Another day, another massacre in Mexico. There is something predictable and yet still shocking when you discover that, oh no not again, the CIA and US government lie at the origins of Mexico's violent drug war. Of course, we know that the consumers of the drugs and the suppliers of the weaponry used in the drug war are American. But what is not so widely known is that the ultra-violent Zeta and Gulf cartels have their origins in a CIA counter-insurgency 'training programme'. As explained by Borderland Beat:
The group was formed from a group of soldiers who deserted the Special Forces Airmobile Group (GAFE), Amphibious Group Special Forces (GANFE) and the Parachute Rifle Brigade (BFP) of the Mexican Army, founded in 1994 in response to the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and one traditional group of elite soldiers who were trained by the CIA of the United States, commandos of the Israeli Sayeret Matkal and the French GIGN.
They received specialized training that included handling of sophisticated weapons and counterinsurgency work. According to the Attorney General's Office (PGR), at least 40 former members of the Gafes have joined the ranks of the Zetas.
Further more Los Zetas have in their ranks an undetermined number of former special forces from Guatemala (also trained by the CIA, facing charges of genocide in that country).
A piece by Luis
Hernández Navarro explains how the Zetas were a group of drug traffickers who until 2010 worked for the powerful
Gulf cartel.
It was formed by military men from the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE), an elite corps of the Mexican army, trained by the CIA. It is in conflict with the Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán and El Mayo Zambada over drug-trafficking routes and markets in Mexico and smuggling to the US
The massacre of 49 people in Cadereyta is part of the struggle between cartels for the strategic city of Monterrey, the economic powerhouse of northern Mexico and home to a dynasty of powerful and usually conservative businessmen. The city gives shelter to the drug barons and provides them with logistical support and income from extortion. They have become prominent members of the community.
The drug cartels conquered Monterrey and turned it into their sanctuary. Many of the bosses live in the richest residential areas of the city. Their sons attend the best private universities and move among the local elites. Casinos, spas and brothels flourish under their auspices.The links between the CIA and drug trafficking are long established and continue into the era of 9/11 and the war on terror. As the Independent reported:
Evidence points to aircraft – familiarly known as "torture taxis" – used by the CIA to move captives seized in its kidnapping or "extraordinary rendition" operations through Gatwick and other airports in the EU being simultaneously used for drug distribution in the Western hemisphere. A Gulfstream II jet aircraft N9875A identified by the British Government and the European Parliament as being involved in this traffic crashed in Mexico in September 2008 while en route from Colombia to the US with a load of more than three tons of cocaine.Behind the 'war on drugs', a policy launched by Richard Nixon in 1969, is a nexus of drug-terror-CIA links going back to the Vietnam war and the Contra war in Nicaragua. But this truth is carefully obscured. Poor Mexico is now on the frontline. As the late Mexican dictator Porfirio Dia reportedly once said: "Poor Mexico, so far from God, so near the United States."
In 2004, another torture taxi crashed in a field in Nicaragua with a ton of cocaine aboard. It had been identified by Britain and the European Parliament's temporary committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners as a frequent visitor in 2004 and 2005 to British, Cypriot, Czech, German, Greek, Hungarian, Spanish and other European cities with its cargo of captives for secret imprisonment and torture in Iraq, Jordan and Azerbaijan.
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