Posted on 01/30/2005 4:20:21 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
MEXICO CITY — Legendary Colombian cocaine king Pablo Escobar is as dead as Pancho Villa.
But the way he and other capos unleashed terror, before the government killed them years ago, offers lessons for both forces as Mexican President Vicente Fox vows to wage the "mother of all wars" against this nation's drug cartels.
If the cartels feel greatly threatened, they could strike harder at civilians, police and government institutions, and upgrade from guns to bombs.
But if the mafias get too bold, the government could unleash all its power, and cartels seldom are a match for armies.
It's a precarious high-wire act, and some officials fear that, as pressure builds in Mexico, violence could increase on the U.S. side of the border.
Friday that fear seemed borne out in a chilling bulletin issued by the FBI in San Antonio advising all federal agents of an alleged plot by a powerful Mexican drug gang to kidnap two unnamed federal agents and smuggle them to Mexico to be murdered.
The bulletin, which the FBI stressed was unconfirmed and being issued out of abundance of caution, went on to say the Gulf Cartel had 250 armed men near the border city of Matamoros and a contingent had U.S. visas.
"These kind of criminals are not playing games," said Agustín Gutiérrez Canet, an international spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox.
Also last week, the U.S. State Department issued a warning that border violence, spurred by a cartel turf battle, along with under-trained police and an ineffective justice system, was a threat to American visitors.
In Mexico's recent troubles are the haunting echoes of what happened 15 years ago in Colombia. Whether history will repeat itself remains to be seen.
When then-Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas — who like Fox considered drug trafficking a threat to national security — went to war against cartels in 1989, he got a fight.
Federal police and soldiers seized cartels' money, homes, airplanes and cars.
They cracked down on corruption inside prisons, arrested thousands of people, destroyed covert airstrips and sent suspects to the United States to face trial.
Furious cartel leaders united in anger.
They unleashed kidnappings, assassinations, explosions and bombed a commercial airliner carrying government witnesses.
They killed a judge, a police chief and a presidential candidate the same week bodyguards diffused a bomb at the president's granddaughters' school.
Mexico is not Colombia, but José Antonio Crespo, a Mexico City analyst with a investigative group known as CIDE, said Fox should know provoking cartels will intensify violence.
"I hope he is joking, I hope it is rhetoric," he said. "He either does not know or does not understand what happened in Colombia."
Crespo said the danger increases when cartels no longer just are fighting among themselves and the semi-regular drug seizures and arrests of mid and low-level traffickers doesn't satisfy authorities.
Mike Vigil, the recently retired chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Mexico faces a tough battle.
"Given the enormous profit and power these people have, they are not going to go without a fight," he said. "Right now, it is an all-out struggle between the democratic form of government in Mexico and the drug trafficking community."
He noted that when Mexican and Colombian cartels became partners, Colombians taught them about terror, violence and intimidation.
"Make no mistake about it, the Mexican and Colombian drug-trafficking organizations make the Costa Nostra look like a bunch of choir boys," he said, referring to the Sicilian-born U.S. Mafia.
Fox said recently that he'll do whatever it takes to bring down the cartels and his administration issued a sobering declaration that no criminal is stronger than the government. U.S. and Mexican authorities agree that the latest surge in violence can be traced to a turf battle resulting from government efforts to destabilize the cartels.
"We are going to redouble our efforts to fight the mother of all wars, as we have done against organized crime, drug traffickers and now the prison system," he said of using hundreds of federal police, soldiers and even tanks to ensure jailed cartel bosses can't operate from inside the prison system.
"We have decided to take a stand and we are going to ensure we win this fight month by month and day by day," he said.
A Friday raid near Guadalajara marked the third time this month that Fox ordered the takeover of a maximum-security prison.
Penitentiaries also were secured near Mexico City and Matamoros, after six prison employees were murdered there.
Hundreds of extra federal police and soldiers remain on duty in the state of Tamaulipas to beef up security in the vicinity in and around Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo.
Investigator Crespo said because of what happened in Colombia, Mexico must be careful how it escalates its fight with the cartels.
"With an all-out war against the narcos, we could get Colombian levels of violence and corruption," he said.
The threat to Mexico's democracy isn't drug addiction, but provoking cartels, which can use violence and money to destroy the nation's institutions and even influence political races, he said.
Crespo suggested Mexico legalize drugs and take away the cartel's financial power.
In the meantime, he said, it would be best to let cartels operate in semi-sanctioned "zones of tolerance," like prostitution.
A Mexican government official said drug traffickers were not endangering the nation's institutions.
"As far as disrupting the peace of society and the stability of the Mexican nation, we're very far away," he said. "There is nothing even close to that dimension."
Coahuila Gov. Enrique Martínez y Martínez, whose border state has largely been spared of major drug violence, is hopeful that won't change if cartels from other areas look for new turf while being squeezed by government troops. He can look to his neighbors to know what can happen.
"We have got to put up a shield," Martínez y Martínez said. "We're working to make sure that nothing happens in Coahuila."
Still, he said most of the nation's drug violence, up to this point, has been limited to people involved in the drug trade.
"The ones most affected by all this are the drug traffickers," he said. "They are settling scores."
Jorge Uscanga Escobar, president of the Mexican Congress' public safety committee, said that even if they aren't being killed, everyday citizens suffer from drug-cartel violence.
"Society suffers, is scared and lives with a lawlessness, corruption and a lack of safety," he said. "The military is the most drastic step we can take when we talk about safety. After the military there is nothing else."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- express@cablevision.net.mx Mexico City Bureau Assistant Minea Nieto contributed to this report.
2nd Ammendment Rules!
I think they have more to fear of the US military doing covert operations to kill a few drug lords. Wishful thinking though...
This is insane. if this becomes an all out war in mexico where do you think it will spill over into?
Are Americans safe now with all that is coming across the border?
How many from the drug cartel will sneak into America and than we will have the violence and drug wars right here and still the government is doing nothing to protect OUR Borders!! WHY??
But if the mafias get too bold, the government could unleash all its power, and cartels seldom are a match for armies.
Do drug cartels really have anything to fear from the Mexican "Army"?
the same week bodyguards diffused a bomb at the president's granddaughters' school
Maybe they defused the bomb before it could diffuse.
The passive agressive acts of terrorism Mexico unleases on us daily will in the end prove to be more devastating to the US way of life then the attacks of 09-11
imo
Vincente Fox is as crooked as a snake with arthritus. That scum, will never wage a war against the drug lords in Mexico, since he needs his cut of the income...the part, that is, he does not get from illegals in the U.S. -- Mexico and credibility do not belong on the same page.
Just keep the borders wide open, Jorge.
Mexico's carnage has been spilling over the border into Texas scince before 1836. This aint nothing compared to Santa anna or Poncho Villa.
They could stop this right now if they actually tried to control the border and what's coming over it. If the large shipments of cocaine, meth, pot don't get to where they're supposed to go --- the money for the drug lords would dry up. If the drug lords can't pay large mordidas, they loose influence over their government.
With all out war breaking out --- Vicente will pull the campesinos leaving by droves into the army to protect himself. Mexico would close the borders.
i think what we're seeing is mexican society imploding.
Can't say we didn't try to warn people. You could see this coming a number of years ago. It's escalating quite fast now. Soon it will be unstoppable --- or maybe it already is. Too late now to undo the big mistakes. Mexico is in trouble.
They cut off the big drug money coming in --- well that's Mexico's largest economy. To control drugs, we'd have to control the border --- and if the illegals instead have to stay an fight --- there goes their second largest economy. Too much more violence --- and the maquilas aren't such worthwhile cheap labor --- there goes the third. And tourism --- that goes too.
you're right.
we've been having this discussion since before i joined the forum.
and, there's always the communists in mexico, waiting.
the communists in the city of los angeles were influential in the 1992 l.a. riots.
Bump
LOL! You smart-alec!
i don't think the drugs can be stopped.
when i've been in tucson i've met law enforcement officers that complain of strange-goings on within our enforcement,
including every alphabet soup law enforcement that you can think of.
Bump4later.
I believe the in-flow of drugs to the US can be stopped.
But the key is lessening the demand. We have a tremendous problem in the US with our desires for marijuana, cocaine, etc.
If it wasn't for US consumers, many of these drug lords wouldn't have a pot to pi$$ in.
WE are making them rich.
yes, i've said that.
but only by education.
i'll never forget a black minister that i met in los angeles in the late 1980s who was hospitalized for a coke habit. he said:
"they told us this stuff was safe".
who's "they"? i asked.
he said, "the hollywood actors and actresses".
And Texas Rangers have been taking care of the problem, thank you.
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