Mexico

 

CIA Drug Operations in Mexico with Civilians Caught in the Endless Crossfire

20 January, 2014 04:52

The ongoing long-running drug war in Mexico has taken a new turn as citizens begin to take matters into their own hands in order to finally be rid of the murderous drug gangs that have taken over large swaths of the country. Armed vigilante groups first began to pop at the beginning of 2013 all over Mexico and this past week one such group clashed not with the ruthless narco-killers running the government linked drug cartels, but with Mexican troops backed by none other than US President Barack Hussein Obama. In the incident which left as many as a dozen dead, the civilians in the town of Antenuz in the Mexican state of Michoacán did not have a chance against the heavily armed US trained Mexican forces. After it was over there were bloody bodies lining the streets and the dead included an 11-year-old girl.

Civilians trapped in US-backed drug war cross-fire

The outcry on behalf of the citizens has risen to an international level with the incident once again shining light on yet more collusion between the US Government, American special services and the illegal narcotics trade as reports point to US backing of both Mexican Army units and the drug cartels they are supposed to be fighting.

US supports drug cartels

This duplicity is further underlined by a recent report by the New American that: Federal authorities in the United States have been quietly supporting certain Mexican criminal empires, especially the Sinaloa drug cartel, in a bid to solidify the syndicates’ reign as dominant powerbrokers in particular territories, according to leaked e-mails from a U.S.-based Mexican diplomat to the private intelligence firm Stratfor. If cartel chiefs cooperate with authorities, “governments will allow controlled drug trades,” the diplomatic source wrote.

Although the armed civilian groups may also be said to share blame in the escalation of violence after being forced to react against the non-stop killings that have plagued Mexico. The real victims are the civilians as they have been devastated both by the criminal syndicates and the government.

Although the mission of the vigilante groups should be seen as being in line with that of the government, the government sees them as a threat and they are at odds with police and law enforcement making their struggle all the worse. After the latest incident involving the shooting of an 11-year-old girl it is now going to be even more difficult for the government to bring these groups into its fold and for the vigilantes to trust the federal forces.

Turf war and the “Knights Templar”

The BBC reported thatthe massacre of the civilians came after they launched an offensive against a powerful drug cartel which calls itself the Knights Templar.

According to the BBC and other media outlets including Mexican newspapers there is currently a very strong police and military presence said to be protecting the cartel in the town of Apatzingan where the Knights Templar is based. The narco-group is reportedly in control of most of the methamphetamine trade and traffic that is bound for the US.

The BBC reports one of the leaders of the local vigilante groups as having stated: "How does the federal government imagine that we would lay down our arms when they haven't detained a single leader of the Knights Templar? How is that fair?"

Join the police

Last Monday the Mexican Interior Minister Angel Osorio Chong announced that Mexico would be deploying federal troops to the western state of Michoacan and that the choice had been given to the vigilante groups to either lay down their arms or join the police. This is something many in the groups do not want to do because in many parts of the country the police are working in unison with the cartels and joining them would be suicide.

Federal troops move in

Federal troops have so far moved into the towns of Antunez, Nueva Italia and Paracuaro which had been seized by the armed vigilante groups last week in escalation of the violence in the state of Michoacán.

US needs war on anything

As the War on Terror winds down and the list of countries that were targeted for regime change and intervention has been put on hold, in various places such as in Afghanistan and now Mexico we have seen an upsurge in news related to illegal narcotics trafficking and the narco-trade. The correlation between the two events, the winding down of the War on Terror and the now almost seamless escalation of the US’ decades old War on Drugs is one that cannot be ignored.

Billions in black operations funding

The illegal narcotics trade and the collusion between the CIA and the West is one that is almost impossible to investigate as anyone who attempts to do so or gets too close is quickly shut down, but it is one that we know enough about from what has leaked out in the past 40 years or so and from the brave efforts of a handful of journalists, to say without a doubt that it exists.

Mr. Yury Fedotov, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), recently called news of a 40 fold increase in opium production in Afghanistan "sobering" and stressed that this situation poses a threat to health, stability and development in Afghanistan and beyond: "What is needed is an integrated, comprehensive response to the drug problem. Counter-narcotics efforts must be an integral part of the security, development and institution-building agenda".

In an early article I wrote “the elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring is the fact the United States and their CIA are colluding with the producers of heroin and in fact protecting the opium fields in Afghanistan while running duplicitous policies with the Taliban and the Karzai government.” With regard to Mexico the problem appears to be the same.

Enough is enough

Mexico, if we want to use some metaphors loved by American law enforcement proponents, is suffering from a plague of narcotics related crime that has spread like an epidemic throughout the country, engulfing, diseasing and destroying everything in its path, and the Mexican people have quite simply had enough with the level of crime and the inability of the authorities to stop it and have decided to take their communities back.

Mexico is the main illegal narcotics corridor into the American market and it is a hotly contested one worth billions of dollars annually with rival cartels vying for control in a bloody turf war that has raged for years.

The recent incident in the town of Antenuz in the Mexican state of Michoacán underlines the desperation of the civilian population and the hypocrisy of the Obama Administration and the US Government when it comes to the so-called “War on Drugs”.

US backs troops

According to numerous sources the Mexican troops are backed by the Obama administration which also backs the criminal syndicates. Again the New American reported that American troops and special operations units are already operating in Mexico. “In addition to supporting certain cartels such as Sinaloa, U.S. troops secretly operating in the nation were reportedly working with Mexican forces to perpetrate “surgical strikes.” Leading analysts equated the machinations to “death squads.” Long before those revelations hit the headlines, Obama announced an expansion of the Bush administration’s controversial program to support the Mexican government in its blood-drenched “war.” Despite widespread human-rights concerns, Washington, D.C., has continued to pour hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the drug-war coffers of Latin American governments — especially the one ruling Mexico — for years. So far, the schemes show no signs of slowing down or getting anywhere near victory.”

Endless CIA drug funding

Gary Webb, who committed suicide by shooting himself twice in the head, was one of the few journalists who successfully exposed a link between the CIA and cocaine traffickers raising funds for the Nicaraguan Contras in what was called the Iran-Contra affair.

The chief bank in that scheme, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), was also used to launder money gained from the sale of opium from Afghanistan and Pakistan and paid to Osama Bin Laden and his Mujahideen.

Although the Knights Templar in Mexico are involved in methamphetamine trafficking and Columbian cocaine groups also work closely with CIA opium appears to be the drug of choice for raising black funds.

One of the first such documented cases was the support of anti-Communist Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) forces who were being funded by opium from China and Burma which was flown to Thailand via the CIA’s now infamous Air America.

In a recent interview with the Voice of Russia I spoke to Wayne Madsen and he mentioned Air America and CIA covert funding and their collusion in the illegal narcotics business. Mr. Madsen said the CIA and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents are often shooting at each other because they have different missions, one to stop drugs and the other to import them.

Cocaine, opium and other narcotics find their way to American consumers through various channels but Mexico almost always figures as part of the voyage. From Afghanistan to Europe and Russia there is Manas and Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and Hashim Thaçi, in the US the Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport in Mena Arkansas, is one CIA drop point, but almost all shipments go through Mexico.

Miami International Airport is another location where the CIA allowed at least one ton of nearly pure cocaine to be shipped into the US claiming they were doing so to gather intelligence but the cocaine was sold on the street.

In 1993 former DEA head Robert Bonner accused the CIA of importing several tons of pure cocaine into the U.S. via Venezuela.

In 1996 a Venezuelan anti-narcotics chief and longtime CIA asset named General Ramon Guillen Davila, was indicted for working with the CIA to smuggle tons of cocaine into the US.

According to Peter Dale Scott a former diplomat and professor of English, who believed the CIA was involved in the deaths of up half a million people in Indonesia in the mid-1960s, Mexico’s DFS intelligence agency, which was later called the Center for Research and National Security of Mexico, was like Al-Qaeda, a CIA creation and its director Miguel Nazar Haro, a CIA asset, helped the Guadalajara Cartel become Mexico's most drug syndicate in the 1980s. The cartel was also connected to the CIA through Honduran drug baron Juan Matta-Ballesteros, another CIA asset. Ballesteros ran SETCO, an airline used for smuggling drugs into the US.

The Godfather of the Mexican drug business Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo was also working with and providing funds for CIA operations. His narcotics activities were well known to the CIA and DEA, but they were ignored mainly because of his huge charitable contributions CIA backed groups.

Claims made by Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Ismael Zambada García a Mexican narcotics baron, that he and other top Sinaloa cartel members had received immunity by U.S. agents to smuggle cocaine into the US, are backed up by the New American story. He says they were allowed to operate as long as they provided intelligence on rival cartels. Which of course would have allowed the CIA to take out their completion.

Citing a Stratfor document the New American wrote: “Another bombshell uncovered in the leaked e-mails indicated that the U.S. federal government had deliberately allowed cartel hit men to murder people inside the United States if they agreed to offer their services to Washington. “Regarding ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) screwing up informants: They (ICE) were handling big hit men from Juarez and letting them kill in the U.S.,” a federal law enforcement supervisor wrote in an e-mail.

Conclusion

The CIA is out of control in their collusion with the global illegal narcotics trade and making billions of dollars in the process but things will soon be looking up. With the now open ended presence of US/NATO air bases worldwide, including those now set up in Afghanistan (now the world’s top opium producer) such as Shindad, Kandahar, Bagram and Kabul and developments in drone technology, such as the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-9 Reaper (Predator B-ER and B-003) Altair and Mariner, which can carry up to 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms), the CIA can make Air America look like child’s play. One advantage of drone drug trafficking is no more bothersome pilots and ground personnel to expose operations. Which might be why the CIA is adamant at keeping the drones under their control.

The views and opinions expressed here are my own. I can be reached at robles@ruvr.ru

Updated: February 4, 2014 to correct naming Mr. Peter Dale Scott "late" as was stated in my source material. Mr. Scott is very much alive and well. John

Endemic Corruption Leads to Mexican Jailbreak

19 September 2012, 19:05  

In the Mexican state of Coahuila 131 prisoners have escaped through a tunnel that was months in the making. The circumstances point to another case where corrupt officials and prison guards are suspected of involvement, underlining the need for reforms and the vetting of Mexico’s law enforcement officials. The problem is one that affects not only Mexico but the international community as well.

Another massive prison break in Mexico has the world focused once again on Mexico’s ongoing war against vicious drug gangs and battling drug lords.

The facts that we know are as follows; 131 inmates escaped from the prison in Piedras Negras in the Mexican state of Coahuila, a city near the US border close to Eagle Pass Texas. They apparently used a 21 feet (6.5 meters) long and 4 feet (1.2 meters) wide tunnel that had been under construction for some time and it is suspected that prison officials may have been involved or had knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the escape.

According to reports the prison housed less than 800 inmates and was not overcrowded, leading to further speculation as to the involvement of the guards since the number of escapees amounted to about a 5th of the prison’s entire population.

A public safety official in Coahuila, Jorge Luis Moran, said that the escape was the work of the Zetas drug cartel and that even prisoners who were not members of the cartel were forced to go along, reported Daily Mail quoting Associated Press.

Mexican media alleged that the Zeta cartel is engaged in a battle over the illegal narcotics corridor into the United States, through which millions of dollars worth of drugs enters the US, with the Sinaloa cartel run by drug lord Joaquin Guzman who is at the top of Mexico’s most wanted list. The Zeta cartel has been hit hard by the federal police and its members are dwindling due to arrests and fatal shootings, so the Mexican authorities believe the escape was planned to refill the ranks of the cartel.

In a statement released on Twitter the President of Mexico Felipe Calderon said that the escape was a deplorable act and that the vulnerability of state law enforcement institutions must be corrected.

The Daily Beast’s Christine Pelisek writes that the terrain through which the tunnel was dug was rocky and would have required special tools and equipment to cut through, pointing to further collusion between the prison officials and the escapees.

The escape once again brings to the forefront the absolute corruption that exists at the state level in Mexico underlined by the fact that this is by far not the first time that such a bold prison escape has taken place in recent years.

The current mass escape is also the second in recent history where over a hundred inmates escaped. The other such escape occurred in December 2010, when 153 inmates escaped from a prison in Nuevo Laredo, which ended with 41 guards being sentenced on charges related to aiding and abetting the criminals.

Another brutal escape occurred in February when 30 inmates escaped from a prison in Monterrey murdering 44 rival gang members in the process, afterwards 9 guards admitted to having aided them.

For the president and the federal authorities in Mexico the rampant corruption at the state level continues to be one of the most pressing problems in the country and the largest internal threat to Mexico’s national security.

The federal authorities in Mexico understand the need for reforms and have attempted to correct the situation by introducing mandatory background checks and drug testing for federal, state and local law enforcement officers and agents. To date the results have been dismal at all levels, with the numbers showing just how serious the situation is.

Speaking to the press on Monday Mexico’s Federal Secretary of the Interior Alejandro Poire said that progress in vetting the nations officers was slow. He said that out of the over 430,000 police officers at the state level and lower only 180,000 have undergone the vetting process and out of those approximately 65,000 had failed to pass the tests.

At the federal level the numbers are equally dismal with 2,045 federal officers out of approximately 36,000, failing the tests since 2006 and of those only 302 being fired. Under the guidelines set forth in the vetting program any officer at any level who fails the tests is supposed to be fired.

The authorities say that due to Mexico’s labor laws and the lack of new recruits, it is impossible to fire everyone who fails the tests. This means that Mexico has over 67,000 officers working on the front lines who are not able to pass simple background checks and the vetting process, and this is only after less than half have been tested.

This serious lack of a secure internal security apparatus is a grave threat to Mexico’s national security. As Mexico is the main gateway for most of the narcotics and contraband traffic into the ever consuming US “market” this is also a problem at the international level as it only helps to sustain the flow of illegal narcotics from all over the world into the US, the world’s largest and most lucrative consumer.

The transport corridors through Mexico allow growers, suppliers and criminal groups worldwide, from Afghanistan to Columbia, to get their products to their consumers.

 This means that the international community has a vested interest in assisting Mexico if there is ever going to be an end to the illegal narcotics trade. Something that is highly unlikely as long as the money flows with the blow.

 

 

Last Update: 11/19/2023 20:00 -0000

 

Site 1JAR2 Blog Button

 

JAR2 Biz

 

 Link to JAR2 Twitter Account  Link to JAR2 YouTube Account  Link to JAR2 Blogger Account  Link to JAR2 Live Journal Account  Link to JAR2 Word Press Account    Link to JAR2 Sonation and Support Page

 

  Please help keep us going and make a donation Thanks to all supporters!

PayPal, Сбербанк Sberbank Visa 4276 3800 4476 1661

Copyright JAR2 2003-2103 All Rights Reserved

Publishing Banned Truth Since June 06, 2003