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To silence their foes, Mexican drug gangs spread fear

Corpses are used as message boards. The aim is to thwart a federal crackdown, experts say.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 13, 2007

MEXICO CITY - Drug traffickers are waging a highly effective publicity campaign in Mexico that began with a chilling show of brutality in Acapulco: Two police officers' heads, streaming with blood, were stuck on metal spikes outside a downtown building with a fluorescent cardboard sign.

"So that you learn to respect," the sign read in thick, black letters.

The spectacle a year ago in the Pacific resort set off a ghoulish trend among the drug lords battling for billion-dollar smuggling routes into the United States. They've since left a trail of bodies and bloodstained notes across Mexico, with a goal of spreading fear - a sense of dread so deep that rivals, police, witnesses and even President Felipe Calderon won't dare cross them.

Regular citizens used to be left out of this calculation as organized crime groups quietly settled scores between themselves.

No longer. The drug gangs now publish newspaper ads and tack threatening notes to corpses with ice picks or tape them to trash bags filled with body parts for public display. They're even using the Internet, posting a video on YouTube that showed the apparent beheading of an alleged hit man.

Drug-related killings using corpses as message boards have been carried out in a dozen Mexican states in the past year - an indication, experts say, that Mexico's rival Gulf and Sinaloa cartels hope they can frighten the population to the point that Calderon will retreat from his nationwide military crackdown.

In many areas, it's working: Police are resigning in record numbers, newspapers are censoring themselves, and witnesses rarely expose themselves to a justice system seen as corrupt.

"Without a doubt, this is part of a strategy by organized crime to terrorize the population and destabilize the government," said Nuevo Leon Deputy State Attorney General Aldo Fasci Zuazua, whose state bordering Texas has seen nearly three dozen drug-related killings since January.

[Last modified April 13, 2007, 01:41:00]