Mexican investigators suspect a connection between the 59 bodies they’ve removed from a collection of mass graves in the state of Tamaulipas and the dozens of individuals, mostly young Mexican men, who, in recent weeks, have been pulled off long-distance commercial buses traveling between Matamoros and the state capital of Ciudad Victoria. Although the details remain rather opaque, the AP paints a pretty horrifying picture of the said abductions which, according to Mexican authorities, having disappeared somewhere between 65 and 82 persons. The New York Times quotes a security official in Tamaulipas who says stopping buses and pulling abducted specific passengers is a “criminal modus operandi” that has not been seen on such a large-scale in Tamaulipas before.
A local politician in Tamaulipas tells AP there’s reason to believe the kidnappings and murders may be linked to a Gulf Cartel effort to send new recruits to fight against the Zetas. He adds that more mass graves like the one found this week could soon be discovered.
Apparently 11 individuals have been arrested in connection with the bus kidnappings that reportedly began in late March. Mexico’s federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire said Thursday that those detained belong to a “criminal cell” but no specifics were offered, nor would authorities comment on the relationship between the wave of kidnappings and military checkpoints that exist on both ends of where the kidnappings are said to have taken place.
At least five abductees have apparently been found alive.
This morning the AP adds that yesterday family members of the missing began flocking to a morgue in Matamoros where the 59 bodies are being held to see if their loved ones are among the murdered.
The graves discovered Wednesday are located just outside the town of San Fernando where 72 mostly Central American migrants were found massacred last August.
More in a statement from Amnesty International.
Meanwhile, Narco News reports on the very significant anti-drug war protests which have been occurring around Mexico in recent days. With the exception of a short piece in the LA Times this week, the demonstrations have received little coverage in the US but appear to have been front-page material across much of Mexico this week. Narco News calls the demonstrations, which took place in as many as 40 Mexican cities, a “sea change” in public opinion against the current prosecution of the drug wars by the Calderon government. Al Giordano’s full report is worth reading to get a sense of the eclectic participation in some of the demonstrations.
Deborah Bonello at MexicoReporter.com also has a good video report here.
The protests came as top international law enforcement officials gathered at a conference in Cancun this week. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Michele Leonart told attendees that the rise in violence means Mexican authorities are winning. Meanwhile, Mexico’s Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna tried his hand at futurolgy Wednesday, telling Televisa that he expects violence to begin subsiding somewhere between 2014 and 2015. As for getting the military off the streets – a longstanding demand of both domestic and international rights groups – Garcia Luna said that would be possible within three years of the Mexican Congress approving Felipe Calderon’s plan to overhaul the country’s police forces.
At least 35,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since December 2006. Thousands more have been reported “disappeared.”
Today’s bullet points:
· AP reports on Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s meeting and press conference with President Obama in Washington Thursday, highlighting Obama’s praise for the Santos government’s new commitment to improving labor rights. The full transcript of both presidents’ public comments is here. As mentioned yesterday, there seems to be a pretty unanimous opinion coming from those have long opposed the Colombia FTA because of labor and human rights concerns. The Washington Office on Latin America, US Office on Colombia, and the Latin America Working Group have a joint statement demanding actual verification of labor improvements before the agreement moves forward. The DC-based group’s add that White House’s new “Action Plan” does nothing to address the underlying conditions of violence in Colombia – namely the on-going activities of paramilitary groups and so-called “successor groups.” Similar feelings from Human Rights Watch. Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) highlights unaddressed concerns about how Afro-Colombians and indigenous populations will be affected by the FTA. Colombia’s two principal trade unions, the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) and the Confederación de Trabajadores de Colombia (CTC) are also opposing the accord. And the National Security Archive with appropriate timing in releasing yesterday its “Chiquita Papers,” a trove of more than 5,500 pages of Chiquita-related records detailing relations between the banana giant and Colombian paramilitary and guerrilla groups. Michael Evans, who heads the Archive’s Colombia project, comments at Unredacted. Insight, IPS, and Colombia Reports also run stories on the papers’ release.
· Also in Colombia, major protests brought hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, and trade unionists to the streets of Bogotá and elsewhere this week to oppose the Santos government’s university reform proposal which could privatize parts of the public university system. BBC says the protests are the largest Colombia has seen since Juan Manuel Santos came to office last August.
· The US expelled longtime Ecuadorean ambassador to Washington, Luis Gallegos, on Thursday – a reaction to this week’s expulsion of Ambassador Heather Hodges from Quito. The State Department adds that high-level talks between the two governments, originally scheduled for June, have been suspended indefinitely as well. The expulsions mean Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador are all without ambassadors in Washington (and vice versa).
· In Venezuela, a wave of blackouts around the country yesterday is raising new concerns about the country’s electricity grid, in particular, and infrastructure, in general. AP reports. The LA Times, meanwhile, reports on disputes over land, property rights, and housing in Venezuela. A rather provocative headline and comparison at the Economist about Venezuela’s Bolivarian militias. And at Venezuelanalysis, an interesting and quite critical analysis of recent changes in Venezuela from Edgardo Lander, one of Venezuela’s leading thinkers on the Left.
· Also from the Economist, a look at the new Chile-Colombia-Peru Integrated Latin American Market (MILA) which the magazine presents as an alternative to the Brazil-led model of regional integration.
· They’re apparently still polling in Peru and two of the most recent surveys released Thursday show Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori now leading the pack. Reuters reports.
· More on rising worries about inflation in Brazil, from the Wall Street Journal, and the latest efforts to curb that threat from Mercopress.
· Finally, some opinions. On the on-going rights abuses and repression of protest in Honduras, Rodolfo Pastor Campos at Foreign Policy in Focus. On the US absence from Cuba’s plans for deepwater oil exploration, Col. Larry Wilkerson at the Havana Note. In the Washington Post, Yoani Sanchez seems pessimistic about change in Cuba after President Carter’s recent visit. Marifeli Perez-Stable calls the Carter visit a “step in the right direction” in the Miami Herald. New America’s Andres Martinez, also has an opinion in the Post on US and Cuba today – although, I’ll admit, I have no idea what he’s advocating. And on Haiti, the Washington Post comments on apparent president-elect Michel Martelly.
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