Borderland Beat |  |
- Taxco, Guerrero: “I Don’t Feel Normal Living With Paranoia”
- El Rey, La Barbie, El Grande, El Conejo, set to testify against Alfredo "Mochomo" Beltran Leyva
- Riot in Monterrey Prison; First Reports say 50 Dead and 12 injured
Taxco, Guerrero: “I Don’t Feel Normal Living With Paranoia” Posted: 11 Feb 2016 06:46 PM PST
By: KYHB, Animal Político Reader | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat This article is part of a digital project by Animal Político called “Aprender a Vivir con el Narco” (Learning to live with El Narco) released in late 2015. The first violent incident that I can remember was in December 2007. They had killed a man in a hospital in Taxco and the news echoed in my city. Taxco is a city with more than 50,000 inhabitants, but it’s a “village”, so the event was told to me by word of mouth until it got to me. The next thing was something that I at first didn’t understand. I took a bus on a daily basis to the high school, it hadn’t even dawned yet, but there was an open truck with its lights flashing on the road, the floor was wet, I remember because I thought it hadn’t even rained that morning and it was strange, I would later learn that that moisture was actually blood. My boyfriend, who at that time worked at a small newspaper in the municipality, told me, as he had been called in the middle of the morning to accompany a boy to take pictures of the bodies that had been there. He wasn’t even 17 years old. On one occasion, we were left confined in the high school, we were there for an hour and a half after our departure time, a shooting had occurred a few meters from the school and the teachers forbade any student from leaving. An event that most taxqueños remember is the event that occurred on Holy Thursday of 2009, when I knew what panic was on the face of a person. The Procession of Christs, typical of that time, was dispersed. Most of who accompanied fled except for those who were carrying the sacred images and penitents, carrying rolls of thorns on their shoulders. People spoke of masked men firing into the air, raising the hoods of the penitents to reveal their identity. Two years ago, I was heading to my home, when turning to the street, there was a police car blocking the way. I asked a woman if she knew what had happened and she said she had heard gunshots and looked like they had killed someone. Full of anxiety, I managed to go down another alley. It was reassuring when I got home and saw that my whole family was there and it was fine. I don’t even live in an area that can be considered to be dangerous. Another thing, that I now see as something funny, is the time when they wouldn’t let me leave my house during my favorite holiday, which is Day of the Dead, because some inept had called saying that they had the house under surveillance from his truck (unlikely because we live in the middle of a village without direct access to the street) and that they would kidnap my sister (they knew her name) if we wouldn’t deposit them a large sum of money (which we obviously didn’t have). It was nothing more than just a shock, but I still remember it. For some years now, I know about the morbidity and yellow journalism. I pass by newsstands where I see pages displaying images that can only be found in a criminology book or a document of a forensic expert. I see my own mortality reflected in those dead bodies. It upsets me and sometimes I feel that I’m the only one that it disgust or saddens, or thinks that it’s a lack of respect for the person who once occupied that body. I can’t surrender to the indifference or to normalize it. I can’t feel normal or indifferent when someone I know disappears and, in most cases, does not return. I don’t feel normal when my mother reminds me that “in her time”, kids could play until dawn in the streets, that the only danger that a girl experienced going out at night was that her boyfriend stole her. I don’t feel normal living with paranoia, thinking all the time that I’m being persecuted and haunted. I don’t think it’s normal to have recurring nightmares in which they take away from me my parents, my sisters, my uncles, my partner, and I can’t have them back because all I have is helplessness. No, it isn’t normal that my 10 year old cousin wants to be a narco when he’s older, nor is how people go down the street listening to corridoschronicling the “great deeds” of crime. Those corridos seem like a mockery to all those people who lost someone and for us to fear that the same thing happens to us. I see our frailty when stories become numbers in a count. The apathy of some people is incredible who justify the killings of six people and the disappearance of 43 students in the neighboring city for “being troublemakers.” I think that they try to convince themselves that the tragedy will not reach them while they don’t move and stay quiet. Taxco is a tourist town, it’s clear that our authorities are trying to make it look like a different reality, a paradise island in the sea of horrors that we have lived through in Guerrero since 2006, when this useless war started. The Government of my town has a media campaign to promote Taxco. Since it began, violent incidents have gone down (and if they haven’t fallen, it seems to have some discretion). It gives us the impression that we live a little safer and I know that I probably can’t live without fear or at least with the same security that I felt when I was 13 or 14, but nevertheless, I feel lucky. I love my city after all and I really think that it’s a good place to live and not just a retreat that has been created with the purpose of being visited. I refuse to normalize the conditions in which many of us live in, but I also appreciate that I haven’t been displaced from where I live due to organized crime, that I haven’t been kidnapped and that I have my family with me, that no one close to me has died in an inhumane way, and that I haven’t experienced raw terror. I appreciate even banal things like being able to go for a coffee at night fall, I appreciate my position as an average citizen in a country where the limits, are increasingly blurred. Source:Animal Politico  | ||||||
El Rey, La Barbie, El Grande, El Conejo, set to testify against Alfredo "Mochomo" Beltran Leyva Posted: 11 Feb 2016 08:10 PM PST Lucio R with C.E. Martinez for Borderland Beat
When Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal, was extradited to the U.S. he raised eyebrows when he pleads guilty within a few months. For years, he vigorously fought against extradition, only to quickly enter a plea. For years it was rumored that Valdez was a cooperative witness for Mexico, even prior to his capture. Villareal denied this  It was revealed in pretrial hearings, Valdez will be one of the cooperative witnesses who will testify against the man he once worked for. Valdez is suspected of giving up information to Mexican authorities which resulted in the massive shootout and death of Beltran Leyva Organization’s leader, and Valdez’ boss. Supposedly this was so Valdez could take over the organization. He himself was arrested in 2010 and extradited in September 2015. Other notables who will testify against Mochomo is Jesus “El Rey” Zamabada, the brother of Sinalo
At the time of his 2008 arrest El Rey was considered one of the 4 leaders of Sinaloa’s Pacific Cartel. and one of the leading sources of cocaine and methamphetamine from South America. He was extradited to the U.S. in 2012. Sergio Enrique Villarreal Barragán, a.k.a. El Grande, is also a state’s witness against El Mochomo. El Grande was once with Los Zetas/CDG but left to join BLO while BLO was still allied with the Sinaloa Cartel.
Another witness is Harold Mauricio Poveda Ortega aka “El Conejo” a Colombian national, allegedly was the largest supplier of cocaine to the Beltrán Leyva cartel. It would appear the United States is giving up way too much in its deals to convict Mochomo. Perhaps it is because they have little evidence against Mochomo, but it makes little sense after years of investigative work, intelligence and tax payers money, in the end but one leader is brought to trial. A Status Conference is scheduled for Friday, February 12, 2016, at 3:00 PM, and trial is scheduled for next Tuesday the 16th. Material from Pacer, Reforma and Borderland Beat archives Additional reading: Mochomo Trial begins Feb 16th The U.S. case against El Mochomo Judge put the lid on names of cooperative witnesses in Mochomo case  | ||||||
Riot in Monterrey Prison; First Reports say 50 Dead and 12 injured Posted: 12 Feb 2016 03:34 AM PST Posted by DD republished from Milenio, with material from BBC, breaking news.com, and newser INCLUDES UPDATES  In the early hours this morning shortly after midnight a riot broke out at the "infierno" ("hell") Penal del Topo Chico prison in Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon. The State Investigative Agency unoffically put the number of dead at 50 including guards and inmates. Nuevo Leon Governor Rodriquez ("el Bronco") tweeted that there were at least 52 killed and 12 injured and said that no prisoners escaped. Conflicting reports say the riot started in a confrontation between prisoners of the Zeta cartel and a rival cartel. Other reports are saying the riot was the result of an attempted massive escape attempt by some members of the Zetas. Milenio TV reported that a group of prisoners took over one of the pavilions of the prison and started a fire as a diversion to distract guards from an apparently unsuccessful escape attempt. more updates next page  The violence prompted the mobilization of the army, Civil Force, and Monterrey police. The Governor and Security Director both tweeted that the situation was under control by 1:30AMand that they would be a press conference this morning to provide more details. UPDate: This is a video capture of a news conference Governor Rodriquez gave a few minutes ago; To see the press conference (in Spanish) press here;  Rodríguez said no firearms were used during the riot and no prisoners had escaped, or attempted to do so. He said the fight was between rival factions, one of which was headed by Juan Pedro Salvador Zaldívar, known as Z-27, a member of the Los Zetas drug cartel. - See more at: http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/52-inmates-killed-monterrey-prison-riot/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Daily&utm_campaign=19dc49fe0d-February+11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-19dc49fe0d-349444589#sthash.ryWBmips.dpuf Rodríguez said no firearms were used during the riot and no prisoners had escaped, or attempted to do so. He said the fight was between rival factions, one of which was headed by Juan Pedro Salvador Zaldívar, known as Z-27, a member of the Los Zetas drug cartel. Rodríguez said no firearms were used during the riot and no prisoners had escaped, or attempted to do so. He said the fight was between rival factions, one of which was headed by Juan Pedro Salvador Zaldívar, known as Z-27, a member of the Los Zetas drug cartel. - See more at: http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/52-inmates-killed-monterrey-prison-riot/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Daily&utm_campaign=19dc49fe0d-February+11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-19dc49fe0d-349444589#sthash.ryWBmips.dpuf By daylight a large crowd of families of inmates had gathered outside the prison gates trying to get information on family members who were inside.  One woman shouted "there are women and children in there" apparently referring family members that had been inside on conjugal visits. Governor "Bronco" tweeted that all the dead were males.
Topo Chico is the oldest prison in Monterrey. According to a BBC report Topo Chico prisoners suffer incarceration under horrible conditions;
Governor Rodriquez appears to be responding rapidly to probably the biggest crisis his new administration has faced. “We are experiencing a tragedy due to the conditions present in the penitentiaries,” he said. He promised personal attention for the families of the victims and said there would be human rights officials present during the investigation into the incident Milenio is reporting that several trucks were seen entering and leaving the prison that are transporting about 100 prisoners to the airport where they will be relocated to other prisons outside the state of Nuevo Leon. This incident is the latest in a series of deadly riots in recent years to hit the country’s overcrowded prisons, which often house inmates from different drug gangs. In 2013, at least 13 people were killed and 65 injured in a prison riot, which was blamed on gang violence, in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. In 2012, at least 44 inmates died in a when members of the notorious Zetas drug cartel plotted with prison guards in an elaborate escape from the Apodaca prison in Monterrey. he prison's director was later sacked. In Sept. of 2012 more than 130 inmates escaped through a tunnel from a prison in Piedras Negras, Coahuila. In December 2010, 153 inmates escaped from a prison in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo, right across Laredo, Texas. The riot comes only a day before Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive for his first papal visit to Mexico. He plans to visit a notorious prison in Ciudad Juarez, once considered one of the most violent cities in the world, next week. |
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