Forty-nine bodies with
their heads, hands and feet hacked off were found Sunday dumped on a northern Mexico highway leading to the Texas border in what appeared
to be the latest carnage in an escalating war between Mexico's two dominant drug cartels.
Local and federal
authorities discovered the bodies before dawn scattered in a pool of blood at
the entrance to the town of San Juan, on a highway leading from the metropolis
of Monterrey to the border city of Reynosa. A white stone arch welcoming
visitors was spray-painted with black letters: "100% Zeta."
Nuevo Leon state
security spokesman Jorge Domene said at a news conference that the 43 men and
six women would be hard to identify because of the lack of heads, hands and
feet. The bodies were being taken to a Monterrey auditorium for DNA tests.
The victims could have
been killed as long as two days ago at another location, then transported to
San Juan, a town in the municipality of Cadereyta, about 105 miles (175
kilometers) west-southwest of McAllen, Texas, and 75 miles (125 kilometers)
southwest of the Roma, Texas, border crossing, state Attorney General Adrian de
la Garza said.
Only one couple
looking for their missing daughter visited the morgue in Monterrey where
autopsies were being performed on the mutilated bodies Sunday, a state police
investigator said.
The officer, who spoke
on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case,
said none of the six female bodies matched the missing daughter's description.
He said some of the bodies were badly decomposed and some had their whole arms
or lower legs missing.
De la Garza said he
did not rule out the possibility that the victims were U.S.-bound migrants.
But it seemed more
likely that the killings were the latest salvo in a gruesome game of
tit-for-tat in fighting among brutal drug gangs.
"This is the most
definitive of all the cartel wars," said Raul Benitez Manaut, a security expert at Mexico's National
Autonomous University.
Mass body dumpings
have increased around Mexico the last six months as the fearsome Zetas gang goes head to head with the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, led by fugitive drug lord
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, and its allies.
Under President Felipe Calderon's nearly six-year assault on
organized crime, the two cartels have become the largest in the country and are
battling over strategic transport routes and territory, including along the
northern border with the U.S. and in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.
In less than a month,
the mutilated bodies of 14 men were left in a van in downtown Nuevo Laredo, 23
people were found hanged or decapitated in the same border city and 18
dismembered bodied were left near Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara.
Nuevo Laredo, like Monterrey, is considered Zeta territory, while Guadalajara
has long been controlled by gangs loyal to Sinaloa.
The Zetas are a
transient gang without real territory or a secure stream of income, unlike
Sinaloa with its lucrative cocaine trade and control of smuggling routes and
territory, Benitez said. But the Zetas are heavily armed while Sinaloa has a
weak enforcement arm, he said. The Zetas, founded by deserters from Mexico's
elite special forces, started out as assassins for the Gulf Cartel before those
two gangs had a bloody split in early 2010.
The government's
success in killing or arresting cartel leaders has fractured some of the big
gangs into weaker, quarreling bands that in many cases are lining up with
either the Zetas or Sinaloa. At least one of the two cartels is present in
nearly all of Mexico's 32 states.
A year ago this month,
more than two dozen people — most of them Zetas — were killed when they tried
to infiltrate the Sinaloa's territory in the Pacific Coast state of Nayarit.
But their war started
in earnest last fall in Veracruz, a strategic smuggling state with a giant gulf
port.
A drug gang allied
with Sinaloa left 35 bodies on a main boulevard in the city of Veracruz in
September, and police found 32 other bodies, apparently killed by the same
gang, a few days after that. The goal apparently was to take over territory
that had been dominated by the Zetas.
Twenty-six bodies were
found in November in Guadalajara, another territory being disputed by the Zetas
and Sinaloa.
Drug violence has
killed more than 47,500 people since Calderon launched a stepped-up offensive
when he took office in December 2006.
Mexico is now in the
midst of presidential race to replace Calderon, who by law can't run for
re-election. Drug violence seems to be escalating, but none of the major
candidates, Enrique Pena Nieto, Josefina Vazquez Mota or Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador, has referred to the body dumpings directly. All three say they will stop
the violence and make Mexico a more secure place, but offer few details on how
their plans would differ from Calderon's.
Benitez said the wave
of violence has nothing to do with the presidential election.
"It has the
dynamic of a war between cartels," he said.
Jer 5:26- For among my people are found wicked [men]: they
lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
Pro 1:16- For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
Pro 1:19- So [are] the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; [which] taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
Pro 1:16- For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
Pro 1:19- So [are] the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; [which] taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
No comments:
Post a Comment