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Column 072709 Brewer

Monday, July , 2009

Mexican Cartels Seek Safety and Friends by Moving South

By Jerry Brewer

Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunman in the Mumbai, India

terrorist attack last November that killed around 160 people, told
a courtroom that because the media was recording everything,
he was told by his handler to “inflict maximum damage, keep
fighting, and don’t be taken alive.” Further revelations of this
testimony included a history that is very reminiscent of the
carnage in Mexico finding its way to points further south.

Kasab [21] described himself as a poor Pakistani who, with a

friend, had decided robbery was a way to earn money. They
sought military training through Islamic militants to increase their
crime skills and eventually became members of the terrorist
group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s relentless push and

disrupting of the profit making agendas of the Mexican drug
gangs has forced many of their operations into Central America.
Leading the way are the Zetas, the hired paramilitary and well-
armed enforcement cadre chosen by the organized criminal
hierarchies. Their costumes of combat include grenades, bullet
resistant vests, M-60 machine guns, anti-tank rockets,
commando uniforms, and assorted paraphernalia of death and
destruction.

The nearly three year offensive by President Calderon’s military

against these murdering bandits has forced somewhat of a
retreat toward regions in Central America, such as Guatemala,
where weak enforcement resistance by authorities is fertile
ground for control and corruption. More than “6,000 people
were slain in Guatemala in 2008,” in mostly deaths linked to the
drug trade.
El Salvador and Honduras have not been immune to this
essential insurgency of murdering drug merchants. There is an
urgent need to find and control areas in which state institutions
are weak and powerless and are recruiting havens for young
recruits. These, affected by social alienation poverty, and the
lure of easy money. Many of these governments are powerless
to resist and easily susceptible to corruption attempts.

The radicalized Islamic movement, not new to Latin America,

has roots in the hemisphere from the Tri-Border area
(Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil) to Venezuela. Hezbollah and
Hamas, as well as others, have used this area for drug
trafficking, money laundering, and other forms of fund raising.
Via Paraguayan financial institutions, a period from 1999 to
2001 showed extremist groups receiving “between US$50 and
US$500 million from Arab residents on the Brazilian side of the
border.”

Concerns in Venezuela, on Margarita Island, prompted the

Venezuelan government to deny there were “terrorist links”
inherent on the resort island. Approximately 4,000 Arab
immigrants that are described as primarily of Syrian, Lebanese,
and Palestinian descent are residents of the island. Reports
and targeted intelligence suggested possible illicit terrorist
support activities by Islamic elements. While there has been
much media censorship throughout Venezuela under President
Hugo Chavez’s rule, the local Margarita Island cable television
outlet offers al-Jazeera and other Syrian and Lebanese
channels.

Hezbollah Latin America is a Venezuelan based group that

claims to not be directly financed or affiliated by Lebanese
counterparts. However, they offer their full ideological support
to them. A previous Internet web posting stated, “The demon of
the North, Israel and its allies, all enemies of Islam and Allah…,
Latin Muslims today assume a leading role in the Latin
American Jihad against the West, enemy of Islam.” The group
once called on supporters to put “low grade explosives in Latin
American institutions affiliated with the United States in
response to Israel’s military actions in Lebanon.”

Gang activity throughout the Hemisphere, as precursors of

revolutionary terrorism, is ripe with the cellular ingredients of
violence, corruption, and death through criminal enterprises.
Robbery, contract killing, drug trafficking, arms dealing,
kidnapping for ransom, and related activities that correlate to
terrorism ideology. Missing ingredients, such as non-Muslims
not accepted into Islamic terrorist organizations, can be
substituted for hatred of the US and free democratic nations.

Mexican organized narcotraffickers have clearly demonstrated

their credentials as worldwide instruments of terror through their
reign of assassinations, beheadings, and massacres of innocent
citizens. Their push deeper into Latin America, into lesser
enforcement efforts and resistance, represents clear and
intense danger to citizens and free government.

Regional and cross-border cooperation to eradicate

lawlessness where it flourishes must be a top priority of
governments. This will require strategic and methodical law
enforcement, intelligence services, military engagement,
political negotiations and policy, and possible economic
sanctions to force voluntary compliance against those that are
not part of the solution. Limited personnel, equipment,
expertise, and other financial resources will necessitate
prioritizing necessary results.

——————————
Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International
Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami,
Florida. His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.
jbrewer@cjiausa.org