In Whose Hands Are We?

In Whose Hands Are We?

Editorial Commentary by Claudia Lerma Arzola, published in ''Segundo a Segundo'' on August 5th, 2008

This editorial appeared in ''Segundo a Segundo'' a on August 5, 2008. This translation is rendered as closely as possible to the original wording. (See the orginal article here).

The latest news that occupies the headlines in the eight columns of our media are frightening because in recent days we learned of the existence of two groups of hired assassins; learned recently in Ciudad Juárez trails were leading back to municipal police, active members of what was supposed to be an agency purified of bad elements (officers). Through a work of fate it was discovered that there are two agents of this corrupt agency, the unscrupulous heads or leaders of criminal groups. One of them, John Gallegos Acosta, was in charge of a group of kidnappers, and another drug agent was responsible for the execution of commander Francisco Norberto Ventura Barrientos, head of the Anti-Gang Unit.

These policemen, who in the mornings are members of the police fighting drug trafficking, and in the evening cover their faces with ski masks and become the executioners of their own comrades, those who were their own fellow academy mates, who partied together and had so many things in common in living the difficult life of being a policeman.

This is more than treason; human corruption being carried to the limit. How is it possible to forget that these people, of whom they take away lives, are their peers and sometimes even their friends?

And that is after all the fuss made by the government to clean up the police forces and to provide evidence of reliability. After they sent "highly qualified" staff from Mexico City, supposedly to give the people security of having a clean policeman force - and then didn't use them much because agencies are still infiltrated by corrupt officers. It seems that the tests were not very reliable or these bad policemen were very intelligent and able to circumvent the entire series of tests applied to them.

Speaking of tests of reliability, what happened with the results? The initiation of these tests was announced with drum and cymbal and our leaders promised the removal of those officers that provide the slightest fault and promised exemplary punishments for those who were discovered with links to organized crime. These promises were in all eight news columns. What happened to all this? Nothing! Everything remained in oblivion and the results of those famous tests of reliability have not been brought to light publicly.

After so much violence and corruption, one no longer knows who to trust. It was not a secret that there was a lot of corruption within the police agencies, but the fact that the policemen have been discovered participating in executions leaves us with a chilling question: ''In whose hands are we?''

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Yearly Narco Death Record Broken

Narco Death Record Broken

In Durango, Chihuahua and Sinaloa, war between cartels.

This article appeared in El Ágora de Chihuahua on May 21, 2008. This translation is rendered as closely as possible to the original wording. (See the orginal article here).

No Location Provided – May 21, 2008 – Yesterday the country experienced 34 executions, the most violent day of 2008, starring the narcotraffickers.

Chihuahua and Sinaloa, the entities with the greatest number of assassinations of the year, registered

together 14 executions; meanwhile Tamaulipas and Guerrero reported two assassinations in each state.

The nine assassinations in Chihuahua placed the state at 400 victims of organized crime. In Juarez, on the U.S. Border, there were six murders.

The violent acts were combined with a gunfight in Durango that left at least 16 fatalities, according to mayors, and one wounded, which brought the total to 1,356 executions in 141 days.

The North, especially, is the scene of a bloody war between the drug cartels. Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango have been converted in recent hours into the operations of a battle for control of territories.

These three states, together with Baja California, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosí accounted for 980 of the 1,356 victims so far this year.

The federal government maintains that the blows to the financial and operational structures of the cartels have forced the reshuffling of the same, which has generated violence and even executions of relatives of the leaders themselves.

For the Solicitor Justice of the state of Sinaloa, Luis Cardenas Fonseca, his state is experiencing a rise in executions and explains that this is due to two causes: one that responds to the reaction of criminal groups operating in the running in tandem the Federation and the states, and one that has to do with the rearranging of the cartels.

Given this scenario the government restructured its local commanders and police and put career military leaders at the head of the three major police organizations. In Ciudad Juarez a retired military officer assumed leadership of public security, after his predecessor was assassinated nine days ago.

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