Cancun, Mexico: Mayor to be questioned about missing 15 million dollars

Meanwhile, back in Cancun, they are looking for 15 million dollars that seems to be missing. The mayor of Cancun, Francisco Alor, requested and received from the state of Quintana Roo some 15 million bucks in 2005 and 2006 for "public works projects". An opposition political leader, state Congresswoman Marybel Villegas, presented photos taken at the sites of these projects, and there was nothing there but weeds and sand. She wants to know where the money went.

These photos were taken the first week of this year (2007), well past the time that the mayor indicated the work had been started. Here we can see a presumed diversion of public funds because no work has ever been performed.

She said that the State Congress would call the mayor to testify. If the State Congress cannot prove diversion of the funds, then she said that the mayor would be charged with fiscal irresponsibility. If the funds have been diverted, then a whole host of criminal charges could be brought against the mayor.

I suggest he plead, "I spent it all at Club Maxim helping out the migrant workers there."


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Cancun, The One, Maxim

Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico: Felipe Calderón responds immediately to priest's arrest.

Even before the scandal hit the news wires yesterday, Felipe Calderón had the PFP mount up and ride into Ixtepec. To bring yourselves up to date, read this post and then this post if you haven't already.

It now seems apparent that Padre Alejandro Solalinde Guerra was released by Ixtepec Municipal police because the PFP had 6 investigators interviewing the priest, the arresting officers and the illegal Central American aliens who were arrested with Padre Solalinde. The PFP also took photos of all of the arrested, including Padre Solalinde, sitting in their jail cells. Shortly thereafter, the good padre was freed.

The commander of the PFP contingent, identified only as Ramírez, said he was under direct orders from the Secretary of Public Security to move into Ixtepec and get to the bottom of what occurred yesterday. I like that. The PFP won't take any crap from anybody, least of all a bunch of local Deputy Fife's (no offense meant to Barney -- he was an honest cop).

Meanwhile, Padre Solalinde announced his intentions to file a human rights abuse charge against the Ixtepec police. He says he's not doing this on account of what happened to him, but on behalf of the illegals that disappeared yesterday.

Padre Solalinde says that the 12 illegals, whom he identified as 3 women, 4 children and 5 men, have still not been located. He charged as well that of the 30 he was aware of that were arrested along with himself, some 12 of them are missing also. He referred particularly to a Nicaraguan youth named Alejandro who, according to Padre Solalinde, "stood up to the police."

Presidente Felipe Calderón continues to impress.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Alejandro Solalinde Guerra , PFP, Felipe Calderón

Cancun, Mexico: Ex Argentine spy chief now pimp chief in Cancun

This is an interesting story straight from the pages of Reforma.

Raúl Luis Martins Coggiola acted, between 1974 and 1987, as head of Argentina's Secretaría de Inteligencia del Estado (SIDE), or state security apparatus. He worked for the military dicatorship and was responsible for following, photographing, kidnapping and the ultimate "disappearance" of scores of opposition members.

After leaving public service, he opened and ran at least 11 clubs in Buenos Aires and became known as "The Capo of Sex". His specialty, er, his employees' specialty was "VIP" services. We would call them high priced call girls.

When later Argentine governments began investigations into the military junta's crimes in an attempt to bring some of them to justice, Martins fled to Mexico. He entered Tijuana in 2002. Not long afterwards, he arrived in Cancun.

His long time ex-lawyer, who continues to this day to defend some of the accused from those bad old days, had a falling out with Martins. Attorney Claudio Lifschitz was forced to leave Mexico for his own safety. Now, Lifschitz is telling all.

Lifschitz says that Martins runs two clubs, The One, in Cancún, and Maxim, in Playa del Carmen. Lifschitz says that the clubs employ 150 girls, most from Buenos Aires, and that the girls live and work in "semi-slavery". The girls are recruited from Buenos Aires and Brasil by a Martins associate, Marcela López, who is also their controller once they arrive in Mexico. The girls are available at the clubs and are also rented out for private parties in mansions and aboard yachts as well as for ocean cruises.

Raúl Luis Martins Coggiola, pimp king of Cancun


Lifschitz claims that Martins runs his businesses under the protection of both the Quintana Roo state governments as well as the federal attorney general's (PGR) local consul, Pedro Ramírez. Martins rates such treatment because of his association with wealthy Mexican businessman Isaac Hamui Amadi, boss of Puerto Costa Maya, Cancun's tourist port-of-call, who is an associate of ex-governor Joaquin Hendricks. But Martins continues operating with immunity from law enforcement under new governor Félix González Canto.

Reforma says that Lifschitz told the newspaper that González Cantu has continued to guarantee that Martins's clubs have exclusive control of the sex business on the beaches. The manager of Plaza 21, a center for nightspots in Cancun, Raúl Poveda, says he was aware that Martins had been receiving official protection for his vice rackets, but that Poveda expected to see that protection dry up when the new governor took office. However, Poveda says, "Supposedly, with the new governor, he would no longer have this protection, but so far no one has touched him."

Ex-governor Joaquin Hendricks, far left, long sleeved blue shirt.
Current Governor Félix González Canto, center in white shirt.

Cancun business tycoon Isaac Hamui Abadi with Governor González.

Isaac Hamui Abadi owns the big tourist port-of-call in Cancun, as well as billions of dollars in other real estate along the beaches. And how did Hamui Abadi come by all that territory? He bought it right from under the feet of the indigenous campesinos that lived on it. With government collusion, of course.

Argentina has been making some noise for some time about wanting Martins extradited to face charges of human rights abuses in Argentina. According to Lipschitz, Martins has been concerned enough to bring his son, Mariano Martins, to Cancun to run the businesses in the case that daddy gets tossed out of Mexico.

Martins's tentacles reach deep into the Mexican bureaucracy. He entered Tijuana on a 180 day tourist visa. He was then granted an FM3 visa (Number 1313162) which has expired. He went to a federal judge and bought an amparo which prevents Mexican immigration officials from deporting him.

He's got 1 fraud case pending against him in Tijuana and 2 more in Cancun. He's got 3 criminal actions pending against him in Cancun as well as another taken out by immigration officers after he threatened them with death when they entered one of his clubs looking for, ahem, illegal aliens. No action seems to be taking place with any of these criminal and civil suits.

His "girls" buy their FM3 work permits for $1500 US each, paid to friendly Mexican Immigration Institute (INM) employees. $800 gets kicked back to Martins. The FM3's are issued in 48 hours after the cash payment.

The girls are mostly from Argentina and Brasil but there are also many from Monterrey. The girls say they can make a lot of money but are held in virtual slavery. Many are duped into thinking that table dancing is all they are required to do. When they arrive, however, they discover that prostitution is required. If they refuse, they are abandoned in Mexico without a penny.

Some of the girls from club Maxim, Playa del Carmen.

A girl who called herself Shany was interviewed and recorded on a hidden camera, but by whom I'm not too sure. Reforma got its hands on the video. She said that the girls were well paid. "Oral sex - 1500 pesos, 500 to Martins; Private table dance - 500 pesos, 200 to Martins; A "salida" (quicky sex) - 4000 pesos, 1000 to Martins.

She said that there were large "fines" for every infraction. 500 dollars for being late, dressing badly, refusing to work at a private party off-site, giving out one's telephone number or seeing a client away from the club. If you didn't pay, said Shany, you were locked up in the club and not allowed to work.

Martins keeps the businesses all in the family. He is assisted by his 27 year-old wife, Estela Percivall. The clubs are managed by his sisters-in-law, María Eugenia Percivall y Natalia Percivall. His son Mariano, 25, will manage the businesses here in Mexico if his father is deported. His oldest son, Agosto, 30, runs the businesses in Argentina.

Another man, named Pipiolo, handles personnel matters. He also is in charge of the logistics for the "salidas" as well as organizing and supplying prostitutes for private parties in mansions, on board yachts and for sea cruises.

Mariano Martins ready to take over pop's business if pop gets popped.

Marcela López, chief recruiter for the pimp king, with a "recruit".

Martins's ex-attorney says that Cancun businessman Isaac Hamui and Martins are very close. Lipschitz says that Hamui organizes parties for government and political powers and Martins supplies the girls. In this manner they have been able to garner official protection for their varied business interests. Like providing sex on the beach or stealing the land from poor Mayan indian campesinos.


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TAGS: Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, The One, Maxim, Puerto Costa Maya

Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico: More on the arrested priest

The Catholic priest who was roughed up before being arrested in Ixtepec this morning has been released. Father Alejandro Solalinde Guerra was freed from the Ixtepec (ISH teh peck) city jail at 2:00 this afternoon. Padre Solalinde (I think) said,

"They neither told me why they arrested me nor why they let me go. They just came and said, 'You're free.'"

Well now, Padre Solalinde is just a bit more than a local parish priest as I may have led you to believe in the last post. He is, in fact, the head guy of a multi-diocesan group called the Pastoría de la Movilidad Humana, Southern Zone. This group, which looks after transient migrants on their way north, is sponsored by the 30 southern Catholic dioceses in Mexico, from Puebla to Chiapas.

Padre Solalinde (I think) has been working in this position with the illegal aliens for 13 months. Apparently the train stop at Ixtepec is a big gathering spot for the illegals. The padre says he and many local people have been providing food and water alongside the railway for those 13 months.

Now comes the bad part, at least for the good padre.

"It is difficult to say this, but in the trafficking of illegals and these kidnappings (of this morning), there is broad collusion. It is a mafia which involves organized Central American gangs, the "polleros" (traffickers in illegal aliens), members of the municipal police and the Zetas (ex-military hired guns - mostly deserters). I have their names but I cannot give them to you. My superiors not only have their names but also my records of all of this (incidents, names, dates and places)."

If he's right, and I certainly have no reason to doubt it, the good padre may have just signed his death warrant. The Zetas kill without hesitation. It's what they get paid for.

Father Alejandro Solalinde Guerra in the Ixtepec jail before being released. In the photo in the original post, it looked like he was wearing chinos and a white shirt. The police had pushed his cassock up around his chest as they hustled him into a squad car. The white cassock is common in the tropics as is the lack of a Roman collar. And it gets plenty hot and humid on the isthmus. The white cassock will surely make the padre an easy target if the Zetas decide to take him out.







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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Mexican illegal aliens

Oaxaca, Mexico: Response to a reader.

I have printed several threatening and nasty Emails that I have received over time. I would like to point out that the vast majority of Emails I receive are more like this one:

Any comments on this article from the LA Times?
Oaxaca calls upon its artists

I appreciate your blog. I can't find straight talk on Oaxaca anywhere else.
BillL

Mark in Mexico's response:

Bill L.,

Better than usual from the LAT, only about 10% inaccurate and misleading.

McDonald's never planned on "plunking down a set of its golden arches in Oaxaca's venerable zócalo, or central public square". The Oaxacan who owns the franchise - not McDonald's Corporation - intended on putting in the restaurant. It would have hurt the other resaurants on the Zócalo. The other restaurant owners talked Toledo into making it a "cultural" fight over what kind of food would be offered for sale on the Zócalo. It had nothing to do with "golden arches", only what kind of food would be sold through the current arches (the portales) on the Zócalo. The current restaurant owners didn't want the competition. And Toledo jumped right in to help them.

In addition, the quoted statement of "the cooperative currently is doing only about 1% of its regular business" is a gross overstatement. However, if the cooperative and the other artists are only doing 10% of their regular business, which is a far more accurate number, they'll still all starve. When you're looking at an economic disaster such as has occurred in Oaxaca, there is really not much difference between a 90% loss and a 99% loss. Both numbers equate to bankruptcy.

The LAT reporter, like so many MSM outlets, concentrates his time and energy interviewing the "players" in Oaxaca City. He doesn't get out into the towns and see and talk to the artists themselves. For every Toledo there are a thousand nobodies who work every day carving and sculpting and trying to sell their work for a few hundred pesos.

Toldeo laments that "The life of the city already is lost," to higher priced restaurants and hotels. With what would he replace it? The author of this barely-scratching-the-surface article mentions that "Thousands have fled to the U.S. in search of work." That's also a gross understatement. It is much closer to a million.

And if Toledo could recognise his dream of returning Oaxaca to, what?; 1930? 1920? 1910?, 1500?; that number of "fleds" would have to increase to millions. There wouldn't be enough money left in Oaxaca City and state to feed 100,000, let alone the some 3.5 million who live here now.

It's the old pipe dream of "the good old days". There were no "good old days". When the Spanish arrived here in the early 1500's, the Zapotecs who lived throughout the central valleys had been conquered by the Mixtecs. And the Mixtecs were fighting a desperate battle to keep from being likewise overrun by the Aztecs. The average lifespan for "La Raza" in "Aztlan" was 35 years before dropping dead from exhaustion, bearing 12-15 children, no teeth left with which to munch on maiz or having his heart ripped out by an Aztec priest.

Are these the "good old days" to which Toledo wishes Oaxaca would regress?

Or perhaps 1890, when Porfirio Díaz attacked the Maya in Yucatan and shipped tens of thousands of them to Cuba, sold as slaves to work in the sugar plantations. Then he went north to Sonora and rounded up the Yaqui and shipped them south to the Yucatan to replace the Maya in the hennequen fields (hennequen is sisal or hemp - for ropin', not for smokin')?

Or perhaps 1920 when almost all the land was in the hands of a small number of landed gentry called hacendados or caciques. They owned ranches as large as 800,000 acres, as well as all the people living on those lands. Is this the "life of the city" that Toledo laments as lost?

What Toledo laments as "lost" was the ability of a campesino and his family to visit the city, sell his whatever for a few pesos on the Zócalo, then buy his family a cheap taco or two before returning home to his one room shack with dirt floor and small cooking fire. That campesino's descendants are now mostly living and working in the United States.

That is the "life of the city" that Toledo laments?

I'll shut up now.

Regards,

Mark in Mexico

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Francisco Toledo, Zapotec, Mixtec, Aztec, hacendados, caciques, McDonald's

Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico: Mexican authorities show us the way to properly treat illegal aliens.

The ongoing and neverending disputes over the treatment of illegal aliens, mostly Mexican, in the United States is, er, ongoing and neverending.

Let the Mexicans show us the true way, take the high road, show us the light:

At 5:00 this morning in Ixtepec, a city in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, local police made a raid on a train carrying 400-500 illegals from Central America. The train had stopped on its way north from Chiapas and the illegals were sleeping at the time.

The police rounded up only about a dozen of them, mostly women.

Hmmm.

When other illegals, including relatives of some of the women, tried to intervene, they were pistol whipped and threatened with death.

The illegals remaining on the train were able to learn, presumably from a local Catholic priest named José Alejandro Solalinde Guerra, that the arrested illegals, including the women, had not been taken to jail, but instead were being held in a "safe house" somewhere in the city.

Double hmmm.

With that, about a hundred of the illegals, most from Nicaragua and Guatamala, armed themselves as best they could with machetes, clubs and rocks, and headed out into the city steets searching for their women.

At about 8:30, they were directed by neighbors to two houses where the women had been originally taken but they found both empty. Now the story gets complicated. The priest, presumably still offering intelligence services to the illegals, directed them to yet another house. The mob marched off in search of the third house under the watchful eyes of the police, who had arrived but taken no action because they were seriously outnumbered.

When the mob reached safe house #3, they broke in and, again, found no one there. They did find, however, passports, clothing, the women's ID's and money transfer receipts from Central America. Another neighbor said that the controllers of this house had been warned of the approaching mob and skeedaddled with the women. Now the cops arrived en force.

As the police arrested some 50 and attempted to shoo away the rest, one of the illegals clutched onto the belt of Padre Solalinde. With that, the police commander, Pedro Flores Narváez, got pissed. "Haul them all away. Father, this is all your fault," he shouted at the priest. Then, pushing, kicking and slapping him, the cops hauled off the priest also. I would assume that police Captain Pedro was referring to the priest's surprisingly intimate knowledge of the exact addresses of various safe houses used by human traffickers in and around Ixtepec.

No doubt Captain Pedro and his diligent band of law enforcement agents had been keeping noses to grindstones for months searching for these clandestine stops on the Mexican underground railway without success. He becames testy when Padre José was able to point them out with the simple use of the index finger on his right hand: "Por allí, por allí, y, este, también por allí." (That one there, that one over there, and, uh, that one there also.)

Padre José gets hauled away.

The priest said he had simply been accompanying the illegals to document that they were peaceful and were commiting no violence. A mob of one hundred, armed with machetes, clubs and rocks and marching around the city streets at 8:00 in the morning breaking into houses, doesn't sound to me too peaceful and non-violent, regardless of their reasons.

In any event, as of the last reports coming out of that shining beacon of tolerance on a hill in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico, the women are still missing and the priest is still in jail. And a whorehouse somewhere in Detroit is looking forward to some fresh meat.


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TAGS: Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, illegal immigration

Oaxaca, Mexico: Things may heat up again - federal judge says arrest warrrants against union leader and 30 others are, "Good to go."

A federal judge has denied an "amparo" to protect Enrique Rueda Pacheco and at least 30 other teachers union and APPO activists from arrest. The teachers union leader and the others are accused of armed robbery, principally from the invasion and sacking of the state Congress.

An amparo, as I have pointed out before, is a many splendored legal tool here in Mexico. It can be used as a temporary restraining order, a writ of habeus corpus or just about any old thing that your lawyer can talk a federal judge into issuing. People have been known to get amparos prohibiting a state government from charging them auto license fees that they didn't like. I kid you not. Look it up.

In this case, it probably was a writ of habeus corpus. In Mexico, if you know or even suspect that the authorities are investigating you or may file charges against you, you can go to a federal judge and ask for an amparo. If the judge issues one in your favor, it precludes your arrest until the authorities can present evidence against you sufficient for the judge, or a higher ranking judge, to dissolve the amparo.

Nothing like it exists in the USA. In America, one would file a writ of habeus corpus after an arrest. You can't do it on supposition.

The federal judge in this case probably was advised by prosecutors that they had video tapes of all of the 30 some accused. The morons, led by Pacheco, invaded the state Congress at the height of their power in Oaxaca when they thought they had both the state and federal governments on the run. There were surveillance cameras all over the Congress building faithfully recording them as they hauled off computers, telephones, TV's, videos, furniture, fixtures and files.

Not only the videos are damning, but there were many employees as well as some Congress members in the building when the teachers atttacked who can identify some of them. With videos and eye witness identifications in hand, the judge said, "Sorry. The arrest warrants are good to go."

It remains to be seen if the state and federal governments will, in fact, exercise the warrants and haul all these people off to jail. I would doubt it. Certainly the state government doesn't want to. It would probably prefer to just quietly assassinate them, one by one, over time. But Felipe Calderón may override the state's objections.

We'll see.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Enrique Rueda Pacheco, amparo

Tijuana, Mexico: Feds say, "No luck here, so it's on to Acapulco."

The federal force that descended on Tijuana to take on the drug lords, specifically the Tijuana cartel formerly led by the Arellano Félix brothers, has pulled out some of its men and headed for Acapulco, Guerrero. Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora admitted that the Tijuana cartel was too highly organized to crush with just the decapitation of its leadership.

Medina Mora compared today's Tijuana to 1920's Chicago. You may recall some of these names: Big Jim Colosimo, John Torrio, Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson, Hymie Weiss and the O'Donnells as well as the takeovers of the Illinois towns of Cicero, Burnham and Stickney.

Medina Mora says that the cartel has managed to continue its operations and replace its fallen leaders after the arrests of Francisco Javier "El Tigrillo" Arellano Félix, Arturo "El Nalgón" Villarreal, and the executions of brother Ramón Arellano Félix and Fabián "El Tiburón" Martínez González, among others . . . many others.

Local police say that the Arellano Félix-run Tijuana cartel has been able to overcome the onslaught of federal forces by means of its superior logistics and its network of corruption that spreads through local, state and federal government offices. They say the cartel has organized itself into small, semi-autonomous cells comprised of a boss and 50-100 members. If one cell goes down, another slides over to absorb its remaining members and resume its activities.

Whack-a-Mole, anyone?

It has gotten so bad in Tijuana that police officers riding around in their cars are being threatened over their own police radio frequencies. Police have to listen to threats of torture and beheadings as well as threats against their families. That would be a bit disconcerting, no? "Car 54, where are you? It doesn't matter. We're going to find you and cut your heads off no matter where you are." Jeez.

Late last week the federal forces disarmed the police to begin checking their weapons against forensics reports from the more than 300 gangland style executions in the city last year. The feds also disarmed the Industrial and Bank Police who are paid for by private industry and banking concerns. That precipitated a mad rush by wealthy people to San Diego. This police force also guards the wealthy and their families as well as business and banking executives from kidnapping.

Not only did the suddenly under protected wealthy skeedaddle, but many now naked cops stayed home rather than hit the streets with no hardware. I can't blame them. The dirty ones are marked for death by their enemies on one side or another and the few clean ones are marked for death by just about everbody.

Six days after the feds arrived, the gangs executed 4 in Tijuana and 1 more in Mexicali. A 2 year-old girl also died when her fatally wounded father lost control of his vehicle and crashed.

The Mexican populace and, it would seem, many federal authorities expected some kind of "shock and awe" operation to make an immediate impact. No way, José. It took US federal authorities almost 10 years to bring down Al Capone and they knew who he was and where he was and what he was doing every minute of every day during those ten years. Had Capone been as organized as the Arellano Félix brothers, he might have died in his Florida mansion from the effects of syphilis without ever having spent a day in prison.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Tijuana, Mexico, Arellano Félix, Al Capone

Texas, USA: Don't mess with Texas . . . rabbits

Here's a video worth watching,. A Texas man filmed this astonishing wildlife incident in his backyard. A rabbit, apparently a momma with young nearby, fearlessly attacks a big snake. And what's more, she kicks its butt.


Texas Rabbits Rule - video powered by Metacafe

A commenter wrote in to Meta Cafe and said he hoped it wasn't a rattler because, if so, the momma rabbit would surely die. I don't think this was a rattler. Look at its pointy tail. Rattle snakes have blunt ended tails. Also, a rattler will stick its rattles up in the air at an almost 90º angle to its body and shake them furiously when angered. This snake didn't do that. A rattle snake also curls up into a strike position much tighter than did this snake. The rattle snake, from this tightly coiled position, can launch itself out further than the length of its body. This snake struck at momma rabbit several times but only reached out about half its body length.

In addition, the snake obviously hit momma rabbit several times and had it been a rattler I think the rabbit would have died almost right there on the spot. Rattle snake venom is very powerful and she would have gotten at least three doses of it. And finally, she chased the snake up a tree. I've never heard of a rattle snake being treed or even climbing a tree, let alone fleeing up a tree. And after being chomped on the tail a few times, this snake had only one thing on its mind. Get. Up. That. Tree.

I think momma rabbit was lucky it wasn't a rattler. Even so, she showed not only bravery but also an aggressive, fightin' side that I did not know rabbits possessed.

What I liked most about this was the fact that momma rabbit, after being struck a few times, worked out that she was attacking the wrong end of the snake. She switched tactics and attacked its tail and that put the snake on the run.

Outstanding.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Texas, Don't mess with Texas

Jalisco, Mexico: Open closets, skeletons rattle out.

As new municipal and state governments took office in early December and this month, the many and various mayors and their staffs began taking inventories of what they had inherited from their preceeding municipal governments. It is apparently not a pretty picture.

In the state of Jalisco (Guadalahara) alone, Reforma was able to interview 54 of 125 new municipal governments and the newspaper was informed that incoming mayors had found, so far, almost 50 million dollars in heretofore unknown municipal debt, missing records, erased computer files, ghost employees, and in one case, 3 years worth of municipal records filed at the local garbage dump.

In the municipality of Tonalá, ex mayor Palemón García Real left behind an unpublicized and illegal municipal debt of almost 23 million dollars. In El Salto, former mayor Bertha Alicia Moreno walked away with her little municipality still in hock for almost 4 million dollars in previously unreported debt.

In Cocula, the new mayor was unable to establish the existance of numerous municipal employees on the payroll for the last three years.

In Zacoalco de Torres the new mayor's staff arrived to computers with no files left on hard drives. In Zapotlán el Grande, all the computer files for the local DIF and Public Works secretariats had been erased.

In Totatiche the new municipal government had to visit the local garbage dump to retrieve three years worth of municipal historical archives. They haven't found it all yet.

Totatiche, Jalisco, Mexico: "Hey, I found the petty cash vouchers!"


The new mayors of both Tonaya y Mazamitla must riding to work in taxis, as well as the local police forces, because municipal vehicles had been sold at the last minute by the previous administrations to pay off their illegal municipal debts. Try to imagine that. You call the fire department and the fire fighters arrive in taxis because their fire truck is sitting in some rich guy's back yard in Sonora or someplace with his kids exitedly climbing over, under and all through it.

What a joke. And this is just in 54 of 125 municipalities in 1 of 31 Mexican states. Try to imagine the no doubt similar conditions of all the rest. Reforma says it tried to contact "the majority" of the new municipal governments in Jalisco (which could be anything from 63 to 124 - Reforma doesn't say) but "couldn't find some of them and others refused to be interviewed".

That circumstance can be attributed to the following: If the new municipal governmment is from the same political party as the previous one, there is not going to be the forehead slapping, "Oh my God! That last bunch was a gang of crooks," type of announcement. Instead, there will either be a quiet attempt to clean up the mess while being richly rewarded by the escaping criminal class for keeping one's mouth shut, or, what is even more likely, the incoming mafia will "Root, hog. Root," to get theirs just like the last bunch did.

As one watches and reads about all the turmoil the length and breadth of Mexico over "corrupt government", one has to wonder, "What corrupt government?" "Where does all this corrupt government come from?" It comes, unfortunately, directly from the people. La Raza. Aztlan.

There is no "elite governing class" in Mexico, such as in France or San Francisco. There is no ruling strata which hands down the reins of power from one generation of theives to another, at least in the thousands of little municipalities all over the country. No, the theft and corruption is widespread and institutionalized. It exists in and is a fundamental part of the PRI (which we all knew), the PAN, the PRD, the PVEM, the PT, and all the rest of the marginal political parties. It's La Raza. It's Aztlan.

The corruption permeates the tens of thousands of NGO's from Tijuana to San Cristóbal de las Casas, from Triquis to Tarahumaras, from Yaqui to Maya. It pervades the many and various local, state and federal police forces. Its tentacles reach into the Mexican military. And I do not speak of narco-corruption. That's a realatively new deal. If I want a permit to haul around a .45 ACP, I have to buy it from a general. That's been the case for a hundred years or so.

Corruption is La Raza. Corruption is Aztlan. Robin Hood in the perverse. Stealing from the poor to give to the rich. And if you're not rich, gaining political office will soon make you rich.

Carlos Hank González famously once said, "Show me a politician who is poor and I'll show you a poor politician." His son, Jorge Hank Rhon, is now mayor of Tijuana and will no doubt soon be governor of Baja California Norte. Who elected Carlos Hank González mayor of Mexico City and governor of Mexico state and made him a billionaire? La Raza. Aztlan.

Who elected his criminal son mayor of Tijuana and who will put him in the state governor's mansion? La Raza. Aztlan.

The tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of Mexicans marching in the streets demanding clean government and blaming all their woes on the Gringos had best take a long hard look inside themselves and at La Raza. Their besmirched Aztlan is exactly what they themselves have built.



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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Jalisco, Mexico, La Raza, Aztlan

Oaxaca, Mexico: APPO puts its women and children on the front lines

The APPO menfolk, thoroughly cowed by the PFP, have decided to confront legal authority with the women and children. This all started a few days ago when, by twos and threes, APPO supporters drifted into the Zócalo through police lines and gathered inside the cathedral. After some 300 had packed themselves inside, they demanded that the attendant priest offer a Mass on their behalf or in their honor, I'm not sure which.

After the hastily organized and hastily performed ceremony had concluded, the APPOites moved outside the cathedral and began to chant the usual "Death to Ulises" refrain. Police gathered and confronted them nose to nose. With their backs to the cathedral doors, however, the APPOites were fairly sure the police would not try to remove them by force. The cops stayed cool and after the APPOites got hoarse, they drifted away.

Governor Ruiz issued a statement saying that this tactic would not be tolerated in the future and there would be no more demonstrations permitted in the Zócalo area. So the APPOites sent in the women and kids to do the sapper work. The women set up some tables in front of Santo Domingo on Thursday and sent out emissaries door to door to collect toys for underpriveliged children. They then announced that they would be giving away the toys on Friday.

The police once again deployed to Santo Domingo and forced the women to leave. The APPO lawyers went to a federal judge to get an "amparo", which is a many splendored legal thing here in Mexico. In this case, it was somewhat akin to a temporary restraining order, requiring that the government give the APPOites "transitar libremente en las inmediaciones de Santo Domingo y en el resto de la ciudad." In the King's English, "free transit rights." Or so say the APPO lawyers although no one has seen this particular holy document as of yet.

Governor Ruiz's response was to say that APPO, along with everybody else, had free transit rights, they just couldn't set up tables or otherwise interfere with others' free transit. This not being allowed to interfere with others' free transit thingy is quite foreign to Mexicans. They pretty much expect the right to shut down or divert traffic, block sidewalks, barricade highways, turnpikes and bridges, block building entrances and spread paint, trash and garbage just about wherever they want and whenever they want for whatever reason they see fit; be it protesting too many taxicab permits or selling dysentary laced tacos or illegally imported cheap Chinese toys or whatever. Other people's rights be damned.

Anyway, Governor Ruiz, knowing that giving APPO an few meters meant they would return for a few square kilometers, decided to obey the letter of the law, or at least the amparo. He decided that everyone would be guaranteed free transit in and around Santo Domingo, not the least of which would be the 500 policemen he packed around it this morning. When the APPOite ladies arrived with their tables, the police refused to allow them to install themselves on the Santo Domingo esplanade.

There was some shouting and a little pushing and shoving but the cops held firm. So the ladies moved a block to the west to García Vigil street and set up their tables there. They then proceeded to give away toys and treats and organize a children's protest march. They gathered up their kids, some 300 of them according to this report, and marched them down the street chanting APPO slogans they had had plenty of time to memorize since they'd been out of school for 4 months.

So women and children now constitute the front lines of APPO. I wonder if they'll take a lesson from the Iranians who bought hundreds of thousands of cheap plastic keys from a Chinese plastics company. They then handed out these "keys to paradise" to 12 year olds and sent them marching in front of their troops, each child holding his key up high, to "detect" land mines planted by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army.

Nah. I don't think even APPO has accused Governor Ruiz of planting land mines under Macedonio Alcalá . . . yet. APPO's lawyers, however, intend to seek a criminal indictment against the governor for ignoring the amparo. I think the judge who issued it knew exactly what he was doing. "Free transit" means just that. The right to transit freely. The judge did not mention stopping for 8 hours or 80 days and occupying sidewalk space, thereby interfering with others' rights to "transitar libremente".


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, APPO, Santo Domingo, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz

Michoacan, Mexico: Really, really long term parking

Police in Uruapan, Michoacan, received an anonymous phone tip that armed men were seen hanging around a warehouse. The warehouse was being used as a long term parking lot and part of it was also being used as a sawmill. When a contingent of police arrived to check it out, they walked around the interior of the property.

They noticed that the floor of the warehouse had been disturbed. They started digging. So far, the cops have dug up 9 bodies, 2 women and 7 men. All had their hands and feet bound and had been shot in the head. That makes at least 35 bodies dug up from various mass graves over the past 3 years, all executed.

The bodies were buried in various locations around the warehouse's interior. The 9 victims found so far had been executed and buried at different times.

This gives a whole new meaning to "long term parking".

The owner of the warehouse and his wife have been arrested, along with two other relatives and two employees. They are accused of parking the nine customers for eternity without a proper permit.

This would probably have never come to light were it not for Felipe Calderón's ordering the PFP and the military into Michoacan to start to clean up the mess there. Narcotraffickers had just about taken control of the entire state. Calderón sent in the PFP and military about a month ago. To date they've arrested scores of people, including many high ranking cartel members, confiscated an arsenal of high powered weapons and explosives as well as everything from yachts to gold bars to acres of herbicide resistant marijuana plants.

Gaaack.

The PFP and the military have also moved into Tijuana. Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, "Señor Hank", is whining that all of his problems with the drug traffickers were inherited and are the fault of Vicente Fox. Sr. Hank is the son of one of Mexico's wealthiest men and career PRI dinosaur, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. Sr. Hank is also the owner of Mexico's largest and just about only legal gambling and gaming company. Sr. Hank is noted for getting arrested while smuggling suitcases full of internationally outlawed ocelot skins and ivory into the country.

His clever smuggling technique was to arrive at Mexico City's airport from Hong Kong and declare that he had nothing to declare because he was, well, Jorge Hank Rhon. When some foolish and no longer employed Mexican customs officer started opening the suitcases anyway, several hundred thousand dollars of illegal contraband tumbled out all over the floor.

Sr. Hank was later found not guilty by a bought off judge and then elected mayor of Tijuana. Oh yes, and he also got caught, but was never charged, with trying to smuggle in an endangered gorilla. Said gorilla probably never knew just how endangered he really was. Actually, it was Sr. Hank's personal, private zoo director who got caught. In Florida. Wearing a gorilla suit. Don't ask. Just follow the link.

Sr. Hank does not always get off scott free. He was stopped at a border crossing south of San Diego by US Customs before he could cross back into Mexico with an endangered white Bengal tiger cub perched on the headrest of his car seat. He paid a $25,000 fine and lost the tiger cub. US authorities didn't give a sh*t who his daddy was. But daddy soon replaced the lost Bengal tiger cub with one he illegally imported from Tanganyika, Tanzania, Tanzibar, Tazmania or someplace.

Now, after Sr. Hank's city had to be occupied by federal forces and his entire police force disarmed, he intends to resign and run for governor. And he will no doubt get elected. Does one wonder that Mexicans have the government they deserve?

"Viva Sr. Hank! No me importan los pinche gorilas ni los pinche Gringos."

The same type of thing happens in the USA, of course. How could Richard Hatcher keep getting reelected mayor of Gary, Indiana while leading that city down into the sewer from which it has never been able to climb out?

Why did Coleman Young keep getting reelected mayor of Detroit while that city rolled over and died? Well, he did make Detroit a shining light. The hundreds of fires from torched buildings every Halloween were visble from space.

And why, after Mayor Dennis Archer, who installed the first decent city government in decades, and then decided that 4 years of that crap was enough for him, did the people of Detroit elect the pimp Kwame Kilpatrick. Kwame, after being found liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in luxury hotel room costs and opulent dinners costing up to 10,000 dollars each, all paid for on his city credit cards, promptly got himself reelected. Detroit deserves all the misery that it still has coming to it.

"Kwame will take me higher and higher."

Why does the Congressional Black Caucus in the US House give a standing ovation to Rep. William Jefferson after the FBI finds $90,000 in his freezer that an undercover agent gave to him in a bribe payment? And why has the FBI and Justice department not brought charges against him?

How does federal judge Alcee Hastings get impeached by the House by the razor thin margin of 413-3, then get elected and then reelected 7 times to that same House? And then get all pissed off, along with the aforementioned Black Caucus, when he doesn't get named chairman of the House ethics committee?

Why did the citizens of New Orleans reelect Mayor Ray Nagin when he was at least 60% responsible for the deaths of some thousand or so of their fellow citizens? After he allowed many of them to be trapped in supposed refuges without food or water while hundreds of city schoolbuses slowly went underwater in their parking lots?

"Yee-up. Ah voded fer Naygun fer Nawlins!"

And why do the people of Massachusetts elect and reelect a fat drunk who swam away from a car he drove off a bridge, drunk, of course, and left a young girl to drown? And after he got Massachusetts state officials to commit perjury in court on his behalf? And after he had his drivers license lifted for drunk driving (several times) but just happened to have an extra in his pocket from another state? And after he got tossed out of Harvard for cheating on an exam by sending in an imposter to take the test for him? And after he spent so many years cheating on his wife and mother of their 3 children, Joan Bennett Kennedy, with so many different women that he drove her to alcoholism and ultimately to a gutter where she was found lying with a broken shoulder and concussion?

"Ted-EE! Ted-EE!"

I dunno. I think the inescapable fact is that people are really stupid creatures. Excepting, of course, thee and me. And I'm not so sure of thee.

I be watching thee.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, narcofosas, Uruapan, Michoacan, Tijuana, Jorge Hank Rhon, gorilla

Oaxaca, Mexico: Email of the week - Mark in Mexico vows, "No more Playgirl centerfold appearances."

I usually dump these spam Emails without ever bothering to open them, but I inadvertantly opened this one and thought it was cute. I'll share it with you.

Hello.belove
I got your email contacts here in asylum camp where i currently reside for refuge on my going through a magazine and decided to contact you with faith for this help. My sources of your contact gave me the courage and confidence to contact you. It is my pleasure to contact you though I have not met with you before pleading you for this help, but i want you to consider it as the will of God for my knowing who you are.

She goes on to claim the usual rebel assassination of her father, millions of dollars in a bank account in Sierra Leone (that's in Africa, if you don't get out much or don't receive the same volume of spam as I) and the usual yada yada yada.

What caught my eye was the "through a magazine" bit. Well that cuts it. I've done my last full frontal nude pictorial in Playgirl, that's for sure. The fact that I only today discover that poor refugees have nothing better to do than pass my data around their asylum camp fills me with remorse.

And then this:

Please, I want you to know that it will require money according to the bank on my last discussion with the manager, this is the reason I cried unto you for Godly help to get this money out of the bank.

Who does she think I am? Jesse James? Joaquin Murietta?

"No robo bancos. Soy accionista. Preferimos robo legítimo, ¿no?"


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, spam

Oaxaca, Mexico: Take a look at some real teachers

UPDATEs: Please scroll down.

Erika Rapp Soto and her CCL - Sección 59

This is Erika Rapp Soto, leader of the Consejo Central de Lucha (CCL), the teachers group that wanted to teach children rather than camp in the Zócalo and repaint the downtown. I don't know the rest of the fine folks pictured here and they are not identified by El Universal, but there is a key figure missing. That would be Jaime René Calva Aragón, who was picked by Sección 22 (the striking teachers).

By "picked", I mean, of course, ice picked to death in broad daylight on a busy city street. Professor Calva Aragon had the temerity to, you know, actually try to teach school rather than fire bazookas at city, state and federal police officers. The former leader of the CCL paid for that temerity with his life.

Erika Rapp Soto and the other CCL members are showing some, er, brass here by appearing openly in a published photograph. After what happened to Professor Calva, I would imagine that it took some heavy inhaling before agreeing to be photographed.

The CCL has been rewarded for its commitment to the school children of Oaxaca by being commissioned by the SNTE national to form its own sección right in the middle of the striking Sección 22. The new SNTE teachers union section will be known as Sección 59 and is expected to attract about 5000 of the the 70,000 Sección 22 members.

UPDATE I: Reforma is now reporting that some 50 communities across the state of Oaxaca have specifically requested that teachers from the new Sección 59 be sent to their schools to replace the striking Sección 22 members.

UPDATE II: I probably should have reported this yesterday, but I really didn't think it was that big a deal. However, it seems that APPO thinks it was a big deal, so here you go.

In Tule on Tuesday, the director of a school in the El Rosario neighborhood arrived with Sección 22 treachers and opened the school. Within an hour, a mob of angry parents arrived, entered the school and backed the teachers and the director into a corner of the school's courtyard amidst much pushing, shoving and shouting; things like,

"You shut down our school for seven months. You have no right to come back to work here!"

After a couple of hours of rising tempers and increasing violence, the director suggested that the Sección 22 teachers make like Bobby Hull and get the puck out of there. Which they did. Twenty or so state police arrived to help keep a lid on things.

APPO says that this proves that the teachers' fight is not over and that, "with conditions, we will support the teachers union". I would suppose that among the "conditions" would be never, ever having to face the PFP in the streets again.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, CCL, Sección 59

Oaxaca, Mexico: Thumbs down to Oaxaca

Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz sent a personal letter to each of the foreign embassies in Mexico which had issued warnings to their respective citizens to avoid us like the plague. The governor invited the embassy officials and their staffs and families to visit the city and state to celebrate Christmas or New Year's, or both.

The response was unanimous.



The embassies for the following countries responded promptly by promptly failing to respond:

USA
Canada
France
Italy
Germany
Spain
Great Britain
Argentina
Brasil
Chile
Colombia
Japan
China
Atlantis
The Wonderful World of Disney
al Qaeda

The Oaxaca daily Noticias printed this story yesterday, but because I only believe 10% of what I see in Noticias and nothing of what I read there, I awaited confirmation from a real newspaper.

All snark aside, it would have been really nice if someone had responded positively.

Somebody.

Anybody.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz

Paris, France: Fewer New Year's Eve problems this year - only 400 cars torched

Police in Paris and surrounding areas are congratulating themselves after the New Year's Eve celebrations in Paris went off with much less violence than last year.

This year, only 400 cars were torched and 258 people arrested. The arrested included several children between the ages of 8 and 12 for torching trash dumpters and caught carrying cans of gasoline.


Liberté! Ëgalité! Fraternité! Incendié!


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Paris France, Arson

Xalapa, Veracruz: Governor says, "PEMEX gives us nothing but potholes in the highways."

I've been idly watching this unfolding drama for some time. There have been some mutterings in the news from time to time about the monetary costs of various Pemex spills, explosions, pipeline ruptures and ship sinkings. Now comes Veracruz Governor Fidel Herrera. And he comes out swinging.

Herrera says Pemex owes the state of Veracruz 100 billion pesos in damages. That's about 9.3 billion dollars if you don't have your calculator handy. And Herrera says that this 9.3 billion dollars is a minimum because much of the environmental damage is irreversible, so how can you put a price tag on that?



Herrera read off a litany of Pemex disasters which have occurred in the state, beginning with a massive leak from the well at Dos Bocas in 1908. They include everything from tankers overturning on the highways to massive explosions and fires to spills and pipeline ruptures.

Here are the ones he named and he emphasized that there are many more.
Dos Bocas, Tamalin
Coatzacoalcos
Minatitlán
Coatzacoalcos river valley
Cangrejera watershed
Pajaritos watershed
Morelos watershed
Cosoleacaque watershed
Nanchital
Zapatero, Ignacio de la Llave
Texistepec
Tuxantépetl
Las Choapas
Agua Dulce
Ixhuatlán del Sureste
Jáltipan
Acayucan
Santiago Tuxtla
San Andrés Tuxtla
Cosamaloapan
Ignacio de la Llave
Tlalixcoyan
The port of Veracruz
Pajaritos
Downtown Veracruz

Whew!



To be fair to Pemex, the oil company did accept responsibility for the 1908 Dos Bocas spill -- in 2005 -- a mere 97 years after the fact. Pemex would probably be happy to pay reparations to anyone still alive who may have been affected. "Just roll yourselves down to the Pemex office in your wheelchairs and pick up your checks! PARTY!!!"



The governor said that if anyone at Pemex cared to see his list, "We've got every incident well documented." The governor said that in spite of the fact that Pemex does by far the most damage to the state's roads and highways, "They don't even have a policy for repairing the damage that they cause."





The governor said, "This is a very profound and painful discussion for the citizens of Veracurz. We give them (Pemex) gas, oil and energy and they leave us with nothing but potholes in all the roads."

To be more charitable to Pemex and a bit less so to the earnest governor, Pemex also pays his salary. The federal government acquires between 60 and 70 percent of its total annual budget from Pemex. In Veracruz state, the center of Pemex operations, that percentage of the state's budget is probably more like 90-95 percent.

To be further charitable to Pemex, as an institution, the federal government used to take an eye popping 60 cents out of every dollar of Pemex income right off the top. President Fox lowered this skim job, effective January 1 of this year, to a merely vein bulging 58 percent. Whoopee.

The federal legislature has leaped (leapt) into action. Demonstrating that they intend to earn every peso of their Pemex-financed, laughably overinflated paychecks, the House of Deputies passed a "Punto de Acuerdo" (declaration with no weight of law behind it) "exhorting Pemex to fulfill its obligations relative to the natural environment and give maintenance to its facilities".



This major meaningless declaration was signed by 282 of the 500 or so deputies, meaning that some 218 of them still think everything is just hunky dory. Or maybe thay are the smarter ones who realize that Pemex just doesn't have the money available to fix or maintain its installations and infrastructure. Especially so after the deputies, senators and all the other hundreds of thousands of hogs at the various federal, state and local government troughs take theirs.

The fact is that Pemex corruption is estimated to cost the company, and the federal government, since it owns the company, a cool billion dollars a year. Pemex money kept the PRI in power in Mexico for 52 years (and skimming foreign oil companies' money for 23 years before that). Pemex money paid for political campaigns, federal, state and local. Pemex money bought votes by the tens of millions and probably hundreds of millions over time. Pemex money bought mansions in Mexico City, beach homes on the Mexican and California coasts, villas in Europe and plantations from the Caribbean to Pago Pago. Pemex money financed high level political murders, the machine-gunning of protesting students and massacres of campesinos from Tijuana to San Cristobal de las Casas.

Pemex money pays the wages and salaries of an estimated 40,000 unnecessary and unneeded employees that bloat its payroll. When Pemex tried to cut into that fat, the oil workers union hit the company with 15,000 individual lawsuits on behalf of laid-off, er, workers. How many Pemex, er, workers does it take to replace a lightbulb? Apparently one to carry, set up and take down the ladder, one to climb and replace the defective bulb, and 6 to stand around and watch.

I drove from the airport into Acapulco once and as we passed through the foothills bristling with mansions, my wife muttered, "American movie stars and Mexican politicians with all of our money."

A deputy, one Fernando Quetzalcóatl Moctezuma, emphasized that Veracruz state alone has almost 1000 miles of pipeline, 80% of which is obsolete. Furthermore, "Eighty percent of all the Pemex pipelines (25,000 km - 15,000 miles) throughout the entire country are outside of quality norms and their useful life and could cause incidents."

You think?

Until the morons in Mexico City can come to grips with the fast approaching armageddon that is the backruptcy of Pemex, Veracruz governor Herrera is just whistling in the wind. And no amount of "Puntos de Acuerdos" are going to fix that.

PEMEX's future



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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, PEMEX

Mexico City: DF government joins president in war on crime . . . just not too seriously

Mexico City's government has decided to respond to an advisory issued by the US State Department which calls Mexico City's skyrocketing rates of violent crime "critical".

The city's mayor, Marcelo Ebrard and its chief of police, Joel Ortega Cuevas, have reacted to the city's soaring rates of serious crime by conducting highly coordinated operations against highly un-serious threats.

Ebrard, you may recall, is a PRD political hack and AMLO buddy who used to be the Mexico City chief of police himself before assuming the mantel of mayor. Ebrard was fired by President Vicente Fox from his job as chief after his forces took more than 3 1/2 hours to arrive to the aid of 2 undercover narcotics officers who were lynched by a mob and then burned alive. The two men were taking photos near a school and the mob thought they might be kidnappers. Ebrard blamed the tardy response on "heavy traffic".

Reporters and camera crews which arrived within minutes of the trouble being first reported seemingly had no trouble navigating the "heavy traffic". Reporters were even able to interview the two bleeding police officers on live television before casually filming their incineration.

Ebrard is also famous for promising to implement all 146 of the Rudolph Giuliani team's recommendations for cleaning up the Mexico City police forces. Ebrard then proceeded to put into action, uh, exactly none of them. These recommendations were those that then Mayor AMLO promised to pay Giuliani 4.5 million dollars for, then paid him a mere million and sent him on his way. The old, "He doesn't understand Mexico and Mexicans" excuse was implemented.

Ortega Cuevas is famous for stating, upon his assumption of the job as police chief of the notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden city police forces, "I'm not going to fire or replace any police commanders. If some want to resign, that would be okey dokey."

Anyway, Ebrard and Ortega, demonstrating their newly awakened interest in truth, justice and the Mexican way, launched an operation against the street vendors in and around Mexico City's center. They sent in a highly trained force of 150 officers to sweep up and confiscate . . .

877 toy guns.

That's right, toy guns. 877 of them. About 6 toy guns per man.

pellet pistols

BB guns

crossbows

Daisy Red Rider air rifles

Replacement units no longer available in Mexico City


Spare parts now scarce in Mexico City


A gang-banger takes aim with a crossbow and poisoned arrows at a rich American tourist cowering in a tree in the heavily forested Zócalo Selva.

This operation was carried out with military precision on Wednesday but I am just now reporting on it because I have been engaged in some heavy research. I have been trying to determine how many of the hundreds of thousands of serious violent crimes, such as murders, rapes, robberies, kidnappings and assaults which took place in the city in 2006 (so far) -- most unreported to the authorities because, well, why bother? -- have been carried out at the point of a crossbow.

I haven't been able to find any. None. Zip. Zero.

However, I suppose that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Therefore, thanks to Mayor Ebrard and police chief Ortega, Mexico City residents and visitors can rest assured that they no longer must fear being accosted by vicious 12 year-olds brandishing Red Riders nor by bloodthirsty William Tell wannabees.


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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Mexico City, AMLO, Marcelo Ebrard, Rudolph Giuliani, SSPDF