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Borderland beat is doing a two part article about 12 myths in the war against the cartels that looks very interesting. Written by Joaquin Villalobos.

Lead story is about an uprising in Acension where people caught some of the criminals trying to kidnap a local woman and they got so angry they killed the criminals on the spot. That is definitely sending a message.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/

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PBS NEWSHOUR also did a 15 min. segment last Wednesday including an interview with the Mexican Ambassador to the US where he reiterated that the US needs to Stop the flow of Money and Guns into Mexico .

This was part of their story

McALLEN — The head of an association of border factory owners Thursday said the sector is in crisis mode as unrelenting drug violence in northern Mexico has spooked investors into curtailing operations at some plants and rethinking expansion at others.

“In February, there was a total loss of civil control in Reynosa and it's never been re-established,” said Dan McGrew, president of the Reynosa Association of Maquiladoras and Manufacturers. “We're in the worst of all worlds.”

McGrew spoke at a conference of the Border Trade Alliance that featured U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin as the keynote speaker.

It also was attended by U.S. Reps. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, and Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

While many at the meeting bemoaned that long wait times at border bridges continue to crimp cross-border trade, McGrew's comments brought home the devastating effect of fear and instability on the manufacturing sector's bottom line.

According to McGrew, 80 percent of his members reported reduced productivity, shift adjustments to protect workers and limited visits by customers and vendors.

He said 20 percent had put projects on indefinite hold or canceled them all together.

“Our people are under constant stress — low-grade stress — 100 percent of their day,” he said of the 120 companies that belong to his group. “We're not being targeted, but we are collateral damage.”

Maquilas, or foreign-owned factories, employ about 1.2 million workers in Mexico, and managers of those in the Reynosa area tend to settle into gated communities in McAllen and Mission, helping make the region one of the fastest growing in the United States.

But Reynosa, just across the border, has been one of the bloodiest fronts in a series of turf wars for smuggling routes to the U.S. marketplace.

Gunbattles and grenade attacks — at times in broad daylight and near schools — have occasionally paralyzed Reynosa and other cities, making tourist visits and nightlife a distant memory.

Video snippets of one hours-long battle between cartel soldiers and Mexican military now play out over the Internet. Reynosa's media have been muzzled by kidnappings and threats.

Things escalated again in June when Rodolfo Torre Cantu, a leading candidate for the governorship of the state of Tamaulipas, was assassinated, along with several aides, while on the campaign trail. Mexican President Felipe Calderón said the attack was orchestrated by drug operatives attempting to control the elections.

Sam Vale, president of the Starr-Camargo Bridge Co., said not even he crosses the border casually these days.

“If I want to go to La Fogata (restaurant) to eat, I've probably got to go with you,” he said in a question directed at FBI special agent Jorge Cisneros, a panelist on a discussion on business and security.

Vale said one industrial park lost $200 million worth of commitments.

“Do you really see any hope for us to be able to go back to some semblance of normality any time soon?” he asked Cisneros.

Cisneros had no soothing words.

“It's probably going to get worse before it gets any better,” he said.

Bersin, the commissioner, spoke of an agencywide “paradigm shift” aimed at bettering the balance between trade and security.

But even he said it could take Mexico 30 years to emerge from its gangland present, just is it took the United States time to shake off organized crime.

“It took us a generation to build a law enforcement at the federal, state, and local level that's the envy of the world,” he said. “We didn't always have that honesty.”



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In the news, Bay Area, CA...SF Chronicle

Mexican paper vows to keep reporting drug war

William Booth, Washington Post

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

(09-22) 04:00 PDT Mexico City -- Besieged journalists in Ciudad Juarez are vowing to continue covering the drug violence along the border, even after gunmen executed a second reporter from the city's newspaper last week.

The murder of the young photojournalist from El Diario de Juarez, shot in the parking lot of a busy mall on Thursday, was front-page news across Mexico. President Felipe Calderon's national security adviser denounced this week the continued killings, kidnappings and threats suffered by journalists, but offered no new information about the latest case.

The slaying of Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco, 21, comes two years after the lead crime reporter at El Diario was shot in his driveway as he was getting ready to drive his daughter to school. That crime has not been solved, and little work on the case has been done. A prosecutor assigned to the case was also fatally shot.

On Sunday, El Diario published a remarkable and bold front-page editorial addressed directly to the warring drug lords who are fighting for control of the city and its lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

"We don't want to see more dead," the editors wrote. "We don't want to see more wounded nor do we want to be intimidated. It is impossible for us to do our job under these conditions. Tell us, then, what you expect from us, as a newspaper?"

They added, "This is not a surrender. This is about a truce with those who have imposed the force of their law in this city, so that you will respect the lives of those who dedicate themselves to the job of informing the public."

The editorial led some news organizations to report incorrectly that El Diario was cutting back on its coverage of the drug war. The reporters and editors at the newspaper said this week that it was just the opposite.

Many news organizations in drug hot spots in Mexico have all but stopped reporting about the cartel violence.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/22/MNO21FH7CL.DTL

--------------------

9-20: Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 8:46 AMSubject: Today's blast from south of the border...

Drug violence: The bodies of six kidnapped police officers, most of them dismembered, were found Sunday in a ravine in the Mexican state of Guerrero, bringing to eight the death toll from a mass abduction of policemen, officials said. Mexico’s government says the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas gang are fighting for control of the region with La Familia Michoacana.

-------------------

Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 10:15 AM

Subject: Today's SFChron...

_ 7 Drug war: A gunbattle between Mexican soldiers and suspected drug cartel members left 22 dead at a ranch near Ciudad Mier, a northeastern town about 18 miles south of the border with Texas, the Defense Department said Thursday. All the dead were suspected gang members, the department said in a statement. One soldier was injured.

------------

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The flow of money and guns into Mexico must be stopped. The problem is, we spend most of our time trying to stop illegals from coming into the US than we do to stop shipments of contraband out. As for the Mexican law enforcement/military, they have their own problems on the border.

The biggest rub is that those involved from the Mexican and US side, which are dealing with law and order, have rules they have to follow. On the other hand, the cartels make their own rules up, and use fear tactics to gain their advantage.

I was talking to someone in law enforcement, who told me that the Mexican cartels have already made massive in-roads in controlling drug traffic throughout almost all of the 100 largest cities in the US.

Like I've said before, this is a war for North America, not just a war in Mexico. It's also going to spread throughout Mexico, the more the US and Canadian governments get involved in stopping the spread of the cartels.

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The flow of money and guns into Mexico must be stopped. The problem is, we spend most of our time trying to stop illegals from coming into the US than we do to stop shipments of contraband out. As for the Mexican law enforcement/military, they have their own problems on the border.

The biggest rub is that those involved from the Mexican and US side, which are dealing with law and order, have rules they have to follow. On the other hand, the cartels make their own rules up, and use fear tactics to gain their advantage.

I was talking to someone in law enforcement, who told me that the Mexican cartels have already made massive in-roads in controlling drug traffic throughout almost all of the 100 largest cities in the US.

Like I've said before, this is a war for North America, not just a war in Mexico. It's also going to spread throughout Mexico, the more the US and Canadian governments get involved in stopping the spread of the cartels.

There are gray areas. It's not black and white. Read below:

According to the Arizona Daily Star, Ed Ashurst's 53,000 acre ranch lies to the east of the ranch of Bob Krentz, who was killed on his ranch on March 27, 2010.

July 28th, 2010

By Ed Ashurst

Apache Arizona

I believe story telling to be an art form, certainly verbal record is the oldest form of recording history and recognized by historians worldwide. There is an old adage among those who love to tell a good tale, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." And yet there are times when the truth is even more fantastic than exaggeration. What I write here is the truth, plain and simple.

I reside on, and manage a large cattle ranch in the far southeastern corner of Arizona. I've been here for 13 years and in that time frame have become far too familiar with the illegal trafficking in human beings, marijuana and other illicit drugs. Some have called it "the wetback culture" or "America's border problem". Lately it's been taking steroids.

The recent murder of Robert Krentz by an illegal alien has received massive amounts of publicity worldwide. I live on the ranch bordering the Krentz ranch to the east and north. I can see the Krentz home looking out of my front door approximately 10 miles away. The day after Rob's death I was involved in tracking the outlaw into Mexico. I saw the outlaw's footprints where he crossed the border fence. I mention this to say I feel that I'm qualified to speak about current border issues.

My home has been broken into twice. My son's home has been broken into also and between us we have had between twenty and thirty thousand dollars worth of stuff stolen from us including two ranch pick-ups, a four wheeler, 9 firearms (including a loaded AK 47) cash, jewelry all of our credit cards, driver's license, etc. A guest house here on the ranch has been broken into so many times we quit counting... many times we haven't even called the Sheriff's dept. The Cochise County Sheriff's dept. has no less than fifteen reports on file where I've called for assistance dealing with an outlaw illegal alien.

Several months ago, not long after Rob Krentz's death, Fox news (channel 10 in Phoenix AZ) contacted me and expressed interest in coming down and doing a news story about me and the problems myself and other ranchers in this area have had in recent months with illegal outlaws. To prepare for my interview with Fox, I asked for assistance from six other neighboring ranchers and businessmen. All of these men are prominent men in the community, tax payers, business owners and individuals who have the best of reputations. Together we made a map of the area which covered from the southeastern corner of AZ going west about 20 miles to the silver creek area, and going north about 30 miles to the area around the towns of Portal, AZ and Rodeo, N.M. On this map we made marks recording violations to United States law committed by illegal aliens. We did not use government statistics

(we wouldn't know how to get them) but recorded incidents that we knew had happened first hand, many of which we had witnessed. We tried to record only the incidents that have happened in the last several years.

The sum total of what we recorded is this:

The arrest or capture of 40 illegal in one bunch - 40 (we didn't bother with the countless smaller groups)

Loads of Marijuana found and captured - 213

Dangerous encounters with illegal aliens - 132 (assault, burglaries, forced entries, etc.)

Dead illegal aliens found by civilians - 16

High speed vehicle chases between dope haulers and law enforcement - 14

Illegal aliens spotted with firearms - 12

Fires started by illegal aliens - 9

Over 1000, 000 acres burned with the cost to taxpayers of $ 40,000,000. One fire near Portal AZ in June of 2010 cost $10,000,000. to fight (forest Service estimate)

Outlandish incidents - 4

Example: One bachelor in the Portal area was burglarized around 100 times. He finally took all his valuables and put them in a steel vault and welded the door shut. He then moved out of his house into a shed hoping the illegal aliens would leave him alone. They did not and he finally abandoned his property. Another outlandish event was when outlaws stole a brand new Caterpillar motor grader on the Geronimo Trail east of Douglas, AZ and drove south through the border fence never to be seen again. The grader belonged to Cochise County Hwy Dept.

Financial losses to private sector - $100,000,000.00 (losses in real estate value, personal property, etc., losses in wildlife habitat - immeasurable)

Last but certainly not least, the murder of Rob Krentz, which is right in the center of our map.

Let me put this in perspective. The area I'm talking about is an area that covers approximately 17 or 18 townships with only 20 miles being adjacent to the US - Mexico Boundary. Within this area, there is a population of perhaps

600 people, 90% of which reside in Rodeo, N.M. or Portal, AZ, 30 miles or so north of Mexico. No less than 80% of the people in this area have been burglarized or otherwise molested by illegal aliens. This area is about half as big as the Diamond A ranch or Babbitt ranch in northern AZ, both of which I've been employed on.

I'm sorry to report that this, in my opinion, is the small part of the story. The Mexican-American border has taken a dramatic change for the worse in the last several years. Those of us who live here see it first hand. As early as February of 1999 Sheriff Larry Dever warned me and others at a town hall meeting at the Apache School that the Sinaloa Cartel was moving into the Douglas-Agua Prieta area (Rob Krentz was at this meeting). The cities of Nuevo Laredo, Coahila, Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua, and other border towns south of Texas have been controlled by outlaws for years. There is virtually no law enforcement in those places. The law is the law of the jungle. Until the last two years it seemed that Agua Prieta and Nogales were safer places but that has dramatically changed in recent months.

I am personally acquainted with 2 Mexican men, that I know to be honest and trustworthy, who have been involved first hand with Mexican outlaw terrorist acts. One witnessed first hand an execution of several people in broad daylight in Juarez. Several weeks later his daughter witnessed an assassination in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua no less than fifteen feet from where she stood. The other man is a legal Mexican green card holder (who was employed by the Krentz family for years) whose nephew was murdered by cartel members in Sonora. At night people in Douglas are hearing machine gun fire from Agua Prieta south of the border fence.

The Sinaloa Cartel is now putting a stranglehold on Agua Prieta. No more than 2 months ago 8 armed Mexicans were confronted by 2, U.S. Border Patrol agents north of the International Boundary in southeast Cochise County disguised as Federalizes. They were in fact cartel employees armed with assault rifles and automatic pistols. Mexican people that know tell me the situation in Agua Prieta has deteriorated dramatically in recent months. The good people are told to look the other way "or else." Volumes could be written about this subject alone, but I will move on.

You could ask, "So what does this have to do with us living north of the border fence?" Plenty! The situation on the border isn't just about a few workers walking north. It has everything to do with big business. Billions of dollars are being made trafficking humans, drugs, and contraband across the International Boundary. The Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Chapo Guzman and others, is reaping huge profits doing business along the border. The average coyote charges $1500 - $2500 to guide an illegal alien north to find work; usually abandoning them a short distance north of the line. A young man willing to pack dope north can make more than a construction worker or a teacher in the U.S. and only work a day or two a week.

This is not all south of the line. I could take you and show you businesses where checks and credit cards are not accepted and where very few customers walk through the door, yet the owners live in the largest mansions in town and drive very expensive cars. Could there be some money laundering going on? There are only two industries of any significance in Douglas, AZ: law enforcement (Douglas has one of the largest Border Patrol stations in America), and the illegal trafficking of drugs, people, etc. across the border. These two industries feed on each other, and the powers that be seem happy with the situation. Crooked politicians look good to the public when they clean up drunk driving and prostitution, until you find they own bars and whore houses south of the line. These things have happened!

But this, in my opinion, is only the beginning. Chapo Guzman who heads up the Sinaloa Cartel is a multibillionaire. This guy and others like him may be cruel and sinister people but they are also very smart businessmen. They are reaping profits off of the largest tax free unregulated business on the planet. They have so much cash they are befuddled what to do with it all. But they are going to figure it out.

There are rumors that Guzman is financing modern, state of the art feedlots and packing houses in Mexico with plans to overtake America as the Western hemisphere's leading beef producer. This is probably only a small part of his plans. Mexico is a nation rich in natural recourses. Petroleum is abundant and the corrupt Mexican government is in control of all of it. Pemex is the only gas station in town. Pemex, because of the incompetent Mexican government, is broke. Chapo Guzman is at war with the Mexican government and has dreams (not unrealistic) of controlling the entire nation. Think of all of Mexico's natural resources in the control of Chapo Guzman! He already has the most profitable business in the world - selling Marijuana to your next door neighbor. Think what he could do with a tax free unregulated strangle hold on a nation of poor people begging to work for practically nothing.

Do you think that Chapo Guzman and others like him haven't thought of all of this? Do you think that Guzman isn't laughing all the way to the bank as he watches the evening news and hears how the American Government proclaims that the situation on the border is under control? What is going on in northern Mexico is capitalism in its rawest form. They have an untaxed unregulated business making huge profits and they have no plans of closing up shop any time soon. We here in the U.S. are overtaxed, overregulated and being smothered by increasingly intrusive government that makes it hard to do business in a successful manner. You don't have to be rocket scientist to figure this one out.

This has nothing to do with being Republican or Democrat or Latino or White. It has everything to do with being right or wrong. I came from a long line of Democrats. My great uncle was a U.S. Senator for several decades. My grandfather was an attorney, and a Superior Court Judge. I have a 1939 copy of a Time Magazine with his picture when he ran as a Democrat for Congress. The only time in history the U.S deficit was paid off was by a Democrat - Andrew Jackson. John Kennedy announced nearly 50 years ago that America could put a man on the moon and in less than a decade we did it.

I am now a registered Republican, but I'm not a Democrat hater. But, how can the president of the "can do" nation of Andrew Jackson's and JFK's party say we can't seal the border? We conquered Adolph Hitler in World War II, but can't seal the border? We put a man on the moon but can't seal a leaking oil well in less than 90 days? While this is going on we tax and regulate American business with a vengeance that stifles the free market system that has made our country great. While Janet Napolitano announces the border is safer than ever, Chapo Guzman and others pack billions of American dollars south to invest in a tax free market with one of the largest cheap labor force on the planet at his disposal!

I challenge you to come to Douglas, AZ and drive east on the Geronimo Trail, or northeast on US Hwy 80 to places on the map like Chiracahua and Apache. Or go to Rodeo and Hatchita, NM. Go and search out the 5 biggest cattle ranches in the Apache, AZ area and ask them what they think. Go to Hidalgo County, N.M. and ask the ranchers and cowboys there what they are seeing and hearing. Ask the people who we do business with what they think of our opinions. I challenge you to ask the prominent people in this area, who work hard and pay taxes if they agree with Barack Obama or Ed Ashurst when it comes to what is really going on near the U.S.-Mexican border. Unlike Obama and others I don't have to be surrounded by sycophants to make a statement. I purposefully left out the names of those who helped me with my map and the data I collected when preparing for the Fox interview.

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And what does Fox News have to do with whether or not the AZ governor mis-spoke? I find that people who usally make these kinds of comments don't actually watch the source they are commenting on. They just form their opinions from highly biased sources that are miffed that this one network doesn't toe the party line.

You might find this interesting. I find it a bit disheartening, frankly as it shows a very broad distrust of what use to be sources we could count on for reasonably straight reporting:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_126.pdf

I'd rather have a news source that makes mistakes occasionally and usually corrects them as opposed to one that deliberately censors and slants information about a political candidate they also are openly advocating. That last part encompasses most of the "alphabets" in 2008 and is probably behind the results of the above.

These findings are consistent with polling from Pew and others which shows that a large majority of the population believes that most of what is called the "mainstream media" exhibits a one-sided political bias. You can probably figure out what side that bias is on by yourselves.

I apologize for digressing here but I am weary of folks of one particular political bent who constantly abuse this site by taking cheap shots on the one network that presents a different point of view from theirs.

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I don't think Ed Ashurt's first hand account of what he found happening in AZ has anything to do with FOX news or the Gov. of AZ. He was reporting on a tragic drug and immigration situation, which happens to exist.

This seems to be another tragic situation reported in the US news--anybody have more info? :

A mayor who took the job when every other official in his town quit out of fear of drug traffickers was reported slain Monday, the fifth Mexican mayor killed in six weeks. Authorities said Gustavo Sanchez, mayor of the town of Tancitaro in Michoacan state, had apparently been beaten to death with rocks.

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I don't think Ed Ashurt's first hand account of what he found happening in AZ has anything to do with FOX news or the Gov. of AZ. He was reporting on a tragic drug and immigration situation, which happens to exist.

This seems to be another tragic situation reported in the US news--anybody have more info? :

A mayor who took the job when every other official in his town quit out of fear of drug traffickers was reported slain Monday, the fifth Mexican mayor killed in six weeks. Authorities said Gustavo Sanchez, mayor of the town of Tancitaro in Michoacan state, had apparently been beaten to death with rocks.

Ed Ashurt's account had everything to do with FOX - and their pot stirring on Arizona Law- Why did he have a loaded AK47 in his house -now he's bemoaning the loss ----what's he shooting--- rabbits?? Nobody needs an AK 47 for protection or anything else- US need to put the Feinstein Ban back in place and stop the flow of these into Mexico.

Want unbiased, unsensationalized news- watch PBS Newshour-

As to the Mayor - read my post below - 10th mayor slain last week

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Not much of what was said in the article was 'first hand' reporting... mostly opinion and reports of what the Sinaloa cartel is thinking etc. The only first hand thing I recall there is he claiming he tracked his neighbors killers back to where they crossed into Mexico. I don't diagree with most of his opinions and conclusions but don't see this as a first hand report on much.

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Ed Ashurt's account had everything to do with FOX - and their pot stirring on Arizona Law- Why did he have a loaded AK47 in his house -now he's bemoaning the loss ----what's he shooting--- rabbits?? Nobody needs an AK 47 for protection or anything else- US need to put the Feinstein Ban back in place and stop the flow of these into Mexico.

Want unbiased, unsensationalized news- watch PBS Newshour-

As to the Mayor - read my post below - 10th mayor slain last week

I don't watch TV...I shot it years ago. But I do listen to PBS radio. I'm curious about your reply. AK47 notwithstanding (though anyone with a ranch would have guns), are you saying Ashurst's story is fabricated? Made up by FOX? Or the guy is flat out lying? If so, in which part? We know the dead neighbor is a fact, don't we? And I think that Ashurst lives where he says can be substantiated. The sheriff's dept would have records of reported break ins. Perhaps interviewing the other six neighbors would shed a different light, though I think they would collaborate on the fact that these particular border issues aren't about a few illegals crossing the border. I'm not so much interested in the fact that FOX is live tabloid as I am in this guy's story.

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A mayor who took the job when every other official in his town quit out of fear of drug traffickers was reported slain Monday, the fifth Mexican mayor killed in six weeks. Authorities said Gustavo Sanchez, mayor of the town of Tancitaro in Michoacan state, had apparently been beaten to death with rocks.

The bodies of Sánchez and one of his assistants were found on the road between San Lorenzo and Angahuan, Michoacán--in other words, on the road between Paracho and Uruapan that goes up to the volcano Paricutín. Yes, they were stoned to death.

I have dear friends in Tancítaro whom I have not seen in several years. The last time I spoke to one of them, she told me, "Don't come visit us now, Cristina. It's too dangerous here. We haven't even seen our friends Sra. Fulana and her daughters--they live two blocks away and we only go from home to work and back again. We no longer go out at night."

I also have a good friend who lives in San Lorenzo. Last Thursday I had lunch with her here in Morelia. Please God she is not too terrified by this latest event.

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And what does Fox News have to do with whether or not the AZ governor mis-spoke? I find that people who usally make these kinds of comments don't actually watch the source they are commenting on. They just form their opinions from highly biased sources that are miffed that this one network doesn't toe the party line.

You might find this interesting. I find it a bit disheartening, frankly as it shows a very broad distrust of what use to be sources we could count on for reasonably straight reporting:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_126.pdf

I'd rather have a news source that makes mistakes occasionally and usually corrects them as opposed to one that deliberately censors and slants information about a political candidate they also are openly advocating. That last part encompasses most of the "alphabets" in 2008 and is probably behind the results of the above.

These findings are consistent with polling from Pew and others which shows that a large majority of the population believes that most of what is called the "mainstream media" exhibits a one-sided political bias. You can probably figure out what side that bias is on by yourselves.

I apologize for digressing here but I am weary of folks of one particular political bent who constantly abuse this site by taking cheap shots on the one network that presents a different point of view from theirs.

And who is bias?

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The bodies of Sánchez and one of his assistants were found on the road between San Lorenzo and Angahuan, Michoacán--in other words, on the road between Paracho and Uruapan that goes up to the volcano Paricutín. Yes, they were stoned to death.

I have dear friends in Tancítaro whom I have not seen in several years. The last time I spoke to one of them, she told me, "Don't come visit us now, Cristina. It's too dangerous here. We haven't even seen our friends Sra. Fulana and her daughters--they live two blocks away and we only go from home to work and back again. We no longer go out at night."

I also have a good friend who lives in San Lorenzo. Last Thursday I had lunch with her here in Morelia. Please God she is not too terrified by this latest event.

Thanks for this update. I've been on that road, many, many years ago.

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