sanluquëna
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Tijuana: In the cartels' shadow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/75...
| Quote: | In Tijuana armoured military vehicles patrol the streets.
This border city is one of the focal points for Mexico's battle against the country's powerful and violent drugs cartels.
According to the US government, the flow of narcotics to the US from Mexico is worth nearly $14bn (£7bn) a year.
Much of that illicit merchandise passes through Tijuana - the busiest border crossing point to the US, the world's largest market for drugs.
Spreading south
But tighter border controls have pushed Mexico's cartels into developing the domestic drug market.
"There are over 20,000 tienditas, or little shops, throughout the city where people can buy drugs," says local human rights activist, Victor Clark
Alfaro.
"It's like a tsunami spreading from the border down to the south of Mexico."
We accompanied Victor as he drove to work with his bodyguard.
He has needed protection since the 1990s when he denounced links between some government employees and the cartels.
Death threats followed.
"Tijuana has an estimated 200,000 drug addicts - the highest level of drug addiction in Mexico", he says.
Of those newly and recently addicted, thousands are believed to be children and teenagers.
"I have seen as much as a 300% increase in the number of children coming to our centre for treatment," says Jose Ramon Arreola, one of the directors
of a local rehabilitation centre, CIRAD.
"It's in the interest of the drug dealers to get these kids hooked on drugs early."
Turf wars
He believes children - some as young as eight or nine - have become a vital part of the growing domestic market for the cartels. And it is not only
because they are consumers.
"The drug pushers use kids to sell drugs on the streets because they don't draw as much attention from the police," he says.
Nancy - not her real name - started taking drugs at 13. She was a regular user of marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth and various pills before she came
to CIRAD.
"I was selling drugs not for profit but simply so that I could afford the drugs I needed," she tells us.
Guns and violence were the norm in her life.
"I was exposed to shoot-outs, because there would be conflicts with other dealers over turf. I was also asked to hide weapons for the man I worked
for."
Nearly 1,500 people, including some 400 police officers and other public officials, have been killed this year in Mexico as the cartels battle each
other - and the state - for control of the drugs trade.
Of those, 260 have lost their lives in Tijuana, many of them in bloody shoot-outs.
Death threats
The power wielded by the cartels is very real. Nancy didn't want to be identified for fear she or her family might become the victims of reprisals.
Journalists who report on the cartels are also forced to confront that fear.
The press freedoms organisation, Reporters Without Borders, has classified Mexico as the second most dangerous place in the world for journalists
after Iraq.
Over breakfast one morning in Tijuana a local journalist tells me about the threats that have been made against him in 20 years reporting from
Tijuana.
Odilon Garcia expresses an almost visceral outrage at the cartels' lack of respect for human life, and especially for the impact the culture of
violence is having on children.
"What kind of kids can we expect to raise with this kind of violence?" he asks me before sharing an anecdote about a recent encounter with a young
boy.
The boy had been excited to meet Odilon after seeing him on TV.
He was even more excited by the story Odilon was reporting on: the gruesome decapitation of four people.
To Odilon, this child represented a depressing loss of innocence, an example of the depths to which respect for life has plunged in Mexico.
In an effort to break the power of the drugs cartels, President Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 25, 000 troops on the streets - 3,000 of them
to Tijuana and the state of Baja California.
"The army is a necessary, temporary solution," Odilon tells me.
"But the real solution is going to require a change in the way we live here in Mexico, a greater understanding of our reality, a change in the way we
think.
"That's going to be the big, big fight in Mexico." |
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Bruce R Leech
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Bummer
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
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CaboRon
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This is not new ..... TJ has always been the armpit of Mexico, right up there with Nuevo Larado .... it has been a corrupt town for at least the
fifty years that I have been going there.
CaboRon
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Woooosh
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| Quote: | Originally posted by CaboRon
This is not new ..... TJ has always been the armpit of Mexico, right up there with Nuevo Larado .... it has been a corrupt town for at least the
fifty years that I have been going there.
CaboRon |
An armpit no deodorant can freshen or keep from getting vile and rank again.
If you get the Army involved they will just move the children from drugs and into prostitution.
[Edited on 8-10-2008 by Woooosh]
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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loki
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Ron,
I might be wrong but its my understanding that every major city and law enforcement agency in northern Mexico has had its chief of police and/or
subcommanders murdered since last fall. That would include all federal law enforcement agencies.
The armed forces now patrol most northern cities and are not able to beat down the drug terrorists as they do not have the resources that the
cartels do.
You are very lucky you live where you do as the cartels have not decided to make your area a playground of death as they have done in the north.
The mexican Government will not really win this battle until the drug terrorists start to cause a disruption of tourist dollars in Cabo and the other
really important areas.
[Edited on 8-10-2008 by loki]
I want the truth. Do not give me B$
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Sharksbaja
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Why would there be a problem for Cabo? It's half owned by Euro dirty money. Clean and sweet!
DON\'T SQUINT! Give yer eyes a break!
Try holding down [control] key and toggle the [+ and -] keys
Viva Mulege!
Nomads\' Sunsets
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loki
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They are positioning themselves for the casinos which are coming soon. You think Vegas and Atlantic City were fun in the 60s and 70s. Wait until the
casinos open in the Mexican resorts. Its going to happen as there is mucho money available to pay off any naysayers.
I want the truth. Do not give me B$
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Woooosh
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| Quote: | Originally posted by loki
They are positioning themselves for the casinos which are coming soon. You think Vegas and Atlantic City were fun in the 60s and 70s. Wait until the
casinos open in the Mexican resorts. Its going to happen as there is mucho money available to pay off any naysayers. |
I think full-on casinos require a change to the Mexican constitution... I'm sure Hank Rohn is taking care of it.
Gaming was all about Cuba until Kennedy, Vegas was king until 2006, Macau China took the #1 spot from Vegas in 2006.
The problem with winning in a Mexican casino would be getting back out of the country alive with your winnings.
[Edited on 8-10-2008 by Woooosh]
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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loki
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That would require the casinos to allow you to win. They would not want to share the money with the banditos.
I want the truth. Do not give me B$
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stanburn
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Loki and Whoooosh,
What do you consider to be a full-on casino? This year Juega y Juega opened in Salagua, north Manzanillo. They have slot machines, but I didn't
notice any card tables.
According to the web they have 9 locations.
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Woooosh
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| Quote: | Originally posted by stanburn
Loki and Whoooosh,
What do you consider to be a full-on casino? This year Juega y Juega opened in Salagua, north Manzanillo. They have slot machines, but I didn't
notice any card tables.
According to the web they have 9 locations. |
Full on casinos are a one stop shop for card table games (poker, poker variations, 21, bacarat), games of chance (wheel of fortune, roulette, bingo,
keno) and mechanical or electronic slot machine devices. A bingo parlor is not it, a card room is not it, a slot machine house is not it.
Not every gaming market has the same consumer demands. Vegas is primarily mechanical slot machine and blackjack driven, Macau is electronic slots and
bacarat.
consumer beware notice: Slot machines pay out their advertised payout ("our machines pay out 98%! )over a cycle of 200,000 pulls of the handle. The
machine really doesn't care if it takes your money 1,000 times in a row or pays you out 1,000 times in a row so long as it performs to the installed
chips pre-determined percentage over 200,000 pulls. In non-indian USA markets you will find published slot machine (and table game) payout percentages
for each denomination of machine in "gambler guides" for the area.
Indian gaming in the USA is not so regulated, either are the machines in China or most-likely Mexico. They can set them at any percentage they want
without disclosure. I doubt Mexico will want to set up a regulatory body now with everything else going on.
[Edited on 8-11-2008 by Woooosh]
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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stanburn
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Whoosh,
Thanks for the pimer.
Stan
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