Category Archives: Southern theater

Bolivarian Infiltrators Poised to Cause Chaos in Honduras

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Honduran citizens are receiving anonymous phone calls telling them to “stay home” for their own safety as insurgent cells from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala are said to already be inside Honduran borders waiting for outed President Zelayna to return. From CFP:

Tegucigalpa, Honduras could become another Tehran by tomorrow night.

Hondurans are trying to get word out by Twitter that they are receiving threatening text messages on their cell phones tonight, telling them to stay inside and not leave their homes tomorrow night.

“Now more than ever I will be the first one out the door,” Honduran Pedro Martinez told Canada Free Press tonight.  Pedro Martinez is the pseudonym we gave to the young Honduran professional that Canada Free Press (CFP) walked through Twitter hookup last week.

“Tomorrow might be a bad day,” Pedro tipped off CFP on twitter.  “People are infiltrating Honduras thru (sic) Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua with the intention to create chaos.”

Looks like deposed Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya, who has called for a popular insurrection in his own country so that he can be returned to power after soldiers removed him at gunpoint on June 28, is on the way back.

With the verbal cunning of good Marxists the world over and the backing of tyrant Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, this is Zelaya’s message today from the safety of Guatemala: “The Honduran people have the right to insurrection.”

“I want to tell you to not leave the streets, that is the only space that they have not taken from us,” he told a news conference alongside Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom,” (Yahoo News.com. July 15, 2009).

Meanwhile, no one in Honduras is running from Zelaya’s threats.  “We are not issuing threats,” acting foreign minister Carlos Lopez said in response to Zelaya’s call for an insurrection, reminding the exiled Honduran leader that Roberto Micheletti’s government was in control and the country was at peace.

“We removed the curfew and the government has complete control of the territory.”

Problem is Pedro and tens of thousands like him, who backed Zelaya’s ouster on June 28, believe the streets and democracy belong to them.

Zelaya’s ultimatum to the interim government ordering it to relinquish power within the week and the demands for his immediate restitution has only raised the peoples’ dander.

People like Pedro expect only the worst from Zelaya.

As does anyone aside from the Marxist supporters of his power grab. It’s no coincidence that Zelaya waited until Obama was in office to make his power grab, now Honduras and Columbia, our one time allies, are about to be swept away by a Chavez led Communist movement and America will at best stand by and cheer.

At worst the Democrats will send in troops to support the culling and guard Chavez’s death camps.

h/t N.T.R.

Mexican Citizens Form Militia to Fight the Drug War

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The government has been in a losing battle with Cartel forces for years. Tired of the chaos it seems the long suffering Mexican people are fighting the cartel operatives on their own terms:

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Shadowy vigilante groups are threatening Mexico’s drug gangs near the U.S. border in retaliation for a wave of murders and kidnappings that killed 1,600 people in this city alone last year.

One group in the border city of Ciudad Juarez pledged last week to “clean our city of these criminals” and said their mission was to “end the life of a criminal every 24 hours.”

The emergence of vigilantes would be a new twist to a vicious drug war that killed 5,700 people in Mexico last year and forced the United States to give hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Mexican government.

Ciudad Juarez, a manufacturing center in the desert across from El Paso, Texas, was the scene of the worst violence in 2008 as drug cartels fought each other as well as staging kidnappings for ransom and extorting businessmen.

In an e-mail to news organizations, the “Juarez Citizen Command” said it was funded by local businessmen sick of abductions and extortion in the city, home to factories that export goods to the United States.

While none of the city’s 1,600 in the last year were undoubtedly the work of vigilantes, a body was found on January 7 with a message next to it that read: “This is for those who continue extorting.”

And six men in their 20s and 30s were shot dead and dumped together in Ciudad Juarez in October with a cardboard sign reading: “Message for all the rats: This will continue.”

Drug gangs often leave threatening messages with the bodies of their victims, but security officials said those two incidents might have been the work of vigilantes.

Another group, “Businessmen United, The Death Squad” put a video on Internet site YouTube last June threatening to go after kidnappers and criminals in Ciudad Juarez, the biggest city in Mexico’s Chihuahua state. The video is no longer on YouTube.

I don’t blame them, and frankly I think I’d support them if able. The Cartels are in control of vast swaths of Mexican territory, raping, kidnapping and killing anyone they want with impunity. The citizens have a right to defend their homes and families from the drug gang threat, by any means necessary.

h/t N.T.A.

U.S. Military Warning of Possible “Sudden Collapse” of Mexican State!

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Sure wish there was some sort of physical structure we could use to ensure violence from a failed state didn’t spill over into America. What do you call that? Oh yeah, a fence. Sure could use one of those now:

EL PASO – Mexico is one of two countries that “bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse,” according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.

The command’s “Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)” report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. “In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”

Mexico has already descended into chaos with military troops battling drug gangs who can equal them in firepower and manpower. Border Patrol has publicly stated that they have plans in place to deal with the expected spillover of drug violence in a statement meant to calm border state residents fears.

John Robb Author of Brave New War has a good post breaking down the basics of why we should be concerned about this, and his blog Global Guerrillas is worth perusing to fully understand why this isn’t simply a “drug war” on our border and solutions aren’t as easy as legalizing pot.

Anti-kidnapping Expert Kidnapped in Mexico

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From Fox:

MEXICO CITY — A well-known U.S. anti-kidnapping expert has himself fallen victim to Mexico’s wave of abductions as unidentified assailants snatched him from a street in the northern city of Saltillo, one of his employers said Monday.

The kidnapping of U.S. security consultant Felix Batista — who was in Saltillo to offer advice on how to confront abductions for ransom — showed how bold Mexico’s kidnappers have become. Attacks on U.S. anti-crime consultants have largely been the stuff of movies.

“We have notified the FBI and Mexican authorities, and they are working on the case,” said Charlie LeBlanc, the president of the Houston, Texas-based security firm ASI Global LLC., where Batista is a consultant. “What we are doing is we’re offering our support to the family and hoping for the best.”

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said it would not comment on the case, and LeBlanc would not say whether any ransom demand had been received, saying “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

LeBlanc said Batista “was abducted on the evening of Dec. 10 by unknown assailants” in Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila state. He said Batista had his own security business and that “he was in Mexico for business that wasn’t associated with our company.”

[...]

A profile of Batista posted — and later removed — from the ASI Global Web site described him as “the primary case officer for all cases throughout the Latin American region.”

The site said Batista was a former U.S. Army major who is “known for conducting in-depth threat assessments, the successful resolution of nearly 100 kidnap and ransom cases (many on behalf of major insurance carriers) and investigations.”

The company denied local media reports that Batista was a former FBI agent, and warned those reports could put his life at risk.

“We at ASI are very concerned for Felix’s safety and would like to take this opportunity of stating categorically that Felix has never been an agent in the FBI,” the company said in a statement. “Irresponsible and erroneous reporting in the press could pose a very real threat to Felix’s life and the safe resolution of this terrible situation and must be corrected.”

The seizure seems to echo the plot of a 2004 movie, “Man on Fire,” in which Denzel Washington played a U.S. security consultant who takes on Mexican kidnappers and is abducted himself.

Batista helped negotiate the release of hostages from FARC and given their connection to the drug trade we shouldn’t rule out cartels or kidnapping gangs being hired or conscripted to get back at Batista.

Via Michelle Malkin this report puts forward the theory the kidnapping was simply a message to the world that Mexico belongs to the Cartels:

Batista, a Miami-based Cuban American credited with negotiating the release of victims abducted by Colombian rebels, was snatched after he stepped outside the restaurant, answering a call on his cellular phone, Mexican media said.

The U.S. embassy in Mexico City said it was investigating and declined to comment further.

“He may have been targeted by organized crime in an attempt to show their power. Saltillo is not a kidnapping hot spot,” said a source at Coahuila state attorney general’s office.

Batista’s employer, Houston-based ASI Global, denied Mexican media reports that he was a former FBI agent and said he was on a private trip in Coahuila state near Texas, giving seminars on security.

“We have requested help from the FBI and the Mexican authorities,” said ASI Global’s President Charlie LeBlanc.

Hundreds of people are kidnapped in Mexico every year and the number of victims has increased sharply as drug gangs, under pressure from President Felipe Calderon’s army-backed crackdown, seek new revenues to fund their operations.

Here’s a question for legalization advocates. If the theory that legalization will simply break the gangs as they go into the poor house is one of your central arguments, how’s that last sentence grab you?

Russian Warships Arriving in Venezuela Within “Hours” According to Chavez

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Fortuitously they are arriving just as the opposition is picking up seats in the elections. An odd coincidence that these scheduled “exercises” coincide with elections Chavez was nervous about.

From the A.P.:

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russian warships will soon reach his country’s Caribbean coast for joint naval exercises.

Chavez said the Russian ships “will enter Venezuelan waters within a matter of hours.” He didn’t say exactly when the ships are to arrive.

It’s the first such deployment by the Russian navy in the Caribbean since the Cold War. Russia is sending the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great, the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko, and logistical vessels including a tugboat and a supply ship.

The Russian navy said the two warships will visit the Venezuelan port of La Guaira starting Tuesday, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. It said the ships are scheduled to hold joint exercises with Venezuela’s navy starting Dec. 1.

Chavez is also expecting a visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev starting Wednesday as part of a Latin American tour.

Chavez has been boosting ties with Russia while tensions with the U.S. have grown, and he has bought more than $4 billion in Russian weapons.

Firearms Blog just showcased the waiting to be approved for export RPG-30 the Russians just developed which is designed to defeat modern (read American) tanks. Chavez may be using what’s left of his petrol-dollars to grab some of these up, and just because the Russians claim the weapon isn’t yet being exported doesn’t mean one of those warships won’t be carrying a few dozen that may be given to Chavez. Chavez may in turn send them to F.A.R.C. who may pass them along to their cartel connections. This endangers us all.

Gateway Pundit has more on the elections, in which the opposition has made some significant gains. The cities seem to be a stronghold of anti-Chavez forces, while the rural areas are loyal to Chavez. This sort of polarization, along with Russian interference, doesn’t not bode well of Latin American stability.