More than 26,000 people have died since Mexico's drug war began in 2006 [Reuters]
Mounting violence hits Mexico's richest city as foreign investors consider pulling out.
Police in the Mexican city of Monterrey have discovered the bodies of four people executed and dumped on the side of a street – apparently the latest victims of Mexico's increasingly bloody drug war.
Elsewhere in the country authorities said gunmen shot and killed the nephew of the governor-elect of the drug-plagued northern state of Chihuahua, in a botched kidnap attempt.
Chihuahua has seen frequent drug-related killings in recent years, particularly in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.
But Thursday's deaths in Monterrey, Mexico's richest city, have raised concerns that the violence is spreading to new areas and could do lasting damage to the country's economy, scaring away foreign investors.
A survey released this week showed that half of foreign firms operating in Mexico were considering scaling back their presence because of the rising drug violence.
The survey by healthcare firm International SOS said 33.6 per cent of foreign executives in Mexico had already reduced their operations, while more than a third of those surveyed said that their organisations had experienced "criminal activity or attempted criminal activity" in Mexico in the last 12 months.
The bodies of four people were dumped in a wealthy Monterrey suburb on Thursday [EPA]
Risk
"The key finding in the survey is that companies that do business in Mexico have found it ... to be a little bit more challenging because of the growing violence in Mexico," Alex Puig, International SOS' director of security for the Americas, told Reuters news agency.
"The real finding within that is that they are actually paying a lot more attention than they were before to managing the risk of their travelers into Mexico," he added.
The city of Monterrey has been a key focus of foreign investment in Mexico, and has long considered itself separate from the crime and corruption rife in other parts of the country.
But the recent surge in violence in the city between the between the powerful Gulf cartel and its brutal former armed wing, the Zetas, has forced many companies to freeze investments amid worries over the safety of doing business there.
A day before the latest bodies were found Mexican soldiers uncovered five communal graves together with three large containers with human remains inside in the municipality of Guadalupe, within Monterrey, following an anonymous phone tip-off.
The bodies in the containers had been partly diluted in acid.
On Monday the bodies of five men, all showing signs of torture, were found in an abandoned van in a Monterrey side street.
Two of the victims were reportedly policemen kidnapped two days earlier and one had been beheaded.
The deaths this week bring the number of people killed in Monterrey since the start of the year to almost 300.
Intimidation
At the same time, there is growing evidence that growing numbers of Mexican police officers are quitting their jobs because of intimidation from drug gangs.
On Wednesday eight police resigned from a local force in the town of Navolato in the western state of Sinaloa.
Navolato is considered one of Mexico's most dangerous towns and some 70 police have quit the force their since January, while 16 have been killed in action.
Across Mexico more than 26,000 people – mostly drug traffickers and police – have been killed since December 2006 when Felipe Calderon took office as president launching his war on the country's drug gangs.
Also in other news over 30 people were executed yesterday in Monterrey.
ReplyDeleteAs the Director-General of a major factory in Monterrey for the past 11 years, I am heading to my US headquarters for yet another meeting on Tuesday to discuss the security situation and the possibility of reducing or moving all Mexican operations out of the country.
ReplyDeleteThe great investments in Mexico ARE being affected. For my company alone, that could be 10,000 jobs. It just is not worth it to do business here anymore.
I love Monterrey and hoped to spend the rest of my life here. But the narcos have made Mexico unliveable for so many people.
When the crime first flared up, the company began increasing operations in places that were affected like Monterrey. But now, the only place to go is out of the country entirely.
We are talking about Belize, Costa Rica and Panama as the new locations for our factories if something doesn't happen soon.
Where did all the good people of mexico go?
ReplyDeleteI call it Mexican math..I saw media reporting the number 40K+ last week...who knows? I say it is 100K plus. Many deaths are officially attributed to natural or accidental causes when are cleary org crime related.
ReplyDelete@ 2:29 As A International Business owner myself I sympathize with the economic affect of the violence and as a lover of Mty and one who gave up my apt there 18 mos ago but I will qualify that to say both of those issues are far down my list of concerns. My primary concern is the affect on children, the next generations of Mexicans, and the inability of the Mexican Government to assure that citizens may travel, live, and work in relative security and children are able to attend school and play in safety. A non-issue in most free nations, it is taken for granted.
and for the reader at 3:31
where are all the good people of Mexico? They are in every city of every 31 states of Mexico. Please do not think what you see on these blogs of gruesome atrocities is accepted, desired, condoned by the 98% of the populous of Mexico who are good, loving, caring, hard working people, who live in fear, who are disgusted and who feel helpless. The people have no power, the media has no power, the government is on an ineffective attack, corruption rampant.
But remember only 1/3 of Mexico has this horrific violence, but it affects all of Mexico as social issues are ignored and needed resources denied because of this so called Drug War.
In The civalized functional world there is a thing called Law Enforcment, in Mexico bribrey extortion,protection,-- are participated in by the POLICE,WTF, the volume has been turned up considerably, Blame it on Calderon,or the US whatever,but the entire country has condoned,turned a blind eye, until its a crisus. TOTAL CORRUPTION is the only explanation for why Mexico has not crushed the Criminal infection. If I did not have major investments in Mexico ,that are now unsellable,I would be happy to let the place self destruct, they all deserve each other.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to read your post, Buela. Not having seen many from you recently, I feared for your safety. Your common sense always helps me re-focus on what really matters!
ReplyDeleteImjustagirl
Texcoco Mex said.
ReplyDeleteCorruption is bad and very damaging.
I remembering not to long ago a super power was paying a corrupted official in the middle east for his services and make him President for a short period of time.
At one time it got so bad that they offer the criminals immunity for crimes like killing soldiers and innocent people if they were willing to put down their weapons and adopt American Democracy.
Crazy things are happening all over the world but I guess my Mexico is the most fucked up place.
I don't understand why the riches man in the world (Carlos Slim) was telling investors it was a good time to invest money in Mexico. He has a lot of business in Mexico but he is a crazy dude.
Our Mexican Economy is declining in 2006 we were producing 980 billion dollars a year, and by 2010 we were down to 1.576 trillion.
You are safe in U.S.A but not your wallet or your identity because of credit card fraud and identity theft.
Things are complicated, we can point fingers all we want but it will not change the situation. A lot of people don't vote when they have to, the vote it is need it to create new laws or to change laws. Also we all need to pay taxes here in Mexico. I know a lot of people that don't do it and taxes are need it for many things we demand from the government. We also have to stop paying bribes, if we want an honest government we also have to be honest and play by the rules. My education is low only 9 years of schooling and I learn a little English all by myself I don't know about laws or politics but in my humble opinion I think this will be a good way to start. If our government is weak is because we are weak in our responsibilities as Mexicans.
Nobody is perfect look at United States they have a 14 trillion dollar debt and they are still strong and proud. Que viva Mexico, que viva Calderon y la Militar Mexicana por un Mexico mejor y Unido. I also want to say thank you to U.S.A for all the support give to Mexico.
There is another risk of loss for Mexico, the children born in the US to Mexicans. That group provided significant support for Mexico in US politics and US society. They travel back to ancestral hometowns and maintain investments in Mexico because of their cultural ties. With the violence, those travels and investments will stop. I have a home that I have now abandoned as of Easter 2009. That's when I was stopped going through Comales by local cops. They stopped me and my family and sister's family to extort a bribe. That's not unusual. The unusual part was that it was in plain site of the Army checkpoint and the threat of violence was clear. I'll not go back. And, when my parents die, so does my ties to Mexico. Sad but I can't risk my family to a country with no justice.
ReplyDelete