Latin American Herald TribuneBusiness leaders in the northern Mexican border city of Matamoros are urging President Felipe Calderon to declare a truce in his all-out battle with drug cartels, a conflict that has claimed some 30,000 lives in the past four years.
It it urgent to modify the strategy against organized crime, the vice president of the Federation of National Chambers of Commerce, Julio Almanza, said Monday.
“We’re asking (Calderon) for a truce and for him to exchange war helicopters for tractors to make the countryside more productive, to exchange the machinesguns for loans for businesses, to exchange each exploded grenade for a job,” he said.
Matamoros, located just across the border from Brownsville, Texas, is part of Tamaulipas state, where hundreds have died this year as the rival Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels have battled each other and the security forces.
Almanza said that if the federal government continues to remain obstinate on turning city streets into “battlefields” and does not take account that its strategy “has failed,” the risk exists that in more communities the situation of Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas, might be repeated, where that community has become a ghost town because of the exodus of its frightened citizens.
The business leader said that the federal government must focus its support on businessmen with greater incentives, on supporting the maquiladora industry, foreign trade, giving confidence to tourism, working in strategic sectors like health, employment and education and leaving weapons and war to the side for the sake of peace and productivity.
Almanza said that Tamaulipas Governor-elect Egidio Torre and the incoming mayor of Matamoros, Alfonso Sanchez, must push this truce that the government is being asked for “since both, as respected businessmen, know, have experienced and are aware of the problems the private sector and society in general are facing.”
The violence besetting Tamaulipas has caused many businessmen to flee the area along with their capital for neighboring Texas, where they have invested some $16 million in business activity.
A truce with Cartels won't help tourism and who'd invest in business, knowing that the Cartels are ready to plunder and kidnap?
ReplyDeleteYears of tolerance caused this to get so bad. The whole society needs fixing and there's no "amnesty" for these thugs.
Good thing we didn't come to a truce with Capone or the NY mafia.
And all the Zetas said:
ReplyDeletefee fie fo fum
I smell the blood of a businessman
Be he alive, or be he dead
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.
Fee fie fo fum
I smell the blood of a scaredy man;
Let him be alive or be dead,
Off goes his head.
Fee fie fo fum
If he have any liver and lights
I'll have them for my supper tonight.
Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man;
Be he living or be he dead,
His heart this night will kitchen my bread.
.
Is Almanza stupid? It has to get worse before it gets better. If a truce is applied, everything that the Mexican government has done will be for NOTHING!! that Almanza is probably a scared cartel member.
ReplyDeleteAlmanza is a damned idiot, does he not think the cartels will continue to run free in Tamaulipas/Matamoros? Tractors? Seriously, they will steal the damned tractors just as they hijacked the heavy equipment a Brownsville business owner trucked to a customer in Mexico, or should I say "tried" to send to a customer in Mexico. Something tells me Almanza is getting paid well for his delusional bullshit! Matamoros is and always has been a shithole, the only reason people go there is for cheap drugs and booze. A friend in Brownsville was recently given hell for openly talking about the problems on facebook, the business leaders felt "it was bad for business", well no shit Sherlock. Perhaps they failed to consider that beheadings and shoot outs might be a little much for the tourist crowd. Mexico's enemy is found on several fronts, one the officials and business men getting kickbacks and then we have the spineless assholes who want to keep it quiet, keeping it quiet is a death sentence. If the people don't know the people cannot and will not get fed up enough to demand change. Almazan should be asking for guns, a gun for every citizen who wants one and is wiling to fight these pochos. Somebody needs to put one of those pointy, ugly Alligator boots up his ass for spewing such complete and utter bullshit. We will soon see how involved the new governor is, if he is tied to the narcos he will live, if he fights them he will serve very few days in office. Plomo or plata.
ReplyDeletethe few remaining farmers cannot even take their crops to market without fear of getting ripped off by the cartels. if you pay one off, then members of another show up wanting to know why you are contributing to their enemy and then they assault you!! this is pri leadership at its finest!
ReplyDeletelegalize drugs now.
ReplyDelete