Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999
Subject: The Drug War’s Killing Fields Are Exposed
DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 138 December 1, 1999
The Drug War’s Killing Fields Are Exposed
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 138 December 1, 1999
The Drug War’s Killing Fields Are Exposed
The drug war’s promotion of murderous violence was highlighted again
this week with the discovery of what appear to be mass human graves.
The grisly find took place just a few miles south of the U.S. border
in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Media reports indicate anywhere between
100-200 people, both Mexicans and Americans, could be buried at the
site. Those buried are believed to be the victims of a powerful
Mexican drug cartel.
Investigators who have found the grave expect to find bodies of many
people who have simply vanished from the area in the past few years.
Some of the disappeared were part of the drug trade, some were
apparently informants cooperating with anti-narcotics agents, while
others were just innocent bystanders who may have seen something the
cartel didn’t want them to see. Reports indicate that corrupt Mexican
police officers may have assisted with the killings.
This story is being covered widely in the media (to read several
accounts, search MAP’s drug news archive for the words “Ciudad Juarez”
without the quotes). The general government spin, articulated by
former DEA head Thomas Constantine and others, is that U.S. anti-drug
forces need to get tougher on Mexican drug lords. This shortsighted
view completely ignores the fact that it is the drug war that has
given drug cartels their astonishing power and wealth. The drug war is
also an incentive to use horrifying acts of violence in order to
protect that power and wealth.
While this story is quite disturbing on its own, a journalist
interviewed on ABC’s Nightline last night said that this discovery
only represents “the tip of the iceberg.” He said other towns along
the U.S.-Mexico are caught up in the same sort of violence, and that
the boldness of the violence, often taking place in broad daylight, is
becoming more shocking each day. Please write a letter to the
Washington Post, any other major U.S. newspapers, or your own local
newspaper, to remind readers that the drug war is the cause of this
nightmare, not the solution.
Thanks for your effort and support.
WRITE A LETTER TODAY
It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do
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CONTACT INFO
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Contact: Feedback:
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Note: for best results write your letter off line so you can spell check
etc. then paste it into the LTE window at the address above.
EXTRA CREDIT –
Send a copy of your letter to other major newspapers in the US. Please
don’t use the CC or the BCC function; send each as a separate message.
Source: The New York Times
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Source: USA Today
Contact: editor@usatoday.com
Source: Chicago Tribune
Contact: ctc-TribLetter@Tribune.com
Source: Wall Street Journal
Contact: letter.editor@edit.wsj.com
EXTRA EXTRA CREDIT
Send a copy of your letter to your own local newspaper or any other
newspaper around the country. This is a huge story that will be
covered almost everywhere.
Find the Email addresses for your local papers at http://www.mapinc.org/resource/email.htm
Search for other articles on this or any other drug related topic that
interests you at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/
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URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1296.a09.html
Pubdate: Wed, 01 Dec 1999
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 1999 The Washington Post Company
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Paul Duggan and David A. Vise, Washington Post Staff Writers
Note: Duggan reported from El Paso; Vise from Washington. Staff writer
Lorraine Adams in Washington and correspondent Molly Moore in Juarez
contributed to this report.
POSSIBLE REMAINS FOUND NEAR JUAREZ
Mexican and U.S. authorities searching for scores of bodies that may
be buried on the outskirts Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, said yesterday they
found what could be human remains at one of four desolate sites where
the investigation is focused.
A U.S. official familiar with the search, meanwhile, said an
unspecified number of informants for U.S. law-enforcement agencies may
be among the more than 100 suspected victims of drug-related violence
who have disappeared from this border region in recent years and may
be among those possibly buried at the sites.
The El Paso-Juarez area has long been described by authorities as a
multibillion-dollar conduit for Colombian cocaine flowing into the
United States, a corridor run by a cartel reputedly headed by a
Mexican drug lord, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, before his death in 1997.
According to an association of families of “disappeared persons” here,
at least 196 people, including some Americans, have vanished in the
region since the early 1990s, many of them informants and low-level
associates of the cartel.
To read the rest of this story, see: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1296.a09.html
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SAMPLE LETTER (sent)
The discovery of mass graves in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico is a terrible
reminder of how far some people are willing to go to maintain control
over an incredibly profitable black market. The increased willingness
of gangsters to use murder as a business tool was an unintended
consequence of alcohol prohibition, just like the violence of today’s
illegal drug market is an unintended consequence of the drug war.
Sadly, it seems the violence employed by Al Capone and his cohorts was
a mere shadow of the tactics used by those who run modern drug markets.
In coming days, many politicians and commentators will be calling for
a tough response to the grisly scene being uncovered in Ciudad Juarez.
I hope citizens won’t be fooled by such a call for more of the same.
The only way to stop such violence is to stop the drug war. Responding
with even more violence will push the drug cartels to greater depths.
Historians examining the end of alcohol prohibition sometimes look at
the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago as a turning point in
public opinion about the value of prohibition. That display of
ruthless violence in 1929 left eight people dead. In Ciudad Juarez,
the numbers could be ten or twenty times higher. How many more bodies
will it take for us to stand up again as a nation and say no to
prohibition?
Stephen Young
IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number
Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
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ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
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3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm
Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm
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Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist