September 3, 2008
Stratfor

Zeta Activity in Yucatan

Eleven decapitated bodies wrapped in blankets and bearing signs of torture were found this past week in a suburb of Merida, Yucatan state. The charred remains of the severed heads were later discovered about 150 miles away in a fire pit on a beach near Cancun, Quintana Roo state. Authorities managed to identify most of the victims by means of tattoos or fingerprints, and all appear to have been related to the drug trade in some way. Up to five of the victims appeared to have been alive when they were beheaded.

Not long after the bodies were found, police arrested three alleged Zetas who were thought to be the killers and who had in their possession a list of 15 other drug dealers they planned to kill and behead.

One thing we have observed about Mexico’s cartel war over the past year is a shift in the territories under dispute by rival drug cartels. Previous violent hotspots — such as Acapulco, in Guerrero state — have quieted down while other areas have heated up. One hotter area is Yucatan state, which historically has not been an organized crime stronghold but which began to experience an increase in drug cartel activity early this year. The discovery this past week of the beheaded bodies, and the threat of more to come, represents a significant escalation in cartel activity in the state, and reinforces the notion that the Zetas are among the most powerful criminal groups in Yucatan. Although no military forces have been sent there, further violence could mean an army deployment sooner rather than later.
Peace Marches Nationwide

Anti-crime demonstrations across Mexico on Aug. 30 brought out more than 150,000 citizens to march against the country’s worsening violence. The marches, which occurred in nearly all of the country’s 31 states, were coordinated by Iluminemos Mexico, a coalition of business interest groups, peace activists and human rights advocates. Although some individual marchers directed their frustration against specific federal officials or local mayors, the underlying message of the organizing committee appears to have been non-partisan.

The marches also follow a growing trend of anti-crime demonstrations that have occurred in such crime-stricken states as Baja California and Chihuahua. These protests have differed from the expressly anti-government protests that have called for the withdrawal of federal forces from certain hotspots and have nearly always been supported by criminal groups feeling the pressure of those deployments.

Over the past few years, Mexico City has been the scene of large demonstrations for a number of causes. Following the contested 2006 presidential election, for example, the leftist Democratic Revolution Party mobilized more than a million demonstrators to march on the capital. An increase in tortilla prices brought out hundreds of thousands in opposition. The much smaller peace marches of the past week have been noteworthy mainly for their coordination and size, and the fact that they represent a new organizational entity to rally public opinion. These protests clearly represent a groundswell of emotion and distress at rising violence in Mexico, and because they were so well-organized, there is a great potential for the same structure to be used for more — and perhaps larger — demonstrations in the future.

With Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s approval rating still around 60 percent — even several weeks after a high-profile kidnapping case in the capital renewed calls for results in the fight against organized crime — it appears for the moment that his administration is secure. The day after the marches, the Calderon administration submitted its annual report to congress, citing enormous gains in its fight against drug cartels. Indeed, no one can deny that Calderon’s government has made unprecedented achievements in terms of seizures and arrests over the past two years.

These achievements have been accompanied, however, by unprecedented levels of violence, which have reached a record 2,900 killings so far in 2008. The challenge for the Calderon administration will be to keep pushing against organized crime without provoking so much violence that he loses popular support. One concern of a well-organized, nominally non-partisan group like Iluminemos Mexico is that various political parties could tap into its political power and make the group more partisan. So far, the protests seem to have benefited Calderon, but if the security situation continues to worsen despite Calderon’s best efforts, the protests could turn against him.

A Proliferation of Narco-Banners

Two banners were discovered this past week in Ciudad del Carmen, in Campeche state, threatening attacks on police and officials from the state attorney general’s office. Similar banners in Tabasco state accused the government of protecting senior leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, and specifically accused President Calderon and Defense Secretary Guillermo Galvan of being involved in organized crime activity. Within a few days, similar banners also appeared in the states of Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Nuevo Leon, Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Coahuila and Tamaulipas. Nearly all of the banners accused current and former state and local officials of supporting the activities of drug-trafficking organizations. Many of the banners also explicitly stated that public officials have no control over the security situation and are not capable of stopping the violence.

Few of the banners appeared to have been signed by a specific cartel or group, though the location of the banners and the anti-Sinaloa message would suggest that they were placed by the Zetas and the Beltran Leyva organization, and perhaps the Gulf cartel. (Two officials working for the governor of Veracruz state, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, suggested that the banners were the work of Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) — a curious claim considering that the banners also accuse Calderon and many other PAN officials of involvement in organized crime.)

Banners have become a common intimidation tool in the country’s drug war and are often used to threaten violence against individuals. These banners were noteworthy in that part of their message was directed toward civilians, assuring them that the cartels — not the government — control the level of violence in the country. In addition, the timing of their placement — in some cases just hours before the peace marches were to begin — suggests that the banners were a reminder that peace activists are not the only ones who can coordinate activities over a large geographic area.


Aug. 25

* The bodies of two businessmen in the transportation sector who were reported kidnapped two weeks ago were found dead in Tihuatlan, Veracruz state.
* Eight people were killed in Chihuahua state, including three in Ciudad Juarez, where a man was shot to death while driving through one of the city’s busiest intersections.
* One police officer, one soldier and one gunman died when a group of assailants attacked a police station housing soldiers and police officers in Poza Rica, Veracruz state.
* The bodies of two unidentified men were found in Tijuana, Baja California state. One had been decapitated, and the other appeared to have been tortured.
* A Durango state police official died when he was shot by at least one gunman in Cuencame, Durango state.

Aug. 26

* Two men were found with gunshot wounds to the head and signs of torture in a vehicle in Juarez, Nuevo Leon state.
* A firefight between two alleged criminal groups left at least four gunmen dead in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state.
* A state police commander and one officer died when they were shot several times in Baviacora, Sonora state.
* The decapitated bodies of three men were found in an empty lot in Tijuana, Baja California state.

Aug. 27

* The owner of a night club in Oaxaca, in Oaxaca state, was found in a shallow grave with a gunshot wound to the head. He had been reported kidnapped the week before.
* Two attorneys were shot several times and wounded while driving away from a jail in Almoloya de Juárez, Mexico state. It is unclear who their clients were.

Aug. 28

* An attack on a military installation in San Francisco del Rincon, Guanajuato state, left four gunmen dead and two soldiers wounded.
* The police chief in charge of homicide investigations in Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes state, died when he was shot more than 70 times as he was leaving his home.

Aug. 29

* The bodies of four people, three of whom had been decapitated, were found in a vehicle in the border city of Nogales, Sonora state.
* The body of an alleged member of the Zetas was found bound at the hands and bearing signs of torture on a bridge in Culiacan, Sinaloa state. A note near the body threatened violence against the Beltran Leyva organization.

Aug. 31

* A severed head was found in a cooler outside the home of the leader of a livestock farming organization in Petatlan, Guerrero state.
* More than 15 people were killed in drug-related violence in Chihuahua state, including at least 10 in Ciudad Juarez.

Sept. 1

* A female drug dealer was shot to death in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state.
* The decapitated body of a bar owner was found in Villahermosa, Tabasco state, not long after he was abducted by several armed men.

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/mex...mo_sept_2_2008