LIBERTARIAN REFLEXTIONS
THE MEXICAN OK CORRAL
Ricardo Valenzuela
Federal police helicopters and ground forces searched the Sierra Madre for fleeing gunmen on Thursday while state police moved in to replace terrified local officers who abandoned the town of
Officials said Thursday that Mexican army troops had joined the fight Wednesday after a powerful drug cartel sent the assailants into town. However, this was an operation which was coordinated by the state police fallowing direct orders from Governor Bours to go after those criminal using all the force of the State.
Armed with assault rifles and riding in 10 to 15 vehicles, this group of professional killers, like a military operation, pulled four lightly armed city police officers out of police cars and executed them in a roadside park and kept going terrorizing the town in a way that made remember the movie Tombstone, where those criminals known as “the cowboys” were in charge not the town authorities.
The invasion of Cananea — a town that helped spark the 1910 Mexican Revolution when U.S. forces crossed the border to help put down a miners' strike — showed the brashness and power of Mexico's ruthless organized crime gangs. Cananea is also the historic town where the Generals from Sonora—Obregon, Calles, de la Huerta, Serrano— in 1920 wrote the Agua Prieta Plan which then was proclaimed in that city border with Douglas, to march against President Carranza and take over the control of the country in what was known the Sonoran Hegemony.
The first outside authorities to arrive in Cananea on Wednesday found an eerie no man's land where local law enforcement had melted away when this small private army invaded the town. One witness affirmed: “this is understandable because our little police department is not ready nor train to fight what seems to be a professional army of mercenaries.” But Bours ordered fight fire with fire.
"When the state police arrived, there was not a single municipal police officer," Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours said, noting he previously asked for a federal investigation of the Cananea police force, apparently to determine whether it was infiltrated by
"We had to take over the command. There wasn't anyone there. They had all left." And boy they did and started a fierce counteroffensive using packs of local policemen who know the area, know how to track animals as well as humans, and more importantly, they are the great great children of those brave sonorans who, a little bit more than a century ago, use to fight Apaches and Comanches renegades Indians in that area of the State.
Five kidnapped city police were found dead and two residents were killed. State and federal police and soldiers rescued four civilians, including two children, as the battle broke out.
Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna blamed a turf battle between the Gulf and Pacific drug gangs.
"The whole adventure started when an armed command first abducted a police patrol then went out on the streets of Cananea ... abducting not only policemen, but anyone who had the bad luck to be there" Garcia Luna told reporters. "It is a group linked to the Gulf cartel, waging a turf battle with the Pacific people, for control of this territory."
He praised
When the State police arrived the gunmen tried to hole up in mountainous terrain around the town of Arizpe, about 50 miles to the south. But police and soldiers followed the assailants until they found them in a little valley ready to confront whoever. The shootout started resulting in the killing of 17 members of the fierce commando in an hours-long shootout, Bours said.
While President Felipe Calderon has dispatched thousands of army troops to fight the cartels, critics say troops trained for battle should not be acting as police officers. That is the main reason why Gov Bours contracted a group of elite fighters to face this evil enemy. They are all descendents of those wild cowboys who use to fight apache Indians in the XIX century, they know how to ride, and they know how to fight.
The official National Human Rights Commission said Tuesday there was credible evidence that some of the newly deployed troops committed rapes, illegal searches and other abuses. But I have to insist and repeat, this was an operation executed by the State forces fallowing orders from Gov. Eduardo Bours who really understand that the main responsibility of the State is the protection of its citizens.
"Soldiers are not trained to carry out police work," said Jose Luis Soberanes, president of the rights commission. "If you make them do it, they go overboard and we see these types of cases."
But the people from Sonora reacted showing their anger and sending a clear message to Soberanes: "We are feed up with your attitude protecting criminals," and praising Bours for his determination to protect them and comparing him to another famous sonoran, Alvaro Obregon, who was one of the main leaders of the Mexican Revolution, president of Mexico in 1924, and always carried a reputation for his boldness and decisiveness on the battle fields.
At this moment the persecution of the rest of the gang is in progress all over the Arizpe sierra, and the next shootout is about to happen at any moment. Gov Bours is firm about his decision to put an end to this kind of barbaric actions in our State when he is trying to build a friendly place for people and investments. So, this is not over but sonorans are ready for the next stage of the battle.
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1 comment:
If your friend Bours wasn't a member of the PRI, I might be more inclinded to believe that his motive for wantng to drive out the Gulf Cartel from the state of my Opata relatives and ancestors (who were among the vanguard of those that fought off raiding Chiricahua Apaches) is to "build a friendly place for people and investments" rather than help the neighboring Sinaloa Cartel drive out the competition.
Prove to me that there is such a creature as an honest priísta and I might be more inclined to vote for him or her.
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