Frontera NorteSur
April-May  2003

May 23, 2003
Mexico Closed to Canadian Beef: Border Sees Danger and Opportunity

On May 20, 2003, Mexico's Secretariat of Agriculture (SAGARPA) announced that the country will no longer import Canadian beef due to the discovery of Mad Cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in Canada. Reaction to the appearance of Mad Cow in the north, as portrayed in the Mexican border press, is varied as the disease implies both opportunities and dangers for Mexico. 

Reynosa's El Mañana newspaper reported that ranchers in that region see the ban on the import of Canadian beef as positive as it will allow them to expand their markets. In Tamaulipas, Canadian beef is imported frozen and is cheaper than locally raised meat. 

Jaime Fernández Ruiz, the director of Baja California's Secretariat of Agricultural and Cattle (Sefoa), told the Mexicali newspaper La Crónica that, in the past, 12% of the state's beef has come from Canada in frozen form. He said that it is hard for Baja ranchers to compete with frozen, foreign meat even though fresh, regional beef has a higher nutritive value. Fernández also believes that the ban on Canadian beef will benefit Mexican ranchers through increased sales. 

In the short term, Fernández does not expect that there will be any meat shortages due to the ban on Canadian meat. The ban he said will remain in place until SAGARPA reopens the market. 

In Tamaulipas, addressing the possibility that the import ban might lead people to start smuggling Canadian beef into Mexico, one official said that people should refrain from doing so it because would be an irresponsible act that could unleash human suffering on an unknown scale. 

Reynosa's El Mañana newspaper reported that documents from SAGARPA state that the import ban on Canadian beef is especially crucial because Mexico would be particularly vulnerable to the disease if it ever entered the country. 

Sources: El Mañana (Reynosa), May 23, 2003. La Crónica (Mexicali), May 23, 2003. 

May 13, 2003
Central American Immigrants Arrested Along Tamaulipas Border with Texas

In the first twelve days of May, Mexican immigration authorities from the Instituto Nacional de Migración (National Migration Institute) detained 55 Central Americans on the highway near the Tamaulipas border city of Miguel Alemán. Miguel Alemán  is located half way between Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa. 

According to the Instituto Nacional de Migración, 23 of the 55 arrested Central Americans were from Honduras, 13 were from El Salvador, and 19 were from Guatemala. Also arrested were one person from Columbia and one from the Dominican Republic. Mexican immigration officials say that all of those detained were headed to the US. 

From Tamaulipas, all 57 of those arrested will be sent to Mexico City. From there, they will eventually be sent back to their countries of origin. 

A human trafficker, who allegedly took money to get the Columbian immigrant into the US, was also arrested and charges have been brought against him. 

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa), May 13, 2003. 

May 5, 2003
Waits at Tamaulipas Border Crossings Frustrate Citizens and Commercial Drivers

Waits of up to six hours to cross commercial trucks into McAllen, Texas from Reynosa are producing economic losses, according to Oscar Garza, the local director of the Confederación Nacional de Transportistas Mexicanos, a national organization of Mexican commercial vehicle drivers, also known by its acronym, Conatram. In light of the long waits, Garza is demanding that new mechanisms be established to speed the crossing of vehicles and trucks to the US. 

Garza said that discussions to create a model border-crossing between Reynosa and McAllen, Texas are insufficient. The model port is an idea for the future Garza complains, and he says that current structures must be changed to reduce wait times. 

Garza also told the Reynosa newspaper El Mañana that Mexican customs should stop inspecting empty trucks as they return to Mexico from the US because there is nothing inside the trucks. 

Military checkpoint is only bothersome

Approximately halfway between Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo is the Tamaulipas city of Miguel Alemán which has its own international border crossing. Citizens there are complaining to city government and the chamber of commerce about a military check point on the Mexican side of the international bridge that it is increasing wait times there. According to El Mañana, the military's efforts in the area have not resulted in the seizure of drugs, weapons or money despite a presence going back several months. 

Miguel Alemán residents and people from the area that use the bridge to cross the international boundary complain that lines stack up at the port as soldiers perform close examinations of vehicles. Before the soldiers begin their work, a vehicle must be emptied of all occupants. Border crossers are particularly upset because this often includes entire families, the elderly, children and even women with newborn children. 

On a number of occasions, but to no effect, city officials and the chamber of commerce have appealed to high-ranking military officials to remove the checkpoint or at least give instructions to soldiers that they only search suspicious vehicles. 

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa), May 5, 2003. 

April 22, 2003
Tamaulipas Farmers Paid for Loss of Water

Tamaulipas farmers that are part of Irrigation District 025 along the lower Rio Grande will be paid out 460 million pesos (approximately US$43 million) for this year's loss of irrigation water due to the necessity of water transfers to the US. The payments were approved by the federal government in the last days of 2002 after protests by Tamaulipas farmers who said they were being harmed by releases of water guaranteed to the US under a binational water treaty. 

This year, 2,295 pesos (US$217) will be paid per hectare (2.47 acres). Farmers will receive 90% of this amount, 2,065 pesos, and the remaining amount will go to the irrigation district. The irrigation district will use these funds, plus other federal funds, to make improvements and repairs to benefit irrigators. 

Flooding destroys bridges

In other parts of the state, too much water was the cause of a farming crisis. A few months ago, massive rains struck Tamaulipas and destroyed bridges in many growing areas. The bridges have not been rebuilt, according to farm union representatives. This will mean that some sorghum and bean harvests might have no way to get to market. State farm leaders are calling on state and federal agencies to repair flood damage.  

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa), April 22, 2003. 

April 15, 2003
Federal Cops Corrupted by Local Police in Nuevo Laredo

The presence of Mexico's Policía Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventative Police, PFP) in Nuevo Laredo has led to an increase in crime instead of a decrease, according to former director of the Nuevo Laredo city police, Lázaro Peña Covarrubias. Peña told the Nuevo Laredo newspaper El Mañana that PFP agents are corrupted by working with local police whom he called "bandits." 

"Everyone believed when they arrived that things would change, but this didn't happen," Peña said about the initial presence of the 200 PFP agents. "At the beginning, they announced that they had made 800 arrests, however, these were for minor crimes . . . and the true criminals like drug traffickers and thieves were unaffected."

Peña said that between September 2002 and March 2003, robberies were up 656% from the same time period a year earlier. Kidnappings were up 400%. 

"Four or five months was all it took them [the PFP] to learn the ways of the city police, " Peña stated. "With teachers like these, they had to either play the game or die and I believe they preferred to become like the city police."

Peña also criticized the presence of the PFP in the historic downtown area of Nuevo Laredo. He said that PFP agents carrying assault rifles in the city center only scare away tourists. 

Source: El Mañana (Nuevo Laredo), April 15, 2003. Article by Ricardo Flores. 

April 4, 2003
Nine Men Murdered in Worst-Ever Nuevo León Drug-Related Massacre

Nine men were found tortured and murdered on April 2, 2003 near Anáhuac, Nuevo León in what the Mexican press is calling that state's worst-ever, drug-related massacre. Mexican officials attribute the killings to a fight for control of drug trafficking corridors coming after the March arrests of men who were the alleged leaders of the Gulf Cartel. The area where the bodies were left is close to the international border and near the city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. 

A Mexican federal anti-organized crime force that is investigating the killings, UEDO, is looking for a group called "Los Zetas" which is considered to be involved with the Gulf Cartel. A spokesperson for UEDO (Unidad Especializada contra la Delincuencia Organizada, Specialized Unit against Organized Crime) said that Los Zetas are trying to expel a cell of a group called "Los Chachos" from Nuevo Laredo. 

A number of the bodies found on April 3 have been identified and some of the men are said by UEDO to have been members of a Los Chachos cell. UEDO's spokesperson, who was not identified in articles in the Reynosa newspaper El Mañana, said that Los Chachos had been involved with a cell of the Tijuana Cartel and had recently allied themselves with a group called "Los Texas."

The former head of Los Chachos, Dionisio "El Chacho" García Román, was found murdered in Tamaulipas in May 2002 after having been abducted from a house by a heavily armed, commando-style group.

Los Zetas are rumored to be comprised of former Mexican special forces soldiers that were being sought by Mexican authorities in January 2003, according to a January article in the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario. The former soldiers belonged to the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (Airmobile Special Forces Group, GAFE). According to the article, 829 GAFE members were trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 

Little has been said about Los Texas in the Mexican press but the Laredo Morning Times wrote in February, 2003 that UEDO arrested eleven members of the Los Texas "cartel."

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa), April 4, 2003.