• Mexico security forces accused of abducting, murdering civilians

    Yuri Cortez / AFP - Getty Images file

    Relatives and human rights activists show a banner with pictures of missing people while marching during a protest marking the "International Week of the Detained-Disappeared" in May in Mexico City.

    By Gabriel Stargardter, Reuters

    IGUALA, Mexico - Dozens of people were abducted and murdered by Mexican security forces over the past six years during a gruesome war with drug cartels, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, urging President Enrique Pena Nieto to overhaul the military justice system. 

    The rights group said that since 2007 it has documented 149 cases of people who were never seen again after falling into the hands of security forces, and that the government failed to properly investigate the "disappearances." 

    "The result was the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades," the U.S.-based group said. (Link: Human Rights Watch's full report).

    The report was a grim reminder of the dark side of the war on drug cartels that killed an estimated 70,000 people during former President Felipe Calderon's six-year presidency. 

    Human Rights Watch recommended reforming Mexico's military justice system and creating a national database to link the missing with the thousands of unidentified bodies that piled up during the military-led crackdown on drug cartels. 

    The report also illustrates the obstacles that President Pena Nieto, who took office in December, faces in trying to stem the violence, restore order over areas of the country controlled by the drug cartels and end abuses by security forces. 

    For nearly three years, 56-year-old shopkeeper Maria Orozco has sought to discover the fate of her son. She says he was abducted along with five colleagues by soldiers from the nightclub where they worked in Iguala, a parched town south of the Mexican capital. 

    She says a grainy security video, submitted anonymously, shows the moment in 2010 when local soldiers rounded up the men. 

    "We used to see the military like Superman or Batman or Robin. Super heroes," said Orozco. "Now the spirit of the whole country has turned against them." 

    Hers was one of the cases illustrated in the Human Rights Watch report. 

    27,000 disappeared?
    Pena Nieto has vowed to take a different tack to his predecessor Calderon and focus on reducing violent crime and extortion rather than on going head to head with drug cartels. 

    The government last month introduced a long-delayed law to trace victims of the drug war and compensate the families. It says it is moving ahead with plans to roll out a genetic database to track victims and help families locate the disappeared. 

    "There exists, in theory, a database with more than 27,000 people on it," said Lia Limon, deputy secretary of human rights at Mexico's interior ministry. "It's a job that's beginning." 

    Daniel Becerril / Reuters

    Mexican soldiers take part in an operation to locate members of the music group Kombo Kolombia near Mina township in the state of Nuevo Leon on Jan. 27. Sixteen members of the band and other staff members was reported missing by their relatives, according to local media.

    Still, impunity remains rife. The armed forces opened nearly 5,000 investigations into criminal wrongdoing between 2007 and 2012, but only 38 ended in sentencing, according to Human Rights Watch. 

    In its report it describes the impact of the disappearances on victims' families, a daily reality for Ixchel Mireles, a 50-year-old librarian from the northern city of Torreon, whose husband Hector Tapia was abducted by men in federal police uniforms. 

    Neither Mireles nor her daughter has heard from Tapia since that night in June 2010. 

    "I want him to be alive, but the reality just destroys me," said Mireles. "I just want them to give him back, even if he is dead." 

    'Bulletproof'
    Since her husband's disappearance, Mireles has struggled financially, having lost his 40,000 pesos ($3,143) a month salary. She has moved her daughter to a cheaper university and can barely keep up payments on her house. 

    "I now travel by foot," she said, noting that Mexico's social security system does not recognize the disappeared. 

    Some family members of the disappeared have asked for soldiers guilty of rights abuses to be judged like civilians, a move Mexico's Supreme Court has approved. 

    "To us it just seems that the military is untouchable," said Laura Orozco, 36, who says she witnessed her brother's military-led abduction. "They're bulletproof."

    Related:

    Church bricks up windows amid Mexico violence

    Mexicans form vigilante patrols against drug gangs

    From May 2012: Mexico's drug war -- No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

     

     

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Despite constant bloodshed, Mexico is ignored during White House race

    Adriana Alvarado / AP

    Rapid response Coahuila state police stand at a checkpoint iin Piedras Negras, Mexico, after a prison break on Sept. 18. Security is among the challenges facing the country.

    By Maria Camila Bernal, Telemundo

    News analysis

    Where is home to the largest number of Americans living abroad, as well as the world's richest man?

    Which country is the United States' third-largest foreign supplier of oil?

    Which nation did President George W. Bush call the U.S.' most important bilateral partner?

    Which close American ally has lost some 60,000 lives in a U.S.-backed effort to combat violent crime?

    The answer to all of the above is Mexico.

    But despite the many ties that bind the two countries, the United States' southern neighbor barely warranted a mention during the presidential campaign, and didn't come up once during the third "foreign policy" debate between Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama.

    President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney discuss foreign policy in the third and final presidential debate.

    This omission is not lost on many in Mexico.

    "At times the United States sees Mexico as an unconditional ally and they see us with the stigma of an undeveloped nation," said Eduardo Rosales, director of the United States-Mexico relations master's program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). "But the United States needs to put their eyes south. It is the most important bilateral relationship in the world."

    Some Mexico-related news is grimly familiar to most Americans -- tens of thousands have died in violence since outgoing President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country's drug cartels at the end of 2006.

    Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

    Mexican cartels funnel between $19 and $39 billion worth of illegal drugs to the United States every year, according to the State Department. The United States, in turn, is a major source of weapons for the cartels.

    Mexico's death toll remains stubbornly high and swathes of the country virtually ungovernable despite the Merida Initiative, a $1.9-billion U.S.-funded program aimed at fighting trafficking, organized crime and money laundering.

    A vivid example of the shared security challenges came in August when Mexican police officers thought to be working in cahoots with the cartels ambushed and wounded two U.S. agents.

    Violence, including the discovery of 49 mutilated bodies near the U.S. border, is reaching new levels in the ongoing drug war in Mexico. NBC's Mark Potter reports.

    Oscar Alvarez, a college student in the northern state of Coahuila, alleged that much of the blame for the violence and crime lies with the United States, the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs.

    "The demand on drugs is not being controlled ... and Mexico will always be affected," said Alvarez, 22, who has a small printing business to help cover the costs of school. "Whoever wins (the U.S. election) needs to act. I've heard a lot of talk but I haven't seen anything get done."

    Full coverage: NBCNews.com's The World is Watching series

    More election news at Telemundo

    That the drugs trade and the hyper-violent crime that surrounds it is a shared problem has not been widely accepted in the United States, according to UNAM's Rosales.

    "The problem is the consumption and the things that surround it such as violence and money laundering," he said. "It's a reality that is neglected by the United Sates. But our bloodshed continues to grow."

    Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

    It isn't clear how incoming President Enrique Pena Nieto of Institutional Revolutionary Party, which governed Mexico for about 70 years, will deal with the cartels, but indications are that many in country are losing patience with the drug war.

    "I'm against the war," former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda told NBC News in May. "At six years on, it is beginning to look more difficult to see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel."

    Jorge Castaneda, former Mexican foreign minister and NBC News Latin America policy expert, talks about the latest developments in Mexico's drug war where this week 49 mutilated bodies were found near the U.S. border.

    Crime and cartels do not define Mexico.

    It is one of the United States' most important trading partners. Its economy, the world's 14th largest, grew at 5.5 percent in 2010 and 3.8 percent in 2011, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, despite the global economic downturn. Trade between the United States, Mexico and Canada -- members of the North American Free Trade Agreement -- is worth more than trade within the eurozone. 

    Also in this series: Iran, Israel name checks illustrate America's twin obsessions

    A symbol of Mexico's growing international economic prominence is Carlos Slim Helu– a telecoms tycoon with wide-ranging investments including a sizable stake in The New York Times – who topped Forbes' list of the world's richest people in 2012.


    But despite billionaire tycoons and high growth rates, the anemic economy north of the border is hurting Mexico.

    Mexico leader's message to US: 'No more weapons!'

    Isidoro Peyron, owner of a family-run tile-making business in Pachuca, central Mexico, says the United States' slowdown has hit him directly. Whoever wins Tuesday's election must kickstart the economy for the sakes of both the U.S. and Mexico, he says.

    "The next president of the United States needs to reactivate the American economy," said Peyron, 63, who has stopped exporting to the United States. "They are (Mexico's) main commercial partner."

    Nevertheless, U.S. trade with Mexico totaled about $500 billion in 2011. 

    Also in this series: Suspicion of US rife as Obama, Romney jab China

    The 2,000-mile border between the two countries makes this trade easier, but the easy access also fuels another issue that both unifies and divides the U.S. and Mexico: immigration.

    At an estimated 12 million, Mexicans are by far the largest immigrant group in the United States. And around 7 million, or 59 percent of undocumented immigrants, are thought to have come from Mexico.

    The Justice Department inspector general found no evidence that Atty. Gen. Eric Holder even knew about the operation that brought more than 2000 guns into Mexico. Fourteen federal law enforcement officials, however, are connected to the botched gun trafficking operation. NBC's Pete Williams reports.

    While Obama decreed earlier this year that hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants who went to the United States illegally as young children would be entitled to remain, the promise he made in 2008 to reform immigration has not been fulfilled.

    Meanwhile, there have been more deportations under the Obama administration than during any other presidency in modern times.

    Also in this series: Should next US president treat Russia as friend or foe?

    But even though Obama has disappointed many for not delivering on immigration reform, the UNAM's Rosales did not hold out hope that Romney will resolve the problems.

    "If Romney got to power, there would be zero chances of an immigration reform," Rosales said. "If Obama is elected a second term, it's still hard, but the chances increase."

    In his public life, Mitt Romney has said and written little about his ancestors' history in Mexico. It's a little-known fact that there's a whole branch of Mitt Romney's family living south of the border, including his second cousin Leighton Romney, and about 40 other relatives descended from religious pioneers who first traveled to Mexico 125 years ago. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.

    Romney favors a U.S.-Mexico border fence and opposes education benefits to illegal immigrants, as well as offering legal status to illegal immigrants who attend college, although he would support doing so for those who serve in the armed forces.

    More Mexico coverage from NBC News

    Mike Reyes, who currently resides in Mexico City, lived in Arizona for eight years as an illegal immigrant. He feels the U.S. fails to appreciate what immigrants like himself contributed to the country.

    "We hope the situation with Hispanics can be resolved in this election," said Reyes, 45, who works as a driver for the public transportation system despite having a degree in business.

    Net Mexican immigration to the United States has stopped growing and may even have declined in recent years, according to a recent study. But with about half of Mexico's population classified as poor, economic realities are likely to continue propelling many Mexicans north for years to come. 

    So immigration policies pursued by the winner of the 2012 presidential race will have an impact not only on the United States but Mexico.

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  • Mexican troops arrest 2 in killing of U.S. border agent

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Nicolas Ivie, 30, was shot to death Tuesday near the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By NBC News and wire services

    Updated at 8:20 p.m. ET: MEXICO CITY -- Mexican troops have arrested two suspects in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent and the wounding of a second officer in Arizona, Mexican security officials said on Wednesday. 


    The two suspects were detained in a Mexican military operation in the city of Agua Prieta, in Mexico's northern Sonora state, a few miles from the spot where Nicholas Ivie was shot dead early on Tuesday while responding to a tripped ground sensor, a Mexican Army officer, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

    Ivie was among three agents who were patrolling on foot about five miles north of the international border when gunfire erupted. A second agent was also wounded while the third, a woman, was unharmed.  

    The agents had been patrolling in an area near the border town of Naco, well-known as a corridor for smuggling, and the Cochise County Sheriff's department has said that tracks were found heading south after the shooting.

    Related: Feds examine whether friendly fire killed border agent

    Ivie was a 30-year-old father of two who grew up in Utah and was active in the Mormon Church. He had been an agent for four years.

    A Mexican police official in Naco, across the border from the Arizona town of the same name, confirmed the arrests, which occurred in the early hours of Wednesday.

    U.S. officials refused to comment on the report of the arrests to NBC News.

    It was the first fatal shooting of an on-duty Border Patrol agent since December 2010, when Brian Terry was killed in a shootout with bandits near the border. Terry's shooting was later linked to the government's "Fast and Furious" gun-smuggling operation, which allowed people suspected of illegally buying guns for others to walk away from gun shops with weapons, rather than be arrested.

    Two Border Patrol agents were killed last year in an accident during a car chase with smugglers near Phoenix.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • President: Mexico gang-related deaths fall by 15 percent in 2012

    Violence, including the discovery of 49 mutilated bodies near the U.S. border, is reaching new levels in the ongoing drug war in Mexico. NBC's Mark Potter reports.

    By F. Brinley Bruton, NBC News, and wire services

    Mexican gang-related deaths fell by 15 percent and homicides by seven percent in the first half of the year, President Felipe Calderon said Thursday, according to local reports.

    For the first time in several years the government has seen a reduction in homicide rates on a national level, Calderon told a national security meeting, newspaper El Universal (Link to Spanish-language site) reported.

    Homicide is "one of the indicators that worries Mexicans. I am convinced that this trend will be more and more visible in the medium and long term," he added, according to El Universal. 

    Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

    Mexico is struggling to contain drug-related violence that has claimed more than 55,000 lives since Calderon launched an army-led offensive against the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

    Panic as cops kill cops at Mexico City airport

    Calderon, of the conservative PAN party, is nearing the end of his time in office and is due to hand over power to Enrique Pena Nieto, from the PRI, which held power for much of the 20th century. 

    'Statistically irrelevant'
    Hector Larios, the head of the Citizens' Security, Justice and Law Observatory, called the president's announcement "statistically irrelevant," according to Mexico's Cronica (Link to Spanish-language site).  

    Mexican authorities say they have captured a man they believe is the son of Mexico's most wanted drugs lord, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. They say the 26-year-old belongs to the powerful Sinaloa drugs cartel. Carl Dinnen Britain's Channel Four reports.

    The seven-percent reduction in homicides equals 80 fewer homicides less out of a total of 1,767 on average a month in 2012, he said, according to Cronica. 

    Drug smuggling tunnels discovered between US and Mexico

    "Reported homicides have gone up by 80.52 percent since the first semester of 2006 to the first semester of 2012.  That fact is eloquent in itself," he told El Universal. 

    "Mexico has turned into a much more violent country," he added.

    Mexico's bloody drug cartels rely on assault rifles and other firearms from the United States to support their battles with rivals and army soldiers. 

    NYT: Mexico town expels cops, takes loggers hostage

    Calderon has repeatedly criticized loose gun laws in the United States, which he says contribute to the violence that plagues huge swathes of the country.

    The United States, Mexico's neighbor to the north, is the world's largest consumer of illicit drugs. 

    NBC News staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Mexico's ex-deputy defense minister probed over cartel links

    Agencia el Universal / GDA via AP

    President Felipe Calderon named Tomas Angeles Dauahare deputy defense minister upon taking office in December 2006.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Two Mexican generals, including the former deputy minister of defense who helped lead the escalation of the country's war against drug gangs, are being investigated for ties to the drug trade, according to local reports on Wednesday.

    Mexican soldiers on Tuesday detained Tomas Angeles Dauahare, who served as the army's second in command until he retired in 2008, and Roberto Dawe Gonzalez, who led an elite unit in the state of Colima, and turned them over for questioning to the country's organized crime unit, officials told Reuters.

    Violence, including the discovery of 49 mutilated bodies near the U.S. border, is reaching new levels in the ongoing drug war in Mexico. NBC's Mark Potter reports.


    "The generals are making a statement because they are allegedly tied to organized crime activities," the official at the attorney general's office told the news service on condition of anonymity.

    President Felipe Calderon named Dauahare as deputy defense minister upon taking office in December 2006, and the general retired in March 2008, according to a military spokesman, who said no arrest warrant had been issued for the two generals and said they were only being questioned at this point. 

    Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

    Dauahare, who once was considered a potential minister of defense, left the military in "through the back door" in 2008 under a veil of secrecy, according to Spanish-language news agency EFE (Link in Spanish). Francisco Armando Meza replaced Dauahare, according to Mexican newspaper Cronica (Link in Spanish).

    EFE reported that in January, 2008, Dauahare said in a speech that groups of criminals had been recruiting members of the army and air force, in particular deserters. 

    Desertion, he said at the time, "has always happened. It has increased as of this decade, with workload, absence from home, wages, contributing to the phenomenon," EFE reported. 

    Calderon has staked his reputation on bringing Mexico's drug gangs to heel, sending in the army out to fight them at the beginning of his term. 

    Jorge Castaneda, former Mexican foreign minister and NBC News Latin America policy expert, talks about the latest developments in Mexico's drug war where this week 49 mutilated bodies were found near the U.S. border.

    Violence has spiraled since then and around 55,000 people have fallen victim to the conflict, eroding support for Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN), which looks likely to lose power in presidential elections on July 1. 

    On Tuesday, a former Mexican law enforcement official who worked closely with U.S. authorities in the drug war pleaded guilty in federal court in San Diego to aiding members of a violent Tijuana-based cartel, including helping traffickers get away with a double homicide in 2010.

    18 beheaded bodies found near popular Mexico tourist site

    Jesus Quinonez was convicted of participating in a federal racketeering conspiracy and could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    In his plea, Quinonez admitted sharing confidential information with the Fernando Sanchez Arellano drug gang while he worked as an international liaison for the Baja California state attorney general's office.

    He is the highest-ranking of four former or current Baja California law enforcement officials arrested in the case and was a primary contact in Baja for U.S. law enforcement agencies. 

    A total of 43 defendants were named in the federal racketeering complaint alleging murder, kidnapping and other crimes. Four are still fugitives, and one is awaiting trial. About half of those arrested are U.S. citizens, U.S. Assistant Attorney James Melendres said. 

    Msnbc.com’s F. Brinley Bruton, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • 23 bodies found hanging, dumped in Mexico drug cartel war

    By Reuters

    MEXCO CITY -- The bodies of 23 people were found hanging from a bridge or dismembered in ice boxes and garbage bags in northeastern Mexico on Friday, in an escalation of brutal violence involving rival drug gangs on the U.S. border.

    In a first incident, the bodies of five men and four women were found hanging from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas state just across the border from the Texas city of Laredo, police said.

    Police could not confirm who was responsible for the murders but a message seen with the bodies indicated it may have been an attack by the Zetas cartel against the rival Gulf cartel.

    Hours later, police found the dismembered corpses of 14 people in garbage bags and ice boxes dumped near the police station of Nuevo Laredo, police investigators said.

    They said the second massacre could have been an act of revenge for the earlier killings, police said.

    More than 50,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on traffickers after taking office in late 2006 and deployed tens of thousands of federal police and soldiers across Mexico.

    The Zeta cartel was founded by deserters from the Mexican special forces who became Gulf cartel enforcers and later split from their employers.

    The two gangs are now fighting for control of local drug trafficking routes.

    Last month the dismembered remains of 14 men were found stuffed inside a minivan left near Nuevo Laredo's town hall.

    Days later a car exploded outside police headquarters and police said the explosion was caused by a grenade.

    Discontent over the bloody attacks is helping fuel support for the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ahead of Mexico's July 1 presidential election.

    Opinion polls make the PRI the favorite to regain the presidency they held for most of the past century.

    Turf wars
    The Zetas have also been engaged in hostilities with the powerful Sinaloa cartel, named after the state in northwestern Mexico where violence has surged over the past week.

    Sinaloa is the home turf of Mexico's most wanted drug trafficker, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who heads the Sinaloa cartel, and analysts say his killing or capture would boost Calderon's embattled conservatives ahead of the presidential vote.

    Calderon cannot seek a second term in office.

    At least 20 suspected drug gang members, one police officer and a soldier have been killed in six confrontations in Sinaloa since April 28, a spokesman for local state prosecutors said.

    He was unable to specify which gangs were thought to be behind the latest violence in Sinaloa.

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    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • French journalist captured by FARC after being dropped into jungle

    Handout / Reuters

    French journalist Romeo Langlois was captured by the FARC, a Colombian guerilla group that generates most of its income from the drug trade.

    By msnbc.com and news services

    As the French journalist Romeo Langlois dropped down from a helicopter into the Colombian jungle alongside anti-narcotics forces on Saturday, an unfriendly group of heavily-armed guerrillas awaited them.

    Langlois, a French citizen living in Colombia, was making a documentary for news channel France24 about the Colombian government’s attempts to dismantle drug labs in the jungles of Caqueta. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, earns much of its money producing coca, which thrives in the heat and humidity of southern Colombia.

    A brutal firefight ensued, according to media reports, and Langlois was shot. He has since been taken hostage, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told reporters on Sunday, according to Reuters.

    Langlois, who has been in Colombia about 12 years, removed his bulletproof vest and helmet and ran toward the rebels, possibly in a bid to prove he was not a member of the armed forces, said Pinzon after speaking to one of the soldiers with the journalist.

    The FARC, dressed in civilian clothes, shot at the troops from nearby houses, Pinzon said. Heavy rains in the area made it difficult for reinforcements to immediately aid the troops.

    Three troops and a police officer were killed during the firefight. Five cocaine labs used to produce coca paste were destroyed. That's a small dent in an operation where one FARC division produces thousands of pounds of cocaine every week. (One pound of cocaine nets tens of of thousands of dollars on the street.) The FARC, which produces much of the world's cocaine, moves the drugs north, through Ecuador, to Mexico where they are sold to drug cartels, according to the BBC.

    After the firefight, the FARC guerillas retreated into the jungle. No FARC fighters were killed.

    France24 is working with officials to find Langlois and is in contact with his family.

    "We know that it is a dangerous region. We are of course concerned but we trust Romeo, who knows the region well and has a lot of experience," said Nahida Nakad, head of the channel’s foreign audiovisual editorial operations, in the statement.

    Langlois’ disappearance could prompt international pressure on the FARC which won some goodwill when it released 10 members of the armed forces this month after they had been held hostage in jungle camps for more than a decade, Reuters reported.

    FARC, founded in 1964, is one of the last Marxist guerilla groups in the Americas, according to France24. Labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, it has relied on the drug trade and hostages to pay for weapons, food and uniforms.

    One of the group’s most famous hostages was Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician who was held hostage for more than six years. She was released in 2008.

    Ingrid Betancourt: Profile of a Hostage

    The FARC has made gestures toward peace in recent months, according to the BBC. The group’s leadership has also pledged to stop taking hostages for ransom.

    But Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos warned there has not been enough evidence that FARC truly intends to give up on taking hostages, according to France24.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • 68,000 guns seized in Mexico since 2006 came from US

    By The Associated Press

    68,000 guns recovered by Mexican authorities in the past five years have been traced back to the United States, authorities said Friday.

    The flood of tens of thousands of weapons underscores complaints from Mexico that the U.S. is responsible for arming the drug cartels plaguing its southern neighbor. Six years of violence between warring cartels have killed more than 47,000 people in Mexico. 

    The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives released its latest data covering 2007 through 2011. According to ATF, many of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to ATF for tracing were recovered at the scenes of cartel shootings while others were seized in raids on illegal arms caches. All the recovered weapons were suspected of being used in crimes in Mexico. 

    At an April 2 North American summit in Washington, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said the U.S. government has not done enough to stop the flow of assault weapons and other guns from the U.S. to Mexico. 

    Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

    Calderon credited President Barack Obama with making an effort to reduce the gun traffic, but said Obama faces "internal problems ... from a political point of view." 

    There is Republican opposition in Congress and broad opposition from Republicans and gun-rights advocates elsewhere to a new assault weapons ban or other curbs on gun sales. The Obama administration says it is working to tighten inspections of border checkpoints in the absence of an assault rifle ban that expired before Obama took office. 

    For more than a year, ATF has been reeling from accusations that some of its agents in Arizona were ordered by superiors to step aside rather than intercept illicit loads of weapons headed for Mexico. 

    The Justice Department's inspector general and Congress have been looking into the Arizona gun probe, Operation Fast and Furious. 

    The issue of gun control legislation hasn't been part of the Republican-led probe of Fast and Furious by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

    The number of all types of ATF-traced firearms manufactured in the U.S. or imported into the U.S. and later recovered in Mexico rose from 11,842 in 2007 to 14,504 in 2011, according to ATF. The figures for U.S.-sourced firearms were 21,035 in 2008; 14,376 for 2009; and 6,404 in 2010. Included in those totals, the number of rifles recovered in Mexico, submitted to ATF for tracing and found to have come from the U.S. rose from 4,885 in 2007 to 8,804 last year. 

    One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence

    Mexican law enforcement officials report that certain types of rifles such as AK variants with detachable magazines are being used more frequently by drug trafficking organizations, ATF said in a news release. 

    Mexico has provided ATF information on 99,691 guns. ATF determined that the source for 68,161 of the weapons was the U.S, 68 percent of the total. For the remainder, ATF was unable to determine a U.S. source or was unable to trace the request to a country of origin. The 68 percent figure is down from estimates of 90 percent in years past when Mexico was sharing less information with the U.S. 

    During the Obama administration, ATF has undergone a management shake-up and Attorney General Eric Holder has called Fast and Furious a flawed operation that must never be repeated. 

    Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that thorough gun statistics are hard to come by and tricky to interpret. 

    "The only guns Mexico is going to submit for tracing are guns they know are from the United States, which clearly paints an incomplete picture of the firearms found in the country," Grassley said. 

     In the Obama administration's efforts to slow the illicit trafficking, gun store owners in Southwestern border states are suing to overturn a requirement that they report to ATF when customers buy multiple high-powered rifles within a consecutive five-day period. To date, the program has been upheld in one federal court. ATF says the reporting requirement, imposed six months ago, has led to 100 criminal investigations and the referral of 30 cases for prosecution involving 100 alleged gun trafficker defendants.

     

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Money, drugs, guns and gangs: Child actors shame Mexico's politicians with mockumentary

    A video "mockumentary" that shows children as kidnappers, corrupt cops and drug traffickers sparked a fierce debate in violence-torn Mexico. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By The Associated Press

    MEXICO CITY -- A video "mockumentary" that shows children as kidnappers, corrupt cops and drug traffickers has sparked a fierce debate in violence-torn Mexico, with some people calling it a needed wake-up call while others described it as political manipulation or even child abuse.

    Kids playing the role of businessmen, criminals and corrupt officials are seen robbing, paying bribes and shooting it out in a mock Mexico made up entirely of children, all to the deceptively laid-back tune of the 1970s ballad "Una Manana," or "One Morning."

    Produced by a foundation supported by private companies and universities and distributed over the Internet, the video ends with a direct message to the candidates in the Mexico's July 1 presidential race.

    A little girl faces the camera and says: "If this is the future that awaits me, I don't want it. Enough of working for your political parties instead of for us. Enough of cosmetic changes."

    'Discomforting Kids'
    Dubbed "Ninos Incomodos," roughly "Discomforting Kids," the four-minute video opens with a pudgy kid-businessman waking up in the morning dragging on a cigarette, and closes with a kiddie-version of alleged drug lord Edgar Valdez, aka "La Barbie," being dragged off to an overcrowded jail full of children by junior cops.

    Little girls carrying purses scream and scurry for cover as boys their own age spray machine guns from huge SUVs and assault-rifle toting little cops run to detain them at gunpoint.

    Mexicodelfuturo via AP

    A child robber threatens his victim in the mockumentary about life in Mexico.

    Despite the video's grim images of knife-wielding, migrant-smuggling, gun-toting kids, all the major candidates had praise for it. Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called it "well done, it's tough but it's the truth."

    Earlier, the candidate of the former governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, Enrique Pena Nieto, wrote in his Twitter account: "I support the message of Discomforting Kids. I hear it all the time on the campaign trail; that 'time is running out.' It's time to renew hope and change Mexico. "

    Josefina Vazquez Mota, the candidate of President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, tweeted that "the video of Discomforting Kids is a call that can't be ignored. I accept the challenge, I want to join you."

    Mexico cartels, US battle in classified ads

    Not everyone was happy, however.

    The video's vision of a smog-choked, apocalyptic Mexico where kid cops crack down on tiny anti-corruption protesters while pint-sized lazy or corrupt politicians stand by is manipulative, and no candidate could afford to criticize it, TV critic and newspaper columnist Alvaro Cueva said.

    "No sane candidate is going to say, 'I want a future with crime, a future with criminals,'" Cueva said.

    He called the video damaging and "a very clear violation of the (electoral) law."

    A sense of 'despair'
    It is a sensitive question in Mexico, where many people believe the 2006 elections were unfairly influenced by a series of privately produced and sponsored ads that sought to inspire fear of Lopez Obrador, warning Mexicans they could "lose everything" if he were elected. He narrowly lost to Calderon.

    "The only thing this video does is to further muddy the election campaigns," Cueva said. "This video does nothing but foment a sense of desperation and despair."

    7 taxi drivers shot dead outside Monterrey, Mexico

    While the 2006 "fear" ads against Lopez Obrador, sponsored by private business groups, benefited Calderon, Cueva thinks this year's fear-video benefits the presidential front-runner, Pena Nieto, whose PRI party has extensive machines in most states that could help him win in the event of a low voter turnout.

    "When one watches this video, one loses any desire to vote, and so it foments a low turnout, and in an environment of low turnout, the winner is the PRI candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto," Cueva said.

    www.nuestromexicodelfuturo.com.mx

    #NiñosIncómodos

    Pena Nieto's campaign was not immediately available to comment.

    Others, like former presidential spokesman and political analyst Ruben Aguilar, accepted the private group's arguments that the video is an attempt to make citizens think.

    "In this country, everyone thinks the worst, and they can never accept that somebody is doing something good," Aguilar said. "I think it is good, it is intelligent and it can help."

    One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence

    The group that made the video, headed by Mexican insurance company GNP, took out full-page ads in Mexican newspapers saying it was merely reflecting the concerns of millions of citizens "who want to see themselves living in a Mexico that has left behind crime, corruption poverty, unemployment, drug trafficking."

    But some objected to the video's use of children.

    "It is unacceptable, scandalous, that they have shown children smoking, armed, kidnapping people with pistols and locking them in trunks," Labor Party congressman Mario di Costanzo said on the floor of Congress on Wednesday.

    PRI congressman Miguel Angel Garcia Granados called on the Calderon administration to ban the video.

    "We are not going to solve the big problems this country faces with sensationalism and shrillness, and certainly not by using underage children in documentaries," said Garcia Granados.

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Guards held after 44 die in Mexico prison clashes

    Daniel Becerril / Reuters

    Inmates' relatives wait for news outside Apodaca prison in Monterrey, Mexico, which is about 140 miles from the border with Texas.

    By msnbc.com and news services

    MEXICO CITY -- Around 44 prisoners died in battles between rival drug cartels in a prison in northern Mexico on Sunday, with victims being beaten, stabbed and stoned to death, according to officials.

    "We can't rule out the possibility that some prisoners escaped, which also could be a motive if the fight started as a distraction," Reuters quoted Jorge Domene, security spokesman for the Nuevo Leon state government, as saying.

    Inmates at the prison in Monterrey, about 140 miles from the border with Texas, include members of Mexico's Gulf cartel as well as the feared Zetas cartel.

    The outburst in Apodaca prison would be the second-largest "mass homicide" in the state of Nuevo Leon's history, after an attack on a casino left 52 dead in August, according to Mexican magazine Proceso (Link in Spanish). In May, 14 inmates were killed and burned in Apodaca's psychiatric area, according to the magazine.

    Authorities said clashes erupted at around 2 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET), after which a fire broke out.  Unidentified sources told Proceso that gunfire was also heard. However, Domene told Milenion magazine that no firearms were used during the violence (Link in Spanish). Officials had regained control of Apodaca by 9 a.m. (10 a.m. ET)

    Mexico's 'super labs' send meth pouring across border

    Corrupt prison guards may have been involved in facilitating the disturbance at the prison and authorities were holding all the prison officials for questioning, Domene said late Sunday.

    In recent years there have been a number of prison breaks in Mexico, sometimes with the aid of complicit guards.

    Sunday's violence was the second deadly incident at a Latin American prison within a week. Desperate overcrowding in Honduras' prisons last week led to a massive fire in a run-down jail that killed more than 350 inmates.

    NBC's Kerry Sanders reports that more than 350 people are dead after an enraged inmate set the Comayagua prison in Honduras on fire. Doctors say the survivors suffered burns over 65 percent of their body.

    The prison in Monterrey is, like many in Mexico, overcrowded as a result of the five-year-old drug war President Felipe Calderon has been waging against cartels.

    The prison held about 80 percent more prisoners than it was designed for, Domene said, adding many of the inmates were charged with federal crimes related to drug trafficking.

    In Mexico, where prisoners held on federal drug charges are mixed with common criminals, the system is troubled by violence tied to the powerful drug cartels battling for control of smuggling routes along the U.S.-Mexican border.

    Officials: Honduras prison fire kills hundreds

    Collusion between guards and prisoners is also a long-standing problem. In the most notorious example, collusion led to the escape of Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, from jail in a laundry basket in 2001.

    In 2010, more than 140 inmates escaped through the front gate of a prison in Tamaulipas state, helped by prison officials.

    About 50,000 people have been killed in Mexico in the past five years since Calderon launched an army-backed offensive against drug gangs shortly after taking office.

    Mexico leader's message to US: 'No more weapons!'

    Drug violence hit Monterrey, the wealthy capital of Nuevo Leon state, when the Zetas split off from their former employers the Gulf cartel and began fighting for control of drug trafficking routes and other criminal rackets in the city.

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    Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

  • Gunbattles, kidnappings, carjackings: US expands Mexico travel warning

    Pedro Pardo / AFP - Getty Images, file

    Police surround a car with a corpse and a human head inside in Acapulco, Guerrero State, on Jan. 20.

    By Reuters

    Spreading drug violence, kidnappings and carjackings in Mexico have led the U.S. State Department to increase the number of places it says Americans should avoid for safety reasons for the second time in less than a year.

    A travel advisory dated Thursday urged U.S. citizens to avoid all but essential travel to 14 states in northern and central Mexico, warning that U.S. citizens have fallen victim to drug-cartel related activity "including homicide, gunbattles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery."

    In April, the State Department had issued a warning about 10 states.

    The latest advisory cites concerns about parts of Aguascalientes, Guerrero and Nayarit in central Mexico, and raises its advisory against non-essential travel to include Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa and Zacatecas as well as Tamaulipas and Michoacan.

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    The State Department also maintained an April warning against non-essential travel to parts of Sonora, south of Arizona, and central Jalisco state, where drug cartel violence has become more widespread. 

    'Unpredictable'
    "Gunbattles have occurred in broad daylight on streets and in other public venues, such as restaurants and clubs. During some of these incidents, U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area," the travel advisory said.

    "The location and timing of future armed engagements is unpredictable. We recommend that you defer travel to the areas indicated in this travel warning and to exercise extreme caution when traveling throughout the northern border region."

    More than 47,500 people have been killed in Mexico since 2006 when President Felipe Calderon took office and sent the Mexican armed forces to crush powerful cartels battling for lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

    One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence

    The State Department advisory noted that 130 Americans were reported murdered in Mexico last year, up from 111 in 2010 and 35 in 2007.

    Among recent atrocities was a fire set by masked gunmen in August in a casino in Monterrey, Mexico's industrial capital in Nuevo Leon, that killed 52 people, mostly women.

    Mexico makes historic methamphetamine seizure

    Earlier this month, a U.S. missionary couple from Colorado were killed at their home in the city. The advisory urged travelers to Monterrey to exercise "extreme caution."

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  • Report: Mexico cartel agrees to ceasefire during pope visit

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    A Mexican drug cartel in the central mountainous state of Guanajuato has agreed to a 'Papal ceasefire' during an upcoming visit by Benedict XVI, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

    The group hung 11 banners -- a common way for cartels to communicate with each other and authorities -- saying they would accede to a recent request by Archbishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago that they cease violence during the pope's visit to Mexico on March 23 to 26, Excelsior reported. (Link in Spanish)

    The group, which the newspaper did not name, said the ceasefire was contingent on a rival cartel being blocked from operating in the state, authorities told the newspaper.

    On January 22, Martin Rabago called on the members of the cartels to "collaborate at least to allow that all these people to attend a totally respectable act. Don't take advantage (of the situation) to do something that will take us to a place of sorrow and death."

    Martin Rabago oversees the diocese of Leon, which the pope will visit on March 23.

    Martin Rabago told reporters at the time that the pope's trip will bring "times of peace and grace."  Leon has not seen the levels of drug violence other states have, but has experienced some attacks on highways.

    Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

    More than 47,500 people have been killed since the government declared war on drugs at the end of 2006, according to the country's attorney general's office. The worsening violence and continued flow of drugs has caused many to question whether Mexico’s militarized approach is the right way to stamp out the cartels.

    Msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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