Civilians Falling Victim to Mexico Drug War
MEXICO CITY — During its nearly four-year crackdown on major drug trafficking organizations, the Mexican government has repeated the mantra that most of the nearly 30,000 people killed have some association with the illicit trade.
But in the span of a week, a devastating wave of attacks has killed dozens of civilians, rattled a public not easily shocked anymore and forced the government to concede that innocents are being swept up in the violence.
In the latest attacks, gunmen killed four people early Thursday and injured 14 when they fired on three buses carrying workers home from a late shift at a manufacturing plant near Ciudad Juárez. The authorities said the assault — on workers from one of the large so-called maquiladoras, or factories, on and near the border that have fueled an economic and population boom there — had no precedent.
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Here is a comment on this article from Molly Molloy:
Well, isn’t this nice? The NYTimes notices the killings of innocent
people. I used the term ‘civilians’ in a talk I gave to a bunch of
law enforcement people in New Mexico a few weeks ago and a member of
the audience was very disturbed by that. He asked, “Why do you call
those people civilians? Do you mean you think those people are
innocent?”
I said, “The great majority of them, yes.”
He said that calling them civilians was a very unfortunate choice of
words.
I disagreed. If the president of Mexico and the US secretary of state
and others in both governments continue to call this a WAR, then by
far, the overwhelming majority of people killed are civilians. But,
that has been obvious to people looking closely at this for years.
Glad someone finally told the NYTimes. molly