Senior paper:)
Jenny Salazar
VIOLENCE
A little background about violence is that it has been happening all over the world and there is nothing you can do about it, you can control yourself only about being violent. Violence leads to many bad things. Violence is a terrible thing especially in countries fighting for the control of the drug market stopping violence will only happen…
One place that really gets my attention are the cartels in Mexico, because it might be the largest country with the most crime, but there is also other countries with the same problem such as Columbia, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Afghanistan, Pakistan and of course Mexico. These are some topics involved in a Drug Cartel, which are violence, drug trafficking, human trafficking, prostitution, stealing, also money laundering. This is an idea of how Drug cartels started also known as criminal organizations, it was around the 60s, after a lot of the gaffe, which are like Mexico's military. Their taking bribes from criminal drug lords for hired protection. Since they noticed that the pay was better other gaffe started basically going rouge.
This is an idea of what a drug cartel is like now a days it is like a gang only a lot bigger and both women and men join, also sometimes even teenagers at a young age join basically to be safe, and safe meaning when they get involved in these gangs they become kind of like a “family”, they protect one another from other gangs or cartels. These men and women take control wherever they go.
A drug cartel is where people smuggle drugs mostly to the U.S by using any type of resource car, planes, boat, train, walking anything that they can do to traffic the drugs from one place to another, they start of in a little group than escalade to more people using stronger weapons to kill people if they feel they have to. They intimidate people to get what they want they also steal money, cars, anything they want they try getting it if you don’t cooperate they will kill you, one of the biggest thing that’s interesting is that authorities are scared of these cartels so they in a way cooperate with these people to not get hurt because cartel members will threaten you with your life and or your families life too, an example of this in 28/09/11 not too long ago 5 human heads were found in a car in front of an elementary school in Acapulco,Mexico,"This is a new terrorist message towards teachers and parents’’, states Mexican authorities. This is definitely a message a scary one because it is violence occurring in front of elementary schools, over 300 public schools were not opened in over a month. The message towards parents and teacher was that they were angry because these cartel members tried hiding in the school and the teachers did not let them and called the police so their message was by killing people and putting them right in front of the school is defiantly a threatening sign towards the school, in my opinion.
Drug trafficking is a huge topic in the world theses days. People from all over the world smuggle drugs most of the times from other countries to the United States to from here sell their drugs. In Mexico people basically prepare their drugs they package them and than have some one else take them and from thee they export the drug or drugs to the United States.
Another violence happening a lot which I think is worst than drug trafficking is raping women and or using them than killing them .The reason they do this is because they basically have the authority to do so police in Mexico fear of them and do not do anything about it. A disguise these cartel members often use a lot to trick people is they either dress like policeman or they were military cloths which tricks people a lot, than they threaten people and take everything they have.
The violence has got to a point where aim afraid of going to visit my family because I don't know what could happen to me. The Houston Chronicle quotes Representative McCall as saying.’ In my judgment, Mexico is loosing this war and so are we...the president needs to recognize this issue. We face a serious issue in our backyard, and we need to deal with it.'' I absolutely agree with this quote the president does need to recognize this issue before it gets worst than what it already is, to me it almost looks as if the president is scared of doing anything about it, and that he doesn’t doo anything to protect himself. In Nuevo Laredo, Mexico authorities found a dead body with a sign next to him saying,” The families must be respected. They should not be blamed for the situation. The one at fault should pay, the innocent should be respected. If you continue to hurt innocent families, we will hurt yours. From the lowest to the highest levels, regardless of who it is.” Police had received a anonymous call at 2:00 am saying that a man had got shot in the back of his head police went to the scene of the crime and found the body dead with the sign and a statue of Christopher Columbus. I agree and disagree with this quote for obvious reasons that cartel members are saying that innocent people are getting killed and its true hundreds of innocent people get killed, but on the other hand I don’t agree with this quote because you shouldn’t threat anyone with their life, and also because they are contradicting their quote by killing an innocent man to make their point.
I think its stupid how these cartel members want respect from people and they are not respecting them because killing people does not mean or show respect in any way. (Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard)"This is organized crime," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. "The enemy we are combating is extremely well organized, extremely disciplined and extremely well trained." I agree with this quote because these people are very well organized they are almost like a corporation they have everything under control that’s why the authorities down in Mexico do not do anything about it because these people are smarter than they are. "With all the money and power of the drug cartels, it was inevitable the AFI would become corrupted ", says Jorge Chapattis is another reason why the police don't do anything because cartels just started taking over little by little and they got to a point where they are now powering more and more parts of Mexico even including the United States.
The government should of done something when all of this started happening and now in my opinion its way too late that’s why its getting harder everyday in Mexico to stop this war because it is getting worst each day." I am concerned that the drug cartels will further escalate the violence with the use of explosives." This also concerns me because even though they already use guns and knifes to intimidate they could all of the sudden use explosives to destroy more what they already have destroyed.
The use of explosives would probably be the last thing they would do its very dangerous but I think they don't mind risking it but than if it did happen I think that the United States President should defiantly step in and do something about it if this violence escalated into dangerous weapons such as explosives.” Mexican police have found five severed heads stuffed in a sack outside a primary school in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. The gruesome discovery comes after drugs gangs threatened to attack elementary school teachers if they did not pay half their wages to the drugs cartels.
The extortion demands forced around 130 schools in the city to close earlier this month, after administrators and parents decided it was not safe enough to start classes.” This was horrible what happened in Acapulco Mexico having to close down schools and interrupt children from learning just because some stupid people decided to kill five individuals and cut their head offs and put them randomly around neighborhoods close to schools.
Its ridiculous what is going on I think these people need to grow up and think what if that happened to their family. “Sometimes we struggle and struggle and pedal and pedal, and we feel like we are on a stationary bicycle.” I like this quote because it’s the truth the we the people that try convincing the president to do something about this the more he doesn’t listen to us, I am not sure why the president doesn’t step in and try doing something about it, but in my opinion he should.
I think what caused this whole drug cartel wars was that people started using more and more drugs and it became a war of who was going to take over the drug selling than it became a huge problem because other people started noticing how much money they could make selling drugs and it just escalated from there people getting into separate groups which became gangs and from there they just got more and more violent and thought that by killing people was going to get them respect when really it just made everything worst, that is how I think this whole cartel wars and violence in Mexico became what it is now a total disaster.
Another huge problem with these cartels are that they use prostitution as a way of getting or selling their drugs, also drug trafficking to the united states might be one of the biggest things cartels do to get their money they not only try over powering parts of Mexico but they also control different parts of the U.S, meaning they send their drugs here and from there it gets sold. And that is probably one big problem the United States is trying to fight against. And that is why there could be a chance that the Marijuana might be legalized; because some people think it might just be the right thing and that there will not be so much problems.
In other words there is just too much different problems we have here in the United States and in Mexico to fix them all but that is why so many people want our President to do something about it because Mexico’s problem is becoming our problem too because of all the trafficking that is going on such as drug trafficking and human trafficking. This whole cartel problem started because of drugs use, and we need our voices to be herd if we want peace in this world. The problem here is that I think that our president of the United States to help out and of course Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon needs to do something but apparently it looks like he doesn’t care or maybe he is scared something might happen to him if he helps out, like for example in January of this year 2012, the Mexican government reported 47,515 people had been killed in a drug-related violence since the President Felipe Calderon began a military assault on criminal cartels soon after taking office in late 2006, that’s an example that the president doesn’t do anything and has not done anything.
The Mexican drug trafficking cartels are the largest organized crime threat to the United States. A huge drug cartel in Mexico would be the Zetas they control various parts in Mexico and are very dangerous this is a quote made on YouTube by one of Zetas members "You made a huge mistake in taking one of us," an Anonymous member says in a YouTube video. "Release him, and if anything happens to him, you will always remember this upcoming Nov. 5.(TPMideaLab)"This is obviously a threatening quote made by a Zeta member one of the most powerful and violent crime organizations in all Mexico, they are responsible for kidnapping, assasinations, extortions and also illegal drug trade. "We demand his release," the Anonymous representative, in a suit, tie and mask, says. "We want the army and the navy to know that we are fed up with the criminal group Zetas, who have concentrated on kidnapping, stealing and blackmailing in different ways.” This quote was an anonymous quote made by an unknown person basically saying that they were fed up with all these crimes going on but it was directed towards the criminal organizations Los Zetas, it was specified towards them. "In recent weeks, we have had a series of inhuman and despicable acts in different parts of the country that mark an irrational fight fundamentally between two existing criminal groups and their criminal allies," Mexican Interior Minister Alejandro Poire said.I cant imagine what its like to deal with this situation I bet it is hard these criminals have made it really hard on everybody.
Violence is a small word with a huge meaning, and it is happening all over the world. If our voices get herd we can make a difference. How we can make a difference is by organizing ourselves into groups as an organization to stop the Drug War .Us who care and are determined to make a change for good.
Citations:
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/anonymous-takes-on-mexican-drug-cartel-los-zetas.phphttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043072/Mexican-drugs-cartel-leave-5-severed-human-HEADS-outside-primary-school.htmlhttp://thinkexist.com/quotation/with-all-the-money-and-power-of-the-drug-cartels/972997.html
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-05-14/americas/world_americas_mexico-bodies-found_1_zetas-sinaloa-cartel-mexican-official?_s=PM:AMERICAS
http://www.azag.gov/AnnualReports/2010AnnualReport.pdf