Mexican federal police patrol the streets of Acapulco last week after the suspected abduction of a group of 20 tourists. (Pedro Pardo, AFP/Getty Images / October 6, 2010)

"Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force imbued with "magical" powers ... is: a story of a young man's quest, after being separated from his biological parents at birth on an island in the archipelago of Vanuatu off the coast of Australia, to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the extremely topical setting of the wars between competing Mexican drug cartels and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil". "Warrior" was filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico ... with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multiethnic cast (a la "The Fast And The Furious"), a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography .. and is targeted for the prime moving going demographic of 18 to 40 year old males and, because of the comedy, romance, cinematography and music score, females; and features: Vincent Klyn ("Cyborg", "Point Break") in the lead as the son of the divine force Dreadmon.; Ron Joseph ("Navy Seals", Barfly", "Scarface", "Born in East LA") as the Mexican drug lord; Matt Gallini ("End of Days", "Crimson Tide", "Rudy") as the drug cartel's hit man; and Hector Mercado ("Delta Force 2") as the government's corrupt anti-drug czar.

latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-missing-20101018,0,6320337.story
latimes.com
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
The case of the 20 missing Mexican tourists doesn't add up
Relatives insist they are ordinary guys. The government focuses on their unusual travel arrangements. Police have little to offer, and Acapulco expresses skepticism about what the travelers were up to.

By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

October 18, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

It's one of the more puzzling episodes in a drug war heaped with unsolved cases: 20 Mexican men travel to Acapulco together and are kidnapped en masse as soon as they arrive.
Two weeks later, there has been no trace of the men. Investigators have yet to announce any good leads, even though two others from the group were not taken.
Against the backdrop of Mexico's extraordinary drug violence, it's tempting to write off the Sept. 30 disappearance as another grim skirmish between rival traffickers. Group kidnappings have been a common feature of the feuding, though generally with fewer victims.
But in the Acapulco case, the pieces don't add up neatly.
Relatives back in the western state of Michoacan insist they were no drug henchmen, but ordinary guys: mechanics, students, deliverymen, an accountant, a physician. Loved ones said the friends and co-workers saved up for months for an annual, guys-only weekend in the seaside resort.
"None of them had any ties or relationship with any group that is involved in illicit acts … and had no conflicts with anyone, or threats of any kind," the relatives said in a joint statement issued shortly after the men disappeared.
Family members listed the men's names and ages — 17 to 58 — and jobs. Nine of the missing worked in the same wheel-alignment shop in Michoacan.
Still, it's hard to explain why 20 law-abiding men would be seized at gunpoint on the way to beach-side relaxation. Authorities have made comments casting doubt that the men were mere tourists, but have not specified a motive for the disappearances.
The outcome of the mystery matters to Acapulco, which is struggling to recover some of its former cachet and can hardly afford the image of gunmen seizing innocent visitors.
Sensitive to the effect of violence on the country's crucial tourism industry, Mexican officials have said the rising bloodshed nationwide is not aimed at travelers. That has been largely true: Even though drug-related violence has killed more than 300 people in and around Acapulco since 2006, for instance, most of it has been far from the main tourist zone.
The missing men arrived in four cars from Michoacan, itself a violent, drug-trafficking hot spot, and were apparently heading to or hunting for a hotel when seized. The kidnappings were reported by one of two members of the group who had split off to go to the store when the others were taken.
A state police commander first raised an eyebrow, saying it was unusual for a group of men to go on vacation without family members. And Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo, governor of the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, was also quick to express skepticism.
"We assume it has to do with organized crime," Torreblanca said a day after the news broke. "I don't think anyone comes to deliberately carry out an attack on 20 tourists."
When the families complained that officials appeared to be blaming the victims, the authorities backed off, announcing that checks showed that none of the missing men had criminal records.
When the men's vehicles were recovered, investigators found signs of a road trip — suitcases, beer, cookies — but no weapons or contraband.
But last week, Mexico's tourism minister, Gloria Guevara, reignited tensions when she said the missing men "didn't fit the usual profile" of a tourist.
"A tourist usually travels with family, has a hotel reservation, arrives directly at his hotel and fits certain profiles," she told a congressional committee when a question about the case came up. Guevara stopped short of tying the men to criminal activities, but the implication seemed clear.
Families of the men fired back, accusing Guevara of a "lack of responsibility" and offering papers showing the group had reserved rooms for the three-day stay in a hotel they did not publicly identify.
"We're very worried about our family members because we don't know anything about them, and now we are angry that [officials] keep insisting that they weren't tourists," a relative who identified herself only by her first name, Katia, said during a radio interview.
Early this year, President Felipe Calderon came under fire and apologized to grieving survivors in Ciudad Juarez after he initially said gang revenge was behind a fatal shooting attack that killed 15 people at a teen party. It turned out that none of the victims had anything to do with gangs.
The Michoacan families say they don't want the mystery of the missing men to be brushed aside. "What we want is to have news about them and for our suffering to end," Katia said.
On Wednesday, Guerrero's state prosecutor, David Augusto Sotelo, announced that investigators were following two possible leads. But he refused to say what they were.
ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times


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In the Sonora state village of Pitiquito, where citizens say the Sinaloa cartel is "on our side of the war," loved ones say goodbye to Edgar Castillo Pico, 23, a popular musician who died in an accident. ONe woman said a crime boss paid for the nice coffin and other funeral expenses. He is a generous man and protects us. Everybody loves him here," she said of the gang leader. (Don Bartlett/Los Angeles Times/October 6, 2010)

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force imbued with "magical" powers ... is: a story of a young man's quest, after being separated from his biological parents at birth on an island in the archipelago of Vanuatu off the coast of Australia, to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the extremely topical setting of the wars between competing Mexican drug cartels and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil". "Warrior" was filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico ... with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multiethnic cast (a la "The Fast And The Furious"), a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography .. and is targeted for the prime moving going demographic of 18 to 40 year old males and, because of the comedy, romance, cinematography and music score, females; and features: Vincent Klyn ("Cyborg", "Point Break") in the lead as the son of the divine force Dreadmon.; Ron Joseph ("Navy Seals", Barfly", "Scarface", "Born in East LA") as the Mexican drug lord; Matt Gallini ("End of Days", "Crimson Tide", "Rudy") as the drug cartel's hit man; and Hector Mercado ("Delta Force 2") as the government's corrupt anti-drug czar.


times.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sonora-convoy-20101017,0,2660678.story
latimes.com
Mexico convoy threads its way through strange drug war in Sonora state
A heavily armed convoy heads off to deliver pensions to people caught behind the siege line as one drug cartel tries to starve out another in a sinister battle for trafficking routes into Arizona.

By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times

8:42 PM PDT, October 16, 2010

Reporting from Altar, Mexico


With an escort of 60 officers with assault rifles, a convoy heads off to deliver pensions to people caught behind the siege line as one drug cartel tries to wait out another in a sinister battle for scores of human and drug trafficking routes into Arizona.

The police chiefs met in the dusty plaza with a federal official clutching a black bag filled with pesos: $40,000 in government pensions for the senior citizens living in the pueblos of the nearby foothills.

A convoy of seven vehicles rumbled into the plaza, the trucks squeezing between taco and T-shirt vendors who gawked at the 60 or so federal and state police officers toting assault rifles.

The crack squad had captured drug cartel kingpins and battled gangs from Baja California to Michoacan. On this day they slipped on their ski masks to escort the police chiefs on a mission of mercy to a lost corner of Mexico.

They would be heading deep into the scrublands of the Sonora Desert where hundreds of cartel gunmen controlled the pueblos and ambushed intruders on hillside roads that have become blood-spattered shooting galleries.

The convoy was outmanned, outgunned and probably didn't even have the element of surprise. Cartel lookouts — they could be anybody: taxi drivers, store owners, fellow cops — had no doubt already tipped off the organized crime groups. Cellphone conversations were routinely intercepted.

"I'm talking here and the mafia is listening," said one commander who, like many police, residents and officials, spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concern. "They already know we're coming."

The convoy turned past the small church and the local newspaper office, its windows blasted out, and ran every red light and stop sign leaving town.

----

This is Mexico's hidden drug war.

Ciudad Juarez and other violence-torn urban areas may rack up large body counts and capture headlines and presidential visits. But here in the northern part of the state of Sonora, two of Mexico's strongest drug cartels are waging a battle for scores of human and drug trafficking routes into Arizona that may be just as sinister.

One of the gangs is using a slow, bloodless strategy of patience over confrontation: It's trying to starve out its rivals.

The result is a siege of medieval proportions that has cut off a region about the size of Rhode Island from government services, and severed a lifeline to thousands of ranch hands, storekeepers and retirees. Few dare leaving on the roads, and even fewer brave going in.

"Nobody will guarantee my security," said Juan Alberto Lopez, a consultant who was supposed to drive up into the foothills for meetings with pueblo officials. "They told me they would come down to Altar," he said. "But they haven't shown up."

The war escalated this summer when Beltran-Leyva cartel gunmen took over the string of pueblos and ranch lands stretching 50 miles from Altar to the Arizona border. Their foes in the Sinaloa drug cartel have since surrounded them. They patrol the four main winding roads leading in and out of the hills and block almost all food and gasoline shipments.

There have been massacres and scores of kidnappings, but the war has gone largely unnoticed because of its remoteness, intimidation of journalists and the slow-motion tactics.

"The problem is that one gang is hiding out, very well concealed," said a high-level Sonora state law enforcement official. "And the other group wants to get them out, to restore control over that area."

Caught in the middle are an estimated 5,000 people who every day wake up with questions: Were there any kidnappings overnight? Have the gunmen taken over another ranch? Are there any tortillas in the store?

One grandmother in Saric, grief-stricken over the kidnapping of three sons, said she tried to get help from the mayor, but he hasn't been seen in days.

She's losing hope: "Our town is dying."

----

Before heading out on its 40-mile journey into the foothills, the convoy took over all the pumps at a Pemex gasoline station. The officers bought sodas and chips, and stuffed them into their bag lunches; food might be scarce along the way.

The police chiefs shook hands with some of the officers. It wasn't clear whether they were greetings or wishes of good luck.

Few reporters have ventured into the area, and public officials refuse to provide much information, fearing retaliation. Since September, two mayors, a police chief and at least 11 officers have fled, joining hundreds, perhaps thousands, of residents who had abandoned the region because of the tightening siege.

Hungry, encircled gunmen have invaded ranches to slaughter cattle. They roam pueblos in large convoys, kidnapping people and tossing their tortured bodies into the road. Many residents stay indoors when night falls, avoiding contact with the Beltran-Leyva gunmen, and stay off the roads for fear of being stopped at highway checkpoints set up by the Sinaloa gang.

"We're living desperate times here. They're not letting supplies through.... We're down to basics, beans and potatoes," said one longtime female resident of Tubutama, a pueblo perched on a mesa and known for its white-washed mission church and plaza, where locals and visiting Americans on mission tours once sipped drinks and listened to bands on summer nights.

----

The two cartels are warring over Mexico's most valuable region for smuggling people into the United States, with an infrastructure of drivers, guides, suppliers and fleabag hotels that has pumped millions of immigrants across the border. Each cartel has allied itself with local gangs with names like the Wild Boars and the Masked Ones.

In the scorching valley south of the foothills, most residents appear to have sided with the Sinaloa group, saying they at least have brought order to the messy business of smuggling drugs and people across the border.

Cartel toll takers monitor the Altar-Sasabe highway leading toward the frontier, making sure each immigrant-loaded van has paid the $100 fee for each. Rogue gangs that preyed on vulnerable immigrants have been chased out by the cartel, say some residents and immigrant safety groups.

Life in the valley follows a relatively secure, if hyper-vigilant, routine. When a pair of reporters walked through the town of Pitiquito a day before the convoy hit the road, a pack of teenagers and men wielding a club and a baseball bat descended on them.

"Whose side are you on? What are you doing here?" one of them asked.

A middle-aged woman walking with her teenage daughter later explained that the town was controlled by a young Sinaloan crime boss greatly respected by residents. Two of his gunmen had joined hundreds that afternoon in a funeral procession for a popular musician killed in an accident. The crime boss probably paid for the funeral, she said.

"He's the one on our side" of the war, one woman said. "He is a generous man and protects us. Nobody is even allowed to sell drugs here. Everybody loves him here."

In the sparsely populated foothill towns known as the pueblos de arriba, the towns up above, expressing such sentiments can be lethal.

-----

The government force began its steady ascent on the two-lane road and passed through the pueblo of Atil, where many residents avoid using telephones, believing the cartels can listen in.

One former resident, a middle-aged woman, said her son was kidnapped and killed this year, and that the family had to flee with a mattress strapped to their pickup truck. Though she's concerned for family members left behind in Atil, she won't call them.

Her son, she said, was slain execution-style and left on the side of the road.

"We haven't taken sides. We're not with one group or the other," said the woman, who asked that her identity and new home not be disclosed. "That's why I don't understand what happened. There are no answers."

The convoy passed Atil without incident, but as the road ascended further, the landscape began revealing signs of neglect and cartel activity. Vegetation and rocks from landslides encroached on the roadway; signs were defaced and gasoline stations abandoned.

Outside the community of Cerro Prieto, the roadway cut through a hilly area where the war's grisliest massacre occurred.

In July, Beltran-Leyva gunmen took positions above the road where 20-foot embankments provided an ideal ambush overlook; a convoy of Sinaloa gunmen approached. As the cars passed, the gang blockaded both ends of the road and opened fire on their boxed-in enemies. Twenty-one Sinaloa cartel members were killed. Based on the thousands of spent bullet casings, police estimate that there were more than 100 attackers.

New patches of black asphalt cover the blood. The convoy's drivers speeded through the embankments, careful not to bunch up their vehicles and leave them vulnerable to a similar ambush.

Attempts to root out the criminals have been frustrated by the rough terrain and guerrilla-style tactics used by the shadowy force, say federal and state agents. The gunmen strike and then rush back into the gullies and hills dotted with towering saguaro cactuses and mesquite patches.

"When we go up after them, there's nobody there. We can't find them," the high-level Sonora law enforcement official said.

The gangs seem to know everything. The federal police, who wear blue uniforms, overhear the chatter of cartel lookouts on their radios, reporting their positions with unsettling exactitude.

"They say, the blues … are heading your way," one federal police officer said.

"We know they're watching us, but we can't see them."

----
Turning onto a dirt road, the convoy approached the village of Saric, the deepest point in cartel-held territory.

They planned it so they'd arrive there early, wouldn't be caught after dark in the region considered the hardest-hit by the siege. The day before, people answering phones at the town hall didn't know the whereabouts of Mayor Fidel Lizarraga Celaya, and couldn't say when, or if, their 10 police officers would return.

Dozens of children, women and senior citizens were waiting for the convoy at the town hall. Many of the elderly pushed walkers across dusty streets. Some leaned on their weathered canes or sat in scratched-up wheelchairs. Conspicuously absent were young men. Residents said most had either fled, been killed or joined the cartels.

The federal official toting the black bag strode into the town hall, past the town's lone police car, a battered Nissan with a flat tire whose only apparent purpose was to provide shade for a sleeping, flea-infested dog. As officials began distributing the money — for the first time in four months —citizens gathered outside.

Several elderly women, speaking in hushed tones, said their town was controlled by gunmen who emerge at night and patrol the town in convoys of 20 to 30 vehicles. The gang members, hiding behind masks and tinted windows, stop for any "suspicious activity," such as using a cellphone or carrying food, questioning and in some cases kidnapping residents, they said.

Mail carriers, produce and soda distributors, even ambulances, have stopped going to the town, they said. They pointed to several abandoned homes. A middle-aged grocer looked at the dwindling stock on her shelves, saying two months had passed since her last deliveries. There was no meat or soda, or flour to make tortillas.

The only food supplies were brought in by older, longtime residents who shopped in Altar and were allowed through the cartel checkpoints, apparently trusted by gunmen to not pass along the food to rivals.

The meager supply was distributed among a close-knit circle of older, relatively well-off residents, said one woman. A few pesos could buy some food, toilet paper and medicine, but not much.

"I don't know what the poor people are doing for food," she said.

Seeing the federal police posted around the perimeter of the town hall emboldened the despairing Saric grandmother. She barged into the one-room police station and demanded that the authorities investigate the kidnappings of her sons.

A top police official, speaking privately later, made it clear that no investigation was likely. "I don't arrest any of them. That's how I stay alive."

Back in the town hall, the crowd parted for the arrival of the town's oldest resident. Manuel Aureliano, 100, was wheeled into a cramped office, where he presented his I.D. and was given a stack of 500-peso notes, for a total of about $450.

The great-great-grandfather clutched one 500-peso bill in his hand, kissed it and raised it over his head. Born during the Mexican Revolution, the deaf man celebrated the arrival of the government force like another national triumph, instead of a rare, small victory against the cartels.

"Gracias a Dios!" he yelled. "Viva Mexico!"

richard.marosi@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times


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atimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-colombia-20100926,0,2434157.story
latimes.com

Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force imbued with "magical" powers ... is: a story of a young man's quest, after being separated from his biological parents at birth on an island in the archipelago of Vanuatu off the coast of Australia, to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the extremely topical setting of the wars between competing Mexican drug cartels and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil". "Warrior" was filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico ... with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multiethnic cast (a la "The Fast And The Furious"), a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography .. and is targeted for the prime moving going demographic of 18 to 40 year old males and, because of the comedy, romance, cinematography and music score, females; and features: Vincent Klyn ("Cyborg", "Point Break") in the lead as the son of the divine force Dreadmon.; Ron Joseph ("Navy Seals", Barfly", "Scarface", "Born in East LA") as the Mexican drug lord; Matt Gallini ("End of Days", "Crimson Tide", "Rudy") as the drug cartel's hit man; and Hector Mercado ("Delta Force 2") as the government's corrupt anti-drug czar.

latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-colombia-20100926,0,2434157.story
latimes.com
Why Mexico is not the new Colombia when it comes to drug cartels
Comparisons took on a new urgency after a statement by Hillary Clinton, but a careful look at tactics, targets and the nature of the foe shows they're apples and oranges.
By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times
September 25, 2010
Reporting from Mexico City
advertisement

Car bombs. Political assassinations. Battlefield-style skirmishes between soldiers and heavily armed adversaries.

Across big stretches of Mexico, deepening drug-war mayhem is challenging the authority of the state and the underpinnings of democracy. Powerful cartels in effect hold entire regions under their thumb. They extort money from businesses, meddle in politics and kill with an impunity that mocks the government's ability to impose law and order.

The slaying of a gubernatorial candidate near the Texas border this year was the most stunning example of how the narco-traffickers warp Mexican politics. Mayors are elected, often with the backing of drug lords, and then killed when they get in the way.

Journalists are targets too. After a young photographer was gunned down in Ciudad Juarez Sept. 17, his newspaper, El Diario de Juarez, issued a plaintive appeal to the cartels in a front-page editorial. "We ask you to explain what you want from us," the newspaper said. "You are at this time the de facto authorities in this city because the legal authorities have not been able to stop our colleagues from falling."

As the death toll from drug-related violence nears 30,000 in four years, the impression that Mexico is losing control over big chunks of territory — the northern states of Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon and Durango at the top of this list — is prompting comparisons with the Colombia of years past. Under the combined onslaught of drug kingpins and leftist guerrillas, the South American country appeared to be in danger of collapse.

The Colombia comparison, long fodder for parlor debates in Mexico, gained new energy this month when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the tactics of Mexican cartels looked increasingly like those of a Colombia-style "insurgency," which the U.S. helped fight with a military and social assistance program known as Plan Colombia that cost more than $7 billion.

But is Mexico the new Colombia? As the Obama administration debates what course to take on Mexico, finding the right fix depends on getting the right diagnosis.

Clinton cited the need for a regional "equivalent" of Plan Colombia. After 10 years, the rebels' grip in Colombia has been reduced from more than a third of the country to less than a fifth. Violence is down and, with improved security, the economy is booming. However, tons of cocaine are still being produced and there have been widespread human rights abuses.

Clinton acknowledged that the program had "problems" — but said that it had worked. Irked Mexican officials dismissed Clinton's Colombia comparison as sloppy history and tartly offered that the only common thread was drug consumption in the United States. And while the two cases share broad-brush similarities, there also are important distinctions, including Mexico's profound sensitivity to outside interference.

Here is a breakdown of the two experiences:

The Nature of the Foe

Colombia's main leftist rebels, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, waged war in the name of Marxist ideology, calling for an overthrow of the traditional ruling oligarchy. Separately, the country faced a campaign of violence by drug cartels. To fund the insurgency, the rebels first took a cut from coca producers and traffickers – and then starting running their own drug labs and forming partnerships with the traffickers.

In contrast, the main aim of Mexican drug gangs is to move merchandise without interference from authorities. In many places, traffickers manipulate governors and mayors — and the police they control. Their ability to bully and extort has given them a form of power that resembles parallel rule.

But the goal is cash, not sovereignty. Drug lords don't want to collect trash, run schools or pave the streets. And very often, the violence the gangs unleash is directed against each other, not the government.

Mexico also is a much bigger country. While its social inequities are glaring, there is no sign of a broad-based rebel movement with which traffickers could join hands.

"We've got a criminal problem, not a guerrilla problem," said Bruce Bagley, who chairs the international studies department at the University of Miami in Coral Gables. "The drug lords don't want to take over. They want to be left alone. They want a state that's pliable and porous."

Territory

At the peak of Colombia's insurgency, the FARC controlled a large part of the country, including a Switzerland-size chunk with defined borders ceded to it by the government as a demilitarized zone known as the despeje, or clearing.

Mexico's drug gangs have relied on killing and intimidation tactics to challenge government control over large swaths by erasing a sense of law and order.

In the border state of Tamaulipas, a gubernatorial candidate who was heavily favored to win a July election was gunned down less than a week before the vote. Violence in neighboring Nuevo Leon state prompted the U.S. State Department last month to direct employees to remove their children from the city of Monterrey, a critically important and affluent industrial center.

In Clinton's words, U.S. officials worry about a "drug-trafficking threat that is in some cases morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency."

But there are no borders defining any drug cartel's domain, making it difficult, even within regions, to say how much of the country lies outside effective government control on any given day. There is no force that appears anywhere near capable of toppling the government and, so far, no zone the Mexican army cannot reach when it wants.

Instead, cartel control is more fluid. It is measured in the extent to which residents stay indoors at night to avoid roving gunmen; the degree to which Mexican news media steer away from covering crime so they don't anger the trafficking groups.

The sense of siege hopscotches across Mexico like windblown fire across a landscape.

Targets and Tactics

During the worst days of Colombia's bloodshed, cartel hit men and guerrillas carried out spectacular bombings and assassinations that targeted judges, politicians, police and businesspeople.

Mexico, despite a steadily rising death toll, has seen nothing of that nature. Cartel gunmen have killed scores of police and some prosecutors. Police officers have been killed in the line of duty, or because they were moonlighting for one criminal group or another. But they have not been targeted as part of a sustained effort to topple the government.

Most of the killing stems from open warfare between heavily armed cartels.

The cartels have in a few instances resorted to car bombs and grenade attacks that raised fears they were turning to Colombia-style terrorist tactics.

U.S. officials were alarmed when a remote-controlled car bomb exploded in violence-racked Ciudad Juarez in July, killing a police officer and three other people. Two more bombs exploded in the weeks that followed. Attackers hurled grenades into an Independence Day crowd in Morelia, capital of the western state of Michoacan, in September 2008, killing eight people.

There have been no other such direct, terrorist-style assaults against civilians, but the drug gangs' wanton use of muscle and extreme violence nonetheless has sown terror across much of the country. Gory images of beheaded victims left by feuding gangs have added to a feeling of impotence and mistrust of government authorities.

Even though many Mexicans support the government's anti-crime campaign, the result is a society even more reluctant to join in.

State weakness

Colombia for years was outmatched by the power of foes who capitalized on porous borders, an army in tatters and weak government bodies. In his day, drug kingpin Pablo Escobar even managed to get himself elected an alternate member of Colombia's Congress.

Mexico's military, while stretched thin, is more reliable than Colombia's was at the start. But its police and court system, for many years rife with corruption, have proved ill-equipped to confront drug cartels. Widespread graft means that the criminals and the authorities often are one and the same, blurring the battle lines.

Under the former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, drug trafficking was allowed to flourish, and was at times even orchestrated by corrupt officials. Now, the federal government under President Felipe Calderon and his conservative National Action Party is purging corrupt police. But problems persist at the state and local level, and the justice system is overwhelmed by drug gangs armed with billions of dollars in profits and battlefield weaponry. Prosecutions have been few, convictions fewer.

Officials say it could take Mexico decades to create a trustworthy law enforcement system. In the meantime, Calderon has deployed 50,000 troops to take on the cartels. The troops' actions have raised widespread allegations of rights abuses and suspicion that some units may have been penetrated by traffickers. Lopsided arrest figures have triggered accusations that the government is favoring some cartels over others, a charge the president denies.

Despite its weak institutions, Colombia had a stronger civil society that ultimately rose up to demand and support government action. Colombian newspapers stood up to the violence. In 2002, Colombians elected President Alvaro Uribe, who promised to defeat the insurgents and traffickers rather than compromising with them. The government's willingness to tackle money laundering and seize traffickers' assets was considered a turning point.

Calderon took a page from Colombia by extraditing record numbers of drug suspects wanted in the U.S., reducing the odds that they could buy their freedom from leaky Mexican prisons. But he has done little to tackle money laundering.

These deficiencies could contribute to a fundamental breakdown in the state more closely parallel to Colombia. However, Calderon's government says that won't happen because it is tackling Mexico's institutional weaknesses head-on. "The important thing is we are acting in time," security affairs spokesman Alejandro Poire said.

Designing a prescription

In Colombia, U.S. policymakers put military advisors and special forces troops on the ground to address a drug problem that was largely based on production — one that could be attacked in large measure through wide-scale eradication.

But in Mexico, where the problem is equally one of breaking distribution networks, a Plan Colombia-style military role seems far less likely.

Clinton appeared to suggest that the U.S. military could help, "where appropriate." But sending U.S. troops would be anathema in Mexico, with its bitter history of foreign interventions and a wariness of the United States.

These are sensitivities well known to U.S. diplomats. In 2007, when Presidents Bush and Calderon negotiated the terms of a $1.4-billion U.S. security-aid program for Mexico, they called it the Merida Initiative to avoid echoes of Plan Colombia. And no U.S. officials have called for American boots on the ground in Mexico.

Although the Merida plan initially emphasized helicopters and other equipment aimed at fighting the drug trade, U.S. cooperation is now geared toward softer assistance, such as helping train and professionalize Mexican police cadets, prosecutors and judges.

Asked to lay out the probable next step in U.S. help, a senior American official here answered: "Institution building, institution building, institution building."

Some experts take issue with Clinton's upbeat characterization of the Colombia program, which has drawn numerous allegations of human rights abuses by the revamped Colombian army and right-wing paramilitaries.

The FARC may hold less than a fifth of Colombia, but it has not been eliminated. And while the country's largest drug cartels, those centered on Medellin and Cali, were crushed, scores of smaller ones took their place. Colombian cocaine production remains robust, according to most studies.

Bagley regards Plan Colombia as an unsuitable model for Mexico, which he said should focus on cleaning up corruption and creating a trustworthy justice system.

"They're misdiagnosing this," he said. "They're telling us Colombia was a success and you can export this to Mexico. And you can't."

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City and special correspondent Chris Kraul in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

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Mexican troops escort Sergio Villarreal Barragan, known as 'El Grande', after his arrest at a luxury home in Puebla. Villareal is a suspected leader of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. (EPA / September 11, 2010)

"Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force imbued with "magical" powers ... is: a story of a young man's quest, after being separated from his biological parents at birth on an island in the archipelago of Vanuatu off the coast of Australia, to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the extremely topical setting of the wars between competing Mexican drug cartels and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil". "Warrior" was filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico ... with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multiethnic cast (a la "The Fast And The Furious"), a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography .. and is targeted for the prime moving going demographic of 18 to 40 year old males and, because of the comedy, romance, cinematography and music score, females; and features: Vincent Klyn ("Cyborg", "Point Break") in the lead as the son of the divine force Dreadmon.; Ron Joseph ("Navy Seals", Barfly", "Scarface", "Born in East LA") as the Mexican drug lord; Matt Gallini ("End of Days", "Crimson Tide", "Rudy") as the drug cartel's hit man; and Hector Mercado ("Delta Force 2") as the government's corrupt anti-drug czar.


latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-beltran-20100914,0,4822197.story
latimes.com
Mexico arrests key suspect in Beltran Leyva cartel
The capture of Sergio Villarreal Barragan, one of the four most-wanted suspects in the Beltran Leyva gang, is another blow to the cartel, weakened by a security crackdown and infighting.

By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

September 14, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City
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In nine months of actions against the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, Mexican authorities have taken down three of its four most-wanted suspects.

The latest is Sergio Villarreal Barragan, a scowling figure known as "El Grande," who was captured Sunday along with two other suspects at a luxury home in the central city of Puebla.

Villarreal's capture marks another big blow against the reeling Beltran Leyva organization, which a year ago was considered one of the most formidable drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico.

In early 2009, authorities offered rewards of more than $2 million each for the gang's four suspected leaders, including Villarreal, described as the key operator of the group.

Since then, the Beltran Leyva gang has been sapped by battles on several fronts. It has been pursued by Mexican authorities, drained by a feud with former allies with the Sinaloa cartel and weakened further by internal fighting after Mexican commandos killed its leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, in December.

Remnants of the group appear to rest in the hands of brother Hector Beltran Leyva. He and Villarreal had been battling a breakaway wing led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal, an alleged enforcer known as "La Barbie" who was captured by police two weeks ago.

Authorities predicted this week's arrest would prompt more internal shuffling, but said the group is losing strength. "The weakening will be substantial," Rear Adm. Jose Luis Vergara, the navy spokesman, said Monday.

Sergio Villarreal, 40, dressed in jeans and a black San Antonio Spurs T-shirt, glowered Monday as he was paraded before the news media. At 6-foot-6, Villarreal, a former federal police agent, loomed above the other two suspects and the marine guards. They were captured by Mexican marines without a shot being fired.

A military spokesman denied that authorities were led to Villarreal by his rival Valdez, who was arrested Aug. 30 by federal police outside Mexico City. Authorities said Sunday's arrest came after months of investigation.

President Felipe Calderon and aides have sought to depict the rising violence across Mexico as a sign that the cartels are buckling under the pressure of the government crackdown, launched at the end of 2006. Aides say the bloodshed, largely the result of fighting between groups, is part of a process of fragmentation and self-destruction.

The Beltran Leyva group has been mired in conflict for more than two years since splitting from the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin Guzman after the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva in early 2008. His brothers and their supporters believe Guzman turned him in.

In addition, the succession battle since the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva in December has been taxing and left the group exposed. Fighting between rival wings has left scores of gang members dead, many beheaded and dumped with goading notes.

Villarreal's arrest was the second bloodless capture of a top drug suspect in recent weeks. Valdez also surrendered peacefully last month. Some have speculated that he turned himself in.

In late July, troops killed Guzman ally Ignacio Coronel after he pointed a pistol at them during an arrest raid. Vergara called the slaying a "watershed" for underworld suspects.

"Criminals know for sure that the federal government has the superior force to capture them," Vergara said. "This is … why they are not showing signs of resistance."

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

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