Guatemala to Mexico: Don't end Tamaulipas massacre investigation

One year ago Mexico authorities discovered the bodies of seventy-two Latin American migrants buried in a ranch located in the northern state of Tamaulipas. Most of the deceased were originally from Central America and they were reportedly murdered when they refused to be coerced into joining the Zetas drug gang.

In the twelve months since the bodies were found Mexican law enforcement agents arrested over twenty suspects including the alleged coordinator of the mass kidnapping and assassinations. Nonetheless, Guatemalan officials called on their Mexican counterparts to continue their investigative work including attempts to identify thirteen bodies.

According to EFE (via Mexico's El Universal):

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has requested that Mexican authorities do not conclude their investigation" over the possibility that more Guatemalans may have been victims of the massacre...

(The Guatemalan Embassy in Mexico) observed that since the San Fernando massacre "there has been a rapid deterioration of the security in the Guatemalan migrant community in Mexico" including numerous kidnappings and two more mass killings in northern Mexico.

Numerous human rights groups and immigrants rights activists were more direct in their criticism of Mexican authorities in the months since the massacre. "We will not allow this massive crime against humanity to join others in which impunity and indifference have prevailed," according to a statement emitted on Tuesday by several non-government organizations in Mexico.

Thirteen Guatemalans have been identified among the seventy-two dead migrants that came from countries including Ecuador, El Salvador, and Brazil.

Online Sources - Fox News Latino, El Universal, The Latin Americanist, CNN Mexico
Image Source - AP via Los Angeles Times ("Workers (last September) begin examining the bodies of migrants killed in Tamaulipas at a morgue in Mexico City.")

Mexico: Rash of violence sweeps Tamaulipas

Last week Mexican police uncovered the corpses of 72 migrants dumped in a Tamaulipas ranch. Sadly violence in that northern Mexican state did not cease over the weekend.

Gunmen murdered Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, the mayor of Hidalgo, on Sunday while he was driving his car. Authorities suspected that drug gangs were behind the attack against Leal, who was less than four months away from finishing his term as mayor of the town of 25,000 inhabitants. His four-year-old daughter accompanied him when he was gunned down yet she survived with some wounds.

Leal’s death came one day after a police station was bombed in Tampico while fifteen people in Reynosa were injured after unknown assailants lobbed grenades near the morgue where the 72 dead migrants were kept. On Friday, meanwhile, there were no fatalities after a pair of car bombs was detonated in the Tamaulipas capital city of Ciudad Victoria. On that same day, one of the investigators looking into the deaths of the migrants from several Latin American countries disappeared and his dead body may’ve been found.

President Felipe Calderon emphatically denounced the “cowardly crime and reprehensible violent acts” in Tamaulipas and last week introduced a measure designed to combat illegal money laundering. Earlier today the federal government fired 3200 police officers in a move designed to combat corruption. Yet it remains to be seen if these measures will be enough to calm northern Mexican residents fearful of more violence and migrants targeted for exploitation by criminals:

About 300 illegal immigrants took to the streets of Saltillo, the capital of the northern state of Coahuila, to protest the killings of 72 migrants at a ranch in northeastern Mexico last week.



The protesters, who wore masks, carried the flags of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.



Dozens of Mexicans joined the migrants to express their solidarity and condemn the fact that “killings are becoming a daily occurrence,” organizers said.

The Zetas drug gang has been blamed for the deaths of the 72 migrants whose whereabouts were tipped off by the massacre’s lone survivor, a young man originally from Ecuador. The Zetas and other drug organizations have fought for control of Tamaulipas as part of the deadly narcotics trade.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Al Jazeera English, AFP, UPI, LAHT, Bloomberg, BBC News

Mexico: Gubernatorial candidate murdered (Updated)

In the most high profile murder of a Mexican politician since Luis Donaldo Colosio in 1994, gunmen killed the frontrunner in the race for Tamaulipas governor.

Drug gangs have been blamed for the assassination of Rodolfo Torre on Monday. Torre was slain along with three others when they were ambushed and attacked at an airport outside the state capital city. Torre ran a strong campaign against the Zeta and Gulf cartels who have fought a bloody turf war was in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

The former legislator allied to the PRI political party had a 30-point lead in the polls ahead of elections on July 4th. It is unknown for now if the PRI will select another candidate to replace him or if the elections will occur as scheduled. (Update: Federal officials said that Sunday's elections will go ahead as planned.)

“This was an act not only against a candidate of a political party but against democratic institutions, and it requires a united and firm response from all those who work for democracy,” said Mexican president Felipe Calderon hours after Torre’s murder. Unfortunately, June has been one of the bloodiest months since Calderon took office, which includes 85 murders over one 24-hour period.

Torre’s death comes as the latest killing of local politicians either aspiring to or already in office in Mexico’s violent border areas:

Jose Guajardo Varela, a mayoral candidate for the Tamaulipas town of Valle Hermoso, was murdered in May after receiving multiple threatening warnings to abandon his election bid…

Several political parties said they were at a loss to find anyone willing to run for mayor in some towns and border states because of the danger posed by drug gangs, the AP reported.

Image- The Guardian
Online Sources- Milenio, Xinhua, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, New York Times, New York Daily News

Tamaulipas becomes Mexico’s first bilingual state

The Mexican government recently rolled out a program designed to teach English to schoolchildren around the country. The inspiration for such an ambitious plan can be tracked to the northern border state of Tamaulipas.

Over the past seven years, state officials have gradually implemented the teaching of English in schools. While English is mandatory in all Mexican schools from seventh through ninth grade, authorities in Tamaulipas have expanded their language program so that all public school children will be taught conversational English. Thus, officials in Tamaulipas have declared the state as Mexico’s first bilingual state.

The bilingual efforts in Tamaulipas has even caught the attention of north of the border. Could the neighboring U.S state of Texas follow Tamaulipas’ example?

(U.S. ambassador Tony) Garza, who plans to split his time between Dallas and Mexico City, later said he was impressed with the program and suggested a similar effort in Texas to teach students not just Spanish, but English, too. Garza said Texas is home to an estimated 800,000 children with limited English proficiency. They come not just from Mexico but also from places like South Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East.

"I think the focus in our state needs to be on giving Texas schoolchildren what they need to compete, and that's English," he said. "And then allow for a robust program in languages that provides English speakers the opportunity to learn a second language, and my guess is for many that would be Spanish."

Image- Maps of Mexico
Online Sources- Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Milenio