Mexico’s San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History

Mexico's San Fernando Massacres: A Declassified History

"Near total impunity" for Mexican Cartels "in the face of 
compromised local security forces," according to U.S.

DEA Linked Zetas to Guatemalan Special Forces in Weeks Prior to 
San Fernando Migrant Massacre

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 445

Posted -- November 6, 2013

Edited by Michael Evans and Jesse Franzblau

For more information contact:
Michael Evans 202/994 7029 or mevans@email.gwu.edu
Jesse Franzblau 202/994 7000

Washington, D.C., November 6, 2013 -- Four months before the 
feared Zetas drug cartel kidnapped and murdered 72 migrants 
in northeastern Mexico, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said 
that narcotrafficking organizations in that region operated 
with "near total impunity in the face of compromised local 
security forces." As the date of the massacre drew nearer, 
another U.S. agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA),
reported new evidence linking the Zetas to soldiers from the 
Kaibiles, an elite Guatemalan special forces known for 
spectacular acts of cruelty and brutality during that country's 
civil war.


The documents are among a set of U.S. documents declassified
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and published today 
by the National Security Archive, providing a glimpse of what 
U.S. diplomats and intelligence analysts were saying about the 
extreme violence that has engulfed Mexico's northern border 
state of Tamaulipas in recent years and the apparent complicity 
of Mexican officials. Just this week, a new round of violence in 
Tamaulipas took the lives of 13 more people, as drug-related 
violence flared yet again.

Some of these documents are featured in this week's edition of 
Proceso magazine, in an article by award-winning investigative 
journalist Marcela Turati. Her report highlights the unchecked 
power of the Zetas in the region and the inability or 
unwillingness of federal, state and local officials in Mexico 
to provide security for citizens and migrants traveling in the 
region.

The turf war between the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel and other 
criminal organizations for control of drug trafficking, human 
smuggling and other illicit enterprises in northern Mexico 
produced unimaginablescenes of carnage, including the August 
2010 massacre of 72 migrants travelers in San Fernando and the 
discovery, the following year, of graves containing the remains 
of hundreds more.

Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive's website -http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB445/

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