Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez has tried for 10 months to conceal the fact that he is losing his bout with cancer, determined to appear in command of his revolutionary regime and the nation’s future. This past Holy Week, however, television cameras captured him pleading for his life before a crucifix in his hometown church, his mother looking on without the slightest glint of hope on her face. Chávez’s raw emotion startled his inner circle and led some to question his mental health. As a result, according to my sources inside the presidential palace, Minister of Defense Gen. Henry Rangel Silva has developed a plan to impose martial law if Chávez’s deteriorating condition causes any hint of instability.
Pretty dramatic stuff. So why isn’t anyone outside Venezuela paying attention? Some cynics in that country still believe Chávez is hyping his illness for political advantage, while his most fervent followers expect him to make a miraculous recovery. The democratic opposition is cautiously preparing for a competitive presidential election set for Oct. 7 — against Chávez or a substitute. And policymakers in Washington and most regional capitals are slumbering on the sidelines.
In my estimation, the approaching death of the Venezuelan caudillo could put the country on the path toward a political and social meltdown. The military cadre installed by Chávez in January already is behaving like a de facto regime determined to hold onto power at all costs. And Havana, Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing are moving to protect their interests. If U.S. President Barack Obama were to show some energetic engagement as Chávez fades, he could begin to put the brakes on Venezuela’s slide, reverse Chávismo‘s destructive agenda, and reclaim a role for the United States in its own neighborhood. But if he fails to act, there will be hell to pay.
Sources close to Chávez’s medical team tell me that for months, his doctors have been doing little more than treating symptoms, trying to stabilize their workaholic patient long enough to administer last-ditch chemo and radiation therapies. In that moment of Chávez’s very public prayer for a miracle, he set aside his obsession with routing his opposition or engineering a succession of power to hardline loyalists. Perhaps he knows that his lieutenants and foreign allies are behaving as if he were already dead — consolidating power, fashioning a “revolutionary junta,” and plotting repressive measures.
Category Archives: Organized crime
Jalisco Cartel Promises Mexico Govt it will Take Down Rival Gang
It’s not always clear what is motivating this tendency for gangs to paint themselves as the good guys and their enemies as the villains. Sometimes, it’s clearly in a group’s interest to distance themselves from a particularly heinous crime or assuage fears that they might seek to overthrow the government, to try deflect the attention of the authorities. But most citizens, to say nothing of the government, will put little stock in any group’s proclamations that they are the noblest of the gangsters.
The video is also interesting for what it says about the Caballeros. The fact that the CJNG targeted them rather than the Familia indicates that the Caballeros have consolidated themselves as Michoacan’s foremost gang, definitively displacing the older organization. It seems unlikely, however, that they have such a firm hold over Guerrero. Acapulco in particular has been contested by a bevy of different groups in recent years, from the
Zetas to the Sinaloa Cartel, the South Pacific Cartel, and the Barredora. The Caballeros, and now the CJNG, are just one group among many trying to win control.
Finally, the speaker alleges that
Nazario Moreno, who was reported killed in December 2010 in a shootout with government forces, is still alive and remains at the head of the Caballeros. The same claim was made by a captured Mexico City gang boss last year, and previously in posters signed by the Familia. Given that his death was a major success for the government and precipitated the collapse of the Familia, this allegation would be a bombshell if it proved true.</p> <p>Such conspiracy theories are common in Mexico. One popular tall tale is that Amado Carrillo, the Juarez Cartel founder who died in plastic surgery in 1997, faked his own death and remains at large. Anabel Hernandez, in her muckraking 2011 book “Los Señores del Narco,” claimed that the deceased Sinaloa boss Ignacio Coronelwas also still alive. There’s not much evidence to support any of these allegations, and there’s little reason to believe any of them are accurate.
However, it is also true that while the Hernandez had a clear interest in winning publicity with scandalous stories — a tactic that has landed her in
legal trouble with former Attorney General Jorge Carpizo, who was attacked in the book — it’s not obvious what the CJNG would have to gain by falsely claiming that Moreno was still alive.
via insightcrime.org
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- Mexican drug cartel leaves 10 severed heads in the street as warning to rivals a week before Pope’s visit (dailymail.co.uk)
- Mexico nabs Jalisco drug cartel chief (alternet.org)
- Mexican drug cartel promises no violence while Pope Benedict XVI visits (foxnews.com)
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Mexico’s Drug Cartels
Analysis
According to the Mexican government, cartel-related homicides claimed around 12,900 lives from January to September 2011 — about 1,400 deaths per month. While this figure is lower than that of 2010, it does not account for the final quarter of 2011. The Mexican government has not yet released official statistics for the entire year, but if the monthly average held until year’s end, the overall death toll for 2011 would reach 17,000.
Indeed, rather than receding to levels acceptable to the Mexican government, violence in Mexico has persisted, though it seems to have shifted geographically, abating in some cities and worsening in others. For example, while Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, was once again Mexico’s deadliest city in terms of gross numbers, the city’s annual death toll reportedly dropped substantially from 3,111 in 2010 to 1,955 in 2011. However, such reductions appear to have been offset by increases elsewhere, including Veracruz, Veracruz state; Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state; Matamoros, Tamaulipas state; and Durango, Durango state. Continue reading
El Salvador appoints army general to combat murder rate | World news | Guardian Weekly
Leftwing president’s choice of general to serve as justice minister angers his ruling party allies
Paulo Paranagua Tuesday 6 December 2011 13.59 GMT
Crackdown time … a member of the Mara Salvatrucha, street gang, detained by police. Photograph: Roberto Escobar/EPA
For the first time since the civil war, which left 75,000 dead or missing in El Salvador between 1980 and 1992, a former member of the military has been asked to restore law and order. Last month Mauricio Funes, the country’s first leftwing president since the end of the conflict, swore in retired general David Munguia Payes, previously the defence minister, as the new minister of justice and public security.
The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the former Marxist guerrilla organisation and now the ruling party, condemned the decision. Human rights campaigners and magistrates joined in the protest, maintaining that his appointment was a violation of the almost 20-year-old peace agreement, which banned the military from law enforcement and set up a national civilian police force.
With 16 murders a day, El Salvador is vying with Honduras for the dubious distinction of the highest rate of homicides in the world. On the route from Colombia to Mexico, Central America is the prey of drug traffickers, and to make matters worse mara youth gangs have terrorised the country for the past decade. Continue reading
Cartel Plot: Use U.S. Guns for Massive Mexico City Attack
November 18, 2011
In October of 2008, Chicago-based drug trafficker Margarito “Twin” Flores was summoned to the Sinaloa Cartel’s mountaintop compound. The leaders of the Mexican narcotics syndicate were pissed. The brother of a top lieutenant had been arrested by the government and risked being extradited to the United States; the Sinaloans wanted to retaliate — in a massive and deadly way, and in the heart of Mexico City.
“Let it be a government building, it doesn’t matter whose. An embassy or a consulate, a media outlet or television station,” cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman said. Even the U.S. embassy might be fair game.
“Twin, you know guys [in the U.S. military] coming back from the war,” the lieutenant’s son, Jesus Vincente Zambada Niebla, told Flores. “Find somebody who can give you big powerful weapons, American shit. We don’t want Middle Eastern or Asian guns, we want big U.S. guns, or RPGs [rocket propelled grenades].”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Zambada added. “We don’t need one, we need a lot of them, 20, 30, a lot of them.” Continue reading
Mexico’s “Narco-Refugees”: The Looming Challenge for U.S. National Security
Authored by Dr. Paul Rexton Kan.
- Added October 03, 2011
- Type: Monograph
- 50 Pages
- Download Format: PDF
- Cost: Free
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Brief Synopsis
Since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels, there has been a rise in the number of Mexican nationals seeking political asylum in the United States to escape the ongoing drug cartel violence in their home country. Political asylum cases in general are claimed by those who are targeted for their political beliefs or ethnicity in countries that are repressive or are failing. Mexico is neither. Nonetheless, if the health of the Mexican state declines because criminal violence continues, increases, or spreads, U.S. communities will feel an even greater burden on their systems of public safety and public health from “narco-refugees.” Given the ever increasing cruelty of the cartels, the question is whether and how the U.S. Government should begin to prepare for what could be a new wave of migrants coming from Mexico. Allowing Mexicans to claim asylum could potentially open a flood gate of migrants to the United States during a time when there is a very contentious national debate over U.S. immigration laws pertaining to illegal immigrants. On the other hand, to deny the claims of asylum seekers and return them to Mexico where they might very well be killed, strikes at the heart of American values of justice and humanitarianism. This monograph focuses on the asylum claims of Mexicans who unwillingly leave Mexico rather than those who willingly enter the United States legally or illegally. To successfully navigate through this complex issue will require a greater level of understanding and vigilance at all levels of the U.S. Government.
From Theory to Practice: Exploring the Organised Crime-Terror Nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa | Hübschle | Perspectives on Terrorism
Vol 5, No 3-4 (2011) > Hübschle
Annette Hübschle
Abstract
A growing body of scholarly literature suggests confluence or even convergence of organized crime and terrorism in various parts of the world. However, links remain somewhat nebulous at this stage and vary considerably, based on region and context. Africa has come under the spotlight due to perceived weaknesses in the criminal justice sector, limited law enforcement capacity, political and systemic corruption, poor border patrol and weak anti-terror and organized crime laws which are believed to provide an ideal environment for the terror-crime nexus to flourish. This article provides an African perspective on the links between organized crime and terror networks in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on Southern Africa. The discussion begins with an overview of the theoretical discourse on the subject – relying on African definitions of the contested concepts of ‘terrorism’ and ‘organized crime’ – and will then narrow the analysis on the sub-Saharan case. It relies on an extensive literature review and concludes with empirical findings of a research project on organized crime in Southern Africa, which found no strong empirical links between criminal and terrorist organizations.
ENHANCING SECURITY THROUGH COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH
Are Mexico Drug Gangs Drafting Hackers?
Written by Ronan Graham
Recent claims that computer programmers are being forcibly recruited by Mexican drug gangs, if true, suggest that the criminal groups may be upping their efforts to reap the potential profits of cyber crime.
The story of Fernando Ernesto Villegas Alvarez recently featured in Mexican newspaper Excelsior. A 24-year-old intern at a research center in a Mexico City college, Villegas was, according to his parents, delighted to be offered an attractive job at company known as “Productos Foca.”
Scottish aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan
Search for hostages after firefight
Published: 27/09/2010
AN URGENT search is under way to find a female British aid worker abducted in Afghanistan.
The woman, who is reported to be Scottish and in her 30s, was kidnapped in Kunar province, alongside three Afghans with whom she is thought to have been working. Continue reading
Economics can fight narco-terrorism
In 1999, no less than three heavily armed drug-trafficking terrorism organizations held control of large portions of Colombia.More than 100 mayors couldn’t even work in their own cities. The murder rate hovered at about 80 per 100,000 people per year and at a higher rate of more than 100 in the city of Medellín. Corruption was rife within the Colombian government. The United States feared Colombia would become the first narco-terrorist state.
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