Note: some of the violence has already come north, much more is coming.
thx
Nogales is the prize in drug cartels' war
Rival gangs fight for corridor, with residents in crossfire
By Brady McCombs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.14.2008
NOGALES, SONORA — Officer Lamberto Ruiz climbs into his police truck and looks through a spiderweb of cracks fanning out from a bullet hole in his windshield.
There's another bullet hole in the plastic lining of the driver-side door.
"They shot at an officer sitting right here and nearly killed him," says Ruiz in Spanish, describing an incident that occurred months earlier.
He starts the truck and, before beginning a patrol shift aimed at combating drug violence, puts his right hand to his forehead and crosses himself.
Just 65 miles south of Tucson, in the border city of Nogales, Sonora, bloodshed fueled by narco-trafficking has reached unprecedented levels — and officials don't know when, or whether, it will slow down.
Violence that used to fill newspapers and airwaves in other parts of Mexico, such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, is now occurring in this border city of nearly 200,000 people: beheadings, execution-style killings, bodies found wrapped in duct tape with messages for rival drug traffickers, shootouts in such public places as bus stops and restaurant parking lots.
Two powerful drug trafficking organizations — the Sinaloa and the Gulf cartels — are engaged in brutal battle for control of the Sonoran-Arizona corridor, the most desired piece of real estate along the U.S.- Mexico border, says Anthony Coulson, Drug Enforcement Administration assistant special agent in charge of the Tucson District Office.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón's campaign to weaken the cartels by putting the army along known drug-smuggling routes and trying to snuff out corruption has added fuel to the fire, Coulson says.
It disrupts drug smugglers' ability to get their loads across the border, causing panic and uncertainty among drug smugglers, he says.
2008 tally already passes '07
The combustible situation has made killings nearly a semiweekly occurrence in Nogales this year.
The total of 67 premeditated homicides recorded from January through August in the city, most drug-related, averages out to one every four days, figures from the Sonoran government show.
The frequency of the killings increased to one nearly every other day from June through August, when 39 killings occurred.
The deadly 2008 tally in Nogales has already surpassed the 2007 total, 52, and nearly doubled the 2005 total, 35, figures from the Sonoran government show.
"Now we have violent deaths, gunfire from high-powered weapons such as AK-47s, we have crimes where four people die in a single act," says Arturo Ramírez Camacho, chief of police in Nogales, Sonora, in Spanish. "Obviously, this, well, causes fear among Nogalenses — fear that they are going to find themselves in a shootout."
Traditionally, most of the deceased and injured in drug- related violence have been identified as people involved in the drug-trafficking business.
Though that hasn't changed, Ramírez says at least four innocent people have been hurt or killed.
There's no evidence that drug traffickers are targeting Mexicans not involved in the trade or U.S. citizens passing through or visiting, Coulson and Ramírez say. And so far, no gunbattles or chases have spilled over the border into the United States.
Still, that does little to ease the fears of people living in or near the area.
"I have never seen that degree of violence in Nogales, Sonora, and I was born in Nogales, Sonora, and was raised here," says Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. "Never in my life have I seen anything as terrible as what's going on over there."
Murder capital of Sonora
Nogales accounted for more than a quarter of the 230 killings registered in the Mexican state of Sonora this year through August and more than any other city in the state, including Hermosillo, which had tallied the most killings in each of the previous two years, figures show.
On a state level, homicides are slightly behind last year's pace with 230 registered through August, compared with 234 at the same time the year before, Sonoran government numbers show.
On Aug. 30, the Mexican government sent 200 additional state and federal law enforcement officers to Nogales in response to the situation.
Each day, city, state and federal officers mobilize on patrols, set up road checkpoints and stop and search suspicious- looking vehicles.
The goal of the operation is to increase the law-enforcement presence in the city and create deterrence, Ramírez says.
"We're taking out of circulation anyone who has an arrest warrant, driving an illegal car," says Ramírez, "so that delinquents aren't on the streets."
The root of the violence comes from a broken agreement between the Gulf and Sinaloan cartels, Coulson says.
The two entered into a quasi-peace agreement following deadly gunfights in May 2007 in Cananea, Sonora, but that lasted only about a year, Coulson says. Since May, they've been engaged in open warfare for the territory.
The corridor is valuable because it remains one of the best ways to get drugs into the United States, with a combination of cities and roads on both sides of the border and the vast expanses in a harsh desert climate that makes it difficult for law enforcement to stop the smugglers.
Even with a slight decrease this year, Arizona accounts for 43 percent of all seized marijuana along the southwestern U.S. border despite having only 13 percent of the nearly 2,000 miles of the border, Coulson says.
Nogales is the epicenter, accounting for 60 percent of all drugs that come into Arizona, he says.
So far, the turf battles have not spilled over into residential areas in Santa Cruz County, Estrada says.
They have, however, seen rip-offs and gunfights in remote canyons and valleys that appear to be related, he says.
Cochise County officials are highly concerned about spill-over, even though nothing has happened, Cochise Sheriff Larry Dever says.
They are most worried about a potential shootout between cartels and police crossing the international line.
"We've made preparations over the years, but the threat is clearly more significant than it has ever been," Dever says.
Dever, Estrada and Coulson agree the violence isn't likely to slow down until one of the cartels seizes control.
"The battle looms large when it comes to those kind of profits," Dever says. "These people are violent, ruthless and will do anything they can to seize control."
Travelers told to be aware
Officials aren't telling Arizonans to stop traveling to Mexico, but they say travelers should be aware of the situation.
"People can come to Mexico, but they just have to be aware and informed that they are going into a country that is having some problems right now," Estrada says.
The U.S. State Department's travel alert regarding violence along the U.S-Mexico border lists Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros as areas of concern but doesn't mention specifically Nogales or any other Sonoran city.
State Department officials declined to comment about the situation, saying only that they are closely monitoring the drug- related violence in Sonora.
The current travel alert expires in October, at which time officials must decide whether to reissue it and whether to revise any of the warnings.
Vendors along Avenida Obregon in downtown Nogales say it's still safe for visitors to come across.
"We take care of the tourists; they are protected" by the Nogales tourist police force, Nora Licon, owner of Curios Licon, says in Spanish. "But, unfortunately, the tourist is poorly informed."
She adds: "The bad people are in the far-reaching parts of the city, not here in downtown."
On Saturday at 1:18 a.m., however, a man was shot and killed at a taco stand on Avenida Obregon.
Level of violence is disputed
Olivia Ainza-Kramer, president of the Nogales-Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce, says the increased violence has been exaggerated. It's no different from rashes of killings seen in such other eras as the mid-1970s, she says.
The minimal risks associated with going to Nogales, Sonora, are no different from traveling to Tucson or Phoenix, where gang and criminal activity occur frequently, too, she says.
But residents in Nogales, Sonora, say the danger isn't merely perception, but reality.
At the Estrella Blanca regional bus stop in Nogales, bullet holes remain in the ground where masked gunmen killed a taxi driver and in the concrete wall where they shot at another person.
The incident, which occurred in the early morning of Aug. 16, left two dead and two others wounded. It shook residents who say the bus stop was a safe place frequented by women, children and families.
The violence is the worst cabdriver Juan de Dios says he has seen in his 40 years in Nogales.
De Dios and his wife have stopped going out on weekends with their two children because of the increased violence. They used to go to the movies but now stay in, he says.
"It's not worth the risk because we don't know what could happen," he says. "There is too much violence in the city."
Antonio Martir, who works in a beauty salon in a shopping center where La Soriana supermarket is located, heard gunfire and grenade explosions in the afternoon of Aug. 5 from a chase that went past on the street nearby.
Tension in the air
"People's attitudes are changing," says Martir, 28, in Spanish. "Everyone is tense and feel like something terrible is going to happen. It's empty everywhere; people are not going out because they are afraid something will happen."
The cartels are no longer waging their battles in back alleys or inside homes, Coulson says.
"This is happening out on the street," Coulson says. "You just don't know where the chase is going to go. . . . It's open warfare between them."
E-mails have circulated among residents about what to do if they find themselves stopped by suspected drug traffickers. A radio station told residents about a 10 p.m. curfew.
And rumors have run rampant about threats on a popular movie theater in the Nogales mall, and, perhaps seizing on people's worst fears, about threats on schools.
None of the threats have been real, and there is no curfew, says Ramírez, the police chief.
"It's not directed at Juan who works in the carwash; it's not about them," Ramírez says. "We have tried to keep residents informed that this isn't a problem for all the residents, like a terrorist act," he says.
The three-level law-enforcement operation will continue indefinitely in Nogales, Ramírez says. He credits it with a slowdown of shootouts and murder in the past two weeks.
The cartels have far more resources than the municipal police, making it a necessity to have federal and state police to back them up, he says.
More help could come soon to Mexican law enforcement.
In June, the U.S. Congress approved a $400 million anti-drug aid package known as the Merida Initiative, which authorizes money for equipment or training. The first allotment is to be part of a three-year, $1.4 billion aid plan.
But Mexico is still waiting for the funds as it wages its battle against the criminal organizations.
During his recent shift in the bullet-ridden truck, Officer Ruiz spent nearly 20 minutes trying to find a truck full of federal agents that had become separated because the police force does not have a common radio frequency.
That lack of communication makes it difficult to coordinate and cuts into the efficiency of the operation, he says:
"There is no calm for the residents." .
● Reporter Berenice Rosales from La Estrella, the Arizona Daily Star's Spanish-language newspaper, contributed to this story. ● Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
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