Gypsy Jan
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Mexican Drug Cartels Cripple Pemex Operations in Basin
latimes.com
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexican drug cartels cripple Pemex operations in basin
The kidnappings of five petroleum company workers along with 30 others have terrorized the oil community, paralyzing segments of the business. Months
later, families have still heard nothing.
By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times
September 6, 2010
Reporting from Reynosa, Mexico
Advertisement
"The meandering network of pipes, wells and tankers belonging to the gigantic state oil company Pemex have long been an easy target of crooks and drug
traffickers who siphon off natural gas, gasoline and even crude, robbing the Mexican treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Now the cartels have taken sabotage to a new level: They've hobbled key operations in parts of the Burgos Basin, home to Mexico's biggest natural gas
fields.
Forced to defer production and curtail drilling and maintenance in a region that spreads through some of Mexico's most dangerous badlands, the world's
seventh-largest oil producer has become another casualty of the drug war.
In May, gunmen wearing camouflage and tennis shoes kidnapped five Pemex workers as they rode to the front gate of the Gigante No. 1 natural gas plant
in the Burgos Basin. One man was a mechanic, another specialized in pumps. All were dressed in their crisp khaki uniforms with the Pemex logo, ready
for long shifts. They have not been heard from since.
The kidnappings, plus the reported disappearance of at least 30 other employees of subcontractors in the same region, have terrorized a community
where jobs on the oil rigs and at the gas wells are handed down, father to son, for generations.
"The traffickers are establishing it clearly," said Sen. Graco Ramirez, a member of the congressional energy committee. "You collaborate, or you die."
The capacity of the traffickers to exert influence over a company as mighty as Pemex only solidifies the widely held perception that the cartels are
growing in size and strength despite the government's crackdown.
"How is it," asked a relative of a kidnapped worker, "that Pemex, supposedly the backbone of the nation, can be made to bow down like this?"
The Burgos Basin stretches across the northern border state of Tamaulipas, where the Gigante No. 1 plant is located, and spills into the states of
Nuevo Leon and Coahuila. The three states are awash in violence, theater of a ferocious battle between the once-dominant Gulf cartel and its brutal
former henchmen, the Zeta paramilitaries.
Pemex, which is Mexico's largest income earner, pulling in nearly a third of the national budget, once staked great hopes on the area and its
prospects for yielding gas, abundant thanks to the sandy soil and porous rock that make for ideal production and exploration conditions.
After dedicating nearly half a century to testing and exploration in the basin, Pemex in 2002 took the unusual step of opening it up to foreign
investment, in contrast to Mexico's historic protectionist attitude toward natural resources. Pemex officials anticipated an injection upward of $8
billion.
Employees of Pemex and a handful of foreign-owned firms were earning well in the basin, living good lives and working in relative safety.
Then convoys of mysterious gunmen started plying the roadways, followed by shows of force, intimidation, beatings and, finally, the abductions. Pleas
for help and better protection, union leaders and workers say, went unheeded. The exact motives behind the May kidnappings remain unclear.
Ramirez, the senator, said the cartel responsible, probably the Zetas, may be after technical information to elude the measures Pemex is taking to
guard against the rampant thefts of gas and oil.
Whatever the motive, the effect has been to cripple operations in some areas of the basin.
"In the Burgos project, there are areas we cannot access," Carlos Morales Gil, director of exploration and production for Pemex, said during a news
conference in the Tabasco city of Villahermosa in July. It was a startling admission.
"We are not going to enter any area where security is at risk," he added, calling for increased army and navy protection for oil and gas
installations.
Pemex would not comment to The Times or make an official available for this story.
However, a confidential report submitted to Congress in July and made available to The Times acknowledged that stolen natural gas and delayed gas
production have cost the company nearly $50 million in just the first five months of this year.
One of the U.S. firms working in Burgos, Halliburton, has spoken publicly of a deteriorating security situation that is slowing its work. But
Halliburton said it had no plans to pull any of its 600 workers.
After the May Pemex kidnappings, families of the disappeared workers are too terrified to speak publicly to a reporter. Vague threats have come their
way.
Instead, they live in fear, many of them here in the Tamaulipas city of Reynosa. They sit literally by their telephones waiting for word, a ransom
demand, a call from the coroner's office. Anything would be better than not knowing.
"No one has called us," one desperate relative said. "We know nothing. If they wanted to send a message to Pemex, wouldn't they have killed them and
left the bodies there?"
Those are the kinds of calculations, in what passes for reason, made in families who have lost their sons, husbands and brothers to a violent unknown.
Pemex has also sought to repress information on the kidnappings, possibly for the men's safety. Company general director Juan Jose Suarez Coppel
acknowledged the abductions only in questioning from a congressional committee.
Details of the kidnappings come from a witness, another worker at Gigante No. 1 whose name The Times is withholding for security reasons. He was
waiting at the gate because one of the arriving men was supposed to relieve him. When he saw the gunmen, he ducked into a guard shack, watching but
staying out of view. He saw the gunmen stuff the five workers face-first onto the floors of their vehicles and then speed away.
His observations are contained in an investigation opened by state authorities, portions of which were made available to The Times.
The investigation was opened only at the insistence of the parents of one of the missing men.
The missing workers include Saul Garcia, 47, a short man with a salt-and-pepper mustache who called his wife, away visiting relatives, as he headed
off to his shift and said he'd see her soon. And Christopher Cadena Garcia, at 22 the youngest, a beefy man well over 6 feet tall, who was planning to
marry and who was doing the job his dad had done and his dad's dad before him.
Kidnappings represent just one twist in broad security problems haunting Pemex. Engineers detect hundreds of clandestine siphons every year that steal
enormous quantities of petroleum, much of which is then smuggled to the U.S. and sold at market price. To find the illegal taps, Pemex recently
started aerial inspections with helicopters and small aircraft — but they cannot fly very low lest they get shot at.
Pemex, for the first time, sued five U.S. companies this year in an attempt to recover damages for stolen petroleum products that the Mexicans said
were worth more than $250 million. Pemex alleges the firms knowingly bought stolen fuel.
Alejandro Gertz, now a congressman and rector of the University of the Americas, conducted an investigation of security problems at Pemex in his
capacity as national public security chief in 2004. He said the biggest problem was corruption and collusion between Pemex employees and the thieves.
Simply by adding a system of more frequent and often-random inspections, he said, the company was able to recover millions of dollars' worth of
petroleum products in just three months.
But he knew he had touched a nerve; he was soon out of a job and the inspections were halted.
The injection of violent drug cartels into the mix in the Burgos Basin area, he said, expands the problem exponentially.
"These are territories where the organized crime infrastructure, inside and outside of the police forces, has established power — a parallel power, a
parallel government," Gertz said. "That territory is in the hands of a parallel power that has penetrated the government at all levels."
wilkinson@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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motoged
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GJ,
It's curious that such a newsworthy post has no replies or comments
Don't believe everything you think....
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DENNIS
Platinum Nomad
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| Quote: | Originally posted by motoged
GJ,
It's curious that such a newsworthy post has no replies or comments
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A lot of folks who would have responded to that in the past, arn't as prolific as they once were.
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Woooosh
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We are also all becoming numb to this stuff. Yesterday they found a grenade in downtown TJ... so what? Stick a fork in Mexico- she's pretty much
done. Many of us thought sharing this type info would be helpful- but it isn't because it's not actionable and Americans hate situations we can't
understand or control the outcome of. It's better for everyone to think we are still living in the Baja of decades past- and if you aren't involved in
the tourism or drug trades... it still can be.
[Edited on 9-22-2010 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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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Woooosh
Stick a fork in Mexico- she's pretty much done. |
This should improve tourism. Looks like we won't be getting news of events in the future. This instance is just a beginning:
Correo (Leon Guanajuato) 9-20-10
We want a truce
Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua – “Who wants to kill more reporters?” “Do we continue to publish the news or do we quit?” These are the questions El Diario
presents to organized crime in its editorial page today.
In the editorial, El Diario de Juarez asks for a truce with criminal bands to stop the violence against journalists after the murder of El Diario
reporter Luis Carlos Santiago last Thursday. There is still no progress in the investigation of the murder of El Diario reporter Armando Rodriguez
after almost two years.
“To the Lords of the different groups who are disputing control over the City of Juarez: The loss of two reporters of this newspaper over the last two
years represents an irreparable loss to all who work here and especially to their families,” reads the beginning of the editorial.
The text continues, “We are communicators, not advocates….We want you to explain what you expect of us….As of this moment, you are the de facto
authority of this city because the legal institutions have no power over you and that is why our companions continue to die.”
“What do you want of us?” The editorial asks and states that they want no more (reporters) to die and no more intimidation.
Senator Ramon Galindo Noriega stated that the impunity under which the criminal organizations in Chihuahua operate, and especially in Cd. Juarez, is
intolerable.
http://correo-gto.com.mx/notas.asp?id=184777
.
[Edited on 9-22-2010 by DENNIS]
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Woooosh
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yup. Once the mainstream Mexico media calls the narcos the "de facto leaders" of the country- what do you do next? And who will decide which
narcos/cartel is in charge when they do answer?
Mexico is still fighting back in Ensenada anyway... 200,000 pot plants up in smoke today. Maybe they will stumble across the poppy fields while they
are out there.
http://www.afntijuana.info/afn/?p=13973
[Edited on 9-22-2010 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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Taco de Baja
Super Nomad
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1810 Mexico declares independence
1910 Mexican Revolution
2010 Mexican Revolution II....?...
It certainly is time for an uprising, and probably would have happened if not for the U.S.A. escape valve that has allowed people to flee rather than
dealing with the situation.
Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions
-Herbert Spencer
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toneart
Ultra Nomad
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How sad! What a Hell to have to live through for Baja's citizens.
The Press is the ultimate watch dog in a free democracy. Mexico is no longer a free democracy.  
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Woooosh
yup. Once the mainstream Mexico media calls the narcos the "de facto leaders" of the country- what do you do next? And who will decide which
narcos/cartel is in charge when they do answer? |
At this time, I think this is isolated to Juarez, but the lesson is loud. Kill reporters and they'll quit reporting everywhere.
And next? Kill legislators and laws to curtail their activities won't be passed.
This is a sad day....A day of open surrender.
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Taco de Baja
It certainly is time for an uprising, and probably would have happened if not for the U.S.A. escape valve that has allowed people to flee rather than
dealing with the situation. |
Problem with that is, those who would traditionally revolt are on the wrong side.
There are a few things we're unsure of:
How many Al Qaeda are there?
How many Taliban are there?
How many Cartel soldiers are there?
I've never heard a number for any one of them.
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DENNIS
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Something else to consider:
El Debate (Culiacan, Sinaloa) 9-21-10
Media pact with narcos, an act of desperation
Editorial by Miguel Omar Lopez and Rafael Gonzalez:
Culiacan – Reporters and society abhor the extreme circumstances which require El Diario de Juarez to seek a truce with criminal organizations after
the deaths of two of its reporters. The truce was offered in two pages of editorial in which the paper said it doesn’t want to cause the loss of more
employees.
In similar circumstances, the newspaper Noroeste in this city (Culiacan), declined to establish an agreement with the underworld and its facilities
were attacked with a volley of grapeshot and the placement of a narco message.
It is detrimental for the federal government not to take a position of enlightenment. It is detrimental for Irma Irene Gonzalez Sanchez, President of
the Reporters’ Association, who has shown that there is no guarantee of security or an answer to the protection of the guild.
We are done saying, “Mr. Criminal, what do we do? …Where do we place ourselves?…If we go to the side of the law, they simply do not protect us. If we
go to work, tragedy happens like that which occurred to the murdered reporters, or kidnappings or torture. We are done with everything.”
Does this include Sinaloa?
Gonzalez said that the final responsibility lies with the authorities. They have gone to war with the narcos but they have not provided the protection
they owe to society.
The President of the Reporters’ Association of Sinaloa, Juan Partida Valdez, said that the position of the newspaper is debatable; nonetheless, he
notices a level of desperation in the media under the constant siege of criminality.
The gust of violence brings a moment of distress, and then comes panic. It is time for authorities to take real measures in this matter without making
excuses.
http://www.debate.com.mx/eldebate/Articulos/ArticuloPrimera....
——————–
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by motoged
GJ,
It's curious that such a newsworthy post has no replies or comments
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Reliving your thought, ged....I'm at a loss in wonderment why the Nomad ranks haven't voiced to this. Are they disinterested, or are they bored?
Don't they care that Baja is being consumed by crime?
That wherever they go in Baja in the future will only be given the assurance of safety allocated by drug cartels?
What will that cost?
That law and order will be designed by the drug thugs and Baja will be like Chicago in the thirties?
Don't believe that can happen? Well, it's happening.
Most everybody here has their head stuck in the sand. Too bad, but I understand.
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DENNIS
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Am I the only person left on this thread?
Shame on all you Baja lovers for not being involved with this subject.
I'm involved.....I'm vocal. We have a problem. WE.........not others. WE.
Lets hear from.........well............who cares.
If you folks don't think it's your problem....shame on you. Go ahead and live your private lives.
The day will come when you remember this appeal.
Tomorrow will be the day that I forget I made it.
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Woooosh
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We are but guests in this country. We are prohibited from participating in political matters- and that definition is painted with a very broad brush.
What could we do, what could we say- that is not the responsibility of Mexicans? If they don't take their country back, we cannot help them. As the
security situation worsens, we will likely become targets- ans so will our Mexican neighbors. This is a country of the conquered, not
revolutionaries. We knew that when we moved here. The best we can do is keep our heads up, keep networking together to share information not in the
press, and have an escape plan. It's not our battle.
\"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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BillP
Nomad
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I'd like to see more of this:
Mexican mob beats 2 alleged kidnappers to death
By The Associated Press,
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 8:53 p.m.
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Mexican authorities say a mob has beaten two alleged kidnappers to death in the northern border state of Chihuahua.
Chihuahua state prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval says dozens of angry people in the town of Asencion beat the two men Tuesday until federal
police intervened.
Sandoval says officers put the men in their patrol car but the crowd blocked them from leaving and the men died of their wounds inside the car.
Residents shouted at the federal officers and held signs that read "We are tired, fed up with kidnappings, no more kidnappings in Asencion."
Local state lawmaker Alejandro Lebaron says the two men and three others are suspected in the kidnapping of a 17-year-old girl from Asencion.
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Woooosh
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oh yeah- that's comforting to know the mob is judge, jury and executioner. I feel better now. 
\"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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BillP
Nomad
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Woooosh
oh yeah- that's comforting to know the mob is judge, jury and executioner. I feel better now. |
I understand your concerns and share them to a point. That said, If the police, the military, etc cannot protect the people in what amounts to anarchy
by the cartels, only the people rising up can stop it.
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DENNIS
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This article was shamelessly ripped off from our friends and neighbors over at TalkBaja. It's a followup to yesterday's article and it sounds as
though the editors were taken out behind the barn for some education:
------------
MEXICO CITY – A newspaper's stunning, front-page editorial of seeming surrender to drug capos has set off a national debate from the presidential
palace to Mexico's equivalent of the water cooler — its ubiquitous town squares.
"What do you want from us?" El Diario de Juarez asked the cartels whose war for control of the border city across from El Paso, Texas, has killed
nearly 5,000 people — including two El Diario journalists — in less than two years. "You are currently the de facto authorities in this city ... Tell
us what you expect from us as a newspaper?"
For many Mexicans, it was a voice that finally exposed in a very public and unusual way the intimidation felt across the country.
"We weren't speaking directly to (drug gangs). It was an open message," El Diario director Pedro Torres said in one of dozens of interviews since the
editorial appeared Sunday. "We wanted to provoke a reaction that would call attention to what's happening in Juarez, and in the end, I think we met
our objective."
The editorial dominated headlines and talk shows for two days, and Torres said he received calls from as far as Russia and Japan.
It also brought a volley of accusations of collusion and incompetence between government and media, whose adversarial relationship is still evolving a
decade after the end of tight controls under Mexico's single-party rule.
And it exposed the dissonance between Mexicans who must deal with violence daily and those who live in quieter parts of the country for whom little
has changed since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels in late 2006.
"There are many parts of the republic that don't want to understand that things have changed a lot for some people ... into a state where they've lost
control," said Jose Carreno Carlon, a journalist and professor who headed media relations for former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. "There are
cases of journalists who are pressured by criminals — who have to consider that in their work, who have to address the de facto authorities every
day."
The editorial could be a turning point for Mexicans, pushing them to recognize the corrupting forces on freedom of expression in a country considered
the most dangerous in the Americas for journalists, according to the U.N. and the Organization of American states.
El Diario captured a feeling of helplessness that resonates nationwide, said newspaper editor Jose Martin Mayoral Lozano, who has limited coverage of
organized crime since his car was torched in 2005 as a threat.
"This is something unusual," he said. "I see it as a call to the people, a call to awaken society to what's happening in our country."
With last week's killing of El Diario photographer Luis Carlos Santiago, 21, a total of 65 news workers have been slain since 2000, Mexico's National
Commission on Human Rights has said.
They include Armando Rodriguez, El Diario crime reporter who was gunned down in 2008 as he was taking his daughters to school. The federal
investigator in the case also was assassinated and there are no leads.
Calderon met with international press groups Wednesday, saying he would push legal reforms to protect journalists and create a security plan in the
wake of a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, which outlines widespread impunity for attacks on reporters in Mexico.
Under the plan, patterned after one in Colombia, the government would provide protections for journalists facing threats, including security or
relocation to a safe haven, said Joel Simon, CPJ executive director. The plan could be rolled out as early as next month.
Calderon's government rankled press groups with its reaction to Santiago's killing. It condemned the attack, but accepted the Chihuahua state
prosecutor's theory that the photographer was killed for personal reasons — not for his work.
"The authorities have to be very careful not to disqualify or say immediately that a killing didn't have to do with the journalist's work," said
Gonzalo Marroquin, vice president of the Inter American Press Association, who met with Calderon. "It could be an easy exit to avoid the problem."
Mexican journalists blame the government as much as the cartels for the intimidation they face.
Jorge Luis Aguirre, 52, a journalist in Ciudad Juarez who was granted U.S. asylum days before Santiago was killed, testified before U.S. Congress that
he was threatened by a Chihuahua state official.
Television cameraman Alejandro Hernandez also is seeking U.S. asylum after being kidnapped in July, presumably by the Sinaloa drug cartel. His lawyer
says he fears both the cartels and the government.
But Mexican journalists also shoulder some blame.
Though press independence has increased in Mexico, corruption reigns, particularly in smaller media markets. Salaries are low, leaving reporters
vulnerable to bribes. Government advertising remains a major source of funding — influence — for many publications.
"Criminals routinely bribe them to act as cartel publicists or to buy their silence," according to the CPJ report.
But that, too, could be changing, said Carlo Lugos Galera, a political science professor at Mexico's Iberoamerican University.
"The editorial is a wake-up call to society to be more demanding of the media ... more demanding for reliable information," he said.
___
Associated Press writers Olivia Torres in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and Olga R. Rodriguez and E. Eduardo Castillo in Mexico City contributed to this
report.
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Gypsy Jan
Ultra Nomad
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It is a Difficult Situation to Understand
| Quote: | Originally posted by motoged
GJ,
It's curious that such a newsworthy post has no replies or comments
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Yes, on one level, when reading the translated version of the newspaper editorial, it sounds like the journalists and editors are capitulating to the
horrors of the violence.
Or, by publishing something that sounds like they are appeasing the thugs, could it be that they are using a subtle way of still communicating the
news and truth to their audience?
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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Woooosh
Banned
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Location: Rosarito Beach
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Gypsy Jan
| Quote: | Originally posted by motoged
GJ,
It's curious that such a newsworthy post has no replies or comments
|
Yes, on one level, when reading the translated version of the newspaper editorial, it sounds like the journalists and editors are capitulating to the
horrors of the violence.
Or, by publishing something that sounds like they are appeasing the thugs, could it be that they are using a subtle way of still communicating the
news and truth to their audience? |
Journalists are being specifically targeted because they tell their story. The cartels have responded by telling them exactly what to print, word for
word in many cases, or the journalists will die. So they print it. The gov't has been proven to be in cahoots with a cartel- and the other cartels
are ticked off. The people are ticked off because the gov't has helped a cartel cause deaths of innocent civilians and their general loss of
security. The loss of security has caused the tourist-based and real estate dependent local economies to suffer. The lack of income has caused
stress within the economy and the ability of municipalities to maintain staffing and public services. Crime has increased because people still need
food for their families even if they don't get paid. It's an accelerating downward spiral and the ending isn't pretty- but it is soon. This is
unsustainable. jmo though.
\"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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