Frontera NorteSur
Jan - May 2010

A Private Bridge Crosses the Border

Amid much fanfare, a new bridge over the Rio Grande was christened this week between Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and Mission, Texas. Estimated to cost in the ballpark of $100 million, the Mexican-built structure will connect traffic from hundreds of maquiladora plants to destinations in the US. Opened for light traffic last month, the new Anzalduas Bridge is expected to begin handling heavier commerical trucks by 2012.

In a ceremony attended by hundreds of elected and appointed officials from both sides of the border, Mexican President Felipe Calderon praised the long bridge as an example of the ties that bind a capital-intensive United States and a labor-intensive Mexico. "Our economies are desgined to complement one another," Calderon said.

The dominant role of private capital in the construction and operation of the Anzalduas Bridge distinguishes it from similar border crossings. Mexico City's Mahrnos development company was awarded a 30-year concession from the Mexican federal government to build and operate the bridge. Financing for the bridge came from from Mahrnos' own investment as well as a loan from the Monterrey-based Banorte bank, which became a partner in the project.

The Anzalduas Bridge project has not been without controversy. For example, former construction workers including Jorge Guerrero and Manuel Mendiela charged late last year that Mahrnos had not made adequate severance payments to laid-off laborers. According to the workers, the severances amounted to only about $500 for nearly two years of work. Mahrnos representatives Laura Cortez Hernandez and Alejandro Penafiel declined to answer Mexican reporters' questions about the payments, and reportedly tossed journalists out of company offices.

Officials present at the January inauguration ceremony for the northern border's new bridge included Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, among many others. In all, Mexico plans to build seven new bridges to connect the country with its northern neighbor.

Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, January 12, 2010. Article by Carlos Pena Palacio. Agencia Reforma, January 12, 2010. Article by Miguel Dominguez. El Universal, January 12, 2010. Article by David Aguilar Juarez. Presidencia.gob.mx. January 11, 2010. Press release. Milenio.com, January 9, 2010. Metronoticas.com, October 26, 2009. Article by Sofia Rodriguez.

A Border City’s High Risk Pregnancies

Despite seeing some gains in adolescent pregnancy rates, a Mexican border physician is concerned about what he considers an elevated number of high risk pregnancies and deliveries. Dr. Humberto Tanguma, assistant director of the Nuevo Laredo Women’s Hospital, said teenagers comprise a high percentage of cesarean section births attended by his institution.

Of 2,000 births handled annually by the hospital, more than one-third, or 34 percent, is done by cesarean section, according to Tanguma. Of the C-sections, 15 percent are performed on mothers less than 19 years old, while approximately 50 percent are done on mothers between the ages of 19
and 32.

In the United States, C-sections represent about 31 percent of all births.

Stressing that C-sections are especially risky for younger mothers who have not had adequate prenatal care, Tanguma said that many patients are migrants from rural zones in the states of Veracruz and Chiapas- places where medical care is spotty. The gynecologist calculated that single
mothers make up half of all mothers who give birth at the Women’s Hospital.

Tanguma, however, was upbeat about one trend. According to the women’s health specialist, adolescent pregnancies served by the hospital are down about five percent from previous years. Sex education provided by the hospital could be one reason, Tanguma contended.

According to Tanguma, an information booth run by the hospital informs young people of the inconveniences of having children before 19 years of age, and promotes condom use as a means of avoiding unwanted pregnancies. “This has given us good results so far,” he asserted.

Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, August 31, 2009. Article by Gaston Monge. Associated Press, January 8, 2009. Article by Stephanie Nano.

The Border’s “Agent Orange” Controversy

In the Vietnam War, the United States sprayed vast tracts of land with the chemical defoliant Agent Orange as part of a counter-insurgency strategy aimed at removing forest cover for Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. Although the toxic dioxin released by Agent Orange was later blamed by US veterans’ groups and Vietnamese officials for illnesses and diseases that struck thousands of former US soldiers and upwards of four million Vietnamese citizens, the US Supreme Court ecently refused to consider a case by pursued by Vietnamese plaintiffs against the manufacturers of Agent Orange.

Four decades later, on the US-Mexico border, the US Border Patrol intends to employ a chemical herbicide in order to eradicate stands of the Carrizo cane, an invasive plant that grows as tall as 30 feet and provides convenient cover for undocumented border crossers and smugglers. The variety of Carrizo cane that is common in the Laredo-Del Rio  borderlands is from the region of Valencia, Spain.

Possibly beginning next week, the US Border Patrol could commence aerial herbicide spraying along a slice of the Rio Grande between the twin cities of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The experimental spraying would cover an area that stretches 1.1 miles between the Laredo Railroad Bridge and Laredo Community College directly across from Mexico, said Roque Sarinana, public affairs officer for the Border Patrol’s Laredo sector.

In addition to aerial spraying of the herbicide imazapyr, the Border Patrol will employ  hand-cutting and mechanical methods that involve applying the killer chemical at ground-level, Sarinana told Frontera NorteSur in an a phone interview. Getting rid of Carrizo cane should improve the Border Patrol’s “line of sight up and down the river, ” Sarinana said.

Depending on weather conditions, the first dustings of imazapyr could begin March 25, Sarinana confirmed. “As of now, that’s the plan,” he said.Concerned about risks to public health from possible herbicide spray drift, runoff and leaching, officials from the city government of neighboring Nuevo Laredo are steadfastly opposed to aerial spraying. “I’ve always been respectful of the law and sovereignty,” said Nuevo Laredo Mayor Ramon Garza Barrios. “But herbicides that affect health in both countries can’t be sprayed.”

Mayor Garza’s stance is supported by other elected and appointed officials in Mexico.  On Thursday, March 19, the Tamaulipas State Legislature issued a statement requesting information about the proposed spraying from the Mexican and US sections of the International Boundary and Water Commission as well as Mexican federal agencies.

The zone targeted for spraying is across the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo’s Hidalgo neighborhood and only hundreds of yards from the Mexican city’s public water intake system.

Carlos Montiel Saeb, general manager for Nuevo Laredo’s water utility, said the Border Patrol advised his office to turn off water pumps a few hours prior to spraying. “If there is no problem, why are they asking us to do this?” Montiel questioned.

Border Patrol spokesman Sarinana said he had not seen a written objection from Mayor Garza, but stressed it did not mean other US officials had not received a letter. “This is all in the works, so we’ll see what happens,” Sarinana said, adding the Border Patrol plans on releasing a more detailed
statement about the future of the Carrizo cane project.

Opposition to the Border Patrol’s aerial spraying plans is likewise growing in Laredo, Texas. The two sides turned out to a March 16 meeting of the Laredo City Council in which elected officials narrowly approved by a controversial 5-4 vote an easement for the US government on city
property targeted for spraying.

Jay J. Johnson Castro, Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Studies Center at Laredo Community College told Frontera NorteSur the planned aerial spraying caught residents off guard. The aerial applications could threaten more than 1,000 bird and other species at a time when spring hatchings begin and migratory birds are still in the area, Johnson said by phone from his office. The Border Patrol’s Carrizo Cane Eradication Project abuts a nature trail running near the community college, Johnson lamented.

“Nobody knows the impact of imazapyr,” Johnson contended. “It’s no different than Agent orange.” Citing the program’s environmental assessment, Johnson said aerial spraying could eventually extend along a strip of river bank 16 miles upriver from the pilot project zone. Despite
the potential magnitude of the project, the Border Patrol did not gather local input as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, Johnson charged.

Like virtually all chemical pest control agents, lack of complete public information and multiple, contradictory reports surround the history of imazapyr, a substance first registered in 1984 and currently manufactured under the trade name Habitat by the multinational BASF corporation.

A fact sheet prepared by the Washington State Department of Agriculture reported imazapyr was “low in toxicity to invertebrates and practically non-toxic to fish, birds and mammals.” Still, the fact sheet reported imazapyr was highly mobile and persistent in soils.

In 2007, BASF spokesman Joel Vollmer told the press his company’s imazapyr product was widely used in wildlife refuges across the US and along the Pecos River and its tributaries to control salt cedar, another troublesome, invasive plant species afflicting the US Southwest.

Public controversies over imazapyr applications have previously erupted in Alaska, California and Colombia, where experimental use of the herbicide to control illegal coca plantings was approved in 2000. A report on the chemical’s history developed for the non-governmental group Alaska
Community Action on Toxics said evidence existed that identified imazapyr as a contaminant of soil, groundwater and surface water. Imazapyr also contains an acid that can irritate the eyes, skin and respiratory system, the report stated. According to the report’s authors, additional evidence
linked the herbicide to Parkinson’s Disease-like symptoms.

In developing its Carrizo cane aerial spraying project, the Border Patrol ignored studies by Laredo Community College researchers that examined different means of killing off the invasive species, Johnson charged.

“We are not opposed to the eradication of Carrizo,” he affirmed. “We think it has to go because it consumes about 500 gallons of water per meter and chokes out native vegetation.”

At the federal level, Department of Homeland Security-sponsored researchers earlier explored using biological controls, including wasps, to control Carrizo cane.

US officials have been urging a Carrizo cane eradication program for some time. In 2007, US Representative Henry J. Cuellar (D-Tx) called the tall, thirsty plant a national security issue. Quoted in the news media, Rep. Cuellar said then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had been to the border to get a first-hand look at the Carrizo cane foe. The Laredo Congressman assured the press officials were “looking at what is the fastest, safest way to address the effectiveness of addressing this issue of Carrizo.”

With the clock ticking, Johnson and a growing network of activists on both sides of the border are lobbying high officials to prevent aerial spraying before it occurs.

In an e-mail, longtime border environmental advocate and Sierra Club activist Bill Addington contended spraying would violate the 1983 La Paz accord between the United States and Mexico that requires mutual notification in the event of projects impacting the environment within a
60 mile radius on either side of the border.

“We considering all democratic options-court actions, political protests, media attention,” Johnson added. “We expect our message to be heard by the environmentally-friendly Obama administration. This is too unprecedented to aerially spray a toxic chemical in a densely-populated area.”

Meanwhile, word of the planned herbicide spraying is spreading fast in the two Laredos. Interviewed on the banks of the Rio Grande, a 26-year-old Honduran migrant told the Mexican press he intended to cross into the US without papers before spraying commenced. “They say they will put poison into the river,” said Walter Hernandez. “That’s why I want to cross before then.”

Mario Garcia, a Mexican national who frequents the Rio Grande on the Nuevo Laredo side with his sons, also expressed concern to a Mexican reporter. “I frequently come to fish in the area,” Garcia said. “With what degree of confidence are we going to eat a fish if we know it is contaminated?”

In response to an article about the imazapyr controversy in the Laredo Morning Times, several readers sent pointed e-mails to the news publication that proposed solutions to the Carrizo cane issue or, as is increasingly the case with border news web sites, used the immediate topic
at hand to vent ideological broadsides on issues of race, the environment and US-Mexico relations.

Additional Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, March 19, 20 and 21, 2009. Articles by Gaston Monge and Hugo Reyna. Laredo Morning Times, March 19, 2009. Article by Miguel Timoshenkov.  Lider Informativo (Nuevo Laredo), March 17, 2009. Article by Ericka Morales.

El Diario de Juarez, March 16, 2009. Commondreams.org/Inter Press Service, March 16, 2009. Article by Helen Clark. La Jornada, March 8 and 11, 2009. Articles by Carlos Figueroa and editorial staff.  Rio Grande Guardian, November 8, 2007. Homelandsecurity.org/journal/, April 2007. Article by Gail Cleere. Panna.org (Pesticide Action Network) August 1, 2000 and April
11, 2008. Akaction.net (Alaska Community Action on Toxics.)

Border City Protests Expand

For the second time in less than one week, the streets of the Mexican border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, hosted protestors. The February 4 actions spanned a range of grievances-high food and fuel prices, maquiladora lay-offs and the presence of the Mexican army in the city located across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas.

Wednesday’s demonstrations by taxi drivers and restaurant workers against the Mexican army closely followed mass protests over the same issue last weekend. On January 31, as many as 4,000 demonstrators succeeded in blocking highway access into and out of Reynosa as well as to two
international bridges that connect Reynosa with its sister city of McAllen.

Led in part by neighborhood leader Alicia Nieto, the participants in Saturday’s mobilization included residents of working-class districts, street vendors, sex industry workers, bar operators, and transportation industry workers. A banner accused a special unit of the Federal Police
of torturing innocent citizens to extract information about the Gulf drug cartel for rival Sinaloa drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

“The army and its soldiers used to inspire our admiration and respect,” said Jorge Alberto Garza Rodriguez, secretary-general of a local night club owners’ association. “Now they make us
terrified and afraid.”

Manuel Benavidez, transportation secretary of the local branch of the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Campesinos, a group affiliated with the PRI political party, accused soldiers of detaining, beating and robbing commercial drivers. Complaints of such abuses, Benavidez charged,
have not been answered.

In Reynosa, sectors of the population demand the Mexican army and Federal Police leave their city.

There was no immediate, official comment from the Mexican army about the latest round of public protests, but Francisco Rivera, a PRI legislator who presides over the public safety commission of the lower house of the Mexican Congress, previously said many complaints come from criminals and their families out to discredit the Mexican military.

Nonetheless, complaints about the military’s conduct are growing in Reynosa and elsewhere in Mexico. Citing Mexican media, the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute recently reported the Mexican armed forces was ranked Numero Uno in complaints received by the official
National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) in 2008.

According to a January newsletter published by the Trans-Border Institute, the armed forces accounted for 631 of 5,921 complaints received by the CNDH from January 1 to December 15 of last year. The figure was nearly double the number of complaints filed with the CNDH against the military for a comparable period in 2007. Mostly, the 2008 complaints involved accusations of illegal home searches, arbitrary detentions and cruel and degrading treatment.

The bulwark of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s war against drug trafficking and organized crime, the Mexican military is a major recipient of US security assistance under the so-called Merida Initiative.

The army and navy pressed ahead with their anti-drug operations in Reynosa and other parts of Mexico throughout January, a month which witnessed at least 463 narco-related homicides nationwide. The murder toll was nearly double the national figure for the same month in 2008.

Back in Reynosa, meanwhile, a combination of high prices, public safety crises, police and military operations, and mass lay-offs from the export assembly industry are blending and simmering in a hot political stew.

On February 4, former employees of the Finland-based Nokia company stated a demonstration outside offices of the federal labor board. The protestors accused the company of not paying severance packages in accordance with Mexican law. Among a group of 1,000 workers who were dismissed by Nokia last November, the jobless maquiladora workers were supported in their
protest by Rebecca Rodriguez of the Center for Border Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights, an internationally-known human rights advocacy organization based in Reynosa.

Sources: El Universal, February 4, 2009. Article by Julio Manuel L. Guzman. El Sur, February 1, 2009. Article by Miguel Dominguez and Agencia Reforma. La Jornada, February 1, 2009. Article by Julia Antonieta Leduc. Enlineadirecta.info, January 31 and February 5, 2009. Articles by Hugo
Reyna, David Diaz and Carlos Pena Palacios. Justice in Mexico Project report, January 2009. Trans-Border Institute (University of San Diego).

From Blight to Beauty

Millions of scrap tires have long been an unwelcome addition to the Mexico-US border landscape. The problem is so big that it is an important focus of the binational Border 2012 environmental program as well as the Border Governors Conference. Finding solutions to the blight of discarded tires is becoming more urgent in a time of climate change and the appearance of West Nile Virus and dengue in the borderlands, diseases which can be spread by mosquitoes hatched in water that accumulates in improperly disposed tires.

Until now, the controversial practice of incinerating used tires to fuel cement kilns or recycling them for roads, playgrounds and landfill covers have been the main solutions devised to clean up the border of scrap tires. But in the area of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, a group of residents has found another solution to the used tire plague: turning tattered treads into flower pots.

For two years, Roque Salazar and his neighbors from the Ejido Guadalupe have  transformed rubber rubbish into colorful, eye-pleasing vases. Under an agreement with Matamoros’ municipal government, Salazar and his fellow flower pot makers are allowed to rummage through a pile that contains as many as one million tires. Since the agreement got underway, the craftsmen have transformed at least 1,500 used tires into works of beauty, Salazar estimated.  

“The mayor’s office gives us permission to take the tires from the dump,” Salazar said.
“Mayor Erick Silva said the work we are doing also helps (public) health.”

After tire pieces are molded and wired into the right shape, Salazar and company pull out their artists’ brushes and paint the vases with designs. A pair of pots takes about one week to finish, the border craftsman said. “In our free time we make good use of tires which could be accumulating water and creating pests,” Salazar added.

Ejido Guadalupe’s finished products are placed atop a fence on the Matamoros-Reynosa highway, drawing the attention of passing motorists and potential customers.  

According to Salazar, the going price for the vases has doubled during the past two years.  The producers ask between $15 and $40 for each flower pot, he added, depending on the size and design.

Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, September 20, 2008. Article by  Federico Zuniga Garcia.  
US-Mexico Border Environmental Program, Ciudad Juarez, September 4, 2008. Ecoamericas.com, May 2008.

A Border Beer Marketing Controversy

Matamoros’ municipal government has announced it will crack down on beer vendors who employ female minors to sell suds. In comments this week, Mayor Erick Silva Santos said the city government will force beer stores to stop using dancing teenage girls to lure customers and boost sales. The local administration will pursue legal action against violators, Silva vowed. Of 300 existing beer outlets in Matamoros, an estimated 70 percent of the businesses contract scantily-clad girls aged 14-17 to publicize sales and perform dances with customers.  The underage dancers are paid between $25 and $35 per shift.

Alejandro Pena Jara, head of the local children’s legal defense department, said his office requested the intervention of other municipal authorities after inspections revealed widespread law-breaking.

“We saw young girls dancing to promote the beverages,” Pena said. “We asked them for their voter identification so they could prove they were of age. Many of them did not have it, which represents a problem for the (store) owner, since it is a case of exploiting minors.”

According to Pena, beer stores recruit dancers in middle schools and high schools.
“Action is planned against the beer stores,” Pena added. “They have been asked in writing to stop using minors for this activity.”

Employing young girls to promote beverages in public spaces is not a marketing technique confined to the Mexican border city of Matamoros. In recent days, distributors of Redux Beverages’ Cocaine Energy Drink, a high-caffeine concoction peddled in a can, have hawked their product on the streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico. At one busy intersection, a pair of thinly-dressed girls who appeared no older than 13 or 14 years of age hoisted signs at passing motorists that proclaimed, “Cocaine.”

Additional source: La Jornada, June 12, 2008. Article by Julia Antonieta le Duc.

Shrimp Marauders Invade Laguna Madre

Extending along both sides of the US-Mexico border, the Laguna Madre, or Mother Lagoon, is an essential part of the Gulf Coast ecosystem. Regarded by the US Environmental Protection Agency as “one of only two large hypersaline lagoons in the world,” Laguna Madre hosts migratory birds and provides breeding grounds for crustaceans and other aquatic species. But in the Mexican portion of the lagoon, long-time fishermen contend that unlicensed, newly-arrived competitors are sacking the waters of marine life and threatening both the ecology and economy of the region.

“Many outsiders, mainly from Veracruz, are arriving, and they are literally finishing off the lagoon,” said Faustino Perez, a member of a local fishing cooperative. The Tamaulipas resident said the newcomers are using prohibited nets, working in restricted zones, fishing out of season and even scooping up shrimp larvae. “Nobody says anything to them. This is a serious crime punishable by jail, but they continue doing it with the connivance of the authorities,” he charged. According to Perez, illegal fishing began picking up in late 2001 and has continued to this day.

Perez’s contentions were supported by a fellow fisherman, Nicodemio Florencia, who complained that very small fish were being taken from the lagoon.  The poaching is making  a decent annual catch hard to achieve, he said. In the Laguna Madre, an estimated 2,500 fishermen work without the proper permits, according to Mexico’s National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca).

Driving the fishy business is a lucrative market for shrimp and other seafood in Mexico City, Puebla and the urban centers of Guanajuato state.  Besides shrimp, crab and other species are also reportedly being over-harvested from Laguna Madre. Fisherman Perez charged that government officials have not inspected fishing nets since last year. “Rarely do you see Conapesca inspectors checking nets in the lagoon,” he said. “That’s why everyone is taking advantage of the situation.”

Source: La Voz de Nuevo Mexico/Agencia Reforma, May 2, 2008.

Border Wall Draws More Heat, Praise

The Bush administration's planned US-Mexico border wall continues inspiring growing international controversy, impassioned protest and intense political debate. In the Texas border city of Laredo last Saturday, both opponents and supporters of the wall, including well-known personalities, turned out to voice their opinions about the controversial project. On the opposition side, a protest march against the wall drew scores of human rights activists and elected officials who carried "No Wall" signs to a rally held at one of city's international bridges. Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas and Raul Reyes, the mayor of neighboring El Cenizo, were among the officials who attended the demonstration.

A former career FBI agent, Mayor Salinas said the wall was an affront to the close relations that exist between his city and Mexico.

"Laredo and Nuevo Laredo are sister cities which respect each other, which are family, and families work together for the improvement of things," Mayor Salinas said. "Walls do not work, and not even the one in Berlin did." Instead of building a wall to secure the border, Mayor Salinas advocated stationing additional law enforcement officers at border crossings and investing in border surveillance technology. The border mayor questioned
the expenditure of billions of dollars in public funds on the wall: "My question is who's going to get rich off this?"

Other protest leaders took aim at the North American Free Agreement (NAFTA). "They need to replace the "F" in NAFTA with fair trade," said rally organizer Fabiola Flores. "They could fix it so people weren't forced to leave their homes."

While Mayor Salinas and other local officials spent Saturday marching and speaking out against the wall, a celebrity entourage toured the Laredo   the same day in support of the construction of the barrier. Led by former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, the group included Chuck "Walker: Texas Ranger" Norris, Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist and California Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter. Surveying the Rio Grande, the delegation also met with US Border Patrol agents. At one point in the trip, Huckabee's wife Janet asked Border Patrol agents the name of the river the group was observing. "I'm sorry, I'm not just familiar," she apologized.

Huckabee, who has assumed a hard-line stance against illegal immigration, supported the wall and called for tighter border security.

"Doing it right is capturing criminals at the border, and then designing a system were people can come into the country for the purposes of work, doing it the legal, responsible way and not creating what we have now, which is an absolutely uncontrolled situation," Huckabee said.

In the coming months, the border wall project is certain to be the source of
more controversy. At a meeting held late last month in San Antonio, Texas, a network of anti-wall activists mapped out a series of planned actions for the next several months, including more marches and civil disobedience in Texas and California. Organizations involved in the campaign include the San Antonio-based Southwest Workers Union, PODER, American Friends Service Committee and the March 25 Coalition, among others.

Rejecting calls for a "virtual secure border" of more police and surveillance, the network blasted the border wall as part of a "neo-liberal" attack on the rights of indigenous people and workers as outlined by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the US and Mexico and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Citing environmental concerns over the construction of a border wall, network activists called for the restoration of the distressed Rio Grande. At the San Antonio conference, comparisons were drawn between the "exportation of US (border) enforcement strategies and the importation of Israeli occupation strategies."

Additional sources: El Sur/Agencia Reforma, March 2, 2008. Article by Martha Cazares. Laredo Morning Times, March 2, 2008. Articles by Ashley Richards and Nick Georgiou.

Spike in Crime, Rape Strikes Downtown

A stronghold of the Gulf Cartel, Nuevo Laredo is one of the main targets of the Mexican federal government's campaign against organized crime. In a renewed drive launched last month, Mexican soldiers disarmed the local police force, which was widely suspected of colluding with drug gangs, and began patrolling the city's streets. Despite the military's offensive, downtown merchants and workers complain they have been subjected to growing criminal activity in recent weeks.

According to Homerto Villareal Cerda, president of the Nuevo Laredo Chamber of Commerce, crime rates in downtown Nuevo Laredo increased 12 percent during January and the first days of February. "This happened after (authorities) had assured us there would be more security than in other municipalities," Villareal said.

Law enforcement officials report a surge in sex-related crimes during the last few weeks. At least nine female minors have been raped by unknown assailants, according to reports. Public prosecutors Maria Luisa Ledezma Alcala and Laura Leticia Zarate Reyes said six of the cases followed a pattern in which young women who worked or studied downtown were attacked after leaving their job or school. Unidentified men forced the women into vehicles and then abandoned the rape victims in isolated areas after hurling threats.

At least one victim has testified that her attackers could have been policemen. In January, the body of a savagely-murdered young woman was discovered in an empty lot in Nuevo Laredo.

Filled with illicit activity and close to the international border, downtown
Nuevo Laredo has long been a crime-ridden zone. Some estimates calculate that half the border city's crime occurs in the downtown district. The insecurity is causing merchants to close shop, business leader Villareal charged. "It's important that the authorities come up with a plan to control this situation and not wait until it is out of control," he said.

Source: El Universal, Feburary 11, 2008. Article by Gaston Monge. 

Tamaulipas Residents Protest Mexican Army
 
Vocal opposition to Mexican army operations underway in the northern border state of Tamaulipas surfaced this week. In a September 10 protest, hundreds of demonstrators staged a noisy demonstration outside the headquarters of the Fourth Military Zone in Reynosa. Carrying banners and chanting slogans, the protestors charged that soldiers involved in anti-drug and anti-crime missions were intimidating honest citizens and illegally confiscating vehicles at highway checkpoints and in working-class neighborhoods.

Contending that an "exaggerated military presence violates articles 8 and 16 of the Constitution," demonstrators demanded that President Felipe Calderon intervene to "recover tranquility in our city."

No single organization took credit for organizing the protest, but participants who arrived in microbuses, taxis and personal vehicles, claimed to represent both urban and rural communities located in the municipalities of Rio Bravo, Valle Hermoso, Camargo, Miguel Aleman, Ciudad Mier, and Reynosa.

Like dueling deejays, demonstrators and soldiers turned up the sound volume during the stand-off at the military base. While protestors danced to the tunes of "It Looks Like It's Going to Rain" and "How to Kill a Worm," army personnel loudly projected the sounds of "The Dragon March," "The March to Zacatecas" and "The Hymn of the Heroic Military College" from inside their headquarters.

After gathering outside the army's installations, demonstrators blockaded the highway leading from Reynosa to Matamoros and Rio Bravo. Tied up for several hours, a miles-long line of traffic kept some motorists in their vehicles for prolonged periods of time. There was no immediate comment about the protest from the Ministry of Defense.

As in previous years, the Mexican military is the front-line force in the federal government's declared war against drug trafficking.  In the eight-day period from August 31 to September 7, Mexican soldiers seized nearly 10 tons of marijuana in Camargo, Ciudad Mier and other Tamaulipas communities. Several vehicles, an Uzi sub-machine gun, uniforms and small amounts of ammunition were also reportedly confiscated.

Apart from the drug war, the Calderon administration has also increased the Mexican armed forces' involvement in border security, anti-terrorism and other areas. An estimated 45,000 Mexican army personnel have been deployed in operations nationwide this year. In 2006, 37,000 soldiers were dispatched on various assignments.
 

Sources: La Prensa de Reynosa, September 11, 2007. Article by Luis A. Triana and Jesus Rivera. Enlineadirecta.info, September 10, 2007. Article by Armando Garcia Rodriguez.  Proceso/Apro, September 1, 2007. El Diario de Juarez, September 1, 2007. Sedena.gob.mx

High Court Reviews Legality of Mexican Rio Grande Water Deliveries

Mexico's Supreme Court will review a case that tests the constitutionality of the 1944 water treaty between the US and Mexico. In a decision this week, the high court agreed to hear a legal complaint pursued by farmers from the northern border state of Tamaulipas. The growers contend that Mexico's scheduled delivery of 510 million cubic meters of water to the United States will damage their livelihoods.

Under the 1944 agreement, Mexico is supposed to deliver an annual amount of water to the Rio Grande bordering Texas and Tamaulipas.  A Mexican lower court had earlier thrown out the growers' legal challenge to Rio Grande water deliveries, finding that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to pursue a case.

Ruling unanimously, Supreme Court justices decided that parties which suffer the consequences of an international treaty can attain legal status in a dispute. Supreme Court Minister Jesus Gudino Pelayo observed that "sociological and agricultural" issues were at stake in the Tamaulipas complaint. Minister Jose Ramon Cassio said that the court will consider the specific water rights of Mexican irrigators who draw water from the Rio Grande.

Tamaulipas farmers from Irrigation District 25 argue that pre-mature water deliveries from the Amistad and Falcon reservoirs on the US-Mexico border resulted in water allotment cutbacks by the National Water Commission this year. In 2005, Mexico completed delivering all the water it owed to the US at the time in order to settle a long-standing water debt accrued under the terms of the 1944 agreement.

Mexican irrigators are receiving support in their legal challenge from the administration of Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores, who recently told farmers that he supported their demands for a rightful share of water. 

"We will continue dedicating our determination and political will to the question of international water distribution, giving it the highest priority,"
Governor Hernandez vowed.

A possible precedent-setting case, the Tamaulipas controversy carries ramifications for Baja California, which receives US water deliveries from the Colorado River under the 1944 treaty. Competition for the river water is growing among municipal, industrial, agricultural and rural users.

On a broader note, the Supreme Court's action could also impact the negotiation and enforcement of international treaties in Mexico. "The court will have the possibility of establishing novel criteria that will be able to be used for future cases," said Chief Justice Guillermo I. Ortiz Mayogoitia.  It's not known when Mexico's Supreme Court will issue a final ruling in the Tamaulipas water users case.

Sources: La Jornada, September 5, 2007. Article by Jesus Aranda. Proceso/Apro, August 10, 2007. Article by Gabriela Hernandez. 

Mass Kidnapping Exposed

Acting on a tip, the Mexican army recently rescued 92 migrants who were allegedly being held against their will in the northern border city of Reynosa. The victims, mostly Central Americans, were found in a large safe house located in the Colonia Sierra de la Garza section of Reynosa. The majority of the migrants stated that they had paid a smuggler $1,000 for transport to Mexico and then on to Houston and other cities in Texas. Other migrants, who had arrived on their own to Reynosa’s bus station, were approached by a human trafficker and offered passage to the United States in exchange for $100

In both instances, however, the migrants were taken to a gated and fenced-off home. Armed guards, both male and female, prevented the migrants from leaving. Allegedly headed by Elizabeth Ibarra and Eduardo Elizondo Cavazos, the captors demanded an extra $3,000 from family members in return for freeing relatives.

Of the 92 migrants, 85 were from three Central American nations, mainly Honduras, and 7 were from Mexico. Held for up to two months in some cases, the migrants reported being subjected to threats, unsanitary living conditions and even beatings. Rescued migrant Osman Castillo displayed wounds that he said came from a beating meted out by his captors after an unsuccessful escape attempt.

As Mexican soldiers raided the house, two guards fled without their weapons. Officials from the Federal Office of the Attorney General and the National Immigration Institute also participated in the subsequent investigation. The leading role of the Mexican army in the raid is another example of the stepped-up use of the armed forces to enforce civilian laws.

Sources: El Sur/Agencia Reforma, July 7, 2007. Enlineadirecta.info/La Prensa de Reynosa, July 7, 2007. Article by Fernando Mendoza.

Bridge Beggars: Poverty or Child Exploitation?

Dora Isela and her three children, who range from four to eight years of age, are familiar sights at the Ignacio Zaragoza International Bridge between Matamoros and Brownsville. While the 35-year-old single mother hustles gum, her 8-year-old daughter, Concepcion, wanders through the automobile traffic asking for money. The Mexican authorities consider Dora Isela's daily street excursions with the children as child exploitation. Last June 13, the Matamoros city police arrested the gum seller on charges of corrupting minors. The next day, Dora Isela went free.

"I come to sell gum, the children help me, because they know how we struggle for money," said Dora Isela to a reporter. "They don't have a father and I have to earn by myself the money we spend," Dora Isela added. "My sisters sometimes help me, but not always, because they are abandoned by their husbands too.."

Matamoros police official Leopoldo Rodriguez has heard Dora Isela's defense many times. "It is always the same story. We detain the women and the next day they go free and return with the children, Rodriguez said. "They are even trained to cry when we approach them and even shout out that they are going to turn us into the human rights commission."

The bridge beggars are not unique to Matamoros. Along the Mexico-US border, young children, instead of attending school, spend their days near international bridges selling gum or asking for spare change. Many of the children are from indigenous groups. In Matamoros, at least 50 such children, ranging from four to 12 years of age, gather every day near the four border crossings that connect Matamoros with Brownsville.

Javier Cavazos Adame, head of the legal department for the Matamoros Integral Family Development agency, contended that tourists and residents who give money to the children are enabling the corruption of minors. Cavazos said that street-side begging escalates into child prostitution and drug addiction.

Source: La Jornada, June 24, 2007. Article by Julia Antonieta LeDuc 

Matamoros Loses Out in Maquila Shuffle

In the economic dance for foreign-owned, export-oriented assembly plants, the Tamaulipas border city of Matamoros is emerging as a loser. From January to March of this year alone, Matamoros witnessed the loss of 10,000 jobs in a steady hemorrhaging that sliced the maquiladora work force from 58,000 to 48,000 workers.

"In the first three months of the year, we experienced historic volumes of downturn," said Victor Hugo Moreno Delgadillo, local delegate for the federal Ministry of the Economy. According to Moreno, much of the employment bust can be blamed on economic difficulties faced by the US-based auto giant General Motors, which had business with a parts supplier in Matamoros.  

Word of another possible economic blow surfaced at the end of May, when Edmundo Garcia Roman, Tamaulipas director for the Workers Confederation of Mexico, announced that Delphi might close area factories and eliminate the jobs of 6,000 workers.

Juan Villafuerte Morales, the leader of the Matamoros Regional Workers Federation, said in an interview with the Mexican press that the Tamaulipas border city of Reynosa, which counts on numerous industrial parks and other incentives, was beating out Matamoros for new plants and even importing workers from his economically-suffering home town. 

Figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas show Matamoros faring poorly in the total number of jobs in the maquiladora industry situated along the Rio Grande corridor of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Chihuahua. At the end of 2006, Matamoros accounted for only 12 percent of the jobs in the sector. Of six cities surveyed, Matamoros ranked fifth in employment numbers, coming out only above Piedras Negras, Coahuila. Topping the list with more than 150,000 jobs, Reynosa even beat out Ciudad Juarez, the virtual birthplace of the maquiladora industry.

Worse yet, cities like Matamoros face competition not only from other US-Mexico border cities. A recent study by an Autonomous University of Puebla researcher confirmed the continued placing of maquiladoras in virgin territory.  In his report, researcher Huberto Juarez Nunez documented the tendency of foreign-owned companies to locate in interior Mexican states including Durango, San Luis Potosi, Queretaro, Sinaloa, Chiapas, Tlaxcala, Tabasco, and Veracruz. As part of the shift, firms are setting up shop in rural areas where wages are so low that they are competitive with China, according to Juarez. 

Confronted with capital and job flight, the Matamoros municipal government launched an economic promotion and development department and dispatched the head of the office, Nancy Estrada Ayala, to lure new investments from Germany, Italy, Canada, Spain, and the United States.

"We went to explain what there is here in Matamoros. We count four international bridges, two industrial parks, with three more under construction, and a qualified workforce," Ayala said. "It all depends on whether they come or not. Meanwhile, we will be waiting."

In the opinion of the Economy Ministry's Moreno, the municipality's public relations campaign is falling flat, in spite of what Moreno contended are attempts to sugarcoat Matamoros' economic situation and even pressure the federal official to "moderate" his remarks. "Little by little, the businesses that we have are leaving," Moreno lamented. 

Sources: La Jornada, April 7 and June 10, 2007. Articles by Patricia Munoz Rios and Julia Antonieta Le Duc. Dallasfed.org  

Border Journalism Loses Leading Voices

Journalists and community members in the northern Mexican border state of Tamaulipas are mourning the loss of two prominent voices this week. Carlos Benjamin Galvan Maytorena passed away on Friday, May 18, in a Nuevo Laredo hospital. The 66-year-old newspaper publisher, whose death was attributed to heart problems, was the owner and editor of the Nuevo Laredo dailies Ultima Hora and Primera Hora. Galvan, who was survived by his wife and two sons, also served as treasurer of the Nuevo Laredo city government, a post he also occupied during the municipal administration of Arturo Cortes Villada from 1990 to 1992.

Galvan was preceded in death two days earlier by Arturo Solis Gomez, the founder of the Reynosa-based Internet portal Enlineadirecta.info. A longtime journalist, left activist, human rights advocate and columnist, the 61-year Solis was also the president of the Center for Border Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights (Cefprodhac), an organization which enjoys a reputation as one of Mexico's leading independent human rights groups. The organization has tackled a host of issues that range from migrant abuses to the shooting deaths of four young men in Reynosa by the Federal Preventive Police two years ago. Among other topics, Cefprodhac's Internet site contains reports about narco-violence and femicides in Tamaulipas state. 

Launched by Solis in May 2002, Enlineadirecta features original news reports as well as links to other border and Mexican news sites. The Spanish-language website is a good place to view videos related to border and Mexican issues.

Diagnosed with cancer in November 2005, Solis was admitted to a Reynosa hospital last week before passing away. Delving into the literary world before his premature death, Solis left behind an unfinished memoir.

In one of his last public statements, Solis warned about the impact of criminal violence on freedom of speech and the ability to report the news in the border region. Warnings against reporting certain events are resulting in self-censorship, Solis told a reporter from the Mexico City-based Proceso magazine. "When events like murders happen, a prohibition exists that prevents journalists from getting close to the scene," Solis said. "Many crimes on the northern border don't get out in the media." Solis was survived by his wife and four children.

Sources: Enlineadirecta.info, May 17 and 18, 2007. Articles by Hugo Reyna and editoral staff. Lapolaka.com, April 21, 2007. Article by Antonio Gonzalez Diaz.

New Flooding Strikes the Borderlands

A surprise rainstorm March 12 unleashed heavy flooding in the Tamaulipas border city of Matamoros and Texas' Lower Rio Grande Valley. In Matamoros, more than 200 neighborhoods were flooded with as much as three feet of water, temporarily trapping motorists in their cars and forcing schools to shut their doors. In the neighborhood of Los Sauces, residents were evacuated by small boats. Hitting around mid-day, the storm dumped about 5 inches of rain on Matamoros in less than one hour.

Across the border in Texas, flooding affected the south side of Brownsville and the communities of Los Fresnos, Rancho Viejo and Arroyo City, where between 6-7 inches of rain was reported. A Continental Airlines Flight was diverted to Harlingen, and a local highway was shut down during the afternoon of March 12. The non-seasonal deluge disrupted the romps of youthful Spring Breakers who were enjoying their vacations in nearby South Padre Island.

In Matamoros, city workers, joined by a 100-person brigade headed up by the Tamaulipas State Health Ministry, quickly fanned out into the city to pump water from stagnant pools that could pose health risks. Health department personnel also conducted some door-to-door visits to advise residents of sanitary practices.  

“We can’t wait for the water to drain, the medical brigades are already functioning,” said one health department official. “In the shortest amount of time possible, the goal is to avoid the appearance of skin and stomach infections …”

Authorities on both sides of the border blamed improper-and illegal- garbage disposal practices for clogging storm drainage systems and worsening the flooding  Jesus De la Garza Diaz del Guante, manager of Matamoros' water and sewerage department, said emergency workers encountered trash bags in the storm drains. Other officials removed plastic bags, plastic bottles and even a decomposing television set from the drains. Similar discoveries awaited Brownsville city workers.

"There's a (expletive) refrigerator inside the ditch with a bunch of brush and soccer balls and we're clearing that stuff out of there," said Brownsville City Commissioner Rick Longoria.

No immediate injuries from the flooding were reported in either Brownsville or Matamoros. 

Sources: EnLineaDirecta.info, March 12 and 13, 2007. Articles by Federico Zuniga Garcia. El Universal, March 12, 2007. Article by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo. Brownsville Herald, March 12, 2007. Articles by Kevin Garcia, Allen Essex and editorial staff.

Border College Fills US Nursing Jobs

Seizing on a US demand for nurses, some Mexican institutions of higher education are stepping up their training of new health care professionals. In Nuevo Laredo , for instance, the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas (UAT) is turning out more and more graduates for the US job market. Francicso Cadena Santos, UAT nursing faculty director, said 11 of his school's recent graduates are planning to work in New York soon.

"The only thing they are lacking is an accredited English class that a teacher from the Technological Institute of Monterrey will give them here," Cadena said. According to Cadena, a dozen UAT nursing graduates are already working in the United States- five in the neighboring city of Laredo , Texas , and seven others in San Diego , California .

Cadena said UAT graduates in the United States earn an initial wage of $35 dollars per-hour during the course of eight-hour work shifts. Cadena added that the Mexican nurses receive work visas and are eligible to bring their families too. The nursing school supervisor said more men are now attracted to the nursing profession. Three of the eleven new nurses that anticipate heading to New York are males, Cadena said. An ongoing shortage of US nurses is fueling a boom in the UAT nursing school's student enrollment. According to Cadena, the number of students enrolled in his school's nursing program shot up from 120 students to 750 students during the last three years.

Source: Enlineadirecta.info, August 28, 2006 . Article by Gaston Monge.

Woman Presidential Candidate Steps Up Campaign

Taking the offensive, female presidential candidate Patricia Mercado Castro completed a campaign swing through northern border cities in the state of Tamaulipas late last week. The only woman candidate in the Mexican presidential race, Mercado met with small groups of people and passed out leaflets in the cities of Matamoros , Rio Bravo and Reynosa . While campaigning on Mexico 's Cinco de Mayo holiday last Friday, Mercado, the candidate of the Alternative Social Democrat and Farmer party, spoke out on migration, organized crime, drug laws, international relations, and the heightening tensions in Mexico 's political landscape.

Mercado took swipes both at the administration of President Vicente Fox and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of rival candidate Roberto Madrazo for allegedly inflaming the political scene and whipping up a climate of fear in the weeks leading up to the July 2 elections. Speaking in Matamoros , Mercado called on all the presidential candidates to sign a non-aggression pact.

In Reynosa , the well-known feminist applauded the movement of Mexican migrants in the United States but lamented the spread of violent confrontations inside Mexico , including San Salvador Atenco in Mexico state, where a bloody clash between protestors and police last week left one 14-year-old youth dead and scores of people injured and arrested.

"While we celebrate today with Mexicans on the other side, we also cry for the dead in Atenco," Mercado said. "The citizenry is the only (force) that can mediate in this incendiary politics," Mercado added. "The political parties don't contribute anything and don't have the negotiating capacity to solve these differences."

On other matters, Mercado proposed a regional development strategy for North America , the free transit of people within the zone, and a new drug policy decriminalizes individual drug usage while channeling resources toward more effective law enforcement. After returning to Mexico City , Mercado declared May 6 she was in favor of decriminalizing marijuana use. She disputed claims that decriminalization will lead to more widespread drug abuse.

"We have to recognize that Mexico is already a consumer nation," Mercado said. "What we have to recognize is that we don't have any quality control." Mercado attacked US anti-drug policies, charging that they have led to more violence in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Registering fourth in the latest presidential election polls, Mercado is focusing her campaign strategy on winning over the large number of undecided voters. The new Alternative Social Democrat and Farmer party's game plan is to win congressional seats, assure registration for the next round of elections and emerge as a pivotal player in the Mexican Congress where only a few votes could be decisive on sticky issues. Given a possible tightening race, especially between Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN) and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Good for All coalition, the goal is not a pipedream.

Back in Reynosa , meanwhile, unidentified members of Mercado's party said they were considering filing a political espionage complaint with the Federal Electoral Institute. Party sources were quoted as saying that members of the PRI and PAN parties showed up at a Mercado campaign event in Reynosa 's Hotel Mansion Real for the sole purpose of spying on Mercado and other candidates of the Alternative Social Democrat and Farmer party.

Sources: El Universal May 6, 2006 , articles by Paola Zarraga and the Notimex news agency. Enlineadirecta.com, May 6, 2006 . Article by Hugo Reyna. La Prensa ( Reynosa ), May 6, 2006 . Article by Jesus Rivera.

Transforming Salty Waters

Confronted with long-term water supply problems, the state of Texas is turning to the sea as a possible future source. The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) recently announced it will construct a pilot desalinization plant this year on the Gulf of Mexico east of the border city of Brownsville . Expected to be in service by next August, the plant will be built to turn about 380,000 liters of salt water into fresh water every day. According to the TWDB, $1.3 million dollars have been appropriated for the experimental project.

Two years ago, Republican Governor Rick Perry recommended that Texas look at desalinization plants as one answer to drought. The Brownsville plant will be the first phase of a project that could result in the construction of at least 5 desalinization facilities on Texas ' Gulf Coast . Officials will monitor the results of the Brownsville experiment to gauge the economic costs of a water-saving desalinization strategy. TWDB official Jorge Arroyo said that Brownsville was selected as the site of the pilot project because of the Lower Rio Grande Valley 's dependence on the Rio Grande as a water source.

Stricken by drought earlier in the decade, the Valley was a focus of contention between Mexico and the United States over allocation of the Rio Grande 's water resources. Last year, Mexico paid off a long-standing Rio Grande water debt to the United States , but long-term water shortages in uncertain climatic conditions are encouraging examinations of new, possible water sources like the Gulf of Mexico .

Source: La Jornada/Notimex, April 21, 2006 .

Sand, Surf and Sex

Anticipating an avalanche of visitors to state beaches during the next two weeks, Tamaulipas health state authorities began distributing tens of thousands of free condoms on Saturday, April 8. The condom distribution will take place mainly at information modules operated by the Tamaulipas State Health Ministry at the popular Miramar , Bagdad and La Pesca beaches. More than one million people are expected to jam Tamaulipas beaches during the Easter holiday season.

Gerardo Flores Sanchez, state AIDS program coordinator, said the purpose of the condom giveaway was to prevent the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases during the vacation period. According to Flores , trained personnel will be present at the distribution points to explain the proper use of condoms to interested persons.

The condom giveaway has already drawn its share of critics. Francisco Joel Rodriguez Dominguez, a representative of the National Parents Union, sharply criticized the Health Ministry's program. "They are promoting loose behavior on the beaches of Tamaulipas, turning them into sex paradises when the beaches should be places of fun for families," Rodriguez said. But Flores justified the condom distribution as a sober public health program. "It is serious work and not about distributing condoms as if they were popcorn or sales flyers," Flores said.

Alfonso de Leon Perales, a member of the conservative National Action Party and the secretary of the health commission of the Tamaulipas state legislature, also defended the condom program. Denying it was meant to promote promiscuity, the congressman called the giveaway a “healthy measure” to protect public health.

Source: enlineadirecta.info, April 8 and 9, 2006. Articles by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo and Jesus Hernandez Garcia.

Safe Mexico Program Fails to Curb Violence

Being a journalist, cop or teenage bride can be risky business in the border city of Nuevo Laredo , Tamaulipas. On Friday morning, March 10, Ramiro Tellez Contreras, the director of the command and control center (C-4) of the Tamaulipas public security council in Nuevo Laredo , was gunned down outside his home in a publicly-built housing project. Less than one hour later, Tellez died at a hospital in the presence of his young daughter. The C-4 complex Tellez supervised is in charge of maintaining the street cameras set up to monitor criminal activity on public streets.

A veteran of police work, Tellez also worked a second job as a radio host for station EXA 95.7 FM. A member of the Union of Democratic Journalists, he was the second Mexican journalist to be murdered in as many days. On Thursday, March 9, writer and photographer Jaime Olvera Bravo was shot to death in front of his son in La Piedad, Michoacan, a state which like Tamaulipas is confronted with an escalating wave of violence connected power struggles over control of the illegal drug export market. In 2005, another Nuevo Laredo radio journalist, Guadalupe Garcia, was murdered by an assassin suspected of having ties to organized crime. In January 2006, reporter Jaime Orozco Tey was critically wounded in a gun and grenade attack on the El Manana newspaper offices.

Ramiro Tellez's slaying was just one of many that have visited Nuevo Laredo in recent days. In early March, authorities recovered the tortured bodies of 23-year-old Ruben Estrada de la Cruz and 20-year-old Monica Muro. In another incident, state police commander Victor Berrones and state police agent Norberto Vazquez Eguia were killed in an ambush that also left two other officers wounded.

Early on the morning of March 4, three teenage friends who had just left the Eclipse night club were shot one block from International Brige 1 that connects Nuevo Laredo with Laredo , Texas . Roberto Moreno Cardenas and Jose Carlos Ruiz were wounded in the attack, but 17-year-old Natalia Berlanga Barraza, who was celebrating her recent wedding, died. The teenager had consummated her marriage to 20-year-old Marco Polo Arredondo just days prior to her untimely death. An emotionally devastated Arredondo was then forced to spend his honeymoon identifying his bride's body at the San Jose Hospital .

Since January 1, at least 46 people, many of them very young, have been murdered in Nuevo Laredo , a city of about 500,000 people. The death toll is staggering in light of the Fox Administration's Safe Mexico program in the city. Established last June, Safe Mexico deployed federal troops and police to supposedly curb narco-related violence. Nine months later, a growing number of Nuevo Laredo residents judge the anti-organized crime campaign an outright failure.

In fact, a case could be made that Nuevo Laredo has grown more violent since the implementation of Safe Mexico. The border city recorded the murders of 182 people in 2005, a dramatic leap from the 68 murders documented in 2004 by the Reynosa-based Center for Border Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights. The figures don't include people who were abducted by suspected drug traffickers and never seen again. If current murder rates continue, 2006 will be an even more violent year than 2005.

Pressed by reporters after the Tellez murder, Nuevo Laredo Mayor Daniel Pena vowed that "we're going to do all we can do that is within our power" to turn back the violent tide. According to Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez, the federal Public Security Ministry is reviewing the Safe Mexico program and could announce revisions and the allocation of additional resources in the coming days.

Betty Flores, the mayor of neighboring Laredo , recently commented that authorities on both sides of the border are working hard to cut down on the violence in Nuevo Laredo . Declining to give details, Flores said, "I have the privilege of being informed about how the actions will unfold, but it is something that cannot be publicized."

Mayor Flores added that the violence in Nuevo Laredo is "nothing" compared to cities in the United States like Baltimore , Maryland , which is somewhat larger than Nuevo Laredo and where at least 268 people were murdered in 2005. What Mayor Flores did not mention was that many of the Baltimore murders and other high-crime cities like Oakland , California , were linked to the drug trade. Indeed, a long bloody trail stretches along the coke, reefer and poppy routes from South America to Mexico to North America 's big cities.

While Laredo 's mayor is downplaying the violence on her border, officials from Mexico 's Federal Electoral Institute are not-at least privately. A recently-written document from the agency charged with organizing the July 2006 elections warned that voting in at least 8 precincts in Nuevo Laredo could be at risk if narco-violence and gang activity are not controlled.

Sources: Proceso/Apro, March 11, 2006 . Article by Gabriela Hernandez. El Universal/EFE/Notimex, March 7, 9 and 10, 2006. Univision, March 10, 2006 . Tiempo de Laredo, March 7, 2006 . Article by Miguel Timoshenkov. March 5, 2006 , Laredo Morning Times. Article by Vicente Rangel and Celina Alvarado. enlineadirecta.info, February 28 and March 4, 2006 . Articles by Nora Alicia Hernandez and editorial staff. WJZ.com, December 30, 2005 . derechoshumanosenmexico.org

Armed Commando Attacks Newspaper

Nuevo Laredo 's El Mañana daily newspaper is vowing to continue publishing in the aftermath of an armed attack. On Monday evening, February 6, at least three masked gunmen burst into the newsroom located in Tamaulipas state across the border from Texas and began firing AK-47 rifles and AR-15 rifles. Thirty or more shots were fired and one grenade set off before the attackers, shouting insults, escaped in two vehicles along with other presumed accomplices. More than two dozen reporters and other workers who were in the newsroom when the assault happened quickly hit the ground. Veteran reporter Jaime Orozco Tey, 40, was hit in the lungs and back several times by bullets.

Orozco was transported to the hospital, where he remained in critical condition. Another reporter, Osvaldo Rodriguez, was struck by flying glass. Orozco serves as the vice-president of the Nuevo Laredo Journalists Association. He is the father of two young daughters.

El Mañana's editorial staff called the attack "another page in the book of violence that is becoming terrorism." Said the daily, "It's another attack against a newspaper that only seeks to inform, not hurt anyone."

The El Mañana attack was yet another violent incident linked to organized crime that involves the growing use of grenades. In recent weeks, attackers also have utilized grenades against suspected rivals and police in the states of Michoacan and Guerrero. On the same evening of the El Mañana attack, attackers exploded two grenades at the home of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, police chief Hector Omar Maganda, injuring a guard.

Michoacan and Guerrero are the southern front in a drug cartel war for the control of drug import and export routes stretching from the Pacific Coast north to the US-Mexico border. Although grenades are reserved for the exclusive use of the Mexican armed forces, no government officials have publicly explained where and how the cartels are obtaining their grenades.

Despite military and police deployments in Michoacan, Guerrero and Tamaulipas under the federal goverment's Safe Mexico anti-organized crime operation, gangland violence has been on the rise since January 1. In Nuevo Laredo , for instance, 25 people have been murdered since the beginning of this year. On the same day El Mañana was assaulted, two other suspected murder victims were found dead in Nuevo Laredo .

The El Mañana attack marked a brazen escalation in a violent campaign against the press in Tamaulipas state. Reynosa 's Center for Border Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights has documented 46 attacks from November 1999 to May 2005 against Tamaulipas journalists, including verbal attacks, beatings with fists and baseball bats, shootings, car burnings, kidnappings, disappearances, and murder.

In 2004, El Mañana's editorial director, Roberto Javier Mora Garcia, was knifed to death in front of his home in a crime whose circumstances are still questioned. One of two men arrested for the homicide, a US citizen, was later murdered in a Tamaulipas state prison. Last year, radio journalist Guadalupe Garcia was shot outside the Nuevo Laredo station at which she worked. After struggling with her wounds for days, Garcia died in a hospital.

Just days prior to the attack on the El Mañana newsroom, the newspaper hosted a Nuevo Laredo conference about drug trafficking and self-censorship organized by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Representatives of 40 border press outlets attended the meeting. In the wake of the shooting and greande attack, the IAPA demanded that President Fox take energetic measures to stem the violence.

The armed assault in Nuevo Laredo drew the condemnation of President Vicente Fox. Speaking in Sinaloa state, President Fox declared that organized crime would not bring the Mexican government and society to its knees and vowed to "redouble our force, redouble our efforts" against criminal activity. President Fox added the Federal Office of the Attorney General was taking over the investigation of the El Manana attack.

However, El Mañana's executive editor, Ramon Dario Cantu, earlier expressed skepticism about any one being held accountable for the assault on his newsroom. "What's the point of investigating?" Dario questioned. We know it was an assault by drug traffickers." Dario added the newspaper will tone down its coverage of drug trafficking to safeguard the lives of journalists and other employees.

In its editorial pages, El Mañana expressed some surprise at the attack, noting the newspaper already practiced self-censorship because of the atmosphere of impunity surrounding attacks against journalists. "Since the murder of Roberto Mora, we saw that the authorities were surpassed by organized crime and there were no guarantees for journalists," said El Mañana. The newspaper also used the occasion to call for new a new drug policy thaat focuses more on education and prevention and explores the legalization of "soft" drugs. In the meantime, El Manana noted the illegal drug export business surges ahead in Nuevo Laredo

"Six thousand trucks cross here every day and the North American authorities only physically check 50 or 60. That makes this plaza as important as Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez ," El Mañana said.

Sources: Enfoque Nacional, February 7, 2006. El Mañana, February 7and 8, 2006, articles by editiorial staff and Mario Hugo Rivera. Laredo Morning Times, February 7 and 8, 2006. Articles by Miguel Timoshenkov and Vicente Rangel. El Universal, February 7 and 8, 2006. Articles by Jose Luis Ruiz, editorial staff and the Notimex news agency. El Sur, February 7, 2006. Article by Brenda Escobar. Proceso, February 7, 2006. Article by Gabriela Hernandez.

Lawsuit, Worker Safety Accusations Swirl around Chemical Company

Three engineers once employed by the Fluor Chemical company have filed legal charges with the Matamoros district attorney against their former employer. Ruben Herrera Ramirez, Francisco Ledezma Esquivel and Alejandro Guerrero Bocanegra accuse Fluor Chemical of not paying them their just compensation in accordance with Mexican labor law. All three men worked for the company for periods of more than 20 years.

The trio also alleges that unsafe working conditions prevailed at Fluor Chemical's Matamoros plant, causing most workers to suffer from occupational health problems. Fluor Chemical makes hydrofluoric acid, a hazardous substance. In one alleged incident, 10 workers experienced extreme burns from a release of hydrofluoric acid. Two of the workers, Mario Infante and Guillermo Estrada, reportedly died, while 8 others were severely injured.

Herrera and the other ex-engineers charge that Fluor Chemical hides accidents from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) and the public in order to appear accident-free and avoid paying higher IMSS rates. The company allegedly conceals occupational health problems by transporting injured workers outside Mexican territory to a hospital located in Galveston ,Texas .

There was no immediate comment from Fluor Chemical about either the legal complaint or unsafe working environment allegations. Martin Alonso Garcia of the Matamoros district attorney's office said he would call in Fluor Chemical legal representative Hector Valle Martin and company manager Pedro Javier Saenz to answer the charges contained in the legal complaint. Herrera, Ledezma and Guerrero seek about $39 million dollars in compensation from the hydrofluoric acid manufacturer.

Source: enlineadirecta.info, November 30, 2005 . Article by Armando Treviño .

What's the Buzz on Shake-Down Street ?

The winter reverse migration has commenced. On the highways outside Mexican border cities, the advance detachments of the migrant army are readily visible. Bearing a plethora of US license plates, goods-laden trucks and cars head south to Chihuahua , Zacatecas and many other states that more and more mark the birthplaces of a changing US labor force.

On their excursions home for the long Christmas holiday season, Mexican migrants have long complained about arbitrary Mexican customs inspectors who comb travelers' shipments and sometimes accept bribes in return for passage. Despite the free trade agreement with the United States , Mexican nationals returning home are limited to carrying $300 dollars worth of duty-free merchandise. But federal authorities say the trip back to the old homestead should go smoother this year.

Pedro Noel Contreras Lopez, the director of the Nuevo Laredo customs port, announced the beginning of a special operation this week to protect holiday travelers from extortion. Contreras said a contingent of 35 extra customs agents will be assigned to monitor the city's three international bridges and highway checkpoint that travelers have to pass through on their journey south. Contreras said he will appeal to the federal National Migration Institute and the local muncipality for additional help in detecting cash-crazy inspectors out to make an extra holiday buck. The operation is expected to last through January 10, according to Contreras.

Promoting the annual "Paisano" program of assistance to seasonal visitors, the administration of President Vicente Fox is vowing to attack extortion; the president himself has declared that he might visit all the Mexico-US customs ports just to make sure returning migrants are treated with dignity.

Nuevo Laredo customs officials estimate anywhere from 200-250,000 Mexican nationals residing in the United States will cross into their city this holiday season. Some 30,000 people were reported to have arrived by November 20. Now open extra hours, the customs port in Nuevo Laredo could see its peak traffic days on December 17 and December 18, when officials estimate upwards of 30,000 people will cross the border.

Sources: enlineadirecta.info/Notimex, November 24, 2005. Laredo Morning Times, November 24, 2005. Article by Vicente Rangel. El Bravo, November 24, 2005.

Urban Legends Dissected.

Chupacabras. The AIDS Club. The yakking Ronald McDonald statute. The Reynosa crocodile. LSD-laden stamps. All are stories that in one form or another have taken hold in the popular culture of Reynosa . They are also known as urban legends. For Reynosa sociologist Carlos Plaza , such tales constitute a cultural sub-text present in everyday life. "We live according to cultural scripts that remain and persist in what we know as myths," says Plaza.

In the mobile, globalized world of today, myths and legends easily move from one country to another. For instance, the tale of the "Woman of the Sierrita." According to Cesar Humberto Isassi Cantu, Reynosa's city historian, the story is a variation of a Spanish one in which a driver picks up a beautiful woman dressed in white at a road crossing and merrily proceeds up the highway with his new, angelic passenger.

On the journey, the woman cautions the man about an upcoming, dangerous roadway curve. Curious, the driver asks the woman how she knows about the treacherous bend. The passenger calmly replies that she was killed at the spot two years earlier. In the Reynosa version, a driver is returning in the evening to the border city from Monterrey and suddenly spots from the rearview mirror a strange woman sitting in his back seat. When he turns around, the woman is gone.

Urban legends play on cultural phobias, hysterias, stereotypes and fears. One popular story is about the so-called AIDS Club. In this tale, an amorous but condom-free man has sex with a sex worker in a hotel only to wake up the next morning and find the woman gone. Suspecting robbery, he searches the room but is surprised to find his wallet and money untouched. He is more surprised to find the words "Welcome to the AIDS Club" scrawled in lipstick on the bathroom mirror.

More often than not, urban legends are harmlessly passed from one person to the next- a process now accomplished in the optic time of the high speed of the 21st Century Internet Society. Sometimes urban legends have social and economic consequences. Reynosa 's clown union complained about lost work and income after a story circulated late last year about a mad clown who rampaged about with syringe in hand to inject children with the AIDS virus.

Tapping into latent xenophobia, another apparent urban myth exploits the very real, contemporary fears of criminal violence. A story has been circulating widely in Mexico about a supposed, intruding Guatemalan gang called "Sangre," or "Blood," that initiates its members by forcing potential recruits to drive down the highway at night with their headlights off and hopefully bait passing motorists to switch on and off their lights. The first unfortunate who falls into the trap is then riddled with bullets.

Although no such shootings have been actually documented, Interpol and Mexican federal and state police agencies all have reportedly issued advisories or mobilized their personnel to detect "Sangre" members. Coming on the heels of the recent arrests in Mexico of former members of the Guatemalan special forces, who really did engage in an enormous amount of blood-letting, the "Sangre" story acquired an instantaneous air of credibility.

It's worth noting that urban legends frequently proliferate during times of grave social and economic crises. Even though the legend of the blood-sucking beast known as Chupacabras reportedly originated in Puerto Rico, the story spread like wildlife in the Mexico of the mid-1990s. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Mexico at the time was jolted by political murders, the Zapatista uprising, the peso crash, and the debut of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Many Mexicans complained about faceless bankers who jacked up their interest rates to such an extent that citizens were left with their blood sucked out and their bodies torn to pieces, much like the hapless goats mutilated by the mysterious Chupacabras.

Source: La Prensa de Reynosa, November 7, 2005. Article by Jesus Rivera.

Agreement Announced Over Consulate Reopening as Violence Continues

 Mexican Interior Minister Carlos Abascal announced late Wednesday, August 3, that his government had reached an agreement with the United States to reopen the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. In a Mexico City press briefing following a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza, Abascal said the consulate would be open for business soon but did not give an exact date. Quickly retiring from the meeting, Garza avoided reporters’ questions. The U.S. ambassador last week announced the closure of the consulate for this week because of a worsening public security situation in Nuevo Laredo.  The dramatic move provoked polemics in Mexico, but it came on the heels of a pitched battle in an upper-class Nuevo Laredo neighborhood in which suspected members of organized crime gangs used bazookas and automatic weapons. Although the battle raged for an estimated 20-30 minutes, no police or soldiers showed up at the scene until the fight was over.

 The tepid response by federal troops and police, who were sent to Nuevo Laredo as part of Operation Safe Mexico nearly two months ago to control the spiraling wave of violence, was widely noted. On Wednesday, the administration of President Vicente Fox declared it intended to intensify the anti-crime campaign and improve “the efficiency” of Operation Safe Mexico.

Nonetheless, gangland-style violence continued to rear its head in Nuevo Laredo and surrounding areas this week. On Monday, the bodies of two men were recovered from a highway outside the border city. Both had been tortured, bound and shot to death. One of the victims was identified as 20-year-old Horacio Diaz Garcia, a resident of neighboring Laredo, Texas. The next day, reports circulated that four people-including a female police officer-were kidnapped classic gangland style in Nuevo Laredo.

Also on Wednesday, in broad daylight, Nuevo Laredo municipal policeman Daniel Medina Ocano was wounded in a drive-by shooting carried out by two masked gunmen.  Medina was transported by a fellow officer to the hospital, where he underwent surgery. Police have been frequent targets of the bands of gunmen who roam Nuevo Laredo at will.  More than 100 people have been murdered so far in the city of about 350,000 people bordering Laredo, Texas.

 Sources: Univsion, August 3, 2005. El Universal, August 3, 2005. Articles by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo and Arturo Zarate Vite. El Manana, August 3, 2005. Article by Joaquin Soto.

Cops Are "Sitting Ducks"

 Another spate of shootings in Nuevo Laredo this week took the lives of more local police officers. Four city policemen were executed gangland-style in one 24-hour period. Characterizing the mood among his officers as "terrorized," Nuevo Laredo Police Chief Omar Pimental Zuniga called on the Mexican federal government to return weapons to the policemen. Mexican soldiers and federal police occupied Nuevo Laredo last month, confiscating guns and radios from all 400-plus local policemen pending a federal investigation of every single officer. Many local policemen have been accused of working for organized crime, which is waging a bloody battle for control of Nuevo Laredo's lucrative drug export corridor.

 Some officers contend they are being unfairly tainted with the brush of corruption. One unidentified policeman compared the situation of his fellow officers to "sitting ducks at a county fair target stand." Escorted by bodyguards equipped with automatic rifles and bulletproof vests, only Police Chief Pimental counts on armed protection at the moment. A predecessor was murdered last month just hours after taking office. The mounting violence prompted the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox to declare Operation Safe Mexico and order army troops and the Federal Preventive Police into Nuevo Laredo. But the introduction of federal forces has done nothing to stop violent crime, which is on the upswing. At least 28 homicides have been reported in the city since the start of Operation Safe Mexico six weeks ago.   

Since the beginning of the year, at least 96 people have been murdered in Nuevo Laredo, including 15 state and municipal policemen. Policemen have been the frequent target of suspected gangland gunmen in other regions of the borderlands and Mexico as well.

 Despite the military and police deployment, gangs of heavily armed men are able to move about the city without problem. Dozens of hooded, armed men transported by five trucks kidnapped 5 men and made off for whereabouts unknown on Friday. According to William Slemaker, a spokesman for the Parents of American Children Kidnapped in Mexico organization, more than 400 Mexican citizens and 40 U.S. citizens are missing in Nuevo Laredo.

 Nuevo Laredo City Councilman Jorge Vinals scored Operation Safe Mexico as a disaster. "They need to take more aggressive measures against the violence," Vinals said. "The community lives in terror." 

 In one of the latest violent episodes, 18-year-old Aaron Kimber Lopez, also known as "El Sapo," or “The Toad,” was shot point-blank by an assassin while working on a vehicle at an electrical repair shop on Thursday.  Also on the same day, the burned body of an unidentified woman was recovered from an empty lot next to a church in the Union del Recuerdo neighborhood of Nuevo Laredo.  

Sources: Laredo Morning Times, July 22, 2005.  Article by Vicente Rangel. El Universal/Notimex, July 22, 2005. El Universal/EFE, July 22, 2005. Laredo Morning Times, July 21, 2005.  Articles by Miguel Timoshenkov and Vicente Rangel.  El Manana, July 21, 2005. Articles by Mauricio Belloc.  El Universal, July 21, 2005. Article by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo.  Laredo Morning Times, July 18, 2005. Article by Clay Reddick.

 Court Ruling on Used Cars Prompts New Protests, Corruption Accusations

 A ruling last week by Mexico's Supreme Court upholding a law directed against used American vehicles is fueling new protests in border and nearby states. The June 22 ruling allows authorities to slap contraband charges against drivers of so-called "chocolate" (older, imported U.S cars and trucks) who are found beyond the immediate border region without proper Mexican legalization papers. Julio Cesar Almanza, the president of the Matamoros branch of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Canaco), denounced alleged extortion by federal and state police in the wake of the ruling. "We have cases documented in Canaco of people who have been extorted inside and outside the city for having an American vehicle in their possession, extortions ranging from 300 to 6,000 pesos ($30 to $600 dollars) mainly done by elements of the Federal Agency of Investigation, State Preventive Police and Federal Preventive Police," said Almanza.

 Mexico's low wage scale makes used-and often highly-polluting-American vehicles extremely popular, and hundreds of Mexicans regularly attend used auto auctions in the U.S. Southwest to purchase vehicles and transport them back home, where they are typically sold for a profit. Unhappy with the Supreme Court ruling, members of the Campesino Democratic Union blockaded streets on Wednesday in Saltillo, a city in the border state of Coahuila. The group announced plans for a mass protest in front of the Supreme Court headquarters in Mexico City on July 6.

 On the flip side of the coin, the Mexican Auto Distributors Association in Durango is threatening to pull out of the city and slash the local tax base if authorities don't crack down on importers of "chocolate" vehicles. Noting that its members pay about $15 million dollars in taxes every year, the new car dealers organization, like similar ones across Mexico, complained that its business is being unfairly undercut by the illegal used car market. In Matamoros, the Canaco business association urged authorities to accept a plan in which legalization fees would be paid off in 12 installments. The business chamber encouraged citizens to get in touch with  questions. "We call on the population, which has been the victim of abuses by the authorities for bringing in an American vehicle, to come to Canaco so we can give them proper orientation," said Matamoros branch President Julio Cesar Almanza.

 Sources: El Bravo, June 30, 2005. Article by Erandi Marquez. La Jornada, June 30, 2005. Article by Matlide Perez, Leopoldo Ramos,  Saul Maldonado, and correspondents.

 Border Businesses Named in Spreading Gaming Scandal

 Two Matamoros gaming parlors have been mentioned as beneficiaries  in a controversial series of concessions that could jeopardize the presidential aspirations of former Interior Minister Santiago Creel.A mounting scandal began earlier this month when it was revealed that Creel granted 130 gaming permits to a business affiliated with television giant Televisa shortly before leaving office to campaign for the presidency.

 As a pre-candidate for the presidential nomination of his center-right National Action Party (PAN), Creel promotional spots have been appearing frequently on the Televisa network. The new permits would allow the Televisa affiilate, Apuestas Internacionales, to broadcast bingo and other games over television in order to entice viewers to call from telephones and place bets. Besides the millions of dollars in gambling income expected to be made, Televisa stands to net more than two dollars for each phone call dialed.

 Critics have blasted the deal for side-stepping Mexico's 1947 gaming law, which authorizes some forms of gaming but does not permit casinos. Proposals and measures to legalize casinos have languished for 10 years in the Mexican Congress, and opposition to expanded gaming has remained stiff even among sectors of Creel's own PAN party.  Opponents say casinos will be a haven for money launderers and attract organized crime.

 PAN President Manuel Espino has called for an investigation of the gaming concessions, and new Interior Minister Carlos Abascal, another prominent Panista, has ordered a review of the deals. Federal deputies from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), meanwhile, warn that Creel could face jail for granting the gaming permits. The pre-presidential candidate recently defended the concession, saying he was only trying to "democratize" a gaming market that was dominated for a handful of individuals mostly tied to the PRI. Although the 1947 law doesn't provide for permanent casinos, temporary licenses are routinely issued for casinos to operate at places like the annual Aguascalientes fair. 

 "They should investigate the PRI, investigate why they've given these permits to so few people and in conditions of discretion, creating a monopoly," said Creel.

 Creel tried to distance himself from the new permits, attributing the decision to an Interior Ministry council. Nonetheless, Interior Undersecretary Felipe Gonzalez later took credit for the permit approvals. In addition to awarding the 130 permits to Apuesta Internacionales, the Interior Ministry granted hundreds of other permits in April and May.to 6 other firms for sports books, numbers and bingo operations, as well as for a new race track and a dog track. If the concession to the Televisa affiliate stands, Apuestas Internacionales will surpass in size the previous biggest gaming concesssionaire,  Operadora de Apuestas Caliente, a sports books chain owned by Tijuana PRI Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon.  

In Matamoros,  permits were granted to two Reflejos gaming parlours, a business which reportedly has ties to the Canada-based International Thunderbird Gaming Corporation, an outfit with gaming palaces in Central America and other nations. The company earlier filed an investor complaint under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement against the Mexican government for the alleged, improper closure of gaming parlors.

 Sources: El Bravo, June 21, 2005. Article by  Oscar Trevino Jr. El Sur, June 20, 2005. Articles by Jorge Zepeda Patterson and Agencia Reforma. Proceso, June 19, 2005. Article by Jenaro Villamil.

 Violence Erupts in Maquiladora Strike

 A leader of striking workers at a Japanese-owned factory, or maquiladora, accused company guards of attacking strikers on Monday, leaving eight of them seriously hurt and more than 100 with lesser injuries. Union leader Francisco Javier Salvador Orta said the injured workers, who included pregnant women, were attacked and gassed by security guards. The injured workers were then transported to a local Mexican Social Security Institute clinic, according to Orta. 

“This is an act of provocation carried out by the security guards, and with the purpose of having the municipal police enter to stop the strike and arrest us,” said the labor leader. The conflict at the Fujitsu Ten plant broke out late last week after workers called a work stoppage to protest company deductions from their paychecks  In a Reynosa press conference, Fujitsu Ten President Teiji Sasagawa blamed Monday’s violence on strikers who he said attempted to break windows and hassle company officials, forcing the guards to launch the tear gas in a “defensive posture.” Sasagawa conceded that the paycheck deductions were an error and promised to allow the strikers back to work. 

 Sasagawa  accused labor leader Patricio Mora of  stirring up trouble at his company’s plant. Mora is a leader of the Revolutionary Workers Confederation  (CROC), a rival union  to the current one at the plant which strikers charged did not represent their interests. The Workers Federation of Reynosa, which represents unions affiliated  with the old-line Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM), another CROC rival,  supports the position of  Fujitsu Ten that Mora and the CROC are causing trouble. Srikers’ spokesman Salvador Orta insisted that workers want to join up with CROC, and support Mora. “We’re going to affiliate the more than 1,500 workers with the CROC organization headed by Patricio Mora Dominguez,” vowed Orta.

At a Wednesday meeting with Reynosa Mayor Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, Fujitsu Vice-President Hirokazy Eto,  reportedly agreed to reimburse  the workers this week for both the paycheck deductions and lost days from the work stoppage. Reynosa’s mayor then held a meeting with strikers, who tentatively accepted the company’s offer and agreed to return to work.

 Located in an industrial park and employing 1,500 workers, the Fujitsu Ten factory in Reynosa manufactures car radios for export.

 Sources: La Prensa, June 9, 2005. Articles by Jesus Rivera and Aldo Hernandez J. El Bravo (Matamoros), June 8, 2005. Article by Salvador Aquino Rodriguez.

Outrage Deepens over Police Shootings

 A controversy over the shootings of four young men by the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) boiled over this week when the results of gunpowder residue tests leaked to the  Tamaulipas daily El Manana reportedly showed that at least three of the victims did not fire weapons as earlier claimed by federal officials. Initial statements from the Federal Ministry of Public Security and the Federal Office of the Attorney General (PGR) blamed the four young men for firing on a PFP patrol last Saturday, in a series of incidents that left PFP officer Pedro Moreno Feria dead.  Three of the young men, who included two recent university graduates, were killed by gunfire while  the fourth, Hernan Aleman Serrato, was hospitalized.  (Frontera NorteSur,  May 23, 2005).

Tests performed by PGR personnel undercut the official version of events when they came up negative for the slain students Jorge Castillo Fuantos and Jose Reyes Avendano and their wounded friend Hernan Aleman.  The results raised another sticky question:  if the young men did not shoot at the PFP as claimed, then who shot officer Moreno? 

A video which allegedly showed Jorge Alberto Gonzalez Arevalo, being interrogated by the PFP before he was shot, was reportedly broadcast on two local television stations. Gonzalez also died from gunshot wounds. As news of the findings spread, friends and relatives of the young men gathered for a protest in Reynosa’s downtown plaza to demand justice. They then held a meeting with the city’s mayor. Jesus Avendano Garcia, the brother of Jose Reyes, contended that only through the efforts of  relatives and friends is the truth about the shootings coming to public light.

“If we had not stuck out our necks for our family members, I assure you that right now the majority of people would believe that they were delinquents who were killed that night,” said Avendano.  Besides family and friends, other sectors of Reynosa society criticized the PFP, which is deployed in the border city to supposedly combat organized crime. Camilo Martinez Cortez, the president  of the Reynosa Chamber of Commerce, accused the PFP of not fulfilling its stated mission. “We also feel that since they arrived in Reynosa, the only thing they’ve done is cause hassles and fear among residents and visitors,” said Martinez. Reynosa’s  Border Studies and Human Rights Promotion Center (CEFPRODHAC), a well-known non-governmental organization, issued another demand that the names of the four young men be cleared , and the individuals responsible for their deaths and injuries be brought to justice. Federal officials had no immediate comment on the latest reports, but PGR investigators stayed on the scene.   

Sources: La Prensa (Reynosa), May 26, 2005. Articles by Luis Alberto Triana and Jesus Rivera. El Manana (Matamoros), May 25, 2005. Proceso/Apro, May 25, 2005. Article by Gabriela Hernandez. El Manana (Nuevo Laredo), May 25, 2005. El Manana (Reynosa),

.Police Shootings Spark Protests

 One thing is certain. Four young men, three civilians and a police officer, are dead in the wake of another bout of violence in Reynosa. Versions as to who is responsible for the deaths, however, are in dispute. According to the Federal Ministry of Public Safety (SSPF), gunmen on two occasions attacked a contingent of officers from the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) last Saturday. Repelling the attacks, PFP personnel shot and killed three men identified as Alberto Jorge Gonzalez Arevalo, Jorge Castillo and Jose Reyes Avendano. Pedro Moreno Feria was named by federal authorities as the PFP officer killed in the violence. A fourth civilian and a friend of the dead men, Hernan Aleman Serrato, was wounded in the gunfire. Family members and friends of the three slain civilians tell a different story. Rejecting government claims that the young men, all friends, were gangland gunslingers, they accused the PFP of firing in an unprovoked manner at the vehicle in which the victims were driving as it passed a PFP convoy on the road.

“We know that the (students) who we knew at school never carried arms,” said a friend, Alberto Santos. “It’s not true that they carried arms. They weren’t bad people. They were good people…. hopefully the authorities will do justice.”

 Two of the slain men recently finished their studies at the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas, and the third attended the University of Valle de Bravo. After the weekend funerals of the shooting victims, friends and relatives held a protest outside the local offices of the federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR). Reynosa’s  Border Studies and Human Rights Promotion Center (CEFPRODHAC) later announced  it was sending a letter of protest signed by more than 100 individuals to President Vicente Fox and other state and federal officials. The letter accuses the PGR of covering-up the PFP’s  responsibility for the killings. The SSPF, which has formal command of the PFP, is reportedly cooperating with the PGR in investigating the incident.

 Like other Tamaulipas border cities, Reynosa has suffered a wave of violence linked to organized crime in recent months. Last month, another PFP patrol engaged in a gun battle with suspected gang members in the city. One PFP officer was wounded in the earlier shootout. The body of PFP officer Moreno, killed in the latest outbreak of violence, was transported to state of Tabasco for burial.

Sources: La Prensa (Reynosa)< May 23, 2005. Article by Luis Alberto Triana. El Universal, May 23, 2005. Article by Roberto Aguilar and Alejandro Medellin. El Manana (Nuevo Laredo), May 23, 2005. El Universal, April 29, 2005. Article by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo.

Reynosa Mulls Used Tire Mess

 Strewn in and around border cities, used tires are considered not only an eyesore but an environmental hazard as well. They provide breeding grounds for possible insect-borne diseases and sometimes catch on fire, releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. In 2004, estimates of the number of discarded tires littering the northern border region of Mexico surpassed 10 million. Many were imported from the United States. Nearly 2 million of the old treads were dumped in Tamaulipas state alone. Now, authorities in the border city of  Reynosa, where about 500,000 used tires have accumulated,  say they are reviewing strategies to clean up the problem in their municipality.

Regino Bermudez Alvear, the president of the Reynosa City Council’s ecology commission, said at a meeting late last week that authorities are considering proposals to construct two temporary collection and transfer stations for used tires in his city.

“What we are proposing are centers where trailers would be located and tires put in them,” said Bermudez. “It would be closed and cordoned off in order to prevent it from becoming a dump. It only will be a transfer center.”

 Bermudez said that the council will seek an agreement with the major cement company CEMEX for the final disposition of the tires. According to the councilman, CEMEX is the only entity so far which has shown interest in acquiring used tires. Mexico’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources reached an agreement last year with national cement companies to promote the massive incineration of tires in order to recycle the old rubber and generate fuel used in the production of cement.

 However, the process is controversial, and some non-governmental groups like the Chihuahua Commission in Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights (COSYDDHAC) are protesting  incineration on the grounds that it releases dioxin, mercury and other contaminants into the environment. Mexican environmental authorities have disputed the claims.

 Reynosa Mayor Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca added that although CEMEX is the only company to have expressed interest in recycling used tires, others are welcome to step forward. “Whether it is one or two or more companies,” said the mayor.  Other, unnamed Reynosa City Council members commented that society as a whole should get involved in taking urgent action to curb the environmental dangers posed by the used treads.

 Sources: La Prensa (Reynosa), May 8, 2005. Article by Aldo Hernandez J.  El Mexicano (Ciudad Juarez), September 2, 2004. Diario de Juarez, August 25, 2004. Article by A Loyola and O. Volchanskaya.  COSSYDHAC, et. al,  July 2004. Letter to President Vicente Fox.  El Sur/AFP (Acapulco),  June 25, 2004.

Source: El Universal, April 30, 2005. Article by Roberto Aguilar Grimaldo

Mass Kidnappings and Murders Strike Tamaulipas Town and Prison

A wave of violence since mid-January 2005 has shocked the state of Tamaulipas.  More than two dozen family members from the same town were kidnapped on January 14 and three of them were murdered.  Six days later six federal prison employees were abducted and killed--perhaps in retaliation for moves to limit alleged drug lords' powers in federal prison facilities around the country.  In response to the violence, the state is calling for the military to take over crime prevention in violent areas of Tamaulipas. 

Soto La Marina

During the evening hours of Friday, January 14, 2005, 26 members of the same family were kidnapped from three homes by a group of armed men  in Soto La Marina, Tamaulipas.   Three days later three of those abducted--a former mayor of Soto La Marina and two of his sons--were found murdered.  Soto la Marina is approximately 120 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. 

Sixteen men and one woman that were taken from Soto La Marina were freed between Saturday, January 15, and Sunday, January 16 but refused to file police reports about the incident.  The men that were killed were identified as Teodoro Herrera Sosa and his sons Jaime and Teodoro Herrera Ramírez.  

A Mexican federal law enforcement official said that kidnappers arrived aboard boats and vehicles to the coastal area where the abductions took place. Six people were still missing as of January 20.    

State officials relate the crimes to drug trafficking but family members say that they all work in the fishing industry.  

In 2002, the former mayor, Herrera Sosa, was arrested for cattle rustling, a family member confirmed.  It was not stated if he was ever convicted of the charge. 

Some 140 law enforcement officials from the local, state and federal level were working on the case as of Monday, January 17, a state official said.  On Thursday, January 20, two people were detained in relation to the kidnappings.  Unnamed sources said that the two are state preventative police officers charged with protecting a state official that lives in central Tamaulipas where the crime occurred. 

Six Federal Prison Employees Murdered in Matamoros

On Thursday, January 20, 2005, workers at the federal prison in Matamoros finished their shift at 8 a.m. and left to go home.  What happened next is not yet certain but by 11:30 a.m. a Ford Explorer was found near the entrance to the prison with dead bodies of six employees inside.  According to one account the men were abducted one by one as they left work.  Another version of events is that some of the men were taken by force from their homes.

Officials were alerted to the location of the vehicle by an anonymous phone call.  When they arrived to the vehicle they found three men in the back seat and three in the cargo area.  All of the men were blindfolded and handcuffed.  Some of the vehicle's windows were shot out which suggested that the men were killed at that location.  The men had been sprayed with gunfire and were also shot deliberately in the head at close range. 

The federal attorney general's office (the PGR) will investigate the slayings since the men's bodies were found on land belonging to the federal prison.  One federal investigator said on Thursday that it was too early to speculate about why the men were killed. 

One possible motive raised by the Tamaulipas press is that the men were killed in retaliation for federal efforts to clean up and secure federal prisons in Mexico City where some of Mexico's alleged drug kingpins are being held. 

Osiel Cárdenas, the alleged leader of the Gulf Cartel which has traditionally controlled Matamoros, is in one of the Mexico City-area prisons, La Palma.  A group of enforcers said to be under his control, Los Zetas, which is comprised of deserted Mexican special forces soldiers, has in the past used large numbers of men to carry out daring prison rescues and lethal operations against competing drug traffickers. 

Call to Militarize the Border

Between the time of the Soto La Marina and Matamoros killings the state of Tamaulipas had already called on Mexican defense forces to take over anti-crime vigilance in the state.  

The state government's position is that Tamaulipas is experiencing spill-over violence resulting from competition between drug cartels that have seen their organizations and territories thrown into disarray by recent high-level arrests. 

Eugenio Hernández Flores, the governor of Tamaulipas, said on January 19 that "if it is true that Tamaulipas is suffering from the consequences of a fight that is taking place at the national level between these organizations, we demand that the federal government do its job." 

Source: EnLínea Directa (Tamaulipas), January 19 and 20, 2005. 

January 11, 2005
Nuevo Laredo: Migration and Deportation

In 2004 approximately 5,000 undocumented immigrants were arrested in Nuevo Laredo.  As part of the deportation process the immigrants were examined by doctors working for the Instituto Nacional de Migración (National Migration Institute).  One of these medical professionals is Dr. Esmeralda Almaza who spoke to the Tamaulipas, on-line, news source EnLínea Directa about the experiences of the detainees with whom she works. 

Almaza says that she and her coworkers examine 365 to 400 people per month who came to Nuevo Laredo to cross the Rio Grande into the United States.  Of those arrested she says that 80% are from Honduras, 10% from El Salvador, and 5% from Guatemala.  The rest are primarily from Nicaragua, Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba.  

Foreigners from China, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy and Hungary are also among those she examined throughout the year.  Almaza said that people from these countries arrive at certain times of the year and are apprehended in groups.  This has led her to conclude that they are sent in multi-person shipments by human trafficking organizations. 

Many of the immigrants that Almaza works with complain that they are mistreated by authorities on their trajectory to Nuevo Laredo.  Some say that they had paid organizations in their country of origin to take them to the US but that they were abandoned at the border.   Once at the border the migrants are often contacted by local smugglers who offer to take them to the US for a price. 

Almaza worries that female migrants may be easily enslaved in Mexico.  Since it is expensive for the Mexican government to return them to their homes in China or Europe Almaza fears that they may not be deported at all but could instead be destined to the sex trade after their arrest.  Whether Almaza was only speculating as to this possibility or was denouncing an existing practice is unclear from the article. 

Source:  EnLínea Directa (Tamaulipas), January 10, 2005.  Article by Gastón Monge.