Rule of law takes a holiday in Mexican resort area

Washington Post:

Andr?s Sauzo collects newspapers, astoundingly grisly newspapers.

There's the one with the close-up shot of a severed human head. There's the one with the wide-angle of a man hacked to death with a machete.

But the worst in his bulky archive of drug-war gore rolled off the presses the day after someone found pieces of what used to be Sauzo's 24-year-old namesake. A hit man had decapitated Sauzo's son, then chopped off his arms and legs. The killer was so unconcerned about being brought to justice that he scrawled his own name and nickname -- "El Barby" -- on a note left with the mutilated corpse.

Still, Sauzo's mother, Cristina Gomez, didn't bother to go to the police. "Why waste my time?" she said in an interview. "This is the way it is in a town without laws."

Gomez's reaction and the audacity of Sauzo's murder -- one of 11 decapitations in the state of Guerrero this year and one of 2,000 killings in a nationwide war between rival drug cartels -- are symptomatic of the unraveling of the rule of law that has plagued Mexico for years.

But in the past year, the number of spectacularly gruesome killings and the intensity of civil unrest have spiked to such alarming levels that even Mexicans who were once hardened by years of violence are shocked.

In flash points across the country, criminals, political groups and the frustrated poor have challenged the authority of institutions, intimidating local officials and spreading fear with little or no worry of legal consequences.

The bulk of the violence is the result of a barbaric, five-year war between Mexican drug cartels -- which are now approaching the strength and size of the notorious Colombian cartels of the 1980s. Drug killings have nearly doubled in the past year; in a single incident this month, six police officers were fatally shot in the troubled state of Michoacan.

But other factors are also contributing to the unrest, including clashes between the rapidly growing class of "micro-dealers," the lower-level street dealers who control neighborhood distribution and feed Mexico's growing ranks of drug consumers.

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There is much more. It sounds like the narco thugs of Mexico could give al Qaeda a run for its money. They also seem to be adopting the same MO. It appears that the wait for justice in Mexico will be a long one as it slips into a drugs induced quagmire.

Mexico has always been a fairly corrupt society where money instead of lawyers was needed to get government approvals. As corrupt as that system was, the fall of the PRI has left a vacuum that has been filled by a more violent form of corruption and the government appears unable to deal with it.

It makes it even more important to pay attention to the border area and make sure the thugs do not get a sanctuary in this country. Already with the crackdown on meth in this country most of the production has now shifted to Mexico. Perhaps they are imitating the Taliban as well as al Qaeda.