Increasingly, the military has been called upon to keep order in the most dangerous locations. Recently, violence swept the touristy state of Veracruz.

And the area surrounding Acapulco has become one of the most murderous in the country, adding to the woes of the traditionally violent state of Guerrero.

The Mexican government has responded by launching military operations in both states.

While the army retains a fairly positive image in Mexico, it also stands accused thousands of human rights violations.

In the state of Guerrero, a few hours inland from Acapulco, one of these cases has torn six families apart.

It’s late afternoon as Laura Garcia Orozco arrives at a nightclub in the town of Iguala. Her brother, Francis Alejandro Garcia Orozco, used to run this club.

But on a Monday night in March last year, she arrived here, just as a military convoy was pulling away. She hasn’t seen her brother since.

“It’s incredibly sad to be in this place, to remember the disappearance, to remember his face, the last time he looked at me that day,” Orozco said. “It’s horrible, horrible. The only thing I want is that, in one way or another – that they bring him back.”

Francis — and five other men who worked there — disappeared from the club that night. According to checks done by the families, none had criminal records, nor were they under any official investigation.

After the men went missing, all six families say they went straight to military base 27 in Iguala. “Our sons have gone missing, they demanded,” “where are they?”

The soldier allegedly replied, “no tenemos los del disco” – “we don’t have those guys from the club.” The families looked at each other. They hadn’t said anything about the club.

35-year old Laura sits at her computer, reviewing footage taken that night by a security camera across from the club. The video appears to show the missing men as they’re taken from the club by a convoy that includes soldiers in military vehicles.

“The families say the army originally admitted it had an operation there that night — then backtracked,” Orozco said. “Later, military officials told the families they’d launched an investigation. The families say they’ve yet to see any proof of that.”

Difficult to Prove

Most disappearance cases rely on hearsay, and are difficult to prove. This case stands out because there’s some formal evidence. But Laura’s older sister Rosario says it hasn’t helped.

“We’ve asked everyone,” Rosario Garcia Orozco said. “The federal prosecutor’s office, the defense department, the national human rights commission – all say they have no idea or that they are unable to help.”

In the last five years, more than 6,000 official complaints of human rights abuses have been filed against Mexico’s security forces. But according to Nik Steinberg, Mexico investigator for the group Human Rights Watch, convictions are rare.

“No matter whether the case is investigated in the military justice system, or the civilian justice system, there is almost never a solider or police officer held accountable for these crimes,” Steinberg said. “So no matter how much evidence there is, and how clear it is that security forces have perpetrated these horrific abuses, they’re never held to book.”

A Human Rights Watch report released this month says Mexico’s security forces enjoy ‘total immunity’ from a legal system that stops short of challenging military jurisdiction. Steniberg argues these injustices violate some key conditions governing US financial support for Mexico’s drug war.

“One of them, for example is that all soldiers, who commit human rights abuses, must be prosecuted in a civilian court, because the military justice system in Mexico has proven to be completely biased, and unable to punish soldiers who commit abuses,” Steinberg said. “Mexico, year after year, has failed to meet these conditions, and year after year the United States has given them these conditional funds anyways.”

On Patrol in Guerrero

This patrol is part of a new security operation in the state of Guerrero, where the six men from Iguala disappeared.

State Spokesman Arturo Martinez Nunez says an additional 2,000 soldiers and federal police have been deployed in the last few weeks to improve safety in Guerrero. And he says respecting people’s rights is a top priority.

“The Mexican Army is extremely attentive and respectful of the human rights of the local population,” Nunez said. “The proof of that is that during this operation we have not had a single complaint. If there was one, we would be the first to address it, because we need the people on our side.”

Back in Iguala, the Garcia Orozco family doesn’t feel entirely safe. They say they’ve been followed, intimidated, threatened and repeatedly told to stop pursuing the case of their son and brother. Four of the other five families involved have already given up.

But Rosario, echoing the rest of her family, says that for the sake of her brother and the other missing men, they will not stop, despite the risks.

“You know what, a lot of people are scared – I am also scared,” Rosario Garcia Orozco said. “But it makes me more scared to think that tomorrow it would be my kids, or my grandkids, that they take away, if I don’t open my mouth and say “today, this is happening, this is a reality, and that this is how they are hurting many families.”

Business leaders and many residents there think that’s not the whole story, though. And they hope to “take back” their city by organizing a big arts and culture festival.

The guest list includes a couple of seasoned crisis managers: former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev and former New York mayor Rudy Guliani.

So, name this Chihuahuan city trying to overcome its past.

The answer is Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Monica Ortiz Uribe reports on the huge business, cultural and arts festival called Juárez Competitiva.

Lopez has been an agent with Grupo Beta for two decades. It’s a Mexican government agency with a mission to protect northbound migrants from smugglers. The agents had the authority to conduct investigations and make arrests.

Carlos Diaz de Leon walks up to Lopez and extends his hand, showing him a folded US deportation slip. The Sonora migrant has just been sent back to Mexico and he asks Lopez for help.

Diaz de Leon said he’s crossed illegally many times over the years, and Grupo Beta was always there for him.

“They have fed me when I was hungry,” Diaz de Leon said. “They’ve given me change when I needed to call home. I think they’re the only ones out there looking out for undocumented migrants.”

There used to be dozens of local smuggling operations here, charging migrants up to $2,000 a head. Beta agent Mario Lopez said with tightened border security, it’s more difficult to smuggle people across.

“Smuggling has decreased through this part of the border by almost 90 percent,” he said. “Now there’s more surveillance, there’s a second border wall, there are guards patrolling by horse, motorcycle, and cars. And there are cameras and sensors.”

Grupo Beta agent Mario Lopez gets into his signature orange Jeep, during his patrol. (Photo: R. Guidi)

On a typical day, Lopez still patrols along the Mexico side of the border. But he no longer conducts investigations and he’s no longer armed. It’s too dangerous. Now he and his fellow agents focus on handing out food and providing first aid to migrants. Grupo Beta has become a force without much power or much of a mission.

It’s not just Grupo Beta that’s pulled back from investigating. Victor Clark Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana, said that the violence and insecurity have pushed his group to curtail their work.

“It’s too risky to really research the smuggling business of today,” he said. “It was hard enough in the 1980s and 90s.”

In the past year alone, the bodies of more than 150 migrants were discovered in the state of Tamaulipas, 80 miles south of the Texas border. It was one of the worst mass killings in Mexico in the past decade, and it sparked new concerns about the vulnerability of migrants.

Grupo Beta agent, Mario Lopez, stands near the point where the San Diego-Tijuana border fence meet the Pacific Ocean. (Photo: R. Guidi)

Rafael Hernandez heads the volunteer-run Desert Angels, a 14-year old civilian rescue group on the US side. Hernandez fields calls from family members of migrants lost in the desert. He said crossings here may have fallen to a 40-year low. But those who do make the attempt face greater peril.

“Along the way, they are mugged, kidnapped, raped,” he said. “But groups like ours, we can’t point it out. It’s very compromising to say that we know illegal activity is happening somewhere along the border.”

By compromising, he means dangerous. Hernandez said the consequences of speaking out about smuggling or the violence against migrants would be terrible.

The billions spent on border infrastructure and law enforcement over the past decade have dramatically changed the smuggling business. And in many ways, it’s become a much more dangerous game for everyone involved.

Ruxandra Guidi is a reporter at KPBS

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Joaquin Guzman is one of the most powerful men in the world. Forbes Magazine listed the Mexican drug lord as the 41st most powerful person in the world in 2009, just behind Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Guzman’s Sinaloa drug cartel controls the bulk of cocaine and marijuana trafficking into the United States. He tops the most-wanted list on both sides of the border. And now, the 54-year-old Guzman, known as Chapo or Shorty, is a new dad. According to the Los Angeles Times, his 22-year-old wife travelled to California in mid-July and gave birth to twin girls a month later. Tracy Wilkinson co-wrote this story for the LA Times, she’s in Mexico City. How do you know what happened with Guzman’s wife, Emma Coronel?

Tracy Wilkinson: Well, of course, we cite senior US law enforcement sources and officials, and unfortunately, I can’t be more specific than that because that’s the condition of them giving us the information; but I’m confident that the information is correct. We were able to corroborate the birth of these two babies through public records in LA County.

Werman: Now, Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen, is already a US citizen, so I guess we shouldn’t read too much into the fact that she travelled to the US to have her children, but she wasn’t picked up for questioning.

Wilkinson: That is correct. The federal agents were clearly following her, tracking her every move. I think they knew even as she embarked on her trip to California. They knew when she crossed the border. And they knew when she checked into the hospital and when the babies were born. And they knew when she left and came back to Mexico. So I think they were keeping very close tabs on her, but you’re right, they did not pick her up for questioning. They say that there are no charges against her. She is not wanted on any indictment, and therefore, they did not pick her up. But it may be that finding Guzman is not as big a challenge as actually apprehending him. You know, he travels surrounded by very well-armed security. He tends to live in remote, isolated places that are hard to get to; in other words, a column of Mexican soldiers trying to move in on him would be noticed. And so this points to what has been an interminable problem here, is how to capture him.

Werman: Is there any evidence at all that he has some kind of political influence over the powers that be in Mexico?

Wilkinson: Well, there have been incidents sure over time where fairly senior members of the attorney general’s offices, of the police, have been found to be on this payroll over the years, and so he definitely has been able to buy protection at fairly high levels of the Mexican authorities.

Werman: The story of his wife, Emma Coronel though, giving birth in Los Angeles to twin girls, it’s like a scene lifted straight out of the movie, Traffic. Remind us who Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is and how he got so powerful. Was it drugs alone?

Wilkinson: Yes, it was mostly drugs. He’s a very good, he has been a good businessman. The cartel as I say has managed to corner much of the market in terms of producing, growing and producing, and shipping marijuana, and transporting cocaine from Columbia to the United States. They’re even apparently now moving into some of the mass market as well, which had previously been pretty much owned by other cartels. So just by building the business year after year and then by buying off as I say, buying the protection, the cartel has grown and grown and grown. And he has eliminated rivals when necessary and just continues to consolidate his own power and his billions.

Werman: What is Chapo’s role in the current drug violence plaguing Mexico?

Wilkinson: Well, the Sinaloa cartel has been moving into areas of Mexico where it hadn’t really operated very much before. For example, last year they moved into Tamaulipas state, which is in the northeast corner of Mexico bordering Texas. And fought the Zetas, another cartel that until then had dominated that region…a very bloody fight, untold scores and scores of people killed. Now, his people apparently are moving into the coastal city of Veracruz, where just last week 35 bodies were dumped in the middle of the town.

Werman: Right.

Wilkinson: So his people are starting to apparently move into Veracruz as well, to overpower the Zetas that are there. So, he has helped cement violence by fighting other cartels to take over more and more territory.

Werman: Tracy Wilkinson, bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times in Mexico City, thank you so much.

Wilkinson: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Even so, one particular crime stood out earlier this week.

In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, two bodies, a man and a woman, were found hanging from a highway bridge.

The bodies showed signs of torture and the killers also left signs warning that other “Internet snitches,” users of social media, would meet the same fate.

That struck a raw nerve in Mexico, a country where average citizens have turned to the web and social media to disseminate and get information about the drug war.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to Dave Graham, senior correspondent for Reuters in Mexico City.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  A hallmark of Mexico’s drug war is the high rate of gruesome crimes.  Even so, one particular crime stood out earlier this week.  In the border city of Nuevo Laredo, two bodies, that of a man and a woman, were found hanging from a highway bridge.  The bodies showed sings of torture and the killers left signs warning that “other internet snitches would meet the same fate.” That struck a raw nerve in Mexico, a country where average citizens have turned to the web and social media to disseminate and get information about the drug war.  Dave Graham, a senior correspondent for Reuters in Mexico City, how are social media being used by residents in Mexico in the fight against drugs?

Dave Graham: Well, Lisa, they’re really being used to fill a gap that has arisen in parts of the country where the media really have been having to silence because of the drug gangs.  A lot of the things that happen in local areas just go unreported, and one of the ways that people have found to get around it is to use social media.  So, that let’s them know exactly what is going on for example, in areas where drug gangs are proving a menace.

Mullins: So give an example, what would the messages say?

Graham: The messages would say that there’s a shoot-up going on, road X or Y, in a certain part of town, A or B, and don’t go there.

Mullins: So the warnings go out, but sometimes the warnings are false, and tell us about one particular case that happened in Vera Cruz?

Graham: Well, in the state of Vera Cruz what happened was two users of social media, one I believe was Twitter, the other was Facebook, were arrested.  And according to the arrest they were at risk of facing up to 30 years in  jail because they had reported a shoot-up in a school, warning parents that if they wanted to keep their kids safe then they had to take action. Now, it turned out in this case that the attack by a drug gang on the school was not as they had relayed it.  And in any case the local government accused them of willfully or maliciously if you will, crying wolf and saying that drug gangs were creating mayhem and this in fact was not the case.  So they were arrested on terrorism charges.

Mullins: For spreading information that turned out to be false, even though it wasn’t knowingly disseminated as false information?

Graham: Well, that’s of course the bone of contention there, and obviously, the defendants in this case, the two people arrested, say that they were not knowingly disseminating false information.

Mullins: Well, as you said, the social media have arisen because the mainstream media have been bullied or cowed into keeping quiet about drug operations.  Now that these bodies have been found is there any indication that there’s a chilling effect on those that are using social media to try and point a finger at drug dealers?

Graham: I think, Lisa, to be honest it’s a bit early to say because these incidents in the north have been very isolated and we haven’t had many reports of this kind of thing going on.  Obviously, if it turned out to be one of many incidents of this nature, I mean you’d expect people to let’s say be more circumspect than what they are today.  But one of the questions surrounding the issue here is exactly how the bad guys in this case came to identify the two users because or course, many people have anonymous user names, so that is something of course, that would bear on any future impacts if people are of course using their own names and they’re at risk if drug gangs are going to target them.  So the risk is very real in that case.

Mullins: That’s Reuters correspondent, Dave Graham, speaking to us from Mexico City.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Colombian police pursued Escobar for years, finally hunting him down in 1993. The rooftop where he was shot to death is on the tour. Escobar’s brutal cocaine trafficking business once defined this city to the outside world.

Since then, people there have moved on. Colombia’s second largest city is now better known for its vibrant fashion industry.

So what’s the name of this city?

The answer is Medellin where tourists can now go on a controversial “Pablo Escobar Is History Tour”. Anchor Lisa Mullins gets details about the from Marcela Mariscal who manages “See Colombia Travel.”

Along their shared border, there’s a lush river valley – where marijuana grows wild. In the old days, Soviet authorities tried to wipe out the plants but to no avail. And the locals have developed a rather unique way of harvesting the stuff.

Think people who wash themselves in the river, clean their horses and then ride naked into a forest of marijuana!

Can you name the Central Asian river where this is going on?

The answer is the Chu or Chuy River.

Radio Free Europe reporter Merkhat Sharipzhanov tells anchor Marco Werman about the wild marijuana harvest in the Chu River valley.

Twenty-four teams, including Mali, North Korea and Brazil will play in the three-week tournament. The United States didn’t qualify.

Compared to the main World Cup, the U-20 is small potatoes. There’s no bidding war to host the event, which is played every two years. There is also no media frenzy. At the Colombian team practice for its opening match against France, I’m confined to a large holding pen for journalists. But for most of the session I’m the only one there.

Still, it’s a chance for Colombia to show off. The matches will be played in Bogota and seven other cities. 500 million people around the world will watch them on TV. They’ll learn about Colombia’s natural beauty, booming economy and improved security, even as a drug-fuelled guerrilla war grinds on. Cristian Bonilla, the Colombian team’s goalkeeper, said they’re proud that so many countries are participating and so many tourists are coming.

“Perhaps they will come away with a different image from what foreigners normally think about Colombia,” he said.
Bonilla and his teammates will be playing for more than national pride. The U-20 is a showcase for young talent, according to Johanna Palacios, a reporter who covers soccer for Colombian TV.

“Messi of Argentina and Kaka and Ronaldinho of Brazil all burnished their credentials in U-20 games,” Palacios said.
The U-20 can also serve as a dress rehearsal. Successful tournaments in Japan, the former Soviet Union and Qatar helped persuade soccer’s governing body, FIFA, to award the main World Cup to those nations.

In Colombia, it was the other way around.

Juan Felipe Mejia, press officer for the Colombian Soccer Federation, said that FIFA selected Colombia to host the main World Cup in 1986, but due to economic problems and the huge cost of building new stadiums, Colombia embarrassed itself by backing out of its commitment.

“By a decision of the government, they finally decided not to play it here. So it went to Mexico,” Mejia said.

FIFA was not pleased. It took 25 years for the organization to give Colombia a second chance with the Under-20 World Cup.

“It was like a big challenge because FIFA didn’t trust at the beginning in us. These guys are crazy. Why are they demanding a World Cup when they rejected one in 1986?’,” Mejia said.

This time around, Colombia seems prepared to host its biggest-ever international sports event. Most of the tickets have been sold. The government and private sector have spent $100 million to upgrade soccer stadiums. Thousands of fans showed up for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Bogota’s renovated El Campin stadium, where the championship game will be played on August 20th.

Colombia expects 35,000 foreign visitors. They will be snapping up t-shirts and souvenirs stamped with the U-20 logo featuring, what else? – a cup of coffee. At the opening ceremony, Colombian vallenato singer Jorge Celedon will perform the U-20 theme song.

The song is called Nuestra Fiesta, Spanish for “Our Party.” It’s an apt title, Mejia said, because the U-20 is Colombia’s coming-out party.

“People are gonna see ‘Oh, this is Colombia. These are people that are really nice. The stadiums are packed.’ It’s fantastic for nations like us,” Mejia said. “We really want to show the world that we can do good things here.”

Colombia is the answer to the quiz.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Olivia Cadaval, who is a curator at the Smithsonian Museum.

This state is caught up in Mexico’s drug war. In fact, during a raid a few days ago, police there seized two homemade tanks. These armored tanks are used by drug cartels to protect their trafficking routes to the US.

The answer is the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. As the BBC’s Julian Miglierini tells anchor Marco Werman, it’s where Mexican police have seized a number of homemade tanks being used by drug cartels to protect trafficking routes into the US.

(Photo: John Otis)

To produce a kilo of 90 percent pure cocaine, you need more than just coca leaves, the raw material for the narcotic. You also need a long list of chemicals, such as sulfuric acid, caustic soda, and acetone.

In fact, chemicals are the most expensive part of making cocaine, according to Jay Berman, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Andean division.

“It’s not the coca leaf, it’s not the workers, and it’s not the cost of building the cocaine laboratory,” Bergman said. “The number one cost is the chemicals.”

So authorities are engaged in a campaign against “precursor chemicals” that can be used in the production of methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine.

Bergman said that cutting the chemical supply line to meth labs in Mexico and cocaine labs in Colombia can have a huge impact.

“A cocaine HCL lab will shut down for a period of time not because of lack of access to the coca leaf but to the actual chemicals that they need to refine it into hydrochloride, cocaine HCL.”

Legitimate Uses

Yet the task is daunting because these chemicals also have legitimate uses, and they’re everywhere. Potassium permanganate, for example, can purify cocaine. But it’s also used to treat wastewater, disinfect animal skins and prevent bananas from ripening too fast.

Acetone is a key ingredient in both cocaine and house paint.

And many consumer goods can be used to make cocaine, according to Major Carlos Oviedo of Colombia’s anti-narcotics police. That includes motor oil, gasoline, kerosene, lime, cement and baking soda.

Sales of these items are strictly controlled in southern Colombian towns located near cocaine labs, Oviedo said. Gas stations are banned from selling more than 55 gallons per day to a single customer. The personal limit on baking soda is 11 pounds a month.

Colombia has some of the strictest regulations in the world on the amount of precursor chemicals that firms are allowed to buy, sell and consume. But traffickers can bribe company employees or steal the chemicals.

In one infamous case, four guards were killed in Mexico during the theft of a ton of ephedrine, which is used in the production of methamphetamine. It’s also easy for shady companies to order more than they need and then sell the excess to drug cartels.

Monitoring Chemicals

That’s where Luis Saavedra comes in. He’s part of a Colombian police unit that monitors chemical use at hundreds of industrial firms.

On this day, Saavedra is inspecting the Hartung cosmetic company, which uses 24 tons of precursor chemicals every month.

As workers pluck bottles of nail polish remover from a conveyer belt, Saavedra checks the plant’s tanks. They’re full of butyl and ethyl acetate, powerful solvents used in nail polish remover but which can also be used in cocaine.

Saavedra finds nothing suspicious. But the crackdown has forced Colombian traffickers to relocate some of their drug labs to Central America, said General Cesar Pinzon, chief of Colombia’s anti-narcotics police. He said that in March, police in Honduras raided a huge drug lab stocked with acetic acid, calcium chloride and acetone. It was the first major cocaine lab ever discovered in Honduras.

“The traffickers are sending unrefined cocaine to countries where there are no controls over precursor chemicals,” he said.

Once the drugs are processed, the toxic waste is simply dumped into the jungle where the chemicals find their way into rivers and groundwater. In fact, police were tipped off to the cocaine lab in Honduras after farmers complained about contamination of their water supply.

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