top commission inspector.
There are some things that don't seem to be worrying officials here. For example, where these videos came from and why they emerged now, just when Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of the rival PRD party (León's mayor is from the PAN, President Calderon's party) is embroiled in political upheaval following the News Divine nightclub tragedy. And what about the authenticity of the tapes?
Meanwhile, the Washington Post rightly elaborates on a point we raised Tuesday, which is that Mexico's law enforcement branches are currently waiting to receive a cash injection from the United States as part of the Merida Initiative.
Around U.S. $200 million will go to Mexico's Armed Forces, according to this analysis by Laura Carlsen, director of the America's Policy Program. But will it be used to "retrain" them, as the Merida bill stipulates, or just put more money to bad use in the hands of corrupt officials?
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: A screen grab of the leaked videos, in which a policeman is shown being forced to roll in his own vomit.
 Videos have surfaced in Mexico over the last 24 hours in which the elite police force of the city of León, Guanajuato, is apparently shown taking a class on how to torture suspects.
One of the videos shows members of a tactical unit trying out methods on a fellow officer. They appear to squirt water up his nose and dunk his head in a hole said to be full of excrement and rats. The man gasps for air and moans repeatedly.
In another video, an unidentified English-speaking man who appears to be training the group forces one exhausted agent to roll over into his own vomit, the Associated Press is reporting.
The news, which was on the front page of today's edition of one of Mexico's leading newspapers, Reforma, will do little to improve the bad reputation that Mexico's police have both nationally and internationally.
It may also trouble those opposed to the recently approved Merida Initiative, which promises to put millions of United States dollars toward funding Mexico's police and army in their fight against the country's drug cartels. On the other hand, the film could back up the new aid package by providing evidence of the need for more training and supervision of Mexico's police and army. The cash injection from the Merida Initiative proposes fund "technical advice and training to strengthen the institutions of justice."
But Vincente Guerrero Reynosa, the mayor of León* (an earlier version of this post misidentified him as the governor of the state of Guanajuato), said that the exercises were held so the police could resist torture rather than give it, and that they were preparation for "extreme situations."
You can watch the videos, which are also on Reforma's subscription site, here on YouTube at the following links; they may disturb some viewers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrdL6ggkcUw
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g60tfTHOOpI
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: A screen grab of the leaked videos, in which a policeman is shown being forced to roll in his own vomit.
 Republican presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, who over the weekend went head to head with Democratic rival Barack Obama over the issue of immigration (see La Plaza posts here and here), heads down to Latin America today in a tour expected to include Mexico and Colombia.
McCain is expected to focus on the issues of free trade and illegal immigration during his trip south.
Read on »
More charges have been made in Mexico City following the death two weeks ago of 12 people in a bungled nightclub raid in the capital.
The owner of the News Divine club, in which 12 people, some of them as young as 13 and 14, were killed in a stampede after the police arrived to investigate underage drinking and illegal drug use, is to be charged with manslaughter.
The BBC reports this morning that club owner Alfredo Maya Ortiz is alleged to have allowed the club to operate with a locked emergency exit, they say. He already had been charged with selling alcohol to underage patrons.
On June 24 , police officials fired 17 officers in connection with the raid, and on Thursday the police chief who led the raid, Cmdr. Guillermo Zayas, was charged with 12 counts of homicide. A youth advocate last week put the blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the police, saying that there was a complete lack of public policy in the city for dealing with young people.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
After problems earlier this month with tomatoes in the United States that carried salmonella, the Dallas Morning News brings us this report about the safety and health restrictions imposed on produce plants that harvest and package south of the border.
"Glenn Fry helps run Taylor Farms de Mexico's new $14-million plant [in San Jose Iturbide, Mexico]. He picked the land where it sits and designed just about every facet of it, down to the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe at the entrance and the jacaranda and palm trees."
" 'In the United States you can stumble once, two, three times and still survive,' Mr. Fry says he tells his workers. 'Not in Mexico. Because of a perception problem, all you need is one problem to destroy your entire operation.' " Read the report, which also includes a great video dispatch, here...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: A tomato vendor waits for customers at the Central de Abastos market in Mexico City. Tomatoes stopped from shipment across the U.S. border are flooding markets in Mexico City. Credit: Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press
President Felipe Calderon on Friday welcomed the U.S. Congress' approval of the Merida Initiative a day earlier, an aid injection from the United States that is aimed at helping Mexico in its fight against powerful drug cartels.
The bill has dropped a controversial requirement that Mexico meet certain human rights standards in order to receive the aid. Mexicans had objected to the human rights provision, saying that it amounted to outside meddling by the United States in Mexican affairs. But dropping the human rights requirements seems certain to anger numerous opposition groups to the aid package -- see this La Plaza post on the issue. Writes the Associated Press: Calderon said the bill "was an important step in the fight against international organized crime." He said its passage was due in part to Mexico's insistence that the United States share the burden in the fight against drug trafficking.
Quoted in the New York Times, José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, says of the approved package: “The big victory is for the rule of law. This will push the security forces in Mexico to a higher level of professionalism.”
Read on...
Mexico's Interior Secretary and Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia Espinosa stressed that the anti-drug aid would include equipment, systems and training, not cash, and that no U.S. soldiers would be allowed to operate in Mexico as part of the plan.
"Mexico will not accept the presence of U.S. military personnel in Mexico," Espinosa said.
Meanwhile, Mexico's raging drug war claimed the lives of six more police officers, ambushed on patrol in the marijuana-rich state of Sinaloa, authorities said Friday.
The attack followed the slaying Thursday of a senior police commander, part of a long string of killings apparently aimed at eroding public confidence in the government's ability to challenge drug gangs, reports the L.A. Times' Tracy Wilkinson.
Last week, a report in the Christian Science Monitor questioned Calderon's use of the military in the fight against the country's drug cartels -- see that post here.
Read on...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Reed Johnson of the Los Angeles Times pays a visit to a solo art exhibition in Mexico City by painter Daniel Lezama. He writes: Which adjective best fits the work of painter Daniel Lezama?
Alluring? Repellent? Classical? Irreverent? Misunderstood?
While critics extol his daring and originality, Lezama, 40, makes certain gallery owners squeamish and collectors nervous. His typically large-scale works are imposing in their size and complexity, startling in their frank depictions of frequently nude, mainly working-class Mexicans (including children) engaged in activities that are simultaneously violent and sordid, touching and tender.
Read the full report here...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Artist Daniel Lezama poses in front of a painting titled "Amor Eterno," part of the exhibit "La Madre Prodiga," showing through the end of June at the Museum of Mexico City. Stylistically and thematically, Lezama’s art straddles several eras, making some observers regard him as a backward-looking figurative painter, while others see him as a contemporary iconoclast. In truth, he’s a thoroughly modern anti-modernist or, as Erick Castillo, curator of the exhibit, has described him, a “traditionalist heretic working for the nocturnal legacy of the Mexican unconsciousness.” Sarah Meghan Lee / Los Angeles Times
 Christopher Reynolds take a trip into California's Spanish-speaking past in this Los Angeles Times piece, encouraging readers to remember "that spell from the early 1820s to the late 1840s, when California, Alta y Baja, was Mexican." He writes:
Even without the historical underpinning, the route makes for a classic California road trip. But this way, you end up with an inkling of what went on after Junípero Serra retired and before that guy found gold at Sutter's Mill.
Depending on how you count, California's Mexican era lasted 24 to 27 years. Longer than the Pony Express did business, longer than Billy the Kid lived, longer than Walter Alston managed the Dodgers.
California's previous ownership has proved to be a controversial issue. In April this year, we published this blog post about an advertising campaign by vodka manufacturer Absolut, which made a visual gag on the theme in a map which had been redrawn, showing Mexico's border very roughly where it lay before the Mexican-American War of 1848.
The campaign proved to be extremely controversial north of the border, attracting record levels of comments from readers. Read all about it here...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Papel picado banners, or traditional Mexican paper cutouts, decorate a walkway at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. Dancers, guitarists, margaritas and merchandise — all move fast at the historic park, which is surrounded by a neighborhood full of more food, drink and goods. Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times.
Giovanni Lanaro was born in Los Angeles, grew up in La Puente, attended Cal State Fullerton, and coaches and trains at Mt. San Antonio College. Yet when the torch is lighted during opening ceremonies this summer at the Beijing Olympics, the world's sixth-ranked pole vaulter will be with Mexico, not the United States, Kevin Baxter of the Los Angeles Times reports.
"I will always compete for Mexico," said Lanaro, whose mother was born there. "I will never compete for any other country."
He is hardly alone in choosing to compete for the land of his heritage over the place of his birth -- a growing practice in recent years as the Mexican American population has surged past 28 million, swelling the eligible talent pool that Mexican sports officials have tapped occasionally.
Read the report in full here... and in March, Baxter reported on Javier and Oscar Molina, two United States citizens, born of Mexican immigrants, preparing to compete -- one for Mexico, one for the United States.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Mexico olympic hopeful pole vaulters Giovannia Lanaro, right, and Robbie Pratt train at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times
Courting the increasingly influential Latino vote, the rival presidential candidates each pledged Saturday to make overhauling the nation's immigration policies a top priority, writes Richard Simon.
In separate appearances before the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain looked for every possible way to connect with their audience and emphasize distinctions between themselves.
Both political camps are working hard for the Latino vote. A projected 9.3 million Latinos will go to the polls this year, up from 7.6 million in 2004 and 2.5 million in 1980, according to the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC. In California, more than 2.6 million Latinos will cast votes this year, up from about 2.1 million in 2004, the institute projects.
On the central question of providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, Obama accused McCain of shifting positions to suit his audience.
"When he was running for his party's nomination, he walked away from that commitment," Obama said. "He said that he wouldn't even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote."
Read on...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: REACHING OUT: Barack Obama after addressing Latino leaders. He and John McCain each told the group that border security must be part of the solution. Melissa Golden / Getty Images
 A gunman killed a high-ranking commander in the federal police and a bodyguard as they ate lunch at a busy restaurant here yesterday, writes the New York Times.
The shooting appears to be the latest attack on law enforcement officials who are waging a campaign against drug traffickers, the authorities said. "At 12:50 p.m., a man walked in and opened fire on their table with a pistol. Commander Labastida died at the scene. One bodyguard was also killed, while the others and the aide were seriously wounded. The gunman sprinted out, jumped into a waiting sedan and escaped, Mr. Caño said."
Meanwhile the Christian Science Monitor asks this morning whether President's Felipe Calderon's use of the military in the country's ongoing battle against its powerful drug cartels is doing more harm than good. "As Mexico throws an unprecedented 25,000 troops and police into its war against narcotrafficking, more citizens here are wondering if the illegal detentions and unlawful searches are worth the price. It's a security versus loss of liberties trade-off that echoes concerns raised by Americans in their war on terrorism."
Read on...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: A forensic expert lifts a human head from the scene where two decapitated heads were found in the city of Ciudad Juarez, northern Mexico on June 2. The killings were the latest macabre message from Mexico's drug cartels. Credit: David Cruz/Associated Press
The police commander who led a botched raid on a Mexico City nightclub will be charged with 12 counts of homicide, one for each person who died in the crush at the bar's entrance, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Associated Press reports this morning that City Atty. Gen. Rodolfo Felix Cardenas said his office was bringing the charges against precinct commander Guillermo Zayas for failing to halt Friday's mismanaged raid, in which one group of police tried to force youths out of the club while another blocked the exit to prevent them from leaving. "Even though there is no evidence that Guillermo Zayas ever ordered police to close the doors of the discotheque, or block the entrance, it has been proven that he never gave the order to police blocking the entrance to let the youths out," Felix Cardenas said at a news conference."
But the removal and punishment of one official is unlikely to solve what is a deeply ingrained systemic problem within both the Mexican police force and the society as a whole. In this La Plaza post yesterday, Mexican youth advocate and sociologist Héctor Castillo Berthier attributed the tragedy to a police force not trained or equipped to deal with such situations, as well as a lack of public policy directed at the city’s youth.
--Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
A Mexican judge has released the suspected killer of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar, leaving U.S. officials “shocked and appalled,” according to a statement by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Aguilar was killed in January in Arizona’s Yuma sector while he was trying to stop two vehicles that had entered the country illegally. One of the vehicles struck Aguilar while he was laying down a device meant to puncture the vehicle's tires and prevent its escape back across the border. Aguilar is survived by two small children.
Chertoff has cited the border agent's killing as a sober example of rising border violence, which he attributes to the increased desperation of smugglers and drug traffickers trying to get their goods into the U.S. from Mexico. Chertoff and other administration officials have pointed to the border violence as evidence of the need for the Merida Initiative, a joint effort to combat drug trafficking in Central America, the U.S. and Mexico.
In the past, Chertoff has praised the Mexican government’s cooperation in tracking down Aguilar’s killer. On Wednesday, he released a statement that said: “We are working with a determined Mexican Government, and our Department of Justice, to seek swift justice for the Aguilar murder. We have also assured Agent Aguilar’s family that every resource is being called upon in the relentless pursuit of justice.”
In Washington, Mexican government spokesman Ricardo Alday said, "The United States, to this date, has presented neither a provisional order of arrest for [the suspect] Mr. Navarro Montes nor a formal extradition request."
--Nicole Gaouette in Washington
Mexican archaeologists have discovered an ancient Mayan city that dates back more than 2,000 years, according to BBC Mundo.
The ruins were found in the state of Yucatán, which is already home to a number of sites including the famous Chichén Itzá. According to the team from The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the new discovery could be the oldest in the state and equal in importance to Chichén Itzá. "Los arqueólogos encontraron estelas y arquitectura monumental similar a la de Chichén Itzá.
Se trata de un complejo arqueológico "monumental" que está ubicado en el sur del estado de Yucatán, en el este del país."
Read the BBC Mundo report, which is in Spanish, here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Chichén Itzá, in the Yucatán state of Mexico, could actually be younger in years than another ancient Mayan city discovered by archaeologists in the country this week. Credit: Deborah Bonello
 A tragedy in Mexico City last weekend, in which 12 people were suffocated or trampled to death in a bungled police raid at the News Divine night club, was due to an inept police force and a lack of public policy directed at the city’s youth, says a sociologist and longtime activist for youth-related programs.
Héctor Castillo Berthier, who runs the youth culture center Circo Volador (Flying Circus) in Mexico City and has worked in youth programs for more than 30 years, said in an interview Tuesday with La Plaza that the capital’s police are not trained to deal with adolescents and young adults. That’s part of a wider failure to integrate young people into Mexico’s public and political life, he said.
“Mexico doesn’t have a defined public policy for its youth. They aren’t part of the public agenda or the political agenda,” said Castillo Berthier, speaking in his cluttered office in the run-down neighborhood of Lorenzo Boturini.
Read on »
In anticipation of the scheduled debate around the controversial Merida Initiative aid package in the U.S. Senate this week, the British newspaper Financial Times urges President Felipe Calderon to accept the human rights conditions attached to the plan aimed at helping Mexico fight its drug barons: "Mr Calderón should also accept the conditions. Co-responsibility is more than just sharing the financial and logistical burden of fighting the war against drugs. In its broadest expression, it encompasses many related spheres, including human rights. If he is to use the argument of co-responsibility as a way to get the US to pay more, he must also accept that it implies doing more to improve his country’s human-rights performance," writes the newspaper's Mexico correspondent, Adam Thompson.
The $1.6-billion Merida Initiative was approved by House lawmakers this month, and the Senate is expected to follow suit. You can read here about the controversial package, which is opposed by groups on both sides of the border and from all parts of the political spectrum, from Amnesty International and Friends of Brad Will (named for the journalist-activist who was shot dead in Oaxaca in 2006) to Republican groups.
The main worry is that the cash boost will place more arms and power in the hands of an already corrupt police and army in Mexico, and that the money should instead be spent on poverty-reduction programs or, as advocated by the Republicans, strengthening the border.
Meanwhile, as The Times' Ken Ellingwood reported this month, opposition is also coming from within Mexico. Senior Mexican officials have called the provisions a form of U.S. interference and threatened to turn down the first-year installment if the conditions survive in a final version yet to be worked out by the House and Senate. They want the human rights provisions on the initiative deleted.
The Minuteman border group already has a plan in case the Merida Initative doesn't pan out....
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, who has made his mark with popular public programs, such as a free ice-skating rink in the main square, traffic-free Sundays for cyclists and fake beaches, is a favorite for Mexico's upcoming presidential elections in 2012, the Houston Chronicle's Marion Lloyd reports.
Getting ahead of the pack on the elections still four years away, Ebrard offers "a public face that blends populist theater and good government and a behind-the-scenes reputation as part geeky environmentalist and part shrewd political operator."
Looking ahead, it is expected that the leftist mayor could compete for the top job against his fellow PRD party frontman Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2012, who though not the holder of an official position remains in the public spotlight on a daily basis and is one of the party's most influential leaders.
Lopez Obrador, the loser in Mexico's controversial 2006 elections that saw current President Felipe Calderon elected, has vowed that the 2012 campaign will be his last -- if he doesn't win, he's going to call it a day.
But four years can be a long time, especially in volatile Mexican politics.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 The Riverside native, nicknamed "The Nightmare," wants to be the first Mexican American heavyweight champion. A victory Saturday against Chazz Witherspoon could propel him to a title shot, writes the Times' Chris Hine.
Photo: Many in boxing consider unbeaten Riverside-based Chris Arreola a serious contender in the heavyweight division, an oddity of sorts because of his Mexican heritage. Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
Panicked youths rushed for the exits during a police raid on a Mexico City nightclub Friday, leaving at least 12 people dead in the crush of bodies, the capital's police chief said.
Chief Joel Ortega said three police officers and nine youths, at least three of them minors, were killed. At least 13 others were injured, reports the Associated Press.
"The city is indignant," Mayor Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference. "What we saw yesterday was ethically unacceptable."
City prosecutors said a 13-year-old girl died along with other customers younger than 16. The legal drinking age in Mexico City is 18. Three police officers also died in the crush at the club in Mexico City's Nueva Atzacoalco district.
Ebrard said "all of the public servants directly involved" in the raid had been suspended. The city prosecutor's office said that included the police director who led the action.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Mexicans are taking the inflation battle seriously enough to risk slowing their economy with higher interest rates, writes Tom Petruno on the Money & Co. Los Angeles Times blog:
The Federal Reserve talks a lot about inflation.
The Bank of Mexico does something about it.
The Mexican central bank today surprised markets by raising its benchmark short-term interest rate to 7.75% from 7.5%, the first increase since October.
Read the full post here...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Mexican officials said this morning that at least 18 Cubans have reached Texas more than a week after masked gunmen hijacked a bus in southern Mexico and seized them, reports the Associated Press.
The Cubans were snatched on June 11 when their bus was hijacked by six men armed with assault rifles. The attackers forced unarmed immigration officials off the bus before fleeing with the undocumented migrants, who were being taken to a detention center.
The incident highlights the vulnerability of undocumented migrants in Mexico and has also brought into the spotlight, not for the first time, the possible involvement of Mexican immigration officials in their exploitation. The event has prompted the Mexican government to launch an investigation into its immigration personnel, reports the Houston Chronicle.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
We posted this yesterday about Mexico's appeal to the United Nations to stay the execution of Mexicans on death row, and this report this morning from the Associated Press gives a little more detail about the issue. Mexico contends the United States is defying a 2004 order by the International Court of Justice to review the cases of 51 condemned Mexican prisoners.
That ruling said the inmates had been denied the right to help from their consulate after their arrests. It said the death row prisoners were entitled to a reconsideration of their trials and sentences to determine whether the violation affected their cases.
Read on ...
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Opinion L.A. highlights a story this morning that reports that U.S citizens are heading over the border to fill up on cheap Mexican gas.
Now that a gallon of regular unleaded in Southern California averages a mind-boggling $4.61 cents a gallon, the San Diego Union Tribune says Gringos are crossing the border in droves, filling up in Tijuana, where gas is about $2.54.
Read the post here...
Mexicans (at least the relatively limited number who can afford cars and gasoline at all) spend far less at the pump than their neighbors to the north. That's because Mexico maintains heavily subsidized gas prices through its national oil monopoly, Pemex.
As the Times has reported, however, Pemex is experiencing problems of its own; its oil reserves are running out fast, and the country lacks the technical know-how to do risky and expensive deep-water drilling.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Dozens of law enforcement agents and business owners from across the border in Ciudad Juárez are seeking political asylum in the U.S., a situation that underscores the escalating drug war in Mexico and its widening effect on families, government officials and humanitarian groups say, the Dallas Morning News reports.
U.S. and Mexican officials refused to disclose the precise number of "credible fear" claims -– the first step toward applying for political asylum. But other officials speaking on condition of anonymity say the number in the El Paso-Juárez corridor alone is at least 100 -– dramatically higher than the three announced last month by the U.S. government for the entire border.
Richard Marosi in San Diego reported earlier this month on similar movements on the border between Tijuana and the United States. Such migrations have become increasingly common in metropolitan areas along the U.S.-Mexico border, as the ongoing violence of a brutal drug war has disrupted lives from Tijuana to Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Texas. The Mexican government has sent more than 3,000 troops into Tijuana in the last 1 1/2 years, and on several occasions soldiers have shot it out with drug cartel gunmen on residential streets.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Food shortages, we know, are a problem in Latin America, as these dispatches from Haiti and Nicaragua last month show. In Dust Up this week, Paul Roberts and Jacob Grier debate the new food economy:
We're not "headed" for a major global food shortage this year -- it's already here. Because of a perfect storm of drought, booming demand from Asia and ill-considered energy policy, global grain reserves have fallen to their lowest level in half a century. The real question is whether today's crisis is short-term and, if not, what action needs to be taken.
In related news, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon moved yesterday to cap prices on basic food items such as beans, fruit juices and canned tuna in the country. Producers are essentially agreeing not to pass on their rising production costs to consumers. That enables the government to achieve price controls without direct economic intervention, such as through subsidies or ordering sanctions against manufacturers.
"This reflects a commitment by Mexican entrepreneurs with the country," Calderon said. "Fixed, stable prices . . . will be an enormous help to family budgets."
Read Marla Dickerson's report in The Times here.
And read the BBC</ | |
