THE BORDER REPORT

A Mexican Army general stirred a minor political ruckus in Sonora this week when he declared that the narco-traffickers working in the state are only successful because the government officials are working alongside them. No big surprise to Americans who usually presume all Mexican law enforcement to be corrupt – while ignoring corruption in this country, I should add – but in Mexico, such accusations carry tremendous political shockwaves, perceived at once alarming and damaging. "These are criminal gangs that have been working for years and they were only able to grow and fortify themselves because they count on the complicity of the authorities. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have been as successful in their activities as they've been," said Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito, commander of the Second Regional Military Zone in nearby Mexicali. He was speaking to the local Televisa affiliate. In typical politicking fashion, the different parties all gathered together long enough to go after their common enemy, the general. One PAN-ista Senator, Edmundo García Pavlovich, was outraged, and told El Imparcial newspaper that there's plenty of authority figures in the state who work against the narco-traffickers, and they deserve recognition for their efforts. Reynaldo "Diablo"  Millán, a perredista senator who spars with the Sonoran ruling party, the PRI, on a daily basis, challenged the Army general to present his evidences. "Tell him to present his evidence; he's an 'authority' too," he told the paper. Meanwhile, Gov. Eduardo Bours mocked the general in that politically brilliant way he has of minimizing damages. "I said that it's obvious that the criminal organizations can operate because corruption exists; I told them that last week. If they want, I'll tell them that every day," Bours said. I have to wonder at the Army general's motive here. Clearly, one politico is seeking revenge on another. But what's curious is it seems to be a fight between the state and federal governments. Considering that Bours backed Pres. Felipe Calderón during the disputed 2006 elections, somebody in the state government must have ticked off the Feds pretty good. -- Michel Marizco

THE BORDER REPORT

A home that was shot up in November 2005 may have been attacked by Caborca gunmen using a 50-caliber machine gun seized last week in a military raid in northern Mexico, police told El Imparcial newspaper.

A watchman for the house was killed in that incident and there's always been some confusion as to why the owner of the house was targeted. He is a shrimp farmer working on the Sea of Cortez.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Mexican Army personnel searching homes of the Sinaloa drug lords in Caborca, Sonora, this week, also searched the tomb of a dead drug lord, looking for weapons, I'm told.

Sadly, I cannot tell you whether they actually found weapons. But what I am told is that during the search, soldiers entered the tomb of Don Octavio Paez Quintero, the 62-year-old drug lord who once controlled the city of Caborca, and, vicariously, the routes leading up to the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation, the smuggling towns of Altar and Sasabe, and the Altar Valley southwest of Tucson.

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We had some technical difficulties this morning, but the issues have been resolved. Alright, I'm b-s-ing you, some little bastard hacked the site late last night but it's been repaired since then.

THE BORDER REPORT

On with the news this morning. El Imparcial is reporting that one of the 11 hitmen arrested last week in Mexico City was actually a former Sonoran state police officer working in Ciudad Obregón. Ignacio Armendáriz Gutiérrez, “El Pantera” or "El 20," was actually a hitman working for Los Numeros, the narco-cell that the Beltrán Leyva brothers put in place in Sonora. The cell, headed by Raul Enriquez Parra, dominated the narco-trafficking routes of Arizona and Sonora from 2002 to Enriquez's death in late 2005. Meanwhile, people here are speculating that the reason Alfredo Beltrán Leyva was taken down last week was because he had put a hit on Santiago Vasconcelos, long recognized as one of the Mexican government's top anti-drug officials. I'd hesitate to go along with that theory. Taking out a top Mexican government official appears to be a relatively easy thing to do in Mexico; yet, if you notice, there haven't been very many whacked. The last one of any significance that I can recall was Nemecio Lugo Felix. Lugo, who worked for the Mexican CIA, was murdered in Mexico City. His killing has never been resolved.

THE BORDER REPORT

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