Mexico Accused of Torture in Drug Wars

Washington Post: Residents and Human Rights Groups Allege Harsh Measures Used by Mexican Army in Battling Drug Cartels

(Washington Post)  This story was written by Steve Fainaru and William Booth.

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The Mexican army has carried out forced disappearances, acts of torture and illegal raids in pursuit of drug traffickers, according to documents and interviews with victims, their families, political leaders and human rights monitors.

From the violent border cities where drugs are brought into the United States to the remote highland regions where poppies and marijuana are harvested, residents and human rights groups describe an increasingly brutal war in which the government, led by the army, is using harsh measures to battle the cartels that continue to terrorize much of the country.

In Puerto Las Ollas, a mountain village of 50 people in the southern state of Guerrero, residents recounted how soldiers seeking information last month stuck needles under the fingernails of a disabled 37-year-old farmer, jabbed a knife into the back of his 13-year-old nephew, fired on a pastor, and stole food, milk, clothing and medication.

In Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, two dozen policemen who were arrested on drug charges in March alleged that, to extract confessions, soldiers beat them, held plastic bags over their heads until some lost consciousness, strapped their feet to a ceiling while dunking their heads in water and applied electric shocks, according to court documents, letters and interviews with their relatives and defense lawyers.

The officers were detained at a military base for more than a month.

Mexican officials acknowledged that abuses have occurred in the fight against traffickers but described the cases as isolated. In some instances, drug traffickers may be accusing the army of torture and other human rights violations as propaganda and to deflect attention from the government's efforts to dismantle their operations, the officials said.

"I know that the armed forces are not acting inappropriately, although there have been some cases," said Interior Minister Fernando Gómez Mont, who is responsible for coordinating security operations across Mexico. "The government honestly believes that. There is no incentive for abuse."

Mexican security forces have long had a spotty human rights record, but the growing number of abuse allegations appears to be a direct response to the savagery unleashed by the cartels after President Felipe Calderón put the military in charge of the drug war in December 2006. Most of the violations have occurred in regions where the sight of dismembered bodies of soldiers and police is remarkably common. In the state of Michoacán, investigators with the government's National Human Rights Commission concluded that the army committed abuses against 65 people over three days -- including several cases of torture and the rape of two girls -- after five soldiers were killed in an attack in May 2007.

The U.S. government has encouraged and, in part, funded, Calderón's risky strategy of using the army to fight the cartels that handle 90 percent of all cocaine that enters the United States. U.S. officials said Calderón has initiated reforms that they think ultimately will increase respect for human rights among soldiers and police.

However, U.S. officials warned that the abuse allegations could lead Congress to withhold more than $100 million in anti-narcotics assistance.

The cases in Puerto Las Ollas and Tijuana are under investigation by the National Human Rights Commission, which has been overwhelmed with more than 2,000 complaints about the army -- 140 a month this year. The commission has documented 26 cases of abuse, 17 of which involved torture, including asphyxiation and the application of electric shocks to the genitals of drug suspects.

"What happens is the army takes [suspects] back to their bases -- and of course a military base is not a place to detain people suspected of a crime -- and they begin to ask questions," said Mauricio Ibarra, who oversees investigations for the commission. "And to help them remember or to get information, they use torture."

Ibarra said army doctors covered up some torture cases by omitting physical evidence from medical reports before suspects were handed over to civilian authorities.

In an interview, Gómez Mont said the military is investigating 15 cases of alleged abuse and, in one, returned indictments against an officer and four soldiers. He said he did not have information to identify those cases. Gómez Mont said the military is looking into the events at Puerto Las Ollas but has found no evidence to corroborate the torture allegations made by the police officers and their families in Tijuana.

The Mexican Defense Ministry did not respond to several requests for an interview on allegations of human rights violations by the army.
Funding the Fight

Under the Mérida Initiative, a $1.4 billion counter-narcotics package that President George W. Bush requested in June 2007, 15 percent of the money cannot be released until the secretary of state reports that Mexico has made progress on human rights. The requirements include the prosecution of suspected human rights offenders, the prohibition of testimony obtained through torture and regular consultations with independent human rights groups.

The State Department's Mérida human rights report will be delivered to Congress within weeks, according to a U.S. official involved in the process. The official described Mexico's human rights record as "a mixed bag" and said it remains unclear whether the report will be enough to satisfy the conditions to release the money.

"This is the hardest part" of Mérida, the official said.

At least $90.7 million allocated to Mexico to fight drugs cannot be released unless Congress accepts the State Department's findings. An additional $24 million is also subject to Mérida's human rights conditions in the supplemental budget package that President Obama signed on June 24. Part of the Mérida funding is for inspection equipment, police training and support for the Mexican military.

With the Mexican government and governors from U.S. border states clamoring for more assistance -- drug violence killed 769 Mexicans in June, one of the worst months since Calderón took office, in December 2006 -- the State Department is hoping that Congress will release the money despite human rights concerns, according to the U.S. official, who expressed frustration that the Mexican government has not provided more information about the army's progress, including the number of human rights cases that have been prosecuted.

"The military justice system in Mexico is very opaque; it is very hard to get a handle on how many cases have been brought and what has been their disposition," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Mexican government has long opposed the human rights conditions included in the Mérida agreement, and U.S. officials expect a backlash if Congress refuses to release the money. Many Mexican human rights activists do not support the conditions, noting that they were imposed by a U.S government widely accused of torturing prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It really takes a lot of cynicism, a lot of hypocrisy, for the United States to say, 'We will give you money to fight drug trafficking as long as you respect human rights,' " said José Raymundo Díaz Taboada, director of the Acapulco office of the Collective Against Torture and Impunity, which documents abuses in Guerrero.

At the same time, human rights groups have lobbied the U.S. government to send a blunt message by withholding the money. A letter that a consortium of U.S. and Mexican organizations sent to the State Department in January concluded: "Mexican authorities have in no way adequately met the human rights requirements established in the Mérida Initiative."

"You can't just write a blank check," said Abel Barrera, director of Tlachinollan, one of the most prominent human rights groups in Mexico. "It's the citizens who end up suffering. These kinds of programs just encourage impunity."
Suspected Trafficking Ties

With nearly 45,000 troops deployed in parts of Mexico and along the border, the military has been drawn into a low-intensity conflict in which drug cartels have committed increasingly horrific acts of brutality. Of the 12,050 people killed in drug violence from the beginning of Calderón's term through June, 973 were police officers and 72 were soldiers, according to Milenio, a Mexican media network that keeps a running total of casualties.

In many of the country's most conflicted regions, the army has responded by raiding private homes without search warrants, detaining people it considers suspects and holding them on military bases in violation of Mexican law, according to political leaders, residents and human rights monitors. In Ciudad Juárez, a hotbed of drug violence across the border from El Paso, the state human rights commission received about 100 complaints of torture from January 2008 through February 2009, according to a seven-page report prepared by Gustavo de la Rosa, who directs the office.

Last March in Tijuana, the military, with the assistance of the local police chief -- a retired army lieutenant colonel -- arrested 25 police officers suspected of having ties to traffickers. Salvador Guerrero Flores, a customs agent, said in an interview that he received a call from a public defender telling him that he had seen his brother Manuel incarcerated at the base of the army's 28th Military Battalion and that "he was really beaten up."

Guerrero said it took four days for the army to admit that it was holding his brother. When he finally saw him, he said, his brother was covered in bruises. He later told Guerrero that soldiers had beaten him four times and asphyxiated him with a plastic bag until he passed out.

"He said he lost consciousness twice and they injected him with something to revive him," Guerrero said. "He didn't know with what."

In a statement that Manuel Guerrero gave to authorities while held by the army, he was asked whether he had been tortured.

"Yes, but it's not my wish to detail the actions that I have suffered on this base, because I'm still in their custody," he responded, according to court documents.

His physical condition was then noted in his statement: "The subject Manuel Guerrero Flores shows multiple red contusions, parallel scratches extending from both armpits, massive swelling in both ankles and both wrists, swelling in his left ring finger, swelling in his right index finger, a needle mark or impression that appears to be blood on his upper right buttock."
Storming the Village

In Guerrero state, the army began a crackdown in December after traffickers kidnapped nine soldiers and left their severed heads in the parking lot of a Sam's Club in Chilpancingo, the state capital.

On June 9, on the other side of the state, soldiers stormed into the village of Puerto Las Ollas, situated on a mountain in the middle of one of the state's most fertile poppy and marijuana-growing regions. The area is also home to the Revolutionary Army of Insurgent People, a guerrilla organization that the government has linked to drug traffickers. The group denies any connection.

The village is made up of 10 wooden shacks with packed-dirt floors and metal corrugated roofs. Turkeys, chickens, dogs and children fill up the muddy footpaths that connect the modest dwellings. Residents say they have no links to the traffickers or guerrillas.

The soldiers arrived in three Humvees in the mid-morning, according to residents. Wielding G-3 assault rifles, they began to fire on the town, said residents, who later collected dozens of shell casings from 7.62mm ammunition they said was used in the attack. Most of the men of Puerto Las Ollas literally ran for the hills, escaping into the dense forest.

Gómez Mont said one soldier was wounded as troops advanced. Residents said no shots were fired from the village.

As the soldiers arrived, they encountered Jaime César Acosta, a 37-year-old corn farmer who said he is unable to run because of the lingering effects of a childhood illness. After he dismounted his mule, Acosta said, soldiers seized him, stood him up near one of the trucks, placed a rifle to his head and a long knife to his chin, and threatened to rape and kill him if he did not provide useful information.

Acosta said that when he told the soldiers he did not know anything, they beat him with their fists. One grabbed his arm and began to pull the hair out, he said. Another took what appeared to be a sewing needle and stuck it repeatedly under his fingernails as he screamed.

"One of them asked me if I was afraid to die," Acosta said. "I told him, 'No, if God is ready for me, then it's His will.' "

He said the soldier then picked up a suitcase and bashed him over the head with it.

Acosta's 13-year-old nephew, Omar García, was nearby when the soldiers arrived. He said they forced him to remove his black boots, which they said were military-style and therefore illegal. The boy said he put on sandals. "Then they started punching me, and they started stomping on my toes with their boots," he said.

One soldier took a long knife, he said, and repeatedly jabbed the tip into his lower back, threatening to kill him unless he provided information about the men who had fled into the mountains and other "armed men" in the area.

The soldiers freed Acosta and his nephew after four or five hours, they said. But the army, assisted by reinforcements, continued to occupy Puerto Las Ollas and Las Palancas, a town composed of just two houses about half a mile down the road.

The Rev. Lino Rauda, 53, the Las Palancas pastor, said he initially was not concerned about the soldiers who gathered in an open field about 100 yards from his house. A few hours after they arrived, he said, he was walking when one of them called out to him: "Hey, boy, come over here."

Rauda said he turned to see two soldiers pointing their rifles at him. "I immediately thought, 'They're going to shoot me,' " he said. He said he dropped to the ground as six shots whistled over his head. Rauda said he then fled into the mountains with the soldiers in pursuit, shooting at him.

Two weeks later, as a Washington Post reporter conducted interviews in Puerto Las Ollas, the whine of a car engine came from down the road. Upon hearing it, a woman yelled out:

"Men, listen! A car! A car!"

Half a dozen men suddenly ran in all directions, disappearing into the trees.

Finally the vehicle appeared, a yellow pickup truck, and two men got out. They were investigators from the National Human Rights Commission.

Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

[comentarios]

look at reality for a minute:

The secretary of defence in mexico, the head of the mexican army, his nephew was recently arrested for his links to the drug cartels. In Mexican politics and considering military security, that should signal something to you.

Thousands of mexican federal troops have been trained at the SOA in the USA on how to torture civilians and SOA graduates throughout latin america give us the worst most classic cases of military involved in drug trafficking and human right abuses, and cimes against humanity.

The mexican "president" Calderon got into power through fraud, his cousin owned the company that tabulated the votes, and that company bought much of the computer system used for tabulating the votes from a company with CIA ties. The fraud in the federal elections that put Calderon into power is well documented,and even outgoing president Fox, admitted that he participated in it.

As soon as Calderon was in power he gave a huge pay raise to the military and then deployed them throughout the country in this supposed "drug war".

The large majority of mexican people will straight out tell you that the mexican government is extremely corrupt.

Six members of the Bush administration are being "processed" by Garzon in Spain right now as he is preparing the case against them for torture and war crimes. This is the same judge that affectively had Pincohet under house arrest in London, and now Echeverria another "president" guilty of crimes agaist humanity can not leave Mexico.

The US consumes large quantities of drugs. The CIA participates clandestinely in the drug trade.

Mexican people, civilians with no links to the drug trade, usually political dissentors or part of comumnities where there is some sort of political dissent against the corrupt government for example in Oaxaca, Atenco, Guerrero, Veracruz, Michoacan etc; these people recieve torture, well documented torture from the Mexican military.

The secretary of state in the mexican federal government Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña had 416 charges of torture against him before he was secretary of state.

The way the commercial mass media reports the "drug war" while completely ignoring the Mexican federal army's, the CIA's, the mexican and the US government's corruption, torture, and participation in the war in mexico, reflects just how far and wide the systematic problem extends.

Research your information, and go beyond the comercial mass media to get the big picture. Talk to the victims, and learn about the many movements in mexico right now determined to survive and see the elimination of the corrupt system in power there.

[ZihuaRob]

I have to strongly disagree with many of the comments made by "Comentarios". The election of President Calderón was NOT a fraud as the sore losers of the PRD claim ad nauseum, in particular the supporters of the crazy totalitarian demagogue Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). The vote count was not carried out by computers by but average citizens, including thousands of PRD members who are just as insulted as the rest of Mexico by the claims of fraud by extremist PRD fanatics and followers of AMLO. The PRD is known as the party of bad losers because they NEVER accept their loss. It is ALWAYS fraud to them when they lose, but of course never when they win.

Former President Fox admitted no such collusion to fraud. He did admit that he called AMLO a "threat" to the country, and AMLO's actions after the election certainly proved him right.

While the "war on drugs" in both Mexico and the USA is just part of the same failed policy, it is not what you portray it but the result of gutless elected representatives who continue to protect the interests of alcohol and pharmaceutical companies while the "dumbed-down" public continues buying their products and their bull.

President Calderón's prosecution of organized crime is one of the reason's he and Fox won their elections. It is something our entire Mexican society has been clamoring for for decades. The sideshow of the "war on drugs" or "narco wars" is the only part that is based on flawed policy shared by both the USA and Mexico.

[horse3farm]

Unfortunately, this type of unrest, oppression, heinous acts, all happen everywhere in the world. No one entity can stop it. Human rights organizations are ineffective because all they see is one side of things. They yell and scream and can get nowhere. Especially when it is American human rights organizations getting involved in another country's problems. I am sorry that innocent people are getting killed. But the opposition is just as heinous, if not worse, and of course, that never comes up in the story.

I am so sick of American's suffering, because the buffoons in Congress think it is their job to do something about another country's problems. This country is suffering and meanwhile, ObamaHussein is shown smiling with every other leader in the world. How completely arrogant it is to think you can effect change in another country. Especially in the Middle East. Instead this government sends our troops to other countries and treats them like crap when they get back. Instead, this government raises taxes to ungodly limits to fund their stupid, arrogant programs, and pay themselves huge amounts of money. Instead, the Pentagon is considering banning smoking for all military troops. (That stupid story is over on CNN.com.) What a joke! They cite health reasons? How incredibly stupid is that? Let's give our troops some more stress. How incredibly selfish and stupid is this government? And we are allowing it to happen. And why? Because as a collective people, we are lazy and shallow. I am sorry, but I find it increasingly difficult to be proud of this country in any way.

[ZihuaRob]

While I'm happy to see the humans rights abuses by the military here in Guerrero make news in this important US newspaper, it is unfortunate that the article links what happened in Puerto Las Ollas to the narco trade and the so-called "war on drugs".

What happened in Puerto Las Ollas and Las Palancas in the sierra of Guerrero had NOTHING to do with drugs or law enforcement, though the army said they were looking for Comandante Ramiro of the ERPI, a guerrilla organization seeking social justice, not violence, but who have had to prepare to defend themselves due to the decades old Guerra Sucia (Dirty War) taking place here in Guerrero that often involves police forces as well as the military. Civilian paramilitaries believed to be working with a local cacique (strongman) also accompanied the army into Puerto Las Ollas and Las Palancas. The villagers of these communities know just like the villagers in many other communities in this region exactly who is behind these types of actions.

For years a corrupt and ruthless cacique who is a former mayor of Petatlán and former head of the state's cattlemen's association, Rogaciano Alba Álvarez, has been harassing the people in the small villages in the Sierra Madre del Sur trying to either kill them all or run them off because he and other corrupt influential people want access to the forests for their timber and other natural resources. The people in Puerto Las Ollas along with other campesinos ecologistas have been trying to protect their forests from exploitation, and they refuse to allow logging. They ran off Boise Cascade in the past decade. Two of their members, Teodoro Cabrera García and Rodolfo Montiel Flores, made headlines several years ago when they were jailed on trumped up charges. A lawyer for the campesinos ecologistas of Petatlán, Digna Ochoa y Plácido, was murdered in Mexico City in 1991 under orders from Rogaciano Alba. Her murder was later covered up by Mexico City officials and called a suicide. THAT is the kind of power that caciques and the influential people who back them have.

Here in Guerrero the caciques and their backers are harassing and murdering ecologists for protecting their forests. In 2005 Felipe Arreaga Sánchez was unjustly jailed for over a year. The same year Albertano Peñaloza Domínguez was shot and wounded and his boy killed in front of his family by hired gunmen. Last December Javier Torres Cruz was arrested by the military at a road checkpoint and tortured for several days until he managed to escape and make his way back to his family in the village of La Morena and contact the outside world to tell his story. His family has publically denounced Rogaciano Alba for the murder of Digna Ochoa.

It is worth mentioning that Rogaciano Alba is believed to be working for the Sinaloa drug cartel of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

There are many more similar regional stories of the military and the police working with corrupt caciques to steal lands of indigenous people and silence social organizers who try to help their people. But the news never seems to reach the outside world, so nothing changes here. Hopefully with this article there will be followup investigations and wider interest, and just maybe with the help of international attention we can bring an end to the Guerra Sucia and to the suffering of so many good people of Guerrero who have otherwise been forgotten and abandoned by their government and the outside world.

[ZihuaRob]

Oops. Digna Ochoa was murdered in 2001, not 1991. Excuse my typo.

[horse3farm]

Thank you ZihuaRob, for that story. I hope you are safe.

[babooph]

Like the BUSH CHENEY "enhance interrogation "?The Mex guys just need a propaganda system like the USA-then any sick thing you do is sold as patriotic.

[gunownerdan]

mejor,
Hitler did that too, is he your hero or something?

[mejordelahistoria]

the best way to deal with this is simple, send a special task force of about 7 thousand and let every town know that when this task force enters they will know what terror, horror, pain and suffering is and that it has arrived and do a house to house search and anyone caught gets tortured beaten the living shat out off until they give a name, if they don't, they have to go on exile or be killed and they get to pack their stuff and leave before night time, because that's when the death squadrons come.

[GiveMeFreedom]

Hey python, have you suffocated any children since last weekend?

[bajajohn1]

Right... you are. the Mexican cartels carry powerful weapons like 50-calibers, grenade launchers, Ak-47's etc. Sending a task force of 7,000 will probably get about 6,500 of them killed.
waht a buffoon.

[gravyboat4000]

Hey, CBS. Is Steve Fainaru related to Mark Fainaru Wada?

Mods?

No?

Hot Pocket?

[gravyboat4000]

bajajohn...Good point, I don't think what's happening in Mexico can be held up against the norm, in regards to human rights.

It's sounding more and more like a civil war.

Stay safe down there.

[bajajohn1]

The drug cartels have been known to decapitate people, shoot innocents in restaurants where their targets are, terrorized the citizenry by blatent acts of violence all over the country. Kidnappings, police assassinations and bold confrontations with the military are but some of the more heinous acts by the cartels. Yet, the human rights commission does not voice any complaints about the victims of this vicious bunch of drug-crazed animals. What is up with that?

[noloyalisti]

So it must certainly be OK for other countries and people to torture Americans? I mean I wanted to keep Guantanomo Bay open to torture those in the former Bushoccio administration until they admitted their complicity in the 911 terrorist attacks.

[GiveMeFreedom]

L.O.S.E.R.

[gravyboat4000]

by GiveMeFreedom July 9, 2009 2:22 PM PDT
L.O.S.E.R.
______

Such anger.

[GiveMeFreedom]

Not anger. Just disgust at your hatred of our former President who was trying to protect our country - both you and me.

[gravyboat4000]

GiveMeFreedom...I don't hate GW, I hate what he, and his administration did to our country. We're the FREEDOM people, not the torture people for years on end and never charge them with a crime, people.

"protect our country"?

He, and Dick Cheney did more to put us in danger than to protect us. And don't give me this,"he kept us safe after 9/11", crap. They invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and abandoned the battle against the people who DID attack us on that day.

"disgust"? How about the disgust MOST Americans feel at the way they used Colin Powell to give the WMD claims some," reality"?

[mejordelahistoria]

noloyalisti is right, the bush people should be tried and hanged for treason. They sent 5000 americans to their deaths and worst, they did it with my taxpayers money. Without my permission. If they would have done this with republican voter money I don't mind, if they did it with church collection money I'm ok with it but they did it with public funds so they should be held liable.

[sapphir8]

How else are they supposed to extract information? Send them a nice text message with a smiley? The Mexican forces must be more brutal, more oppressive when dealing with these cartels. If innocents happen to be in harms way, then so be it. It's a small price to pay to try to stabilize the country. It's not as if the drug lords are hiding somewhere, the government knows where they are, they just don't go after them. Air raids and bombings are a must. You must instill fear into those people as they have done to the citizens. Who cares about human rights, as if the cartel never violates those rights themselves. More oppression, more torture and powerful attacks are a must!

[bajajohn1]

Gravy, whereabouts gernerally is the ranch house? I often go down there to the wineries.

[brianbwb-2009]

You seem to be under the delusion that the soldiers are trying to stop the drug trade, how naive.

They are trying to take it over, no one will voluntarily make that kind of money stop flowing.

Even our own government sends soldiers to kill, torture, and be killed and tortured for nothing other than money. If you think differently, perhaps a remedial course in real life might help.

[noloyalisti]

Wow, the Mexicans have learned from the world's leading (or at least highest profile) torturers, the United States. Way to go George Bushoccio and Darth Cheney and Rummy and Alberto Gonzales. Don't worry you can all get safe haven in Texas. But remember Texans,you are right next to Mexico.

[gravyboat4000]

Don't be naive, their learning from the cartels.

Mrs. Gravy,"Let's go to the resort in Baja that we love so much".

Gravy," Are you FRIGGIN kiddin me?"

Mrs. Gravy," Well then, let's go with my family to the ranch,(house her father owns in the Valle Guadalupe region of Baja), "it should be safe, there are soldiers near by".

Gravy," ROTFLMMFAO".

Mrs. Gravy,"What's that supposed to mean, and get off the floor".

[speakinup22]

Things are getting a bit harsh down there. Maybe that is why the Mexican government is so ticked at our attitude. Not saying they are correct in doing so, just trying to understand their side too.

When you see your judges, police, family, and close friends get killed by someone so they can keep their drug money flowing, I suspect it tends to tork you off just a bit.

And, it is not right to torture people like this, especially if innocent. If a priest is truely involved, or the 13 year old kid was, well, I guess they choose their own lifestyles - didn't they.

Before you go condemning those in the heat of things - try living in their environment. It might start to make sense to you as to why they do things the way they do. Not that it is right, just that they are probably normal people dealing with a VERY stressful situation. Life and death. Doesn't make it right, just a desparate situation.

[bajajohn1]

A lot of the problems can be traced to poverty. It is a poverty that turns women into prostitutes, children and adults into thieves and government officials accepting bribes. The demand for drugs in the United States does not help nor does first world country advertisments pitching products that the average Mexican cannot afford, but will desire after seeing those ads.

[gunownerdan]

How many more victims must there be of the failed "war on drugs"?
Prohibition can never work!
All prohibition does is give gangs and cartels a monopoly on billions of dollars in black market profits.
SAVE LIVES: LEGALIZE MARIJUANA
www.LEAP.cc
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

[GiveMeFreedom]

Please do legalize it all. Then many more of you can join your pop icon wherever he is after taking too many drugs. So please feel free to join him. There are way too many humans on earth right now anyway.

[GiveMeFreedom]

I feel so sorry for the drug cartels. Pity them. They kill people indiscriminately. They sell our kids nasty and deadly drugs. Of course Human Rights Int't will be all up in arms. Heaven forbid a criminal is treated like the scum they are.

[speakinup22]

And, you are the problem with America, bannednancy.

[GiveMeFreedom]

Oh nancy - I am so sorry to hear that your mental illness is still afflicting you. I guess we should continue to allow these nice, nice people to ship illegal drugs into the USA and continue to slaughter families in Mexico.

I prefer you not count me as someone who agrees with your views on the drug cartels. Hopefully they will all meet their maker sooner than later.