Guillermo Paxton's Blog - Posts Tagged "julian-leyzaola"
US/Mexico Governments aided Sinaloa Cartel?
When I lived in Tijuana, in 2006-2007, Calderon came to power and shortly thereafter things changed in Tijuana and all of Baja California. The Mexican Army moved in and in a combined effort with the newest police chief Julian Leyzaola ousted the Arellano-Felix Cartel. But it wasn't done just by them. The United States also pitched in with numerous arrests and extraditions. The end result? The Sinaloa Cartel owns Tijuana.
Leyzaola is from Culiacan, Sinaloa. He was a military officer (Lt. Col.) and when he took office in Tijuana, his "mission" was to clean up corruption and the border violence. He is largely credited with having done just that.
However, the facts are very different than what the government would like for the citizens to believe. All that really occurred in Tijuana is a change of hands of the Tijuana plaza, from the Arellano-Felix to the Sinaloa Cartel. The border violence calmed down there because El Chapo won, hands down, and with the military and later the police force behind him, how was that not going to happen.
Julian Leyzaola even made a statement about how he had "rejected" a bribe from El Chapo. This may be possible. He may not be working directly for El Chapo. He might actually be naive enough to believe that he is in a frontal war on drugs and is working for a government that has rejected the Cartels. But the facts point to a very different conclusion. He was sent to Juarez to do the same thing. The Sinaloa Cartel has had a difficult time ridding the plaza of the Juarez Cartel, and the first thing he did when he arrived was to arrest top dogs in the Juarez Cartel.
Investigative reporter Bill Conroy wrote an article on wiki leaks recently exposing a plan by the Mexican and US governments to side with the Sinaloa Cartel in order to take down the others. The logic behind that was that it would be easier to control and contain. People in Mexico have been saying that Calderon's government had sided with El Chapo for years and has always been dismissed as rumors. But if anyone looks at the number of arrests of other cartels and compares them to the lack of numbers of arrests of the Sinaloa Cartel (which has arguably been the biggest and most powerful in the last few years), one can plainly see that the concentration of forces has been very one sided indeed in favor of El Chapo's organization.
Now the governments are rallying against the Zetas. Suddenly they have become the real enemy while the Sinaloa Cartel sits in the background and remains relatively untouched. The government would have you believe that the level of violence and murder that Mexico is now living is the fault of the Zetas. I can assure you, from someone who witnessed what the Sinaloa Cartel did in Chihuahua (Juarez and the entire state), they are just as violent and dangerous.
There is no better or worse cartel. They all have the same purpose and the same lack of morality. They are all murderers.
Favoring one cartel over another is simply wrong. There is no ends justifying the means. To recognize that eradicating the cartels is an impossible task and instead trying to contain one single cartel makes no sense. The people that make the drug war policy either have another agenda or are using drugs themselves. It is time to stop this madness. Whatever side of the border that you are on, you are touched by the drug war, whether it is economically, morally, or emotionally, and it is detrimental to you. Over 80,000 lives have been lost in Mexico alone since 2006 as a direct result of the drug war violence. Billions of dollars are spent on weapons, training, manpower, and prison. Only a tiny portion of that is spent on rehabilitation or prevention. Police DARE programs' funding is weak at best, and the program shows it. It is far past time to reevaluate the drug policy and shift our funding and thinking to prevent drug use and change strategy, whether it is legalization or otherwise. As long as a demand for illegal drugs exist, people will be ready to supply them, no matter what the risks are.
Leyzaola is from Culiacan, Sinaloa. He was a military officer (Lt. Col.) and when he took office in Tijuana, his "mission" was to clean up corruption and the border violence. He is largely credited with having done just that.
However, the facts are very different than what the government would like for the citizens to believe. All that really occurred in Tijuana is a change of hands of the Tijuana plaza, from the Arellano-Felix to the Sinaloa Cartel. The border violence calmed down there because El Chapo won, hands down, and with the military and later the police force behind him, how was that not going to happen.
Julian Leyzaola even made a statement about how he had "rejected" a bribe from El Chapo. This may be possible. He may not be working directly for El Chapo. He might actually be naive enough to believe that he is in a frontal war on drugs and is working for a government that has rejected the Cartels. But the facts point to a very different conclusion. He was sent to Juarez to do the same thing. The Sinaloa Cartel has had a difficult time ridding the plaza of the Juarez Cartel, and the first thing he did when he arrived was to arrest top dogs in the Juarez Cartel.
Investigative reporter Bill Conroy wrote an article on wiki leaks recently exposing a plan by the Mexican and US governments to side with the Sinaloa Cartel in order to take down the others. The logic behind that was that it would be easier to control and contain. People in Mexico have been saying that Calderon's government had sided with El Chapo for years and has always been dismissed as rumors. But if anyone looks at the number of arrests of other cartels and compares them to the lack of numbers of arrests of the Sinaloa Cartel (which has arguably been the biggest and most powerful in the last few years), one can plainly see that the concentration of forces has been very one sided indeed in favor of El Chapo's organization.
Now the governments are rallying against the Zetas. Suddenly they have become the real enemy while the Sinaloa Cartel sits in the background and remains relatively untouched. The government would have you believe that the level of violence and murder that Mexico is now living is the fault of the Zetas. I can assure you, from someone who witnessed what the Sinaloa Cartel did in Chihuahua (Juarez and the entire state), they are just as violent and dangerous.
There is no better or worse cartel. They all have the same purpose and the same lack of morality. They are all murderers.
Favoring one cartel over another is simply wrong. There is no ends justifying the means. To recognize that eradicating the cartels is an impossible task and instead trying to contain one single cartel makes no sense. The people that make the drug war policy either have another agenda or are using drugs themselves. It is time to stop this madness. Whatever side of the border that you are on, you are touched by the drug war, whether it is economically, morally, or emotionally, and it is detrimental to you. Over 80,000 lives have been lost in Mexico alone since 2006 as a direct result of the drug war violence. Billions of dollars are spent on weapons, training, manpower, and prison. Only a tiny portion of that is spent on rehabilitation or prevention. Police DARE programs' funding is weak at best, and the program shows it. It is far past time to reevaluate the drug policy and shift our funding and thinking to prevent drug use and change strategy, whether it is legalization or otherwise. As long as a demand for illegal drugs exist, people will be ready to supply them, no matter what the risks are.
