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Mexico's mayors becoming casualties of drug wars; many towns without leaders
By Anne-Marie O'Connor and William Booth
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 2, 2010
TANCITARO, MEXICO - Gustavo Sanchez worked hard in this Mexican farming town at one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. He was a mayor. Last weekend, Sanchez and a town councilman disappeared. Their bodies were found Monday, the skulls smashed open in the fifth killing of a mayor in the past six weeks.
According to supporters at city hall, Sanchez was honest and brave. Less than a year ago, the 36-year-old schoolteacher and martial-arts instructor agreed to lead this prosperous western community after the previous mayor abruptly quit, citing threats by drug traffickers, and took the entire town council with him.
Sanchez's short political career ended on the side of a muddy, lonely road, his handsome, mustached face unrecognizable. His mutilated colleague Rafael Equihua lay dead alongside him.
At least 11 mayors have been killed this year across Mexico, as a spooky sense of permanent siege takes hold in the many communities where rival mafias fight for control of local drug sales, marijuana and poppy fields, methamphetamine labs and billion-dollar smuggling routes to the United States.
In recent months, one mayor was killed by masked gunmen who stormed city hall. One was dragged out of his home and later executed, allegedly by renegade members of his own municipal police force. Another was shot in a restaurant by men wielding AK-47 assault rifles.
More than 100 mayors have been threatened, kidnapped, shot at or subjected to extortion in the past two years, according to Ramon Galindo Noriega, a senator and head of a congressional commission that supports municipal governments. The number is actually far higher, Galindo Noriega said, but many go unreported because of fears that a police investigation would only make matters worse.
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This is horrible.
We really need to get the National Guard down there to help; maybe the entire army.
What's going on in Mexico is far more of a direct threat to us than what's going on in Afghanistan.
By Anne-Marie O'Connor and William Booth
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 2, 2010
TANCITARO, MEXICO - Gustavo Sanchez worked hard in this Mexican farming town at one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. He was a mayor. Last weekend, Sanchez and a town councilman disappeared. Their bodies were found Monday, the skulls smashed open in the fifth killing of a mayor in the past six weeks.
According to supporters at city hall, Sanchez was honest and brave. Less than a year ago, the 36-year-old schoolteacher and martial-arts instructor agreed to lead this prosperous western community after the previous mayor abruptly quit, citing threats by drug traffickers, and took the entire town council with him.
Sanchez's short political career ended on the side of a muddy, lonely road, his handsome, mustached face unrecognizable. His mutilated colleague Rafael Equihua lay dead alongside him.
At least 11 mayors have been killed this year across Mexico, as a spooky sense of permanent siege takes hold in the many communities where rival mafias fight for control of local drug sales, marijuana and poppy fields, methamphetamine labs and billion-dollar smuggling routes to the United States.
In recent months, one mayor was killed by masked gunmen who stormed city hall. One was dragged out of his home and later executed, allegedly by renegade members of his own municipal police force. Another was shot in a restaurant by men wielding AK-47 assault rifles.
More than 100 mayors have been threatened, kidnapped, shot at or subjected to extortion in the past two years, according to Ramon Galindo Noriega, a senator and head of a congressional commission that supports municipal governments. The number is actually far higher, Galindo Noriega said, but many go unreported because of fears that a police investigation would only make matters worse.
Read Full Article
This is horrible.
We really need to get the National Guard down there to help; maybe the entire army.
What's going on in Mexico is far more of a direct threat to us than what's going on in Afghanistan.