Gunmen slay former Mexico state governor

Reuters
by Robert Campbell and Luis Rojas Mena

The former governor of the Mexican Pacific coast state of Colima was gunned down in his home on Sunday morning, the latest attack on a politician in the country wracked by drug violence.

Jesus Silverio Cavazos, who left office in November 2009, died of his wounds in a hospital, Colima state prosecutor Arturo Diaz said in an interview on Mexico's Foro TV.


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Cavazos' wife was injured in the attack, but additional details were unavailable. Investigators have no motive for the crime, Diaz said.

Mexican politicians have been targeted by assassins in states that are home to drug gangs and major smuggling routes as rival gangs battle for control of the lucrative business.

Colima, a small western state, is home to the port of Manzanillo but has been relatively free of the spiraling drug-related violence that has ravaged some other Mexican regions, particularly those in the north of the country.

Gunmen murdered the front-runner in the campaign for the governor's job in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas in June in the highest-profile political assassination in Mexico linked to drug gangs.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the killing via his Twitter account, calling it a "cowardly assassination."

A statement released by Calderon's office said he ordered his interior minister to assist the state investigation into Cavazos' murder.

Calderon has staked his legacy on crushing the country's powerful drug gangs, deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to combat the heavily armed cartels.

The fighting between security forces and drug gangs, as well as clashes between rival cartels, has killed more than 31,000 people since Calderon took office in late 2006, rattling foreign investors and Washington, which worries the violence could spill across the border into the United States.