Migrants killed for refusing to be assassins, teen says

[mike r]

Source: Associated Press

The sole survivor in the massacre of 72 illegal immigrants headed to the U.S. has said a notorious drug gang gunned them all down after they refused to work as assassins, according to a source at the prosecutor's office for the state of Tamaulipas quoted in Mexican media. The teen — an Ecuadorian who escaped and stumbled wounded to a military checkpoint on a highway — told authorities that his captors had identified themselves as Zetas, a drug gang whose control of parts of the northern state of Tamaulipas is so brutal and complete that even many Mexicans avoid traveling its highways.

Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, 19, staggered to the checkpoint with a bullet wound in his neck and face, saying he had played dead to escape from Zetas gunmen at a ranch in San Fernando, just 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Pomavilla told investigators that Zetas gunmen intercepted the migrants as they moved toward the border, then took them blindfolded to the ranch where they were told to hand over cash, the source said. The migrants had little cash, Pomavilla reportedly said, and the gunmen then told them they could work as Zetas assassins and get paid $2,000 a month. It was not clear if they were supposed to work in the United States. When the migrants refused, the gunmen opened fire, the source described Pomavilla as saying.

The Zetas gang, started by former Mexican army special forces soldiers, is known to extort money from migrants who pass through its territory. Violence along the northeastern border with the U.S. has soared this year since the Zetas broke with their former employer, the Gulf cartel. Authorities say the Gulf cartel has joined forces with its once-bitter enemies, the Sinaloa and La Familia gangs, to destroy the Zetas, who have grown so powerful they now have reach into Central America. It was the third time this year that Mexican authorities have discovered large masses of corpses. In the other two cases, investigators believe the bodies were dumped at the sites over a long time.

The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, who runs a shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca, where many migrants pass on their way to Tamaulipas, said the Zetas have put informants inside shelters to find out which migrants have relatives in the U.S. — the most lucrative targets for kidnap-extortion schemes. He said he constantly hears horror stories, including people who "say their companions have been killed with baseball bats in front of the others." Solalinde said he has been threatened by Zetas demanding access to his shelters...


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38867434/ns/world_news-americas/

[Taverner]

1. How to take out the Zetas?

If the Anti-Immigration Xenophobes really wanted to do something, they'd support more joint US-Mexican efforts to eliminate Zeta

[frylock]

5. or just give up on the inane war on drugs..

it's not working.

[Taverner]

8. Sure. I agree. But after you legalize all drugs, what do you do about the Zetas?

They will switch industries - and its a good thing they can't buy politicians in the US (yet)

[No Elephants]

15. How do you know they can't buy U.S. politicians?

[Phil The Cat]

10. We can hope stopping the drug "war" helps

But when people have greed and violence so deeply rooted in their hearts and minds, it will take a miracle for them to turn away!

There will always be a black market for SOMETHING! And theft, kidnapping and extortion will remain be avenues of revenue!

I'm not saying don't stop the stupid drug "war"! I'm saying don't go to la-la land thinking that is the singular cure for this deadly crisis!

[jobycom]

2. This has been all we've talked about at work today.

In Austin, everyone is stunned by it, despite being used to shocking violence in that region. Last year a singer was executed in her hospital bed after surviving a first attempt on her and hours of surgery to save her life. Stories like that are constant. Some are blaming our immigration crackdowns for upsetting the economy on the border, as migrants flock to the region but are unable to get across. This has reduced the amount of drug and smuggling profits, and the gangs are fighting over what is left. I don't know if there's any truth to that, it's just one of the things people are speculating on.

[EC]

7. So they are saying that enforcement of Immigration laws

increase the trouble?

[jobycom]

14. More like

the closing of smuggling routes (humans and drugs) has shrunk the market in Mexico. People are still coming to the border to be smuggled over and drugs are still being produced to smuggle over, but the smugglers can't get them over as easily. So there is less cash being made, so the cartels are fighting over that cash.

I read an article a while back about a delegation from Mexico approaching the US about the problems our policies were creating along the borders, as we were sealing our borders more tightly and deporting more immigrants back to the region. The article was written by a right winger whose main goal was to feign outrage at the audacity of Mexico for complaining that illegal immigrants were being sent back and screwing up their economy instead of ours, so it didn't have a lot of facts, but the basics were true. We were deporting people and blocking immigration routes, and this was causing an influx of aliens--not all of them from Mexico, obviously--that the Mexican state couldn't handle, so crime and homelessness and all the nasty stuff that comes with a broken economy were happening there.

I don't know if it's connected, it's just what we were speculating on today. Something has changed along the border in the last few years, and violence from Juarez to Matamoros, and probably along the rest of the border, too, is getting more horrific. It used to be that most people killed were rival drug dealers, with the occasional migrant or the tourist in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now it's affecting everyone. Every week there's some new horror more shocking than the last. Mines full of dead bodies, high school parties turned into massacres, missing people all the time, kidnappings, people shooting it out along the border. They've had people shot by gangs in hospitals and in jails. Something has changed. A lot of people around here who used to go hunting and fishing along the border won't go anymore.

[Downwinder]

3. SOA trained

[Hulk]

4. Meanwhile, we are looking for a ghost in Afghanistan....

This battle is on our borders...and we're on the other side of the world looking for OBL or some Taliban nutjob.

Get our soldiers home...and maybe they can help with this mess WE are responsible for. Soon it WILL spill across the borders..and then it will be a nightmare in the USA as well as Mexico.

[Octafish]

6. Hope the jerks in the Arizona border militia read these good people refused to become killers.

So much misunderstanding...So much hatred.

[No Elephants]

16. Given what happened when they refused, will the next group and the next also refuse?

What if this guy "survived" because he agreed to spread this story, as a warning: "Do whatever they ask. Become a prostitute, a drug mule, a kidnapper, even a killer, or you will die, too."

Whether or not this sole survivor is legit, that is the message from this incident. That message, and our lousy economy, may do more to keep Mexicans in Mexico than any ten battalion of border guards.

[Adsos Letter]

9. And they published the survivor's name?

:wtf:

[Phil The Cat]

11. Great point about publishing his name!

Hopefully this poor young man can find some safety and healing!

But I fear he is a marked man, now more than ever!

[Luciferous]

18. The sole survivor of a massacre and they publish his name

they better have him under some serious protection...

[glitch]

12. Take a good look at Mexico -- it's the paradise RWers envision for the USA. nt

[corpseratemedia]

13. "The Zetas gang, started by former Mexican army special forces soldiers,"

Were they trained in our name..... again?

By my google I see..in our name, again.


Why don't they call it what it really is, another Dirty Filthy War.

[Vehl]

17. robbing from the poor...how despicable is that! .nt