Band members who perform Narcocorrido (songs and stories about drugs and or cartels)are typically targeted for playing a song in support of X cartel, and Y cartel catches wind of it.
Ugh, and that "Magic" Ed clown fossil will not shut up about how easy and cake everything is down there..
As a climber 1st and huge BASE jumping enthusiast as well, Mexico is an endless paradise of walls that are now being held hostage by cartels that the U.S. helps arm(we know where they are, exploding drones!). I've been there a TON and I know why the Mexicans are sneeking over by the millions, I get it, the U.S, is way better. But we bend over backwards for illegal Mexicans in this Country(you've got to be actually stupid to get caught and deported), but we can't even go climb/jump a rock and spend some money without this crap. And what do the cartels actually do, weed? Nobody smokes Mexican weed, not even Texans. I just don't get why the U.S. puts up with this backward ass country. Send in the Drones man.
edit-
Band members who perform Narcocorrido (songs and stories about drugs and or cartels)are typically targeted for playing a song in support of X cartel, and Y cartel catches wind of it.
Absolute 8th grade quality reasoning right there. These cartels are idiots with a shitload of power over already suffering peoples. Insane.
Ive mentioned that before Hankster! Im all for that. We go around the globe to free countries under the rule of the ruthless yet we put up with a neighboring country that floods us as well with problematic types as they attempt to escape what is nothing but a large cesspool of murder rape and pillage. And we DO NOTHING about that..
ive posted om the what are you listening to now thread Z...
edit: Mono,, theres probably no less that 50 countries providing arms in Mexico...Al-kay-duh monies exist from Argentina to Tijuana now as well. They to recognize the weakness of our southern borders..
In Chula Vista we're all used to hearing about lots of deaths and weird goings on. For example:
TIJUANA — Authorities searching a vacant property in eastern Tijuana may have found the remains of dozens of drug-war victims gone missing after their corpses were dissolved in lye by a man known as El Pozolero — the stew maker.
“We believe that there could be more than 100 bodies dissolved there,” said Abel Galván Gallardo, head of Baja California’s organized-crime unit
No info on the muscial preferences of the deceased, gut pretty sure they're not the Grateful Dead.
"Band members who perform Narcocorrido (songs and stories about drugs and or cartels)are typically targeted for playing a song in support of X cartel, and Y cartel catches wind of it."
I heard these guys weren't that kind of band.
They don't have to be, though, to end up like they did.
The cartel goon squads aren't above kidnapping any available target, whether narco involved or not, and forcing them to confess on video to some horseshit story their captors made up for them, then snuffing them.
The whole idea is to make an example out of someone. Actual guilt is beside the point.
I rented a place through Magic Ed, and out back there was a bar/hall where there were parties going on, loud music trough the night. I wanted to go check it out, but thought better of it.
The band played love songs, not drug songs, or so the story says. Frickin' brutal.
EDIT
theres probably no less that 50 countries providing arms in Mexico...Al-kay-duh monies exist from Argentina to Tijuana now as well. They to recognize the weakness of our southern borders..
Ron, where do you get your intel?? Al-kay-duh has money to arm Mexican drug cartels? Boy, you have your hand on the pulse!
A massacre of 18 people is a big deal, even in a war zone like Iraq or Afghanistan. In Colombia it would be the biggest massacre in many years. Seems obvious it's drug related, one clue was this:
The band regularly played at bars in downtown Monterrey on the weekend. At least two of the bars where they had played had been attacked by gunmen.
Restaurants and bars are often associated with organized crime, and if they played at bars that had this kind of violence they may have been associated with one of the groups, at least in the mind of the other one. If there are rival drug cartels fighting over Monterrey, this is probably a message from one of them to the other to get out of town.
kind of early to speculate, but (diffent incidents):
The band's singer, Julio Cesar Leyva Beltran, was abducted from a party in the state Choix, a city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. He was taken away in an SUV after the band refused to play another song after the guests requested one. While in captivity, the kidnappers who remain unidentified, tortured Leyva and shot him in the leg.
...
Another case was reported in November of last year when narcocorrido singer-songwriter Diergo Rivas was murdered in the state of Sinaloa. One of Rivas' famous songs was an ode to Joaquin Shorty Guzman, one of Mexico's most wanted drug lord.
Maybe the band was playing at a Narco party, and they didn't know who their host was. The trumpet player made a pass at the wrong girl, and the narcos figured they'd have "fun" with the band.
The band member who escaped is probably shitting bricks right now...
"I didn't say they were Narcocorrido, just that it was a possible explanation."
This is true. And you would be playing the percentages, because that kind of crap happens pretty damned often down there.
I was trying to imagine the mindset that would make someone want to do that, and I could only shake my head. Then I recalled dudes like Biggie Smalls and Tupac getting theirs, and it almost makes sense.
Or maybe the neighbors simply got tired of living next door to a noisy garage band, and that's just how those things are handled when you can't afford to bribe the police to come quiet them down.
Members of a group of Mexican drug traffickers have been indicted in the murders of nine people in the San Diego area - including two victims whose bodies were dissolved in acid, authorities announced Thursday.
"Los Palillos" gang - "The Toothpicks," in English - operated in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Tijuana, Mexico, as a cell of the Arellano Felix cartel, named for one of Mexico's most notorious drug trafficking families, said Mark Amador, a deputy district attorney. The gang of U.S. and Mexican citizens moved to the San Diego area around 2002 to deal in marijuana and methamphetamine after a leader was killed in a feud inside the Tijuana-based cartel.
The house "The Toothpicks" rented is a half mile up the road from me.
If this had happened to the American climbers instead of the band, we could have long thread full of rants about how they aren't real climbers, should have hired guides, shouldn't have been there in the first place, were insensitive the locals, should have listened to the locals, deserved everything that happened to them, or how nothing happened to them and it was all an elaborate hoax to defraud supertopians out of their hard-earned money.
Mono,,, heres the real facts about US made guns in mexico,, this from fact check..\
Home • Articles • Counting Mexico’s Guns
Counting Mexico’s Guns
President Obama says 90 percent of Mexico's recovered crime guns come from the U.S. That's not what the statistics show.
Posted on April 17, 2009 , Corrected on April 22, 2009
Summary
There’s no dispute that thousands of handguns, military-style rifles and other firearms are purchased in the U.S. and end up in the hands of Mexican criminals each year. It’s relatively easy to buy such guns legally in Texas and other border states and to smuggle them across.
But is it true, as President Obama said, that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" Government statistics don’t actually support that claim.
The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually "recovered in Mexico," but U.S. and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns than it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns "recovered" that are traced to U.S. sources necessarily is less than 90 percent. Where do the others come from? U.S. officials can’t say.
Fox News has put the percentage of guns that have been traced to U.S. sources at only 17 percent, but we find that to be based on a mistaken assumption that throws its figure way off. We can’t offer a precise calculation because we know of no hard information on the total number of guns Mexican officials have recovered. But if a rough figure given by Mexico’s attorney general is accurate, then the actual percentage of all Mexican crime guns that have been traced to U.S. sources is more than double what Fox News has reported.
Correction, April 22: We originally concluded that Obama’s 90 percent figure was “not true” and based on a “badly biased” sample of recovered guns. We are retracting both those characterizations, and we apologize to our readers for this error. We have rewritten the article throughout to correct this.
Our error was to think we had confirmed that Mexican officials submit for tracing only those guns they believe likely to have come from the U.S. Law enforcement officials say they don’t know if that’s the case.
Analysis
In recent weeks, efforts by the United States and Mexico to stop the illegal transfer of guns and drugs along their shared border have been on the front burner. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano traveled to Mexico earlier this month to meet with their Mexican counterparts to discuss what can be done. And this week President Barack Obama traveled down south to continue talks between the two nations.
During a joint press conference with President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, Obama said of the raging violence by Mexican drug gangs:
Obama, April 16: A demand for these drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business. This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.
Obama would have been correct to say that 90 percent of the guns submitted for tracing by Mexican authorities were then traced to the U.S. The percentage of all recovered guns that came from the U.S. is unknown.
The 90% Claim
The president isn’t the first to make this mistaken claim; far from it. During an interview on CBS’ "Early Show" on March 26, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "We have to recognize and accept that the demand for drugs from the United States drives them north, and the guns that are used by the drug cartels against the police and the military, 90 percent of them come from America."
The 90 percent figure was similarly cited by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) during a March 17 congressional hearing on the subject. Durbin said: "According to ATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], more than 90 percent of the guns seized after raids or shootings in Mexico have been traced right here to the United States of America." Feinstein added: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States, and I think we must put a stop to that."
And it’s been reported by a phalanx of news organizations, including the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, NBC and the Chicago Tribune, that 90 percent of Mexico’s recovered guns come from the U.S.
Mexican authorities have made the same error: On CBS’ "Face the Nation" on April 12, Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan said: "Ninety percent of all weapons we are seizing in Mexico, Bob, are coming from across the United States."
Most who have used the statistic attribute it to ATF. Others attribute the figure to officials within the Mexican government. But that’s not correct.
Without A "Trace"
In a joint statement presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crimes and Drugs, ATF Assistant Director for Field Operations William Hoover and Anthony Placido, assistant administrator of intelligence with the Drug Enforcement Administration, clarified that the 90 percent figure is true of guns that were submitted and could be traced:
Hoover and Placido, March 17, 2009: Firearms are routinely being transported from the U.S. into Mexico in violation of both U.S. and Mexican law. In fact, according to ATF’s National Tracing Center, 90 percent of the weapons that could be traced were determined to have originated from various sources within the U.S.
And Mexico recovers a lot more guns than it submits to the U.S. In December 2008, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora put the number of recovered crime weapons in the country over the past two years at nearly 29,000, according to USA Today. And figures given by ATF make clear that the agency doesn’t trace nearly all of those.
According to ATF, Mexico submitted 7,743 firearms for tracing in fiscal year 2008 (which ended Oct. 1) and 3,312 guns in fiscal 2007. That adds up to a fraction of the two-year total given by Mexico’s attorney general. He may be referring to a slightly different 24-month period, but that can’t account for more than a part of the discrepancy. The number is growing, and already this year, Mexico has submitted more than 7,500 guns for tracing, according to ATF. But even if all those guns are added in, the total submitted for tracing since the start of fiscal 2007 doesn’t come close to the 29,000 figure that Mexico says it has recovered.
The Myth of 17 Percent
According to a Fox News report, titled "The Myth of 90 Percent," only "17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S." But the 17 percent figure is a myth, too. The reporters made some mistaken assumptions about how many guns had actually been traced to U.S. sources.
Fox News reporters William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott note, quite correctly, that Mexico doesn’t submit all the guns it recovers to the U.S. for tracing. Furthermore, Fox News reported, this is "because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S." And it quoted a law enforcement official as to why:
Fox News, April 2: "Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.
If that’s true, then the guns given to ATF for tracing constitute a badly biased sample of all crime guns seized in Mexico. But the ATF officials we contacted don’t confirm that. What an ATF spokesperson would say is that the agency could trace more than 90 percent of all the guns submitted by Mexico to the U.S. – they either originated in this country or were imported here before heading south.
However that may be, the Fox figure of 17 percent is based on a misreading of some confusing House subcommittee testimony by ATF official William Newell. The Fox reporters come up with a figure of 5,114 guns traced to U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 2008. That figures to 17.6 percent of the 29,000 figure for guns seized in Mexico, as given by the country’s attorney general.
The 5,114 figure is simply wrong. What Newell said quite clearly is that the number of guns submitted to ATF in those two years was 11,055: "3,312 in FY 2007 [and] 7,743 in FY 2008." Newell also testified, as other ATF officials have done, that 90 percent of the guns traced were determined to have come from the U.S. So based on Newell’s testimony, the Fox reporters should have used a figure of 9,950 guns from U.S. sources. That figures out to just over 34 percent of guns recovered, assuming that the 29,000 figure supplied by Mexico’s attorney general is correct.
Even that number is too low. At our request, an ATF spokesman gave us more detailed figures for how many guns had been submitted and traced during those two years. Of the guns seized in Mexico and given to ATF for tracing, the agency actually found 95 percent came from U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 93 percent in fiscal 2008. That comes to a total of 10,347 guns from U.S. sources for those two years, or 36 percent of what Mexican authorities say they recovered.
Really, the truth, what do you knuckleheads know about the truth?
Mexicans are given jobs in this country by the ruling elite, they should be at lest given room and board, we treated the slaves, that well.
And how you lump immigration with mass murder by the Cartel, is beyond me, I'm sorry but I hold Hank in higher regard as a human and a thinker, than to make such statements, I think he was just pissed, and sounding off.
Anyway, go on jumping to silly conclusion with little facts and making sweeping generalizations about complex problems, it's what you guys are good at.
This kind of stupid sh#t can be stopped by having the civilian population of Mexico become organized and just going to the drug lords hangouts and kill em all.
Just slaughter all those fukers. Be done with those stupid dumbsh!ts.
No courts, arrests, no fuking trials just waste em all.
There's no other way.
All the legal ways are corrupt and run by all those stupid fukers .....
no,, i said there IS al-kay-duh influence there. STOP twisting my words to suit your vein..
edit: Werener, Yes the mexican PO po is just a tool for others much the same with their military (so to speak) . Meanwhile the good poor folk of mexico get dismembered and limed away to nothing. Like in CiadJuarez and many other towns.
If there IS ANY country the US SHOULD invade,, it IS the one that inflicts us right from the border up. Why not solve mexicos problem and give it back to the good decent folks of Mexico. Maybe we can take the no admittance signs down from US SOIL and travel that country taking bird pics and climbing on what once (NOW) was off limits to you and me.
Sounds like a Nigerian scam to me, I want to see pictures.
In all seriousness, this is really sad. People are always looking for a reason for these things, something to make it explainable. No one outright denounces violence and killing anymore.
Mexico has much stricter gun control laws than the US. It makes sense they would look abroad and specifically to us (we are closest) to get their weapons.
This kind of stupid sh#t can be stopped by having the civilian population of Mexico become organized and just going to the drug lords hangouts and kill em all.
Just slaughter all those fukers. Be done with those stupid dumbsh!ts.
No courts, arrests, no fuking trials just waste em all.
There's no other way.
All the legal ways are corrupt and run by all those stupid fukers .....
actually Werner is on to something. I read the other day that Mexican villagers are arming themselves against the cartels. I will try and find the article.
the drug war is all about money. the way to financially defeat an enemy is to cut off their source off income. imo,, drugs should be legal in this country.
Im READY! We shall take Mexico, throw or shoot the nare-do-wells from the pres on down to the corrupt popo and military, all cartels and known gang members as well. we will put a chip in crime here and there the likes before NEVER seen on the globe.
Well, there goes my planned trip to Mexico. I am now thinking Les Calanques or Paklenica National Park in Croatia, much closer, and safer and I have climbed at both. Good limestone. Wait, I need money for a climbing holiday, darn, I should have thought about that.
Coz, I interviewed Carlos Salinas once, in London (1989). Of course at the time he had some of his own controversies as prez of Mexico and after.
If this had happened to the American climbers instead of the band, we could have long thread full of rants about how they aren't real climbers, should have hired guides, shouldn't have been there in the first place, were insensitive the locals, should have listened to the locals, deserved everything that happened to them, or how nothing happened to them and it was all an elaborate hoax to defraud supertopians out of their hard-earned money.
Graniteclimber, I don't know what to think of you. I have a couple of choice words, but I won't use them. I don't want to start a flaming war. But the connection you are trying to make is nebulous and disingenuous at best.
I am trying to be less judgmental and opinionated in life.
Safe climbing dude, with your karma, you need all the safety you can get.
Horrible... Just plain horrible and yes... I think going to Mexico under this kind of b.s. is stupid. They love kidnapping gringos and ransoming them for money. Even if your relatives do pay, their loved one/victim is usually already dead.
Plus we already lost a surfer Mexican kid from Ventura over there. They found him murdered a year after his disappearance. His parents are walking ghosts.
My two cents is there is great climbing all over the U.S. and Canada. Tons more overseas. Just please skip Mexico and any other violent hot spot. Yes, folks still go there and come back bragging about how they never saw trouble. Yet if you ever do find trouble, will you survive it? That's my big question. Will you have the chance to go back and talk about it?
I also think the U.S. should go in there with the cooperation of the Mexican government and just wipe them out. They are true evil, chopping up families, women, kids, etc. Time to clean them out.
I have a really hard time believing that offshore $350 full auto ak's are harder to come by than $1000-$1500 US made rifles that require welding and machining to become full auto in Mexico. The gun market in the US is here to make money by selling to gun lovers who have dough and can buy most anything. If you want something that will shoot rival gang members or make a statement about one group liking a band - you don't need a Krebs custom AK to do that. I'd like to see the real statistics on which guns came from the US. Somehow I believe the US guns are Lorcins (a true POS) and pakistani sourced HK's are the real firepower.
The Mexican drug lords make money off the appetite of american users. Big dollars mean tough business practices-which have stepped over the bounds acceptable to many mexican citizens.
I spent a decade representing and selling farms, land, and ranches in Sonora and traveled the backcounty of the state extensively. I don't know if I will ever go back.
You can take a good sized ship to Pakistan and buy all the AK's you want
for $50 each and Bob's your uncle - instant army/cartel/sailing arms merchant.
Killing is always justified... by those perpetuating it. Unless we accept that all killing is wrong regardless and never justified, we will always have killing.
What is worse is that there is an obvious and realistic non-violent solution to all of this, the legalization of drugs.
How many people on this thread saying the villagers should rise up against the cartels are for stricter gun control?
we WILL ALWAYS have killing.. There WILL ALWAYS be the bad against the good. That was meant perhaps, as a control of the population over all in the grandest of schemes.
Maybe thats why Plato said : "Only the dead have seen the end of wars"
Have you seen the high tech submarines they have that they use to smuggle stuff into the U.S? Drugs provide the money for all that and more. The guns are just to grease the machine to make more money.
Here is something I posted on a thread regarding NorCal pot farmers who "suck".
A well done film called "Breaking the Taboo" which discusses the tragedy and failure of the war on drugs.
"Narrated by Morgan Freeman and Gael Garcia Bernal, this groundbreaking new documentary uncovers the UN sanctioned war on drugs, charting its origins and its devastating impact on countries like the USA, Colombia and Russia. Featuring prominent statesmen including Presidents Clinton and Carter, the film follows The Global Commission on Drug Policy on a mission to break the political taboo and expose the biggest failure of global policy in the last 50 years."
I agree Ron, but there are societies with more and less violence. Mexico glorifies violence, especially as a form of retribution, arguably more than here in the US (yes I have lived there) and they are paying the price for it now. I know there will always be killing in the world, but does that negate a moral stance against killing that killing is wrong in all forms, and that retributive killings only perpetuate more killings? If more people took this stance, yes you would see a reduction in violence.
The Cartel wouldn't be making any money if they didn't have anyone to sell drugs, etc, to. It's just the very hight of ignorance IMHO, to say something to the effect of just go to war with the Cartel, when that's the very thinking that just got Mexico into this horrible violence.
Calderon and his guys, just went to war with the Cartel, don't you people understand that, do you understand he was voted out of office, do you understand we cannot declare war on Mexico, are we really that ignorant?
I would start by watching an old but good movie called Traffic, it just scratches the surface of this very complex problem and is in a medium many of you would enjoy.
Supply and demand and who control said supply is the issue, not a war with the Cartel, this should be a starting point for any critical debate on the topic, but that's not what everyone seems to be after here.
I really don't understand how in a modern country like Mexico the law enforcement system can be so weak for so long that this can continue for years.
Could you imagine the incredible amount of hell that would rain down on a group that did something like just one of these events here in the USA? They wouldn't last long enough to do it more than a few times.. if that..
It would be OVER.
How can Mexico not have the will to solve this issue?
How can Mexico not have the will to solve this issue?
There's a threshold of corruption that, once crossed, causes the whole system to spiral. When basic trust is gone in a society, it's nearly impossible to get back.
Many countries exist in this state. In fact most countries exist in this state.
But most countries aren't as violent as Mexico. India is just as lawless as Mexico. Bribes rule the day. But still, this type of violence in India and other places is uncommon.
I don't know much about India, but I think it is fairly violent with an ancient caste system and other problems (gang rapes)? I agree Mexico has a culture that accepts and often encourages violence.
Anyone interested in the topic of violence and how ordinary people (neighbors, women and children) can turn against each other, this is an excellent documentary, very disturbing though and will give you nightmares. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3DrvrrSgHI
Its a contextual thing too of course. Here in American we push buttons to vote to give people the authority to push buttons to send drones to kill women and children (and one or two guys deemed bad of course) in fiery explosions. In some ways one might appreciate that Mexicans at least do things mano a mano. (I know that is bad Spanish)
Hey Rick, voted out of office, perhaps wasn't the correct words, but I was aware of this fact, as I was living in Mexico at the time.
Many people were against the war on the Cartel, and felt the new Prez Nieto was more Cartel friendly.
My point if you are actually interested, is the problem is far bigger than going to war with the cartel, and I'm surprised many of my friends were suggesting doing so, after what Calderon tried to do and all the blood shed that resulted.
Do you have something to add oh, great sage Rick D?
I rented a place through Magic Ed, and out back there was a bar/hall where there were parties going on, loud music trough the night. I wanted to go check it out, but thought better of it.
The band played love songs, not drug songs, or so the story says. Frickin' brutal.
K-Man - sounds like you stayed at the same house Skip and I did on our Honeymoon.
Why on earth would arms be easy to get in the region? Probably only the northern / border crews get their arms from the U.S., the rest no doubt come through Guatemala.
Well, I'm incredibly saddened to hear about this. Some looser gang/cartel/whatever feels like they got "disrespected" or some other macho bullshit so they start killing people. Of course these idiots don't give a rat's ass about how it wrecks their own communities.
All I can really think about right now is the kind folks in Hidalgo who were already struggling and now are going to be financially devastated as the last of the climbers leave and probably won't return for a long time.. if ever. I think about the nice folks who own the coffee shop who are utterly dependent on climbers for income. I think about Ed and the other climbers who have put heart and soul into creating a world-class climbing area that will get passed up in favor of less conflicted locations.
I'm extremely grateful for my one wonderful trip there.
Sincere condolences to the families of the murdered.
Sorry about the violence getting closer to home. That's some pretty sad stuff right there. If you compare stats of the border towns El Paso Texas and Laredo, Mexico, Laredo has substantially less guns but a huge amount of gun violence in comparison. Sometimes it even spills over from Mexico to El Paso. Crazy stuff.
"And we flood Mexico with guns, legal and illegal. "
Thats bullsh#t. You have the stats or a link? Didn't think so. I've heard repeatedly that most of the illegal guns in Mexico come from Guatemala. Grenades and automatic weapons too. Of course, some get in from the US, and the US government will approval sales to the Mexican military who turn around and convert them to cash vis criminal sales. And some official US gov't approved illegals guns have gotten in as well, google "Fast and furious gunrunning". But have you ever crossed our border into Mexico? We spend 1.9 billion dollars patrolling it. It will NOT be easy. I challenge you to get a gun across it.
Fortunately, Mexico, unlike the US - has strong gun control laws. But sadly for normal civilians, only the honest people follow them, so honest people get f*#ked. F*#ked by the politicians, f*#ked by the cartel, even f*#ked by regular policemen who kidnap their loved ones to pick up a few extra bucks fro beer money. All the criminal, corrupt politicians, corrupt policmen (most of them) corrupt military (most of them) love the disarmament of the regular joes though, just like in Brazil where they have all but banned guns, are shooting the place up. It's not the guns that are the problem, again, Brazil has banned them and violence there is off the hook and off the charts. It's institutionalized poverty and corruption, and a mindset of the people.
You know when a climber dies, we first say "I'm so sorry for your loss". Some of us think: What happened?, Did the climber f*#k up?, Was he/she a stoned or a dirtbagger? . But, first we say "I'm sorry, condolences to family and friends".
"I also think the U.S. should go in there with the cooperation of the Mexican government and just wipe them out. They are true evil, chopping up families, women, kids, etc. Time to clean them out. "
Uhh, that ain't gonna happen soon, the evidence seems to indicate that the CIA uses drug sales to pay for other projects......so we cooperate with some and then wipe out the ones who don't cooperate. At least that is what people in the know say. The ones that are left are our bitches.
I also think the U.S. should go in there with the cooperation of the Mexican government and just wipe them out. They are true evil, chopping up families, women, kids, etc. Time to clean them out.
On the face of it hardly any of us would argue with this, But when we go in and kill, some of the dead will be innocent people. Kids, women, men just trying to feed their family. That will make us hated invaders and people will see the cartels as defending Mexico.
I read that our government's subsidy for corn production has made it impossible for Mexicans to make a living growing their primary cash crop. Whatever drugs we import from Mexico supports the cartels. We are not simon pure here.
There are things we can do, but those things hurt the interests of some in the US. Do we have the will to do it? We are part of the problem.
And we do have equally gross violence like this inside the US. Even there we don't seem to be able to agree on a course of action.
Coz's main point, and the most important one mentioned in this thread, is to follow the money. It doesn't matter so much where the guns are coming from. It's where the money is coming from to buy the guns, pay the bribes and pay the bad guys.
And the money is coming from us. Not just pot, but coke, meth and others.
So you guys are proposing that we invade Mexico and kick some ass, including undoubtedly a significant number of civilians as collateral damage to fix a problem that we have largely created?
If we solve the problem here, the problem there will go away.
The only thing ever gets done in the world today is it gets worst.
Herr Braun, that's pretty cynical. While I agree that the world is getting worse in toto, there are some things, the un-onlys, that get done all the time that are good, if not miraculous.
Just one example. A very deserving fellow just got a double arm transplant after being blown up in the war.
LOL, TGT, Fast and Furious used only 2000 guns, not the 35K+ you imply. From your numbers, it looks like F&F was ultimately a success, but they don't apply.
F&F had nothing to do with legal US domestic exports showed by your chart, so your conclusions are based on bizarre data.
BTW, Obama became president in 2009, not 2008, so your 'doubled' statement applied to Bush.
As I gather from the trend here. If the U.S. made sure to distribute the weapons to the everyday people in Mexico rather than the drug pedlars, there might be a solution at hand.
I have spent no time in Mexico (Baja is not there right?), but know anthropologists who have and if I polled them all I don't think any would agree that the guns to the people approach would work.
I'm extremely grateful for my one wonderful trip there.
Sincere condolences to the families of the murdered.
+1 for everything justthemaid said a page back. especially the emphasis she placed on her final two lines.
most of the rest of this thread is the intellectual equivalent of the blind men and an elephant story.
except to make the metaphor more poetically accurate you'd need to replace the blind men with blind starving stray dogs and the living elephant with a dead one.
sucks - I'm two hours from Potrero and it really sucks - so much goes on that 99 percent of America doesn't know about - there is a big news black out. If folks write about it they end up dead real fast.
They cut your tits off, sew a different head on your body and hang you off a bridge for everyone to see.
It's been really bad for a long time.
My buddy goes to Medical School in Monterrey - it has gotten a little better - but it has been pretty much lights out and stay home after dark for a few years now.
A cartel burnt down a casino with people in it just last year - forget the details..
You can't even trust the toll booths as they are sometimes taken over by the cartels.
I was thinking of going down there this weekend...to bad it is so messed up.
"Exports of military weapons to Mexico doubled from 5,232 in 2007 to 10,454 in 08 when Barry and Eric took charge."
HAHAHAHAHA, idiot. Obama was sworn in Jan 2009
"The number climbed to almost 35,000 at the height of "Fast and Furious" and crashed back down to 2,792 when it became public."
Hahahahaha, listen to the gun nut censure Obama for supplying guns to anti-gov't insurrectionists - when gun nuts claim insurrection as the main reason they need guns in the first place.
"....so much goes on that 99 percent of America doesn't know about - there is a big news black out. If folks write about it they end up dead real fast."
Scary stuff there Riley. The Mexicans have to figure this out for themselves. Certainly NAFTA was an attempt to help the economics of the issue, but the price of drugs and the lure of fast/easy money are hard to compete with.
Fortunately, Hillary has been able to get them to sign a Memorandum Of Understanding (a MOU) between the Department of State of the United States of America and the Secretariat of Foreign Relations of the United Mexican States for the Promotion of Gender Equality, the Empowerment of Women and Women's Human Rights. Sometimes you just have to take the first important steps. Maybe next, say in 30 or 40 years, we can help them with these killings.
couchmaster - ya it blows - Moonteray has so much going for it - but most days it just doesn't seem worth it - i would love to be able to go down there all the time with my kids...
"....so much goes on that 99 percent of America doesn't know about - there is a big news black out"
And a lot of what we think is true, is not necessarily so.
This time last night I was reading up on what is going on in Syria, and what I found out led me to Mexican drug gang activity.
Remember that Mexican drug cartel chainsaw beheading video? The "Free Syrian Army" got a hold of that voieo and broadasted it saying that the guys lopping off the heads were Syrian Government goons, which could not have been farther from the truth.
The more I look into these kind of things, the less sure I am as to exactly who is responsible.
Everything I see is automatically considered to be bullsh#t, until proven otherwise.
The violence really escalated when ex-Spec Ops guys got involved with and, in some cases, commandeered the cartels. They took the violence to a whole new level that it just hasn't backed down from and likely won't any time soon.
I actually agree with this statement:
Couch: It's institutionalized poverty and corruption, and a mindset of the people.
And I too sometimes wonder about the country's hyper-violence being somehow rooted in their Mayan heritage.
Chaz - true but not in this case - I work and live right on the border with people who live and work on both sides. I also have Border Patrol officers in my family. And the usual hospital, EMS and police stuff I am around everyday.
Much of it is word of mouth down here as well as local media that is never picked up.
It's like a hundred times worse than you can imagine - often people are late for work or miss work - they can't get out of Reynosa or some border town because of an active gun battle that is going on.
It's not understandable from the world we live in - Police Chiefs, Mayors, etc - they are killed everyday.
This story kind of freaked me out - it really is a different time and world they are living in down there. We can't even imagine it anymore. It's like something out of a wild west movie but with no Clint Eastwood to come and kill the bad guys.
You sound like a real bitter as#@&%e, maybe we all are stupid retards compared to you, but having said that, what have you contributed to the conversation?
Even though I'm all for drug legalization - and it is the right thing to do, even if it makes things worse - I don't see how that would reduce the demand for drugs.
As long as demand remains high, the folks in Mexico will still fight over who manages the supply.
Legalizing drugs here won't do one damn thing to encourage the Mexicans to find a non-violent way to divvy up their sh#t. It may even make things worse down there, by injecting more money into the mix.
But legalizing drugs is still the right thing, and I'm not being facetious.
That is rough and very sad. The good doctor really had the courage of her convictions.
I think it's privileged thinking to believe that waving a magic wand about legalizing cocaine, heroin, meth and pot will lead to all bets off for the criminals.
Saying uncle is not something this national insurgency is about. It's run by military renegades who want Mexico and have the ultimate weapon for taking the USA - Drugs.
Why bother with ideals, bullets and hardship in a struggle for the USA that can be over faster by offering private, personal pleasure ?
It would be a no brainer to stop putting people in jail for using drugs but making illegal drugs legal will have no effect on the various cartels' paramilitary ambitions.
I just read that Villarigosa, the Mayor of LA, wants to shut down all the legal weed.
Hmm, and I also read, most of what the Cartel is bringing to the US, is weed.
I think Chaz if you legalize weed for example, you would bring the profits to the US and California, and California is short on cash, so why would the Mayor not want to bring a huge influx of cash into California?
Now food for thought, Villarigosa is in favor, of keeping the profits in the hands of the Cartel?
Makes me think something rotten in Denmark?
Chaz's point is very good however, if you make all drugs legal, then the Cartel will move to other illegal activities, it is a far more complex problem then simply getting ST6 to take out the Cartel.
Drug trafficking is and always has been about money, the probation in the 1920’s against alcohol created similar gang violence.
This isn’t about anything but pure monetary greed and intimidating your competition. The increase in gun trafficking is a direct byproduct of the defense of the cartels marketplace.
All addiction studies come to the same conclusion, a certain portion of the population will always become addicts and that percentage remains constant, the only noticeable difference is that as population centers increase so do the addicts.
As extreme as it may seem , legalizing and decriminalization of all drugs would not increase addiction but would remove the profitability and the criminal element.
Bootlegging of alcohol and overt gang violence significantly decreased after the removal of the probation in the 1930’s
I’m not suggesting that the cartels wouldn’t find other sources of illegitimate enterprises, but legalization would be a major counter offensive.
Arming additional american paramilitary and military organizations isn’t a solution. Violence on begets violence.
As unpopular as this may be, at one point there needs to be restrictions on firearms in the US.
I don't like drugs (hell I don't like alcohol either) If I was God I would simply shoot the (mostly white) users in the back of the head with a 45 (kidding), but the fact is, the US had to legalize alcohol to take the hyper profits out the business and thus away from the mafia. Same thing seems to apply now to drugs in my opinion. Let RJ Reynolds get into pot - millions of acres worth. They are competitive as#@&%es no doubt, but they have a different way of doing business. As it is, my guess is that the cartels are funding the anti-legalization campaigns. And the LA mayor's campaign as well.
Similar story in Bolivia and Peru by the way. Drug lords are only drug lords because they are the only ones ruthless enough to be in an illegal business.
Yes Rolf, all professional adventure is about money.
I do grind my teeth at the idea that nationally sanctioning stuff that is nakedly harmful will bring a brighter day.
These guys are about the money as well as power and there's many ways to get it. The best way is to show up and say "give me your money, or I will kill you". Or like posted above, say; "If you don't do what we say we will kill you". Or, well... you know what I'm saying. Drugs are just one way to get to the top.
Mexico is a wild place. I always thought their ideals were more American than America. There are more rich, powerful people per capita there than countries that play by the rules. There's no welfare there, so if you fail, it's all the way to the back.
His dad told him that the cartel had come to town and taken all the men and young men with them at gun point. They took them to a field and told them that they no longer work int he fields that they work for them and they will carry drugs into the US for them and if anyone has a problem with this they should stand up now and tell them.
We've been through all this 20 years ago in Colombia. What I do for a living is represent a few thousand people killed by Colombian paramilitaries in a lawssuit against Chiquita Brands, who were paying them for protection. In one case, a truck full of paras arrived at a soccer game, and kidnapped about 20 teenage players. They were made to unload about 3000 AK-47s from one of Chiquita's banana boats, then taken to a remote camp and either joined the organization, or were never seen again.
Everything everyone said here has already been said about Colombia too. The only reason things have gotten better is that the problem is moving to Mexico.
What an amazing brave woman who saved her child. Maybe her nation a little.
There ARE things worth dying early for.
Ditto that^^^ I really appreciate you posting that story. It stays with me.
Aside from that...
Weed isn't the main problem people.. cocaine is. Pot is one thing, but legalizing an addictive drug like cocaine in the US would be a bad call Ripley.
@Rockermike:
If I was God I would simply..
I would simply evolve a convenient mold or pest that caused every coca plant on the continent to die off. Fortunately for the cartels, I'm not God. Maybe we can enlist Monsanto to do some good for once? They could engineer a coca-specific Round-up to bomb the plantations with. Game over man.
20 years ago a good friend of mine was "arrested" by police officers in Mexico City, driven at gunpoint to a dark alley where they were blindfolded and robbed. Things have only got worse since then. Sorry, Portrero will never be on my bucket list.
Chinga tu Puta Madre Pelut. Pendejo. Los Mexicanos tienen respeto para los Espanoles despuees de todo el desmadre que han echo alli, y tu escribes esto. No soy tan ignorante como tu para pensar que todo los Espanoles piensan como tu.Idiota, Go f*#k yourself. Why don't you just stick to making bolt ladders up routes instead of insulting cultures that your ancestors went and f*#ked up.
I've been down to Copper Canyon a few times. I love that place but I'm scared to go back. The video below was taken in Creel. It shows the local cartel's thugs closing off the town so that they can go and eliminate their enemies there. I first went there about 1990 and there was drug cultivation going on there (Marijuana and Opium) but it was pretty isolated to some of the more remote canyons, especially Sinforosa, and villages. If you stayed in Copper Canyon you were away from it. For years they have been forcing the Tarahumaras to grow drugs for them. Now the drug cartels own whole villages and everyone who lives there works for them. They even own local police forces. It's common for the Federales or military to roll into an area and get in a huge gun battle with the local police. The local people have no chance of doing anything about it.
John Steiger and I are scheduled to leave for El Potrero Chico this Sunday. As disturbing as this story is, I'm not particularly worried, as this was not random/tourists, but something else. If they had dumped the bodies somewhere else, we would not be having this discussion.
I remember in in the 1980's when some people from the suburbs were too scared to come in to Wash. DC because they thought they were going to get shot by crack dealers...
Of course in both in climbing and and in life it never hurts to keep one's eyes open...
Don Paul wrote: What I do for a living is represent a few thousand people killed by Colombian paramilitaries in a lawsuit against Chiquita Brands....
Wow. I had never heard of that. Googled it, sure enough. My hat is off to you sir. I wouldn't mind if you posted a few relevant articles or pointed me to a forum where this is discussed, you could email me if you like. Not that I can do anything about it, but I try to keep informed.
Post globalization, the world is a level playing field in terms of commerce, where all competitors have an equal opportunity, to paraphrase The World Is Flat. As a a result, our traditional concept of country is obsolete to the point of being quaint. Any nation's power is secondary to the corporations that control it. Countries are played off each other: one is raped for its resources, another supplies cheap labor, a third provides customers who can buy on credit.
This isn't a Mexico problem, this is a global problem. In a world run by corporations and cartels, I'd think any intelligent individual would try to vote with their feet.
QITNL, that's very kind, thanks. Basically any lawyer could do it but only a crazy rock climber would want to. I knew I had the ability to deal with danger and unknown situations, and the mentality to pull it off. After 5 years its grown into a huge project, unfortunately also expensive to maintain my office down there so I am temporarily working in Washington DC to pay for it.
Al Jazeera did a great video on it about 4 year ago, called Chiquita Between Life and Law, the link is on youtube but I'm having trouble posting it. Someone put one of my complaints online, which tells the story but you have to skip through a lot of legalese and repetitive stuff to get to it. Also we have a facebook page, Asesorias Paul, where I post articles about the case, but 90% of them arein Spanish. Like the facebook page if you want to follow it, it will go on for 10 years more at least. Our office is in a serious drug producing area, drug gangs are constantly fighting over it, but they never bother us.
Paul
ps - just about everyone in Colombia really does call me Don Paul
"It seems to be a vendetta, a vendetta of some criminal group, because all the features of the facts make it seem that it was a group of organized crime," he said today in a radio interview Domene.
The spokesman said that the main organized crime groups operating in Nuevo Leon are the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, "who have spent years in a dispute terrible in this state, and regionally in Tamaulipas and Coahuila."
Google translated. It's not like it was a random killing. That bar was a known dangerous cartel hangout. Everybody acts like the cartels are killing people randomly. If you don't play private parties for the cartels you should be fine. Though it is scary how close this was to the climbing area.
Also this was some terrible reporting from Rock and Ice. The area hasn't been evacuated, and the bodies weren't dumped in Potrero. There were abducted from Potrero but the bodies were found in Mina about 10 miles away. They party was at a known cartel hangout.
I guess you haven't read about the store owners who are extorted for protection, the teachers that are kidnapped or murdered for speaking out, the newspaper reporters that are killed for saying anything bad about cartels etc.... It is true that mainly people who get involved are killed, but there are many people who have skills the cartels want and are forced into it.
I spent a year and a half in central Mexico, before the drug wars escalated. The first time I was there nothing happened to me. Th second time I went down I had a myriad of bad experiences. The context of crime and the danger to foreigners is different than here in the US. Just different. Having street smarts and comparing things to American cities means very little. Yes our culture is almost equally messed up, but in different ways.
Just because people smile and are friendly (most Mexicans are) doesn't mean the countries problems are exaggerated and that everyone loves you. When people suggest this it is simply condescending. To suggest the violence in their country isn't bad and that they are all friendly and welcoming to foreigners, it minimizes their plight. They have a myriad of problems, many of which we are partly responsible for, and there is some genuine and widespread distaste for Americans often simmering below the surface. Ever been spit on before? Then there are some truly friendly and giving people as well, I have many Mexican friends who are great people. The two can present in various ways. My friends here in the US always talk about how bad it is when they go back home, the country has big problems.
True the Cartel's violence is usually between the cartels, but often it spills over as well. White people stick out in Mexico, Mexicans universally assume all white people are American. (like we universally assume all Hispanics are Mexican). There is a long and volatile history between us. You have to be careful. Travel to Hidalgo is probably safe, maybe, I don't know. What if the cartel knew there was a group of rich foreigners 200 meters away? Could they have found a reason to mess with them? Maybe. I can't think of another town in northern Mexico drug territory with this concentration of foreigners, its not unfeasible to think someone might take notice at some point for some reason.
But it would be much more effective to simply steal someone else's plants
Chaz, that used to happen to us back in the late 1960s-1970s in Saranap (between Lafayette and Walnut Creek). We’d grow 10-12 plants on our hill, even my mom, who disapproved of the stuff, would water them when I was away climbing or my late brother Mac was at UC Davis, Napa or France.
But even though her dad was a well respected judge, she grew up on a farm in WVA “and I just can’t see plants wither way”. Hence she’d water them for us. And you name it, we grew it – oranges, apples, pears, peaches, olives, plums (Mac’s first winemaking), Cab Sauv vines, cherries loads of veggies, rabbits, chickens, goats, etc. A mini-farm in suburbia.
Long story short, we hardly ever harvested our pot plants, but we know usually who did. We never resorted to guns or violence. Just shrugged our shoulders.
Even worse than this, is they are now breeding dogs so they can insert bags of drugs inside them and then transport the dogs into the US. Once the dogs have the bags taken out of them you can only guess what happens to them after that. If they have no respect for human life, you can only imagine what they do to animals.
Apparently some people have been bringing their trained attack dog to the crags around here. I guess South Lake is pretty close to Carson, so I'm not surprised.
So to link this to the Bad Kitty thread, which I admittedly started, when the question of invasive species came up, I expressed hope that the Florida python problem would abate.
But as some posters wrote on the thread and I have since researched a bit, those suckers are really taking over south Florida.
So the big question. Who will get wasted first? The pythons or the cartels (of Mexico and the world)?
Or will both problems persist for many moons to come?
Yes that's all true dirt cload but the point is gringo climbers aren't in that group. I'm not saying everything is great down here. What happened to the band is horrible whether they had cartel relations or not.
I'm not saying you should come here. I personally think it's safer for climbers now with less climbers. After watching a huge rock fall through a crowd of people on the Jungle Wall during the two crowded weeks near new years, I think the loose rocks on multi-pitch routes are the bullets that have come way closer to killing climbers here.
The title of this tread is false about climbers fleeing. Maybe a few people have left but as of yesterday climbers were still climbing. Also the bodies weren't dumped in Potrero it was Mina. Just trying to shed some truth on the situation, though
According to the article, which included quotes from a police spokesman, the band member who survived reported that "the 18 musicians and crew members were blindfolded and driven on dirt roads. He then heard the assailants ask fellow band members if they belonged to a drug cartel, shots were fired and the bodies were dumped into a well."
I don't think I'll be visiting too many live music venues when I'm down there next week...
Climbers will be fine. No reason for the cartels to fuk with their paying customers... as long as they aren't sleeping with their women.
Yeah, I hear that cartels are very careful not to shoot yuppie/hippy gringoes because otherwise the police would get involved. And I'm sure that a Mexican willing to kill fellow Mexicans would probably have reservations about messing with some gringo tourist.
.Duane Raleigh:
Your article is very sensacionalist ( aka Tabloid).
you pick careully a single incident and some general statistical data and rush to write this down out of context, inducing the reader to panic without a point of reference... of the real situation and most important:
DAMAGING THE IMAGE OF AN ENTIRE CLIMBING COMMUNITY.
I was last winter in Potrero for a couple of months and things haven't change much since my last visit.
In the last years there are at least a couple hundreds of climbers per season who stay for several weeks at the area without recalling a single notorious incident and the locals (the good and the bad ones) naturally knows who are all this foreing people.
I will notice that you must exercise common sense visiting potrero like you will do in some other out of states adventorous climbing areas like south america or even europe.
Acurate, sencible information is crucial to succed as a climber.
As a columnist of this magazine you owe to the readers a sound judgement
An urban myth so that we may appreciate how drastically changed the world is.
Many years ago a certain American climber was imprisoned in Mexico. The story is after eight years
Mexico said they would release him. He opted to stay in prison. There he could get as many cheap
drugs as he needed, and there were connubial visits every week.
Why would I want to leave?
See what the US subsidy for corn production has cost us?
My dad and I cancelled a trip last year when we heard about some shootings in the Hidalgo main plaza. I know the plaza is still a couple miles from the climbing area, but we thought it might be better to go somewhere else. We stayed in the states and went to Hueco tancos! Which was quite nice.
Just heard on CNN of the terrible shooting death of the 15 year old girl in Chicago, she just performed at Obama's inauguration, and was known for smiling all the time.
Then Anderson went on to say 41 people have been murder so far this year in Chicago, maybe its time to flee?
Oh, and the 20 some kids shoot down at Sandy Hook , and another shooting today in Arizona, etc, etc.
But hey Mexico, oh my Lord, that place is messed up.
Gallo, I'm I reading the right story in Rock and Ice? The one in the front page news section. I'm bemused by your accusations against Raleigh's reporting. I didnt get the sense it was sensationalist. Frankly, I'm glad to get the heads up on a terrible incident that would give me pause before taking a trip there, especially with family in tow. Unless the facts are wrong, I don't know how he would have presented it any better.
The 'its just as dangerous in LA' argument shows a lack of understanding of the drug war in Mexico. These gangs out gun the local cops, buy them off or kill them and intimidate or pay off the federales. The local reds and blues in the US run drugs, do some drivebys on rival gangs. There is no comparison.
Just because you haven't heard of gangs kidnapping Americans doesn't mean that it isn't going to start happening in the near future. Sure, keep pretending that PC is south Texas, you are perfectly safe, it's vacationland in a sea of bolts, nothing to worry about.
I've spent time in Mexico, wandering into places I had no business wandering into. I love it there. I've not been at all intimidated by the cartel wars but perhaps in a few small towns I brazenly roamed, perhaps I should have been. I have 'a look' that could provoke a bad outcome, in certain quarters, I suppose.
Anyway, point is, the threat or risk of violence has not deterred me from visiting some very dangerous places, as a civilian, mind you.
I don't think I would visit Portrero Chico this year. Sorry, but 18 bodies in a nearby well MUST be taken as a warning. If you don't heed it or don't agree its a warning, fine, do what you're gonna do.
I'm just saying, for this traveler - 18 dead bodies in a well sends me a message I will heed.
Sorry Mexico. Sorry we f*#ked up your f*#ked up country a lot worse. You had it bad enough with the Spanish bastards.
You live in Vancouver, the summer camp of the world. The only danger there is a random over charge for a man purse on Robson Street.
I feel much safer in Mexico than most places in LA.
The media is all over the drug war, it's fairly dangerous, but to pretend you have some understanding that us Yanks don't have, well that's funny and laughable.
When I stayed in Manhattan, NYC, I had three murders outside my apt, a mugging and a rape in three months.
I traveled to Cancun after, and slept out on the beach; heard of no violence and everyone laugh at how scared Americans were by the media. Kids were living in tents and Gringo hitch hiking everywhere.
18 band members, how about over 20 children at Sandy Hook, come on man get a grip.
I have many close Mexican friends who live in Mexico and say you need to avoid certain areas just like anywhere in the world, but by and large its safe. Many Canadian living there as we speak laughing at the fear mongering of the press. I say don't believe the hype.
I'm just saying, for this traveler - 18 dead bodies in a well sends me a message I will heed.
Gotta say I agree. I mean, we can rationalize it any which way, but a massacre originating a stone's throw away from camp gives me the willies. I am sorry for the people involved and the absolute terror invoked by such acts for the common people of Mexico who are just trying to get by.
Firstly, I have not been to Mexico in over 27 years. In 1985 five of us went to climb the three main volcanoes. We flew to Mexico City, hired a VW van and set off.
After the night before we were to fly out, we went to a bar/nightclub in Puebla. Rob Grandfield was driving and did not have one alcoholic drink. On the way back to the hotel, two cops in a VW bug stopped us, this is around midnight, saying we were going the wrong way up the street. BS, we were on that streets hours earlier with traffic.
They said they smelled alcohol on Rob's breath and wanted $100 each or else he goes to jail. Fortunately, one of our team, Henry, whose parents were from Mexico, got them down to $50 for both of them.
Got the flight the next day.
But on this trip just about every Mexican we met were good people.
Been to Mexico several times in my life. Only other trouble was in TJ. My brother Mac, his then girlfriend Muffet Hemingway (yes, a granddaughter), my mom and I. Walking down a street some bloke came up and snatched Muffet's purse/handbag. I chased after him (I was 14 with long hair and broken Spanish), Mac behind me. Down an alleyway and gone.
Cop car came up, I tried to explain what happened. No go.
Otherwise I have known a lot of good Mexicans over the years (one team I played with was AC Mexico for a season in the old San Francisco Major Division, at the time the top of four divisions, also with SF Celtic, Major matches at the old Balboa Stadium). EDIT, I also played with a Jamaican team in East London (local league, played at Hackney Marshes). Good footballers, nice guys but they sure liked their ganja.
Loads of dead bodies in Mexico, Syria, Congo, 20 children in Connecticut, child soldiers in Asia and Africa made to kill other children, 77 dead in the Norway massacre in 2011. It is not just endemic to Mexico.
I spend a lot of time in southern Mexico (Yucatán peninsula) scuba diving and cave diving. I like certain parts of Mexico, and I'd like to retire down there on the Riviera Maya.
The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Mexico that went something like: "...Mexico...where stories of police corruption are legendary and true..."
I've had similar incidents with corrupt police in Mexico... One cop actually searched through my wallet and took all of my cash right in front of me.
If you can stay away from the drug cartel havens, and avoid the cops, Mexico is a great place.
My buddy who had a motor home down on the coast no longer goes to his 99 yr lease anymore. Getting to iffy on the way down there. And hes a tough SOB..
There is a current travel warning out against Nuevo Leon.
Los Angeles:
Population - 3,795,361
Murders in 2010 - 293
Ciudad Juarez:
Population - 1,321,004
Murders in 2010 - 3,075
Not really the same.
We have plenty of problems, I know, but when was the last time in the US someone found a mass grave with 50 people in it? Seems a little unfair to the Mexicans to just poo poo the situation.
To be clear, objectively, I don't think the people in Potrero are in any grave danger, I just find it a little annoying when people make blanket statements. Yes, a massacre at my local climbing area might make me think twice about climbing there, objectivity and rationality be damned.
I just returned from two weeks in Mexico climbing at El Chonta, a bit further south. All was well and nobody got hurt, except me. I stumbled while taking photos.
Sounds like all the fraidy cats should also avoid movie theaters, grade schools and the like right here in our own country. You may get gunned down. Seriously.
The danger from cartel violence is bad enough without sensational headlines, such as this post. Interesting to read the comments and feel the racist hostility coming right out in front. Sad.
"Interesting to read the comments and feel the racist hostility coming right out in front. Sad."
Stupid comment, but guess it's not to surprising with how easily that word is thrown around these days. Must make people who have dealt with "real" racism pissed off.
Really, no racism here? How about the bs about Mayan and Aztec heritage? Of course, the German heritage has no blood on its hands. The comments saying that the mexicans can't solve their problems so we should invade them and slaughter their people until we feel safe is blatantly racist. I don't hear anyone saying we need to send troops to Compton.
I have lived racism. As a child I couldn't sit with you in town at a restaurant. Signs on the wall forbade it. I was not allowed to drink from white fountains. Really, our country has come far but there are some lagging behind.
This is Riley, reporting from the scene of the abduction at La Carreta, 'the beer's still al tiempo and the rocks continue to fall sporadically. Some things never change in Mexico...'
Gilroy - lol - I had deleted.
Still thinking about it - just remembered the kids passports are expired.
Maybe go to Enchanted Rock with the kids instead...hate to be away from my kids..
Ironically my wife is on Progresso, Mexico right now at the dentist - i was supposed to go but was to sleepy.
We just spent New Years in Rosarito. Had a great time, stayed on the beach. Weather was a bit cool, but the one really nice day we drove down the coastal road to Ensenada. No problems.
Yes, you have to be a bit more cautious when traveling in Mexico, and I wouldn't go anywhere near Juarez anymore. For me, going there isn't much different then going to the "bad" part of town. Keep your head on a swivel, don't be flashy, loud or wear expensive clothes, and you're usually good to go. A little common sense goes a long ways.
Granted, Mexico is no where near as safe as it was when I was spending a lot of time down there 17 years ago, but it's still possible to be there and be relatively safe.
13 May , 2012: APPROX 50 mutilated bodies dumped between Monterey and the US border
16 Sept, 2012: 17 mutilated bodies found on a farm in Tizapan ElAlto
7 Dec, 2012: 13 mutilated bodies found in ElMante
7 Dec, 2012: 8 mutilated bodies found in Soto LaMarine
and of course CidadJuarez and surrounds.
Mutilations include but not restricted to: be headings, all limbs removed, gutted, wrong heads sewn onto other bodies, heads missing, sexual organs stuffed in mouths, breasts removed, burned, hung, chainsawed....
These privileged predominately white boy climbers, have no idea how racist they are.
I found out one of my nick names BITD, was The Sand Nigger, because of my Italian heritage and suntan from climbing in JT.
On Anderson Copper last night they had a gun debate it was quoted that there are 31,000 gun deaths in the USA every year.
Mexico is safe but you will never convince people with their head in the sand, its like everywhere else you need to watch were you go and who you associate with.
EDIT, looking forward to hearing about Alex's trip.
(Reuters) - Wielding machetes and rusty shotguns, a motley crew in face masks escorts dozens of captives onto a basketball court to face a public "trial" for suspected ties to criminal gangs.
This is Wild West justice, Mexican-style.
Outraged at relentless extortion, kidnapping and theft as a wave of drug-related violence washes over Mexico, farmers, shopkeepers and other residents in the mountainous southern state of Guerrero are taking the law into their own hands as "community police."
Both state and federal police as well as the military leave them to their own devices, manning checkpoints at entries to towns, but venturing no farther.
T-shirts pulled over their faces with holes cut for the eyes and nose, dozens of gunmen on Thursday flanked the tiny square in the hamlet of El Mezon, where more than 50 prisoners were paraded in public and accused of crimes from murder to rape to theft. No real evidence against them was presented.
The vigilante justice underscores a serious challenge facing new President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has vowed to shift the focus away from a head-to-head fight with drug-smuggling cartels that has killed up to 70,000 people in the past six years and to a more effective campaign against extortion and violence.
He plans to create a civilian-led police force made up of former military personnel that will replace the armed forces in the field, although until then, the government will keep troops out on patrol to deter violence.
Many Mexicans have little faith in police forces or the justice system. In this corner of the country, they are taking on the job themselves.
One of the gunmen watching over the alleged criminals on Thursday wore a Mexican "lucha libre" wrestler's mask, another a Spider-Man hood and a shotgun slung over his back. Some curled their fingers nervously over triggers.
They paraded the accused in groups of five in front of hundreds of onlookers. A collective gasp rose when one man was accused of murder by dismembering, a common trademark of gruesome gangland killings. He stared back at the crowd with an impassive smile.
Some local leaders gave testimony about how they themselves had been kidnapped by the accused. Sentencing will come later, organizers say.
"Many people saw it when they grabbed me. They stroked my shoulder and said they would kill me," one community police leader told the assembly.
"In my mind, I am dead, I haven't been able to get over it."
EXTORTION, KIDNAPPINGS
Communities in the folds of rugged mountains east of the once-thriving and now gang-infested beach resort of Acapulco say police are often in cahoots with criminals, do nothing when crimes are reported and ask for bribes themselves.
Extortion has flared in and around Acapulco over the past five years after two cartels clashed and one fragmented, creating a series of mini-cartels and kidnap gangs.
"We are victims of extortion, of injustice. We have been abused," said Bruno Placido Valerio, who coordinates community police groups in 20 towns and villages - a total of about 240 gunmen.
"The people are indignant at so much abuse. But we are not seeking anarchy or aiming to take justice into our own hands, but rather find a way out from the problem we are living with."
While community self-protection is a tradition in some parts of Mexico, these more radical community policing groups are an offshoot that started to form in early January.
His eyes peering out from behind a black ski-mask and clutching an aging .22-caliber rifle, a man who goes by the nickname "El Ciclon" or "The Cyclone," kept watch over residents of nearby communities attending the start of Thursday's "trial."
He and others covered their faces to remain anonymous and avoid reprisals from friends of the captives, or from government authorities.
"The people are fed up," the 45-year-old farmhand said. "Our government doesn't back us, so we decided to try to clear away all the bad people. We have to get rid of these animals."
On the eve of the trial, Guerrero state officials staged a last-ditch push to defuse the situation, but to no avail. The communities must now debate whether to impose their own punishments, or opt to turn them over to the real courts.
Some are demanding an eye for an eye.
RAPISTS 'SHOULD BE RAPED'
"They must be punished in line with the crime," said Odila Gonzalez Rios, who oversees community policing in the settlement of Copala, near the Pacific coast. "If they have raped, then they should be raped to see how it feels."
"If they have killed? The same. ... They must die, because otherwise this will never end," she said. "Do to them what they have done to others."
Acapulco last year earned the dubious distinction of being the murder capital of Mexico.
Police pickup trucks patrol Guerrero state, bristling with semi-automatic weapons. Sandwiched between supermarket advertisements on the radio, advice is broadcast on how to anonymously denounce organized crime.
The community policing "people power" approach comes at a cost. With so many guns openly held against the law, school absenteeism has soared.
"Closing schools is no way to combat the social cancer of insecurity," said Silvia Romero Suarez, Guerrero state's education minister. "It impacts our schools because teachers are afraid and parents fear sending their children to class."
The flourishing of community police groups in Colombia was a major factor in a deep spiral of violence that country grappled with as drug gangs co-opted them in the fight against Marxist guerrillas.
Mexico's government now faces a careful balancing act in handling the issue to avoid stoking demands for self-determination elsewhere, like in the southern state of Chiapas.
In the meantime, it is allowing gunmen to operate outside the law.
"This is a violation of human rights. They are violating people's right to freedom," said Oscar Ortiz, a law professor based in Acapulco. "The Mexican state, and that of Guerrero in particular, should get into gear because you cannot permit the law to be broken like this."
But some local officials insist the push for justice is forcing criminals to think again and making the area safer.
"They have filled us, the authorities, with courage, I can't hide or deny that," said Severo Castro Godinez, mayor in the town of Ayutla.
"Fortunately today, thanks to this movement, Ayutla is at peace. ... The community police are good people. They are responsible citizens. They are not looking to kill, they are looking to correct social behavior."
(Additional reporting by Luis Enrique Martinez; Editing by Kieran Murray)
Manny, didn’t mean to be dick and say it was a “stupid” comment, I should have stayed civil and just said I don’t agree with it. In my opinion the word gets thrown around way to easily, especially lately.
At what point does ignorance become racism? Is there any difference you think? If racism is just simply making ignorant comments, than what do we call people who actually walk around all day thinking they truly are above other human beings that don't share the same skin tone, culture, etc.. What do call those people that truly feel you shouldn't be able to drink from a drinking fountain. Is there “Racism” and then there is “Racism light” or what? Am “I” just ignorant to the word racism and don’t realize it encompasses many meanings? I’m willing to learn.
"I see a lot of over the top comments here"
Exactly, that's what I see from some posters here. over the top comments, I would not classify them as comments that are meant to be racist or by people that are racist. Do you call Hispanics that make comments about taking back California and kicking out the Gringos as making hostile racist threats, do you think they are racist, or just making stupid ignorant comments? I have not seen anything that said anything to the effect of "we should exterminate all the Mexicans". If you have than post the quote if you would like. All I see is people saying we should exterminate the cartels. There are many on here who you can tell by their posts don’t blame the Mexican people, but rather the US or Mexican governments, cartels, corruption, etc..
Toadgas wrote:
"it's a cultural-genetic thing, that bloodthirsty level of ultra-violence
...linked to their Aztec/Mayan heritage
check out Apocalypto by Mel Gibson"
That is an ignorant comment, but do you really believe Toadgas walks around thinking he is above you or I. If Toadgas were to read history and learn that Mexicans, are not blood thirsty because of their past cultures and still insisted on believing this, then I would say he is racist. I believe true racism requires an effort to stay ignorant in the face of other overwhelming facts. I don’t know, I just didn’t feel any “racial hostility” coming from this thread. I see "over the top comments". But perhaps I have been too brainwashed living here with the Gringos and don’t know what is good for me. Perhaps he really is racist and will claims so, I don't know.
Sorry you had to deal with racism. What part of Latin America did you grow up that had “Whites Only” signs? I know there is racism in Latin America towards the less white looking or straight up indigenous Latin Americans, but I have never seen or heard of signs like these. My mother was literally born in a grass hut, is obviously of indigenous background and was adopted into a home where she was only treated like everyone else by my grandmother that adopted her and some cousins, she has told me of the discrimination she suffered in her own home, but nothing about public things like this. Not saying I don’t believe you, just wanted to learn some stuff here. Didn’t know about this before.
By the way ToadGas, not sure if you were just joking, as that comment “was” pretty ignorant, but Hollywood movies I would assume you know aren’t the best places to get the real history of other cultures or countries. Besides it shows the Spanish landing in Mexico at the height of the Mayan culture which was way off. The only Mayan temples the Spanish saw had been overgrown with vegetation for hundreds of years. I guess good ol’ Mel was trying to mix Aztecs in with the Mayans. The Spanish and French were more violent, at least the Mayans, Aztecs, etcc., they did it for religious reasons not just to take over sh#t. Still very gruesome indeed.
I'll never forget my Mexican friend here in the US who once wore a t-shirt to work (dishwasher) with a massive swastika on it.
I wonder, is saying Mexicans are good people just as racist as saying Mexicans are bad people? The connotation is different, but what about the strict definition?
Dirt Claud, I am not offended that you say I' stupid. I tend to agree that I can be. I have often been in your shoes.
What you wonder about, racism v. ignorance is simple in my mind. Ignorance can be resolved with the proper information. Racism is different. You have to believe that your race is superior to others, usually a belief held by every race. Acting with hatred and intolerance towards another race is bigotry. We can all agree that every race has its bigots. I try to control my sense of superiority, but it's difficult at times.
Not all of the outrageous statements, some over the top certainly, were meant as anything more than blowing off steam, I'm sure. It is a horrible situation we are dealing with on both sides of the border. Many more will die until we find a solution. The solution requires action inside and outside Mexico.
I was born in Arizona almost 60 years ago. It wasn't difficult to know your place then. I remember a lot of things changing, racially, that were difficult for all.
This ISNT about a "race" of peoples. Good mexican folks are just that, and as good as anywhere on earth. What this IS about is a population of third world skallywags that make al-kay-duh look like girlscouts in comparison.
You do realise that Mayans did not partake in ritual killing right?
At least not until the very end.
You guys are showing an incredible amount of ignorance - it's like not knowing the difference between Africa and Europe or Rome and Greece. And for people who have studied Mayans and are even married to Mayans it is obvious your comments are putting you in league with Sarah Palin.
Read a book or travel a bit...
That said - Mexico is essentially a failed State right now - sure you will probably get lucky, and you are safe in a little climbing area.
But along the border here you need to be very careful - it used to be we would go down and eat after work - but you rarely see people doing that anymore. My own family rarely goes down there( Spanish.) Everyone has a story about eating and restaurant and gunmen coming into the restaurant and robbing everyone. You would never wear nice jewelry, or a big ring, or dress up nice and go to dinner. People are poor and hungry and they don't give a f*#k - a tip off from your waiter to some local hoods that you have a 2000 dollar ring and are flashing money is worth more than he will make in a month.
If you don't think there is a difference you are fooling yourself - Just come visit me and we can drive across to Mexico - Army on every corner, 50 cals, etc to keep the shopping and boarder tourist areas safe.
The political leadership is a vast network of payoffs and corruption that has only gotten worse - it is a country of Oligarchs where the vast majority of money is in the hands of the richest few and many people live in abject poverty. Kind of what you see occurring in the States right now with rising income disparity.
To say it is probably safe for a climbing trip and a trip to Cancun misses the point - Because there are many other vast areas of lawlessness where good people who try to fix some very serious problems are killed everyday.
Like everything - it is a complex.
But nobody should downplay the changes that have occurred in Mexico or the dangers.
My El Salvadorian father-in-law who has spent most of his life in Mexico and Central America does not even want us to go down there ever. If you are Spanish you can sort of fit in - but blond hair stands out. I had to practically argue with him when we went to Belize and Guatemala a few years ago. It's the people who have lived there who consider it the most dangerous now.
Buses in Mexico have been targeted by drug cartels in recent years, and the U.S. State Department has long told Americans that carjacking and highway robbery are "serious problems" throughout much of the Texas-Mexico border region.
Ron, I must have misunderstood your initial statement:
"Ive mentioned that before Hankster! Im all for that. We go around the globe to free countries under the rule of the ruthless yet we put up with a neighboring country that floods us as well with problematic types as they attempt to escape what is nothing but a large cesspool of murder rape and pillage. And we DO NOTHING about that.."
It sounds as though Mexico/Mexicans is a "large cesspool" or was it something I don't understand about your statement?
I totally agree with you that the cartels are every bit as dangerous as Al-q and closer.
Mamy do the same Manny,, no worries.. I have good Mexican friends, and they are great folk- just like average Iranians who only want to be like the US.
But these good folks are now under attack by the worst of their cultures, and so are we here in the USA now , as nightly news channels record the dead and the shootings. The Cartels, the gangs, the corrupt govt and police all NEED to be delt with and done in no uncertain terms. The only way i see that happening is for the USA to decide to DO something about it. Its would be for the good of GOOF FOLKS on both sides of the border.
Yes, a full on Brigade after Brigade sweep. Poncho Via would approve.
edit: and match that here by rounding up EVERY KNOWN GANG MEMBER in the USA and either A) deporting them or B) deporting them to a Mexican jail or Vietnamese jail or any other country of their origin including the USA.
Why the hell we put up with hundreds of thousands of KNOWN gang members is beyond me...
Of course the Mexicans would welcome us with open arms like in Iraq, and everyone would live happily ever after like in every other country we have intervened in.
The average Iranian (my buddy) hopes for the USA to take out their regime..Im willing to bet the good folks of mexico would welcome a squad of marines in their village to keep them safe,, yes i do...They are arming themselves with old single shot scatter guns in an effort to survive. If I were them, I would welcome a squad toting ARs and 50 cals..I would point out every Cartel member i knew to them as well.. And i would ask to go along, if they let borrow one of those assualt weapons..
Weather it's a good idea or not. The problem is many Mexicans would feel the "Imperialistic" USA is just trying to take over Mexico and the Mexican news media would make it look that way as well.
Edit: F*#k that Pancho Villa guy Ron, the real revolutionary was Emiliano Zapata.
The average Mexican would not, welcome the US. I've lived there, I speak the language, I know the country well. Your Iranian friend is an N: of 1. I also firmly believe change has to come from the inside for it to be lasting, we have zero track record of foreign intervention actually ever working to enact a lasting change in the last 30 or so years, we have a long track record of destabilizing countries, we have a debt to take care of, and an obvious non-violent solution to the problem. So I disagree.
Yes and a good part of our debt goes to illegal aliens here right now. Then throw in the amount of $$$ that goes into LEO actions nightly with the same, incarceration of the same, welfare, free clinics, and the list goes on.
Compton, Richland, Sacto, LA, Oakland, Reno, Vegas you name it. The last three violent shootings in the previous week all involved exactly the same types around the reno tahoe area. We have lands that WE ARENT allowed to go on in the USA..And much more where they advise against it. We have farmers shot in their fields near the southern border. All bullsheet and WASNT what my forefathers , grandfathers Uncles and Brothers fought for.
Its not just a Mexico problem.. It affects us all, as tax payers.
Two middle aged white males were slaughtered by another middle aged white male in Phoenix. Then he killed himself. Violence is universal, not just limited to Mexicans and gang bangers.
I'd like to see the facts showing that illegal aliens take any significant portion of the USA's debt. I think there are plenty of freeloaders on the govt dime, corporations for instance. Why do we pay Big Oil billions in subsidys? Oh, I know, they're all-american. Or maybe not.
The USA needs to retool itself and focus on domestic issues before we can school the world.
Ron, whether I agree or disagree with what you just wrote is irrelevant, the outcome of what you are suggesting is what matters.
Sending troops into Mexico would not make the situation better, it would make it worse, we would have a much worse situation on our hands. I guarantee you of that. Our track record with foreign intervention is one of destabilization, not stabilization. We simply don't know what we are doing when it comes to these things, and our hands are tied as a country by a binary two party way of thinking that prevents us from being able to effect change in another country even if we knew how to do it.
Emnergency room treatements and non payments. ( i have a buddy who deals with those figures for CTH.)
and watch the nightly bay area news and then guesstimate the amount of $$$$ during the subsequent LEO actions, investigations and reports all done in ganglands. On an average night in E carson, youll find no less than three cruisers, one being a canine unit around the hotsprings and hgwy 50 intersections at ALL TIMES. The area now known as little TJ.. This only a few miles from the fishing spot on the river i like where i had to read Kill the whites, and F*ck white boyz scrawled on the rock with spray paint from a local hispanic gang.
The SK gang had a shoot out in my parking lot twenty feet from me inside- watching it through the window during a car chase. So i have some first hand knowledge if you will.
For those of you calling me racist,, you obviously cant read or
Ron, the ethnicity figures I don't doubt; the hatred you feel from cholos, I don't doubt. The citizenship is what you referred to as far as feeding off the govt tit, illegal aliens. But ethnicity and citizenship are two different things.
As much as I love Mexico I experienced my share of racism down there. I was spit on, rocks thrown at me. A good friend of mine was murdered here in the US in what I think may have been a partially racist attack (he and the other victims were white, the killers were black and the attack was brutal and unfounded). It is a two way street. I think the answer is to not get on it. Accept people for who they are as individuals when you meet them.
and Manny,, yes , perhaps that is the confusion.. I know people from around the globe. I have many friends of different NA tribes, Mexican, Asian, and African. The RACIST card is thrown around here by some like candy in a parade quit honestly. But i promise you if an IRISH gang starts shooting it up out front ill be the first to let ya know. That just isnt the case. We have MS13, east side tokers, SK, and a few other off shoots here in carson city. All hispanic based.. Many of those could become legal through the "dream act" too..
We had Mexican grows here last year,, a BUNCH of them. All loosely connected with a cartel branch. We have a HS Blackhawk that now patrols the areas surrounding Carson, Garderville and Tahoe regularly.. I see it go over head each end every day as they search the river corridor as well.
Now,, a ship, pilot, co-pilot , crew of at least two others, plus support crews runs the tax payers about ,, lets say,,22,000.00 per hour in total, after ensuing logs, reports etc are filed.
22K x four hour flights x 7 days a week = 616K per week...
When you put it that way Ron, the cartels are here. Why bother heading south of the border? We are already fighting the battle you espoused earlier, just not south of the border.
Immigration is another thing. It deserves its own thread. I wish you luck in Reno. Arizona is no longer the quiet paradise it once was. People from the Mid-west ruined it...
Your bigotry is the same as all other bigotry. Dividing people by groups, and then saddling the whole group with the reputation ( either real or imagined ) earned by the very worst individual in that group.
You can't see that though, because it's a rare bigot who's aware of his own irrational prejudices.
Manny, my grandma is buried in Prescott (the OLD cemetary), and one of my brothers is in Tuscon. I was down there last Novemeber, and south of there hunting. I was surprised at the amount of LEO activities we witnessed. It was interesting...(have a cousin in the border patrol as well)
Wow that 's funny. Ron is racist, but somehow Manny wants to still engage him in a friendly way. Whats' going on Manny don't you see the racist that Ron really is? Or do you like conversing with racists?
Hmm? Either that, or perhaps Manny is just smart enough to know what a real racist acts like.
Sorry, don't mean to get you involved Manny. I just find it funny that all these "white" people are calling Ron racist yet you obviously don't see him to be that way and engage him still in a friendly manner. Perhaps you just accept everyone for who they are.
"You can't tell me you don't see the irony in what you posted."
No idea what you're talking about. You're saying that being anti-racist is a form of bigotry? I suppose you're right, but there's certainly no irony there. How can one be anti-racist without discriminating against racism?
You obviously missed this comment from Manny than.
"I was born in Arizona almost 60 years ago. It wasn't difficult to know your place then. I remember a lot of things changing, racially, that were difficult for all."
This was after I asked him about the racism he had to deal with and where he was from.
Well kidnapping and murdering aside at least we now know there is a known Cartel bar/hangout within a stone's throw from where we all camp. Nothing to worry about with that. Right?
I wouldn't. If you don't bother them, I doubt they would bother you. That's how Colombia is anyway. You're not very interesting compared to the multimillion dollar drug deal they're thinking about. Or their enemies they're fighting against. Although, if you look too dorky with a buzz cut, mirrored shades bizarre paranoid behavior, they might think you're DEA and that would be different. I sure hope zBrown can get to the bottom of what happened to all those Vietnamese tourists who disappeared down there.
Are Americans safer in Mexico than at home? Please, what a load. At least
here 99.9% of the cops are honest and well-meaning. Mexicans often don't
even call the man because they don't trust him. I've had a number of
friends who have been shaken down by the fuzz por una mordita. One climber
rented a car at the airport to drive to Orizaba and got shaken down twice
before he could get out of Mexico City.
I read that Steve.. But my buddy who has a 99 year lease on some beachfront wont go down anymore- says there are too many new faces and gangs that scare him silly. And hes been going down in the motor home for the winters for 20 or more years..
^^^ Well I'm not gonna work on it, but I might spend some time on the ethnic cmposition of Mexico. I somehow feel that there is not a giant wave of immigrants descending upon Chiapas.
EDIT:
I have never been to portrero chico and am not anticipating a trip nearfuturewise, so I poked around a little and did find some photographic evidence of Vietnamese tourists, alive no less.
pat (below), but the question I think is, do they stay?
In a way there is. A lot of immigrants from other countries pass through Chiapas on their way to the US, Ironically the Mexicans don't treat them very well.
The above article is truly skewed. Think if yourself as a climber: probably white, probably upper middle to upper class. This fits into the category of an American likely to get killed in America? No, you aren't. It is poor, non-white people competing for limited resources that get killed.
So you travel to PC, you are now not protected like you are in the US. You don't live in the suburbs, with police that would respond in a second to a white person getting accosted in any way.
It doesn't matter how many cops are in PC or anywhere in Mexico before or after murders. They are all ready and willing to be paid off or look the other way at any given time, and they will turn on you in a second to take your money. Later, no one saw or heard a thing. Been there, done it myself.
This isn't a rant against Mexicans or Mexican people. I feel sorry for people having to live in what is, in effect, anarchy.
If you 'feel safe' in Mexico, great, go for it. 'You are more likely to drive in a car crash' probably a better analogy. As thing get worse, no one will go to Mexico. Law and order are non-existent by US or first-world standards.
"Just to be clear Jhedge you are saying or ipmlying all conservatives are racist and have a low IQ?"
This statement is just as true now as it was 150 years ago, when it was first made:
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." - John Stuart Mill
Here's another, more recent, but no less accurate:
""We've got to stop being the stupid party" - Repub LA Gov. Bobby Jindal
And what is being "implied" might better be answered by reading the articles I linked to. Racism and conservatism have been scientifically linked to low IQ.
I get the whole don't bother them and they won't bother you thing with the cartels, I just wonder if it is not a matter of time before they poke their head across the street and say hey guys... look at what we have here, a way to get some extra cash.
"In a way there is. A lot of immigrants from other countries pass through Chiapas on their way to the US, Ironically the Mexicans don't treat them very well."
This never gets reported here. The Federales treat the Guatemalans and other Central Americans like sh#t a lot of the time.
Racism and Discrimination abounds anywhere in the world, not just in "Whitey" land.
You obviously missed this comment from Manny than.
For fuk sakes man, it is thEn, not thAn. Don't try to pass it off as a typo either, you do this repeatedly. This has nothing to do with Mexico or racists, it has everything to do with 3rd grade spelling class.
You didn't really answer the question Jhedge, but I am going to take that as a yes.
I have two college degrees, lived outside of the US for six years, speak two other languages, and have moved away from from my liberal upbringing to a libertarian view with plenty of conservative elements to it (fiscal and judicial) though I disagree with Republicans on many issues (Democrats as well). Somehow though if I ever express those conservative views I am a conservative, I am racist, and have a low IQ because god forbid anyone hold views outside of the two doctrines we are allowed.
Your view is a cop-out, pure and simple, you don't want to have a valid argument with someone or consider their point of view. That sort of thinking is the essence of bigotry.
"Racism and Discrimination abounds anywhere in the world, not just in "Whitey" land. "
Exactly, and usually where we least expect it like when we try to find "scientific" studies to label those on the other side of the policitcal spectrum as all having low IQ's.
Sh#t, I didn't know I was writing an essay for college. You guys post here and know how fast paced this sh#t can get and you are going to blast me for that. I try my best to check my spelling before posting, but didn't really think any Professors would get upset over some grammatical errors. Fair enough. would you be kind enough to run through my posts and point out all my spelling errors. I mean it's really relevant to the whole topic here.
All these white boys fear the little brown man, I know most of them and they are from the git- go racist, they just haven't learn what its like to have a little color in their complexion.
The violence in Mexico is over-hyped, these guys are cutting and pasting facts, and their research like that of Reilly (love you Brother) extend no farther than their personal experience.
At this point, I would op.. to drop out, as the battle is long fought.
They simply ignore the over whelming violence in the US, because it suits them and their need to prove a mute point.
Basically, 18 band members dead near a climbing area, Mexico's asunder, 23 children dead in Conn, everything cool, and guns are great.
I mean it's really relevant to the whole topic here.
It is entirely relevant. It is not a simple spelling mistake. It is a persistent ignorance of the difference between two common words. You cun't vary wall argue about the ignorance if otters of you don't knew the weaning of the wards you use.
As I said before Mechrist, you are a special kind of Prick. You gonna go ahead and leg hump me know and follow all my posts so you can call me ignorant. You are f*#kin moron dude. But I know the net is your life and you get off on this sh#t so have fun. I'll be looking for you to check all posts for spelling as well. Or you just have a hard on for me, not anyone else. This internet sh#t is so funny. Have fun on ST the rest of the evening.
No, I'm simply going to ignore you, as usual, until you start going off about ignorance while committing grammatical atrocities that would shame an 8 year old.
"Basically, 18 band members dead near a climbing area, Mexico's asunder, 23 children dead in Conn, everything cool, and guns are great."
+1
And other country's gun violence (or lack thereof) is only comparable to the US if it shines a favorable light on private gun ownership. If not, then they're too geographically different to apply.
Ron, Dirt Claud I am simply willing to let everyone believe what they want as long as they don't force me to accept their belief as my truth, whether it is about race or guns. Just because you're a wacko (not saying either of you are)doesn't mean I won't climb with you.
I usually try to ask about facts to refute arguments based on hearsay or opinion. Which is why I was so incensed by R&I initial report about bodies thrown into Homeros well. That was akin to throwing another log on the fire and what got me into this thread. Now here we are. Back to the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, "badges, badges, we don't go to show you no stinking badges!" Classic Mexican bad guy nightmare for everyone.
Not arguing for or against Mono, just pointing out some facts and inconsistencies. I am not a gun person, I just think the debate has very little to do with the cause of the gun violence which shows insincerity on our parts as Americans.
^^^
They have been applied, vast majority of ordinary Mexicans don't own guns. Cartels do which they acquired illegally.
Mexico is in the midst of a full blown narco insurgancy. you simply can not compare the US violent crime and ramdom mass shootings to a civil war.. Different game entirly.
And if we enacted the same level of gun control here in the US as in Mexico we would be able to enforce them? Really? Does this not show that despite gun control laws people wind up with guns anyway? Deadly ones? What makes the US more able to deal with it? Is not the war of the Federales against the cartels partly a war to control them and disarm them?
Where is the discussion on mental health? Where is the discussion on non-violence? Where is the discussion on responsible parenting? Its drowned out because those things aren't contentious enough get politicians elected and require sincere change that has to come from ourselves. The gun control debate is a ruse, it will accomplish nothing to prevent these shootings just as it did nothing to prevent violence in Mexico.
I've heard (from a reliable source) it's much harder to hack someone to death, or look them in the eye and stab them in the heart, than to shoot at a safe distance.
The underlaying cause of violence is the issue, not the means in witch the kill is made.
Seems lot's of guys... killed better with famine and bombs, than guns, but no ones stopping those - because they are a corporate tool; the good old USA being the greatest seller of said goods.
Let's bring the discussion up a notch, rather than debate band aids, let us debate a cure.
Driving back to Copper Canyon in two weeks, can't wait. Chicken sh#t Americans, more guns than they know what to do with and are still afraid of their own shadow.
That's exactly what I am saying Coz, though I disagree with your assessment of the violence in Mexico. I think there is something to be learned in Mexico.
This is a very complex issue, dealing with global commerce, and shared profit amongst the ruling elite, a simple spoon feed media solution is no panacea to what ails us.
Hate me if you like but I've traveled to about 38 countries so far, and I can tell you without a moments hesitation the good old USA is fundamentally the most psycho and dangerous.
I love America, but the ruling elite controls the media and big money controls the mass hysteria.
I would challenge any one here to fly to Durango, Mexico, and take a drive around, you will see all your great American products being made in the most horrible conditions, and the little brown people made to suffer.
Media controlled by said elite is making you unwilling to make that trip, as the so called drug war that we are fighting, is suppling all the goods and services ( coke and weed) to our country.
I guess if you are Mormon he would be a gringo. I think I am partly a little jealous of everyone living it up and climbing long routes in Potrero. Back to work.
Always disappointed to see how threads become so personal. I have only climbed in PC twice. Once on my 56th bday and again on my 58th bday. Great place and fun. On the 2nd trip while waiting for Magic Ed to pick us up two military looking vehicles with about a dozen people in each, fully dressed in ninja type clothes (faces covered) and obviously loaded for Bear with weapons passed thru the Airport in Monterrey. Ed said like 50 SUV/Big Truck type vehicles had been jacked in recent weeks. Also said Drug type activity had increased in the Monterrey area. Folks at the airport were not very friendly and I got hassled big time at the airport over carabiners and small climbing gear in a small pack (no problem coming in), Searched 3 times. The people in charge spoke no English (or did not want to) and were rude to say the least. So trip #1 - not much sign of trouble, trip #2 drugs issues and cartel activity getting a little closer but no worries as it is Monterry and now apparently activity in Hildago. Guess I.m stupid, racist or something but seems like a pattern to me. Comparing people who torture, decapitate, multilate, etc. for personal gain or revenge to a sick boy and a sadly mistaken Mother to them is very bad logic. True there is danger everywhere, East St. Louis, Harlem, L.A. etc. etc. I avoid those just like I will avoid PC now. Going where there are folks who don't want you is ill advised. Really sad all these comments about us white folks. We have a lot of Hispanics here in my little town in Southern Indiana, probably a lot of them illegal,we are nice to them, some of my family teaches the young kids, speakes highly of their hard working parents and how neat the kids are. Makes her job challenging as most of the parents only speak Spanish. But we spend our resources and do what is necessary. My son adopted an African American child at birth ( is that still an acceptable term) and he is the light of our lives. Seems to me us white folks (most of us) are doing just fine in the treatment of other ethnic groups. So I just keep my fingers crossed that things don't decide to jump 2 more miles down the road. I would imagine that these vicious killers won't take race into consideration - only color that matters to them is green.
Man Ruppell, what are you a combo Dr. Phil and English teacher, I am impressed. Anyway, the point was it seems a bit risky to go to PC right now and white folks are no more racist than others, Short enough ?
I've spent more time in Potrero than most here I can assure you. I haven't been down there in a few years but it has nothing to do with the current situation there. I'd go down this month in a heartbeat if I could find the money to do it with. So, for me at least, that risk would be worth the reward. As far as racism goes, it exists everywhere. It sucks, for sure, and if you can figure out a way to stop it post up. lol
I've spent more time in Potrero than most here I can assure you. I haven't been down there in a few years but it has nothing to do with the current situation there. I'd go down this month in a heartbeat if I could find the money to do it with. So, for me at least, that risk would be worth the reward.
Me too, plenty of money but just no time. Temps are probably perfect right now!!
Me too, plenty of money but just no time. Temps are probably perfect right now!!
So I've heard. lol Thanks for Thunderkiss man. One of the best, most underdone lines in the Potrero. If we ever meet up you have to tell me about Love Removal Machine as well. Actually, I have the time, wanna float me a loan. lol
1987- Jeff Jackson and me(boy was the Potrero different back then), 1st line on the whole Outrage wall, 4 bolts drilled on lead, seemed way scary and crumbly with hideous spandex, as I recall. Some kind of 12a?, for sure X.
Nice. It had a few more bolts when I did it for the first time. Seems bolts are popping up down there pretty often. I heard that Jeff gave the OK to add them so it's all good if that's true. Steel Pulse grew 6 more bolts a few years ago. Makes access to the Bronco Bowl a little less heady. lol You realize we're about to turn this into a climbing thread. Keep it up.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) 32,885 people died in traffic crashes in 2010 in the United States (latest figures available), including an estimated 10,228 people who died in drunk driving crashes, accounting for 31% of all traffic deaths last year.
If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to take the train.
"In 2009, the last year for which there is data, 1,180 children were killed, half in shootings.
Recent, sensational killings of children — shot in a car seat, dumped in a field with a bullet in the head, killed as their grandmothers cradled them — have shocked Mexicans and shaken their faith that family is sacred, even to the criminal gangs."
Just because you didn't see it on your visit to Mexico doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Danger does lurk everywhere in the Monterrey area. Lock your children up. I saw this creeper back from the dead while driving through the city. http://youtu.be/eyihqcUL-ko
You realize we're about to turn this into a climbing thread. Keep it up.
Can you fuking believe I'm the 1st human ever at the base of the Bronco Bowl and I didn't bolt Celestial Omnibus immediately??!! Love Kurts long 13a's, but that's my fave route at the Potrero and I let Ned get it... Ned's an awesome dude.
Celestial is on of those routes that you look and and go "HOLY SH!TE. It goes out that?"
My first trip down there in 2005 I met up with a guy who wanted to go do Fit for Life. I'd never been up into the Bronco Bowl. Steep climbing at the time was a weakness of mine and I figured those two routes would be good for me. So the next day we get the Potrero alpine start. That's noon for those of you who haven't been done there. We arrive at the base and start flaking the rope. My partner, who was a much better climber than I, INSISTS that I take the first pitch. At 11a a it's not technically that hard but it is long and a tiny bit runout. At the time it only sported 5 bolts in it's 150 feet. So I grab the draws and tie in. A remember getting to the crux and looking down about 15 feet at the last bolt and having a pretty good laugh. I finished the pitch and belayed my partner up. Turns out he had been up to the Bronco Bowl a few times but had never lead Steel Pulse. I guess runout face climbing was a weakness of his.
That's the bottom line. Most of the problems in Mexico is just that. It needs to redo the way it allows business to function, make it more of a free market, capitalistic, less open to local corruption and wham! They have the skills, the desires and the resources to compete. Do that and I bet half the problems over there will disappear. Once they can chase the dream, the drug world wouldn't be so attractive. Right now because there is so little opportunity, drug smuggling looks real good.
That's the bottom line. Most of the problems in Mexico is just that. It needs to redo the way it allows business to function, make it more of a free market, capitalistic, less open to local corruption and wham! They have the skills, the desires and the resources to compete. Do that and I bet half the problems over there will disappear. Once they can chase the dream, the drug world wouldn't be so attractive. Right now because there is so little opportunity, drug smuggling looks real good.
Gosh Damnit!!! Do I need to run for f*#king President!!!
I have been advocating a policy like this for years on this forum. Bring manufacturing from Asia to Mexico and South America. You know what you get???
1. Less illegal immigration
2. Less transportation costs for goods.
3. More prosperity in Mexico, and less corruption, and less drug trafficking.
It needs to redo the way it allows business to function, make it more of a free market, capitalistic, less open to local corruption and wham! They have the skills, the desires and the resources to compete. Do that and I bet half the problems over there will disappear.
Yes, maybe, but reducing corruption is one of the primary cruxes for all developing countries trying to increase prosperity amongst its citizens. It is much more difficult and complex than simply changing laws or policy. Once corruption has gained traction in a society, people lose faith and become jaded towards its political and economic system. The people engaging in corruption have a strong vested interest in the status quo, and are generally resistant to positive change.
If it were as simple as changing the way government allows business to function, then you can be sure that half of the problems (or more) for the entire Third World would disappear.
I was watching some TV documentary yesterday about the cartels, and they were interviewing a "hitman" for the cartel in Sinaloa. He said he'd killed 15 people so far. They asked him how much, and he said $200 each (only in pesos). The interviewer mentioned that's not much and he replied "here, it is plenty". So if you have kids who are willing to become hit men for only $200 I don't think there is ANYTHING that will improve the situation.
In antiquity, IIRC, tossing bodies in the well, was a way to punish the larger public of the area. No one will ever drink from a well - from which dead have been pulled out - again. In antiquity, that could doom a town.
Can't find much on the interwebs to support it, but google offers:
Archaeologists from Israel say they have have stumbled onto a Neolithic murder mystery after two bodies were found dumped in a well dating back 8,500 years.
Researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority unearthed the ancient well in the Jezreel Valley, south-west of Nazareth, after it was discovered by road maintenance workers.
But they have no idea how the skeletal remains of a 19-year-old girl and an older man came to be dumped deep down the 26ft well, and suggest that it may be a case of murder
'What is clear is that after these unknown individuals fell into the well it was no longer used,' said Yotam Tepper, the archaeologist in charge of the dig.
canyoncat - that's how it works, kids are used as hitmen in Colombia too. They start out as neglected or homeless children, which is a widespread social problem. It's partly a result of the war, which created millions of displaced people and broke up families. The participants in the fighting were generally men, and their numbers got reduced, leaving orphans. Another thing is that rural Colombians don't formally marry as a rule, and the father sometimes just walks off. If there is an extended family, that's one thing, but many millions of them are displaced and that's not an option. There's also just a lot of bad parents. For whatever reason, there's a lot of kids down there living on the streets or ignored at home and on the streets all the time anyway. The paramilitaries and guerrillas use them as lookouts and pay them, giving 8 or 10 year old homeless kids the best opportunity they've ever had. Eventually they graduate to a certain age and are given a gun, and a sense of power few 12 year olds would have. Since they come from poor displaced communities, where no one paints their house because its too expensive, its an attractive option, and this is very prevalent and the way the armed groups have recruited for years. (Freddy Rendon Herrera was just convicted of this, recruitment of minors, for about 150 teenagers under his command)
About 3 years ago, there was a guy in a wheelchair who used to hang out in front of a particular store a lot, was either a lookout, or suspected of being one, since a young boy of about 10 years ran up and just shot and killed him in broad daylight. This was about 2 blocks from my office in Apartado. And from my work I know that a large % of the victims of the conflict have been teenagers. The farc like to recruit adolescents so that they can indoctrinate them, which is slightly different. In any event, kids have no fear and will do what they're told, and can be taught to accept it as normal. When they get older they have seen so much and been desensitized.
One last story: an apartment I used to rent was above a fried chicken place like KFC. These guys were up at 5:30 AM to fry all the chicken for the day, and the smell made me feel sick to my stomach, that's how I woke up every day until I moved out. A year later there it is on the news, the same fried chicken restaurant, I am subscribing to a youtube channel of a news station from there. It turns out that one of my neighbors, on the same floor but I didn't recognize him or know him, had decapitated his wife in their kitchen, with a kitchen knife. I can post the link to the news story if desired. I attribute this kind of psycho behavior to things seen or learned at a young age, although I don't know anything about the guy. I guess this could happen anywhere, but the homicide rate there is extremely high. (Ron mentioned MS 13 before, they're from El Salvador and I have the same theory about them.)
A couple of awesome movies from Colombia about Medellin, the capital of our department. The first is called Vendedora de Rosas, its about street children and there is a youtube version with english subtitles. The second is called La Sierra: Muerte en Medellin, that's about the AUC paramilitaries, who turn out to be about 16 years old, and is a really scary documentary. It starts with an older guy who says, "We're in the hands of armed teenagers. That's the problem." A third movie would be "La Gorra' which is just about gang violence. All these movies are in a similar style, that reminds me of Spike Lee.
So i had a real good chat with my brother-in-law yesterday during the Super Bowl - he is from Guadalajara and he is a smart guy.
I didn't realise it but the last three times he has went down he has flown.
He says it is like Russian Roulette right now - but it is better then last year.
South of Monterrey area not to bad - Monterrey and north real bad. That is also what the locals will say and think about their prospective areas.
He says, like i was saying, nothing is written about it in the Media - they kill you if you write about anything.
We would have never heard about this killing if it was not for Potrero Chico - it is not in the papers or on the news here anywhere - nobody even knows about it in this area.
He was telling me cartel violence is spreading and changing - his brother, who lives in Guadalajara, has been robbed twice in the last two months - they remodeled their home and it made it a target - the first time they busted in at gun point and robbed them and the second time they just cleaned everything out when they were gone.
He told me a story about a Mexican guy he works with who has some bullet scars - he is from a town close to Monterey. He was driving into his town and the Zetas were there - just randomly shooting at everything and anyone who drove into town - he got hit in the back a few times.
He said the new freeway from Reynosa to Monterey is incredible - 10 hour drive now and pretty safe - but from the border to Monterey or Saltillo is just to dangerous.
Part of the corruption problem in Mexico stems from is the centralization of power in Mexico City. More autonomy to the individual states might have reduced the opportunity for corruption to take hold on such a large scale.
That Acapulco story is going to really finish the tourist business off in Mexico.
Edgardo Baca on Surfer Rosa (5.13a) in the Surf Bowl, El Potrero Chico, Mexico. Photo by Alain Denis.
Another example of the continuing disinformation occurred on May 4, 2012 when motorists on the toll road 85D—the favored route for climbers driving to El Potrero—encountered four women and five men hanging from a bridge over the highway. A banner strung up next to the corpses stated that the murdered were members of the Gulf Cartel: “… This is how I'm going to finish off every f*#ker you send to heat up the turf. But it's okay, here are your guys. The rest went away but I'll get them. Sooner or later. —Los Zetas”
Just a few hours later, 14 decapitated bodies were found in front of the Customs Agency next to the offices where climbers get their passports stamped. The severed heads were placed in ice coolers and dropped off in front of the Palacio Municipal, the mayor's offices, along with another dissembling message: “You want credibility that I am in NL? What will it take, bringing the heads of Zeta leaders? Or yours? … Continue to deny my presence here in Nuevo Laredo and you will continue to see their heads. I do not kill innocent people to submit work as you are accustomed … all dead in Nuevo Laredo are pure scums, in other words, pure Z. Sincerely, your father.”
Unfortunately, these assurances on the part of the cartels that innocents won’t be targeted have been shown again and again to be specious. In 2012, in Nuevo Laredo alone, nine bystanders were injured as the result of car bombs, and a casino and a popular nightclub were set on fire.
Another reason that reliable information concerning the drug war is so difficult to come by is that the cartels target media. Consider these examples, again, all occurring in Nuevo Laredo. In 2004 a journalist reporting on the cartels was stabbed 26 times. In 2006, the newspaper El Mañana was blown up by a grenade. In 2010 the offices of the TV Just a few hours later, 14 decapitated bodies were found in front of the Customs Agency next to the offices where climbers get their passports stamped.station Televisa were attacked. In 2011, María Elizabeth Macías Castro, an editor of La Primera Hora newspaper, was decapitated. A message was left: “For those who don't want to believe this happened to [María Elizabeth Macías Castro] because of [her] actions … Thank you for your attention, respectfully, Los Zetas.” Even bloggers and people who post on social media are targeted. For example, in 2011 a man and a woman in their early 20s were abducted, tortured and hung from a pedestrian bridge along with a sign that said they were killed because of posting web entries critical of the cartels. The sign read: “This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet.” Sure enough, within two months four people were killed after posting negative comments about the cartels. El Mañana was attacked again on June 10, 2012, and the paper issued a statement saying that it “will refrain, for as long as needed, from publishing any information related to the violent disputes our city and other regions of the country are suffering.”
The same kind of self-censorship on the part of the press, bloggers and social media is occurring all over Mexico. It’s no wonder some people believe that the violence is confined to those connected to drug trafficking in some way—but that belief is false.
Violence in the Area near Potrero Chico
The metropolitan area of Monterrey, situated adjacent to the Mexico 85/I35 corridor, is an important warehousing center for cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs bound for U.S. consumers. The isolated little towns and ranches of Nuevo Leon are also “treasured,” according to the Houston Chronicle, by drug traffickers as outposts and the region has experienced an uptick in violence concurrent with the ongoing cartel wars. In 2012 alone, according to Reuters, Nuevo Leon had become Mexico’s murder capitol, with 685 drug-related killings as of May.
One gruesome example was discovered on the same day that the editorial board at El Mañana stopped covering the drug violence. Somewhere between 49 and 68 decapitated bodies were found along Mexico 40 just southwest of Monterrey. The bodies are still unidentified because the hands and feet were also cut off and discarded.
Earlier in the year, in February, two U.S. missionaries were killed in the region by cartel members. Also in February, 44 inmates were killed in a riot at Apodaca prison which is close to the Monterrey international airport. Thirty-seven prisoners escaped including the leader of the Monterrey Zetas. On August 14, members of the Gulf Cartel invaded a Monterrey bar and gunned down 10 people.
The list of cartel-related massacres and killings goes on and on. Keep in mind that these examples are confined to 2012 and do not include violence outside of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. If you look at violence occurring in 2011, the situation is even starker. In July 2011, for example, gunmen shot and killed 27, injured 7 and kidnapped 8 people in a bar in Monterrey. On August 25, 2011, gunmen massacred at least 52 people at the Monterrey Casino Royale. According to witnesses, the gunmen stormed the casino and immediately opened fire, killing civilians, then doused the entrances with gasoline and lit them to trap people inside.
Once again, the facts suggest that the cartels act with impunity, and the idea that climbers will be exempt from violence is wishful thinking based on ignorance.
In response to the violence, the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey has issued a traveler's advisory that warns against travel in Nuevo Leon. In addition, the U.S. consulate is "a partially unaccompanied post" with no dependents of government officials allowed. All officials are on a curfew that requires them to remain in the consulate neighborhood between midnight and 6 a.m. For more information check out this Crime and Safety Report for Monterrey. The report is pretty comprehensive. One item that seems pertinent is the kidnapping stats: "The U.S. Consulate General Monterrey was apprised of 17 kidnappings of U.S. citizens in 2011 in its consular district; all of those are unresolved. There were also 11 homicides of U.S. citizens that were the result of a kidnapping. These numbers do not account for unreported kidnappings."
In the case of Kombo Kolombia at the Potrero, it is still unknown why the band was kidnapped and killed. Most reports suggest that they were not involved with the cartels. Once again, the facts suggest that the cartels act with impunity, and the idea that climbers will be exempt from violence is wishful thinking based on ignorance. Foreigners have been targeted and history has shown that climbers are not immune. A parallel might be Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden, John Dickey and Jason "Singer" Smith in Kyrgyzstan. The climbing team was abducted and held for a week after traveling to the region despite a U.S. State Department warning advising Americans to stay away. In this case, thankfully, the climbers were able to make a desperate escape.
Conclusion
I started climbing in El Potrero Chico in the late 1980s and I have spent many happy hours drinking beer, eating tacos and socializing with the residents of Hidalgo, Nuevo Leon. As a group, the people of Northern Mexico are perhaps the most hospitable, kind, compassionate and gentle folks I’ve encountered in all my travels. I’ve been welcomed into people’s homes, fed and housed on numerous occasions. In the 1990s and 2000s I wrote several articles extolling the virtues of this multi-pitch limestone paradise and after exploring many other climbing areas across the globe, Potrero Chico remains one of my favorite destinations. The infrastructure that has grown up around the climbing—the campgrounds, restaurants and guide services—have been affected by the drug violence and it makes me very sad to see my friends struggling. However, the idea that we should not report on the situation because it will adversely impact tourism (as some Internet pundits have implied) seems grossly irresponsible bordering on culpable, especially given the cavalier nature of some of the comments on rockandice.com and other climbing websites in response to the Kombo Kolombia story. Reporting on the very real violence and threat of violence to travelers in Northern Mexico is not “sensationalistic” as several posters have suggested. As always, the best way to remain safe while traveling in a hot zone is to educate yourself. I’ve laid out a brief, recent history of the Mexican drug war as it applies to travel in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. What you choose to do with this information is, of course, up to you.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject. Please comment below if you have opinions or information to share.
I think about 90% of the posts on this thread have no idea what they are talking about and have only heard of Mexico through episodes of Breaking Bad. Really, you guys are worse than Fox News. Which is saying something. Mexico is a climber's paradise, full of amazing people and culture and rock. The crisis in the north deserves our empathy and support, not our ignorant scorn.
Mexico's northern border is under attack. Other states are also battlegrounds though. I posted previously and after reading "El Narco" by Ioan Grillo, I realized it is a complex problem for the whole of the country. There are many sites that will inform and frighten you if you wish to know.
I agree that Mexico is a beautiful and mostly tranquil country. I climb there often and will return. But to have a safe trip you should definitely do some research on the areas you will climb. Potrero is unfortunately in the very heart of the flames.
Latest news shows Kombo Kolombia was targeted because of the war between the Zetas and Gulf Cartel. From Borderland Beat: "In the first instances, the hypothesis was that Kombo Kolombia had been "finished off" by leaders of the Gulf Cartel (CDG) because of its close relationship with rival gangs.
But the most recent investigations are now pointing in a different direction. Versions collected by the authority reported that Los Zetas have reprimanded musicians for playing in bars and clubs operated by the CDG in the metropolitan area. It is what they saw as a betrayal and who paid with their life. Jose Isidro Cruz Villarreal, "El Pichilo" is thought to have been in charge of recruiting Kombo Kolombia for the performance in the municipality of Hidalgo, and would been the leader who led the convoy of gunmen that kidnapped the band."
Early on the morning of January 25 at least seven vans and trucks (reports say up to 14) rolled through Colonia Francisco Villa, the neighborhood just outside the gates of Potrero Chico, a popular winter rock-climbing destination in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The vehicles stopped at a bar called La Carreta, an establishment that borders several climbers’ campgrounds. La Carreta is familiar to many climbers who, like me, have been rendered sleepless by the double bass, accordion and pig squeals of performing Norteño bands. That night, armed assailants got out and proceeded to kidnap members of the Vallenato band Kombo Kolombia. According to a report provided by a member of the band who managed to escape, the musicians were driven around the area for several hours and tortured. Eventually, each was shot in the head. The bodies (at least 12) were thrown in a well near Mina, a small pueblo a few minutes (6 miles) away from the Potrero, and the closest town and access point to the Culo de Gato, a sport-climbing cave.
Tactics employed by the cartels have expressly targeted innocent victims completely unconnected to the cartels. The 2011 massacre near San Fernando, Tamaulipas, provides a striking example. According to an interview with a Zeta cartel member published in the Houston Chronicle and another interview with a survivor first published in El Informador, a Mexican newspaper, several public buses were hijacked by cartel members and driven to an isolated ranch called La Joya. The male passengers were given bats, clubs and hammers and told to fight to the death with other victims. The winners of these gladiator-style duels were recruited as killers for the Zetas. The female passengers were removed to a room, raped and beaten, their children taken and tortured. According to the survivor, one bus driver was forced to drive over the elderly and was then executed. Most of the 193 victims (including one U.S. citizen) found in the 47 mass graves had features of "blunt force trauma" consistent with the testimony of the two men.
This was the 73-person massacre that took place in 2010. Not the 193-person massacre in the same area in 2011
The 72 immigrants were traveling through Tamaulipas to the United States when a convoy of Los Zetas surrounded their vehicles and cut them off the road.[48] Then, they were forced to get out of their vehicles, and the gunmen warned them that they were members of Los Zetas. They were taken to warehouse inside a ranch, where one by one, the 72 immigrants were put on their knees and placed against a wall. They were told to remain with their knees on the ground, and then they were shot, one by one, in the back of the head.[48] There was one survivor—an Ecuadorian—who was shot in the neck and faked his death till the perpetrators left the area.[49] He then traveled more than 22 kilometers until he reached a military checkpoint where he asked the Mexican marines for help, and notified them of the area where the massacre had occurred.[50] The man was placed under the protection of federal authorities.[51]
The Mexican drug traffic won't be eliminated until all the U. S. A. addicts give up their drug habits.
Of course, one way (which I do not advocate) to reduce the excessive amounts of money the Mexican drug lords receive would be for the U. S. to rescind the current prohibition on the use of drugs here in the U. S.
Mexican authorities are always pleading for us to reduce the demand here in the U. S. I don't think mere education about the evils of drugs will do it.
New cave found near Monterrey. We are have bolted two lines so far. Just found it last week. It may be dangerous in Mexico but there sure are a lot of tufas.
Born and raised in El Paso I've lived near the Mexican border most of my life. IMHO the US should annex Mexico and begin the integration into statehood. This would solidify the US power on this corner of the globe AND ultimately create a peaceful and economically productive environment. I'm sure Canada would like to join the US too (or so I've heard from some of them).
Squint you eyes a little bit and think about it. From the polar cap to the isthmus, all USA, free for us climbers (and workers) to travel about and flourish in! Viva USA!
Mexico is right here in California....50% of the local school enrollment is Hispanic and many of the local jobs are held by undocumneted workers....I knew this local canadian that got deported because he didn't have his papers...Go figure...
New cave looks nice. Cartels probably too lazy to hike to the base there.
Then again, would be an easy place to dispose of peeps.
Have some fun down there. Be vigilant.
Still sticking local until we can afford to go to Greece or Thailand. Warm, inexpensive, and pretty darn safe(it appears)
Jonathon
Rock and ice staff.
Duane Raleigh:
Your article is very sensacionalist ( aka Tabloid).
you pick carefully a single incident and some general statistical data and rush to write this down out of context, inducing the reader to panic without a point of reference. of the real situation and most important:
DAMAGING THE IMAGE OF AN ENTIRE CLIMBING COMMUNITY.
I was last winter in Potrero for a couple of months and things haven't change much since my last visit.
In the last years there are at least a couple hundreds of climbers per season who stay for several weeks at the area without recalling a single notorious incident and the locals (the good and the bad ones) naturally knows who are all this foreing people.
I will notice that you must exercise common sense visiting potrero like you will do in some other out of states adventorous climbing areas like south america or even europe.
Acurate, sencible information is crucial to succed as a climber.
As a columnist of this magazine you owe to the readers a sound judgement
TO THE ROCK AND ICE STAFF:
Im just simple a appalled to keep finding this article everywhere; and now to to find out how you decide to keep your posture and the way you present the the facts.
everything thath you stated about mexico in your answer to our posts is true.
IT IS THE WAY THAT YOU PRESENT THE FACTS THAT FALL ON THE SENSATIONALISM.
Again: there is a statistical disproportion of the real... situation in Potrero and the gross numbers (national averages) you are using to ilustrate your point.
As I said before YOU ARE DAMAGING WITH YOUR LACK OF ACCURACY THE IMAGE OF AN ENTIRE CLIMBING COMMUNITY FOR YEARS TO COME.
As a journalist you owe your readers and the People who open in the past their doors to you in potrero an accurate balanced information.
In spite of this incident everything here is tranquilo. I still feel as safe here as I would going to a movie theatre in Colorado.
Nobody panicked, nobody fled: climbers are still arriving and leaving by land and air. The weather is fabulous and there's lots of big new routes being bolted and climbed.
Sometimes climbers don't seem so bright.
Guess who doesn't give a sh#t if you onsite 12d - or dress like a dirtbag - if you likely flew down to their turf, just to climb a lousy piece of stone, you, too, just might be . . . a gringo, de facto rich by any Mexican criteria. And practically worthy of torture and a bullet.
There is a universe of wrong-headed logic that will soon show up here, when people figure out too late that legalizing pot = streamlining the conduit for Cartels to fix the supply side. It will NOT solve the crime problem at all, just as it has NOT in Oregon, California, etc.
No easy answers, except on principle climbers need to be avoiding/boycotting that area; it will only be a matter of time before someone you actually know gets the machete treatment, and your buds certainly can't help you, or say you weren't given fair warning.
zBrown, I just looked up Colombian statistics to see how they compare with what you have. At the height of the Pablo Escobar days in 1991, Medellin had 381 homicides per 100,000 habitants. Its dropped now, by 2009 it was down to about 100 per 100,000. However, that's just Medellin. Where we are in Apartado, it's a lot worse, with about 10% of the population murdered over the last two decades. However, the local statistics are just estimates since so many people just disappeared and were buried in mass graves.
holyshootdude, in Colombia the tourism ads say, "the only danger is that you won't want to leave." Could change it to say, "the main danger is that you'll just disappear."
The Colombian stats include reported murders. For each one, the person went to the police at least. That means its very likely true since it's a crime to make this stuff up. They are accurate in that respect, but many murders are not reported, since people fear the police, and for good reason. The numbers are generally underreported. However, with the war crimes tribunal going on, and the possibility of compensation for victims, people are coming forward. Anyway, I don't think its inaccurate to say that the murder rate was about 10 times higher than what they're seeing in Mexico.
By the way, the movie el Cartel de los Sapos was worth watching. For a shoot-em-up crime movie, it held my interest, mainly because its so accurate in depicting the Colombian culture. The word "sapo" means informant in Colombia (toad). Contrary to popular belief, these guys always rat each other out at every opportunity.
Hey ZBrown,
A friend told me I should read this thread because I'm about to leave for Potrero Chico, but I was surprised to see this photo in the thread. I took that photo - I'm the asian (but not Vietnamese) tourist with the camera so I'm not in the shot. Did you pull this from my blog at http://cliffmama.com/blog/missing-potrero-chico-mexico/
I realize my friends are concerned, but I have to admit that I'm getting tired of the daily notes from people saying "did you hear this? did you read about that? You're crazy! Too dangerous! Your children need you!" and making the assumption that I'm not going to survive my trip. Wish me well, think what you want and keep it to yourself, but please don't keep telling me I'm going to die, I think it's pretty rude. We're going to climb in the day, and lay low at night. Just like as with climbing, we analyze the situation, weigh the risks and choose our actions. This will be my 9th trip there. I'll be in the Mexican sunshine by lunchtime on Saturday.
I have never been to portrero chico and am not anticipating a trip nearfuturewise, so I poked around a little and did find some photographic evidence of Vietnamese tourists, alive no less.
I recognized at least one person from cliffmama's blog. Those Canucks love the Potrero.
Is it sensational to mention some disturbing activities going on down there? I don't know. I know that many of the articles on mass murder that have been posted here and that don't get a whiff of airtime up here in the states have opened my eyes more to the realities of the absolute tragedy perpetrated in Mexico.
Then again, Honnold's blast of a trip down there is getting sensationalized too by the same vindictive climbing media outlets. It looks like he's having a great trip!
Is it hubris to wander around the Posada while invoking the mantra that only those without common sense will get hurt? Or is it a worse crime to sit safe in on the sofa while casting aspersions?
I'd go down there again, it's a blast, but, somehow, I'd feel hesitant about bringing loved ones to an area that so recently saw such an atrocity. As much as downing the tourist economy down there hurts them, it's also callous to minimize what happened to those musicians who happened to step on the dick of some gangsters.
Paul
Let us know!