Mexican mass murder

[Puppycow]

It seems they finally solved the case of the 43 missing students. It's hard to believe this could happen and the police seem to have been responsible for it.

Bodies believed to be those of some of the 43 missing Mexican students

In late September, Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca ordered that the students, traveling in four vehicles, be stopped from coming into town and disrupting a speech by his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, authorities said. In the ensuing confrontation with police, six people were killed and 43 others were hauled away and turned over to the drug gang Guerreros Unidos.

In his presentation, Murillo Karam said that young people were taken in police trucks to an area between Iguala and Cocula, where they were handed over to Guerreros Unidos cartel members. From there, they were taken to a garbage dump in Cocula. By that point, about 15 of them were already dead or unconscious, including by asphyxiation, Murillo Karam said. The survivors were forced onto their knees and shot. In the trash dump, the killers stacked the bodies into a pile of wood, plastic and tires, doused them in diesel and gasoline, and set them ablaze.

When the fire subsided hours later, the detainees explained they then packed the remains, including ash and teeth, into black plastic bags, breaking bones when necessary to fit them into the sacks. These sacks were then thrown into the nearby Rio San Juan, where investigators retrieved some of them.

Since the students’ disappearance in September, the search across Guerrero has involved as many as 10,000 Mexican police officers, soldiers and other investigators. In the process, they found mass graves from older killings, but for weeks failed to find any trace of the students.

Although the killings were actually carried out by a drug cartel, it was a mayor and police who ordered it. Students.
Why?
It's kind of a chilling detail that they found other mass graves while searching for the victims of this massacre.

Here's the wikipedia entry, which explains what happened in more detail, and the background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Iguala_mass_kidnapping

On September 26, 2014 at approximately 9:30 p.m. (CST),[1] more than 100 students from the Rural Teachers College Raúl Isidro Burgos of Ayotzinapa in Tixtla, Guerrero, travelled to Iguala, Guerrero, to hold a protest for what they considered discriminatory hiring and funding practices from the government.[2] The students argued that the government's funding programs favored urban student-colleges above the rural ones and that the hiring system preferred hiring teachers from inner city areas.[3][4]

Background[edit]
The all-male school where the students were from, Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers College of Ayotzinapa, was formed in 1926 and has historically been associated with radical and leftist ideologies.[41] Guerrero teachers, including the students from Ayotzinapa, are known for their "... militant and radical protests that often involve hijacking buses and delivery trucks."[42] The appropriation of the vehicles is, according to the students, routine and temporary. Most of the buses are usually returned after the protests conclude. This tactic has largely been tolerated by law enforcement even though it is inconvenient for people heading to their job or home.[43][44] Though federal agents are known for not actively confronting students when they "borrow" buses, this practice puts students and teachers at odds with local officials. Among the other tactics used by the students include throwing rocks at police officers, blocking roads, and stealing property.[43][45] Though they admit this, students say those tactics are the only way to get attention and earn funds from the government. Local authorities in Guerrero tend to be suspicious of student protests because they believe they may have ties with leftist guerrillas or rival political groups from the state.[43] In 1995, the Guerrero state police killed 17 farmers and injured 21 others when they were carrying out a protest. The massacre led to the creation of the Popular Revolutionary Army (Spanish: Ejército Popular Revolucionario), which some state officials believe still holds some political influence in Guerrero.[46] Students say they have no ties with such groups, and that the only thing they have in common with them is their socialist ideologies.[43] In addition, in places like Guerrero, where the bus lines presumably pay protection to organized crime, the tactics of the students is threatening to their business.[44]

 

[Ryokan]

I've been following this, and it's just horrible. The students weren't even protesting anything 'important' or controversial.

 

[Bikewer]

According to the articles I've been listening to on NPR's The World, the school these students are from is a sort of free-spirit extreme-left institution, with prominent paintings of Guevera and Marx on the walls. It runs on a shoestring, mostly by donation.
A couple of times a year, studens comandeer local buses and head to the big cities to solicit money to keep the place going.
Evidently, this is seen by local government officials as a hotbed of potential unrest and anti-establishment activity. The fact that the "establishment" is deeply corrupt and in bed with the cartels likely fuels this attitude....
Up here, politicians tend to look for things like zoning violations to close up pesky social-justice institutions.... Down there...They apparently just kill 'em....

 

[WildCat]

Every one of those lives lost are worth it if it keeps one American kid from smoking a joint or snorting a line of cocaine.

 

[newyorkguy]

The problem seems to be in some of the smaller cities and in some of the towns the cartels are the law. They literally take over the local government and police. It's very hard for anyone to resist them as they kill with impunity. Mexico has a huge problem with this. This has been going on for years, since the rise of the drug cartels, but this time they may have finally gone too far.

The disappearance of so many young students — and the involvement of corrupt government officials — has horrified Mexico and created a weeks-long political crisis. Tens of thousands of protesters have marched in the capital and around the country demanding answers and justice. Protesters have burned government buildings in Guerrero and students at universities across the country have gone on strike. News link

There have already been over seventy arrests.

 

[Aepervius]

The problem seems to be in some of the smaller cities and in some of the towns the cartels are the law. They literally take over the local government and police. It's very hard for anyone to resist them as they kill with impunity. Mexico has a huge problem with this. This has been going on for years, since the rise of the drug cartels, but this time they may have finally gone too far.



There have already been over seventy arrests.

Me, I am cynic. As long as the drug profit are so high, nothing will get better. Give it a few month outrage maybe a year or 2, then the carteil will be back in the lead with the police in their pocket. Maybe even earlier.

 

[catsmate]

Me, I am cynic. As long as the drug profit are so high, nothing will get better. Give it a few month outrage maybe a year or 2, then the carteil will be back in the lead with the police in their pocket. Maybe even earlier.

Well it's not as if there was some way to eliminate those profits. Oh....

 

[casebro]

They have no death penalty in Mexico. Maybe they should try it, with a RICO law?

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Well it's not as if there was some way to eliminate those profits. Oh....

How? Even if drugs were legalized, I don't see how this would eliminate the drug profits for the cartels. They would still fight and kill each other for control. of the drug trade.

 

[nvidiot]

How? Even if drugs were legalized, I don't see how this would eliminate the drug profits for the cartels. They would still fight and kill each other for control. of the drug trade.

I know right? We still see beer baron wars costing innocent lives to maintain their obscene profits.

 

[TragicMonkey]

How? Even if drugs were legalized, I don't see how this would eliminate the drug profits for the cartels. They would still fight and kill each other for control. of the drug trade.

If those drugs were legalized in the US the big pharmaceutical companies would start producing them in direct competition. Quality-controlled, legal, legitimate competition. Hell, we could even cheat by legalizing drugs but only those purchased from registered, legitimate corporations with (expensive) licenses and health inspections and FDA oversight. Legalization would wipe out the current drug trade and replace it with something infinitely more boring and safe. There would be just as much money, but it would go to drug lords of a very different and much more socially acceptable nature, the kind who pay dividends to shareholders and taxes instead of bribes, who have corporate skyscrapers instead of party mansions and lawyers instead of assassination squads.

 

[newyorkguy]

How? Even if drugs were legalized, I don't see how this would eliminate the drug profits for the cartels. They would still fight and kill each other for control. of the drug trade.

The problem is different -- or has become different -- in Mexico I think. The forty-three students who were murdered had nothing to do with any drug war among cartels. Their 'crime' was different: they were challenging the established order of things. In areas where a drug cartel has taken over local government they establish a reign of terror. They do not permit any dissent or discussion. Organized crime groups are usually inherently fascist.

This is what the Mexican demonstrators are protesting: the pervasive human rights abuse on the part of the cartels. Abuses the Mexican government has a hard time combating.

On a Spanish language news show recently I saw two women talking about what life is like in areas where the cartels have taken over. One woman said it is unsettling NOT to be able to call the police, for instance when you witness a street murder and you recognize the killer. In some of the smaller cities and towns the cartels have taken control of the local police. If you call the police you may be, in effect, talking to the cartel leaders.

The other woman immigrated from Colombia many years ago. She said in her area the Medellin Cartel under Pablo Escobar built the local schools. They lived in a poor area and the local government was unable to provide anything more than the basics. But she said there was a tacit agreement: the cartel built schools and free housing and in return people knew to keep their eyes and mouth shut. It was a schizophrenic existence. She said when her son was young he wanted to know who Pablo Escobar was, why he built the school her son attended. She said it was difficult to answer these questions. She said her son, like many of the children, had a very bleak and cynical outlook on life.

It sounds like kind of a nightmare existence.

 

[WildCat]

How? Even if drugs were legalized, I don't see how this would eliminate the drug profits for the cartels. They would still fight and kill each other for control. of the drug trade.

You mean the way liquor distributors murder and maim each other to maintain their market share in the post-Prohibition era?

 

[Caper]

Mexico almost seems like a failed state.

 

[luchog]

Mexico almost seems like a failed state.

No, just a victim of the culture of corruption common to most developing nations; combined with asinine prohibition polices in developed nations and forced upon these small poor countries by them (well, by the US at least), and the resultant huge black market profits available to the unscrupulous.

Mexico just happens to be in the singularly bad position of being the US's closest neighbor, and effectively a gateway for smuggling.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Mexico just happens to be in the singularly bad position of being the US's closest neighbor, and effectively a gateway for smuggling.

And yet Canada who is exactly the same thing has none of these problems

Maybe people can stop being such bigots and have this as an eye opener for just what Arizona is going through and why they are desperate for help, or at least the right to defend themselves

 

[WildCat]

And yet Canada who is exactly the same thing has none of these problems

Maybe people can stop being such bigots and have this as an eye opener for just what Arizona is going through and why they are desperate for help, or at least the right to defend themselves

I'm pretty sure there's little to no cocaine, heroin, and marijuana production taking place on the other side of Canada.

 

[rwguinn]

Since we (the USA) have to take blame for Mexico failure, do we get credit for Canada success?



Didn't think so. Evil. That's US.

 

[Travis]

I'm pretty sure there's little to no cocaine, heroin, and marijuana production taking place on the other side of Canada.

Marijuana, yes. I know people that buy plenty of product grown in British Columbia. But Poppies and Coca plants? Not so much. Too cold.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

You mean the way liquor distributors murder and maim each other to maintain their market share in the post-Prohibition era?

In another thread you said:

A lot of street gangs make as much selling bootleg cigarettes as they do other drugs now.

Why wouldn't this be even more true for other currently illegal drugs? There can be no doubt that they would be heavily, heavily taxed, so the same incentive would exist to create a tax-free black market, would it not?

Also, to you and the others above who already made this point, in the hypothetical scenario I was not assuming that Mexico would legalize drugs, just that the US would. However, even if Mexico were to legalize them, the country is so messed up that I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they kept murdering and maiming each other to control the lucrative market. Hopefully that would not be the case.

Perhaps, though, Mexico would be cut out of the loop, as probably most of the agricultural crops (coca, etc) used to produce the drugs are not actually grown in Mexico, but are simply brought in from outside with Mexico as the middleman. I suspect that this is the case, and that US corporations would simply import the raw coca from South America.