Posted on 01/27/2005 7:57:00 PM PST by dvan
15 minutes ago U.S. National - AP
WASHINGTON - Twenty-seven Americans have been abducted in Mexico's northern border region over the past six months and two have been killed, the State Department said Thursday.
Spokesman Richard Boucher cited those numbers in defending an alert to American citizens about the risks of traveling in the area.
Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez had said the State Department public announcement, issued Wednesday, exaggerated the danger.
Boucher said he was aware of the Mexican objections but added that the administration believes it is important to inform Americans about security along the border.
"We're aware of 27 incidents involving abductions of Americans, and that we know two of those Americans were killed and 11 remain missing and 14 were eventually released," he said.
In addition to the State Department public announcement, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, sent a letter to top Mexican officials saying he was concerned that growing drug-related violence and kidnappings in northern Mexico would have a chilling effect on cross-border trade and tourism.
Mexico recently sent federal police officers to patrol the streets of Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, all located along the border with Texas. The officers were dispatched at the request of local authorities who said crime had spun out of control.
Derbez told the Televisa network that the U.S. position seems "in large measure, exaggerated, and outside the scope of reality, because the Mexican government has taken concrete actions" to curb crime along the border. He said Mexico will provide a "concrete response" to the U.S. statements.
Interior Secretary Santiago Creel said Wednesday that Mexico "is determined to wage a head-on battle" against drug traffickers and organized crime in the area.
Second time tonight, different subject:
as hubby says: ARE THEY GETTING IT YET????????????
I guess "kidnapping" is just a job that an American is unwilling to perform...........
Thanks president bush!
I am starting to see a similarity between Iraq and Mexico. The only difference is that the media doesn't plaster mexican kidnappings all over the television screen.
I saw this on CNN today as well. It would be nice to think that our government will stand up to Mexico and their demands. We can hope!
I am sure that el Presidente Fox is getting the Mexican border under control now....so that they can help more Mestizos into the US!
I'm headed to El Paso/Juarez next week.
"We can hope!"
Hope is not a plan. And we've got no hope with Bush, he really likes the Mexicans, for whatever reason.
Bush in '04 (yay!), but SOMEBODY MEANER IN '08, that's the plan.
NA; He's just there with his hand out for the graft. they should send one of those special squads in there to clean it out.
Racist! They're just good, hard working people, doing the kidnapping Americans won't do. :0)
I saw something about this on TV earlier this evening.
I cannot imagine why anyone would go to Mexico,cheap or not!
....And doing the jobs our youth used to do in their spare time. I think some weakening of our child labor laws are in order.
Also if Mexico were located in the Middle East we would have invaded it before Iraq.
And doing the jobs our youth used to do in their spare time.
And others. At the Wake Up America meeting, there was a 74 year old man who cleans toilets 5 days per week. He wanted to ask the President if that was one of the infamous "jobs Americans won't do." He claimed he knew other Seniors who needed to work, but couldn't find jobs. Same with those leaving prison who normally fill the bottom positions.
oh, I don't think we have to go that far......
a nice 12' chain link fence with barbed wire would do the trick.....
El Paso is poor enough, but the city of Juarez is just sad....
the faces of the little kids, selling gum...they looked absolutely like they had no souls....
we did pick up some nice cobalt blue glassware, but other than that, the tourist area in El Paso has just as many bargains....
If we ever get down that way again, I just can not trust going over there anymore....its just so scary.....
Testing
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