GuapoVino
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 11:45am PT
|
Bob D'A
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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eckuD1vN6Vk
|
|
Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 11:52am PT
|
As they say, the first Mexican was born 9 months after the Spanish arrived.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 11:52am PT
|
Pelut
I'd be careful of the cultural "superiority" thing if you are Spanish.
Last time I checked Genocide wasn't considered a superior cultural trait.
Perhaps those Narco's are simply exhibiting a dominant genetic trait they inherited from the spanish.
That could be the real issue here.
|
|
Steven Amter
climber
Washington, DC
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:02pm PT
|
Hey Bob D'A!
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...
Steve Amter
|
|
Bob D'A
Trad climber
Taos, NM
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:03pm PT
|
I'm heading back in a month...not scare at all.
Don't you remember that 26 people where massacre in CT just under two months ago...people are still going to CT.
Steve...good for you...say hello to John for me. It has been a long time since I have seen or talked to him.
|
|
mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:04pm PT
|
Sounds like Mexico is getting almost as bad as some neighborhoods in Carson City.
|
|
Steven Amter
climber
Washington, DC
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:06pm PT
|
Bob D'A
Will do!
|
|
QITNL
climber
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:15pm PT
|
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.
|
|
doktor_g
Social climber
Mt Shasta, CA
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:32pm PT
|
Son of a bitch! I leave for there next week! Non refundable tickets!
|
|
Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Colombia, South America
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:42pm PT
|
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
|
|
KRS-Grun
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:44pm PT
|
"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."
http://noticias.univision.com/mexico/noticias/article/2013-01-30/ataque-kombo-kolombia-pudo-ser-venganza#axzz2JTtvnjQl
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.
|
|
KRS-Grun
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 12:56pm PT
|
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.
|
|
pat
Trad climber
estes park
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 01:13pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 01:17pm PT
|
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.
PS I don't smoke the stuff anymore.
|
|
mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 01:35pm PT
|
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.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 01:39pm PT
|
^^^ That would be a decidedly unhealthy assumption to make and live by.
Psychos don't live by pat assumptions made by others.
|
|
mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
|
|
|
Jan 30, 2013 - 01:52pm PT
|
They aren't psychos, they are refined business men. Don't you ever watch gangster movies?
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!