Mexican authorities announced the arrest this month of two more leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel—but the notorious top kingpin Joaquin Guzmán AKA “El Chapo” remains at large, fueling speculation that he is protected by the government and DEA.
Mexican environmental activists Eva Alarcón and Marcial Bautista were reportedly still alive two weeks after their Dec. 7 kidnapping from a bus in the southwestern state of Guerrero.
Mexican ex-officials work as informants for the US DEA, which turns out to be laundering money for the cartels as part of the “war on drugs”; meanwhile, the murders of peace activists continue.
Two Mexican students were killed by police gunfire around as police agents and soldiers attempted to disperse protesters blocking the Mexico City-Acapulco highway near the capital of Guerrero.
“Narco-banners” hung from Nuevo Laredo overpasses and signed in the name of Los Zetas declared: “We are not terrorists or guerrillas. We concentrate on our work and the last thing we want is to have problems with any government.”
Ayman Joumaa AKA “Junior,” a Lebanese drug kingpin with alleged connections to both Hezbollah and Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel, was charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, the Justice Department and DEA announced.
Norma Andrade, a critical voice demanding justice in the long string of “femicides” in Ciudad Juárez is stable condition after being shot twice Dec. 2, as she drove home from her job as a teacher in the violent Mexican border city.
Poverty decreased in most of Latin America—only Honduras and Mexico showed an increase in poverty rates, 1.7% for Honduras and 1.5% for Mexico.
Unknown assailants gunned down Mexican activist Nepomuceno Moreno in Hermosillo, Sonora. Moreno had opposed the government’s “war on drugs”; local officials suggested he was a criminal himself.
Private contractors are now bidding for US-funded “drug war” operations, including training for Mexican soldiers and police.
Mexican human rights activists filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court calling for an investigation into possible crimes against humanity by the security forces under President Felipe Calderón’s campaign against the drug cartels.
The AFL-CIO presented its 2011 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award to Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, general secretary of the Mexican mineworkers union, now living in exile in Vancouver.
