The depravity of the Mexican drug wars has surpassed the horrific and bizarre. The Mexican military Friday said they arrested a man for dissolving at least 300 bodies in acid for one of the cartels for $600 a week over the past decade.
Mexican officials in Tijuana paraded the man, identified as Santiago Meza Lopez, in front of reporters and said he had confessed. They prodded him when he mumbled as he told them he dumped the bodies in graves, poured acid on them and let them dissolve underground.
One of the graves they said was adjacent to a concrete building where the press conference was held. Officials offered no other evidence to substantiate the statement including the type of acid used.
In one case last year, authorities said they found human teeth and other remains inside barrels of acid left on a Tijuana street. Officials did not say whether Meza was suspected of involvement in that case.
The victims are believed to be rivals of Teodoro Garcia Simental, an alleged former lieutenant of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel, authorities said. Drug violence claimed more than 5,300 lives last year. So far this year there have been 57 homicides in the Tijuana border area alone.
Also Friday, two human heads were found inside coolers near police stations in Celaya, a city in central Guanajuato state, said state deputy Attorney General Armando Amaro. Hours later, police found the bodies with their hands handcuffed. A message was left with the heads threatening allies of a drug cartel knows as "La Familia," Amaro said. It was signed by Zetas, a group of hit men for the Gulf Cartel.
One can only guess the veracity of Meza's confession. Mexico is guided by Napoleonic law in which the arrested is guilty until proven innocent and civil rights protections fall far short of U.S. standards.
One also wonders when the American people will awaken to this outrage which in some respects is bad guys committing genocide on bad guys with a lot of innocent people part of the collateral damage.
1 comment:
The Mexican drug wars are starting to rival those in Colombia for violence and the chaos they cause to society and the economy. The good news is that the Mexican economy does not depend on the drug income for support. The bad news is that Mexico is so thoroughly corrupt that dealing with the crisis by local and federal police is a sham since too many officials are implicated in one form or another themselves. Maybe the only answer is for one drug family to rise above the others and crush all competition, thereby ending the slaughter that includes too many innocent people. Perhaps at that point a concentrated effort on the part of the Mexican government with lots of help from the US can then move against this family. Wishful thinking. Ultimately, locally effected citizens are going to have to take matters into their own hands and fight back to return peace to their neighborhoods. Probably also fanciful given the money at stake. As was said by pundits before the Mexican Revolution: "Poor Mexico, so far from God, yet so close to the United States."
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