Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[hap0206]

rbl - Lx has lots of gold to pay for protection -- but many do not, so they come north
>>>If Mexico is so great, then why are ... the mexican citizens ... flocking here by the millions?<<<
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16 Are Killed as Gunmen Seek Rancher in Mexico
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: May 6, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen killed 17 people over the weekend in the southern coastal state of Guerrero in a wild hunt for the head of the state cattlemen’s association, who has gone into hiding, the authorities said Monday.

On Saturday morning, several men dressed as commandos and carrying assault rifles opened fire on a cattlemen’s meeting at a hotel in Iguala, killing seven ranchers but missing the leader of the group, Rogaciano Alba Álvarez.

The next day, eight trucks full of armed men pulled up outside a house on Mr. Alba Álvarez’s ranch in Petatlán. The men asked for the owner of the ranch. His family and ranch hands denied knowing his whereabouts.

The gunmen then lined people up against a wall and opened fire, killing 10 people, including two young sons of Mr. Alba Álvarez, Alejandro and Rusbel, a witness told The Associated Press. Then they kidnapped a teen-age girl believed to be Mr. Alba Álvarez’s niece or daughter and fled, authorities said.

State investigators have no leads on who is behind the attacks or why the gunmen were trying to kill Mr. Alba Álvarez, said the state attorney general, Eduardo Murueta Urrutia, in a radio interview on Monday.

The leader of the cattlemen’s association once served as mayor of Chilpancingo, the state capital, and maintains close ties with a former governor of Guerrero, Rubén Figueroa Alcocer. Civil rights groups have accused Mr. Alba Álvarez of financing paramilitary groups in the state, which has a long history of civil strife, guerrilla groups and drug traffickers. In 2002, he was investigated on suspicion of ordering the killing of Digna Ochoa, a human rights lawyer who represented antilogging activists in Guerrero. He was not convicted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/world/americas/06mexico.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss