State Department updates travel warning to Mexico (and other tidbits).

State Department updates travel warning to Mexico
September 10, 2010 9:32 PM
Lindsay Machak

McALLEN — U.S. citizens should avoid unnecessary travel on Mexican Highway 2 between Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo due to ongoing drug violence, according to a new travel advisory from the U.S. Department of State.

The department issued the bulletin Friday to inform U.S. citizens traveling to and living in Mexico about the security situation there.

"The level of violence in Monterrey is increasing and has spread to areas near a school which many U.S. citizen children attend," according to the warning.

"“Local police and private patrols do not have the capacity to deter criminal elements from areas around the schools. Given the increasing level of violence that is occurring all over Monterrey, school children are at significantly increased risk."

And then there is this from AP via the El Paso Times.

Mexico lashes out at US after migrant massacre
The Associated Press
Posted: 09/10/2010 09:09:27 PM MDT

MEXICO CITY—President Mauricio Funes of El Salvador said Friday he doesn't blame Mexico's government for the massacre of 72 mainly Central American migrants, and called for a joint effort to fight drug cartels.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Funes said after their meeting that the two countries have formed a high-level working group to develop joint strategies for combatting the drug gangs.

"We have come to have a conversation with the president of Mexico, not to condemn him or criticize him," Funes said. "Rather the opposite, to show him our support and offer our help in this fight."

Thirteen Salvadorans were among the dead identified so far in the massacre in late August, a killing blamed on one of Mexico's drug cartels, the Zetas.

In a separate interview Friday, Calderon said the migrant massacre doesn't undermine Mexico's moral authority to demand better treatment for its own migrants.

"Of course we have the moral authority, because Mexican officials are not shooting Central American youths at the border, but U.S. agents are shooting Mexican migrants," Calderon said in an interview with the Spanish-language Univision network.

LIAR!

"Wall of Violence" on Mexico's Southern Border

Calderon’s "two-faced" policy combines police, the military, gangs, and Los Zetas to fulfill US mandate to deter Central American migration

"Humberto" is a Honduran subsistence farmer. He grows his beans and vegetables without pesticides and herbicides. “The chemicals they put in food these days ruin the taste,” he says. Humberto has a patch of land, a house, a wife, and five children—three of whom still live at home.

Now we know who he is, this is what happened to him.

But Humberto's plans were put on hold in Arriaga. As Humberto waited for the train in Arriaga—it leaves every three days—he made friends with some fellow train-hoppers who said they were Guatemalan. They chatted, shared a couple of kilos of tortillas and a can of sardines that Humberto had scared up ("Woo! We ate rich that day," he remembers), and dozed on the train tracks. At some point—Humberto doesn't remember exactly when—the Guatemalans disappeared. He looked around, wondering where they went, and saw why they'd fled so fast: a police patrol was headed his way. An unidentified man dressed in plainclothes accompanied them.

Humberto ran. The police and the man ran faster. The man in plainclothes caught Humberto first. He hit Humberto in the ankle with a club. Humberto's ankle shattered and he crumpled to the ground. Their job done, police and the man started to leave. They had no interest in arresting Humberto.

"Hey!" Humberto shouted. "You guys can't just break my foot and leave me here! Take me to a hospital!"

Decriminalize the drugs Calderon. It will not have you and your ilk treating the subjects of Mexico, let alone the migrants from Central & South America, any better, but at least you would then have a moral leg to stand on.

Oh, but wait, you cannot as Sinaloa says NO, don't they

WP