Mexican Violence Advances To Whole New Level

This is like a quantum leap in murderous ambition! The mystery, really, is why is this necessary? These are state-violence-level statistics: the kind of thing you see, maybe, in the Balkans, or the Congo. Perhaps that is part of what is going on: the Mexican state is being supplanted by a shadow narco-state. It doesn't make much sense on any level, but there it is:

DURANGO, Mexico — ...In less than a month, the upturned killing fields of this colonial city had given up 180 bodies by Tuesday, by official count, a horrific tally that's forced the local morgue to rent a Thermo King refrigerator truck.

And the ground keeps offering fresh bodies, making it seem likely that Durango's mass graves soon will eclipse what previously had been the largest set of unidentified corpses uncovered in Mexico: last month, in northeast Tamaulipas state, where 183 bodies piled up.

Never have such massive killing fields been found in such a short time in Mexico or anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, for that matter. The victims were lost to violence that only seems to intensify in a nation where prosecutors treat evidence shoddily and rarely bring mass murderers to justice. Most of the victims are likely to remain unidentified.

...Such mass killings have only a few parallels in this hemisphere. One would be Argentina's "dirty war," when thousands of leftists died or disappeared during the 1976-83 military rule. Another might be the El Mozote massacre in 1981 in El Salvador, when U.S.-trained troops killed hundreds of villagers.

...Officials suspect that some of the victims are foot soldiers from rival Sinaloa factions — Los M and Los Cabrera — that began fighting earlier this year. Others are thought to be kidnapping victims and other innocents.

...Experts on mass graves, such as those in Argentina or the former Yugoslav republics, where ethnic cleansing was rampant, say the work must be done with the precision of an archaeological excavation.

"Exhumation by backhoe is tantamount to tampering; evidence is likely to be irretrievably lost," said Gordon Housworth, who follows Mexico closely for Intellectual Capital Group, a consultancy in Franklin, Mich.

..."Add to that the tiny number of coroners, especially forensic coroners, lack of sustained site protection . . . limited DNA and genetic testing, high case backlogs and historic reticence of relatives to come forward, and the chances of proper due diligence are diminished," he said.

...The Durango governor's chief security aide, Juan Rafael Rosales, was equally uneasy talking about the subterranean criminal conflicts that have roiled the state, resistant even to utter the names of gangs or talk about the banners the groups occasionally hang from bridges or buildings, which disappear only hours later.

The head of the National Action Party in Durango, Juan Carlos Gutierrez, an opponent of the governor, said criminal groups composed a "parallel state" in Durango.

"They collect extortion — a kind of tax — and they have armed forces that seem almost like a clandestine army," Gutierrez said. "These are the characteristics of a state: have an army, collect taxes, maintain peace."

But the mass graves reveal that there is no peace, and that powerful criminal groups are doing the killing.

...The mass graves of Durango and Tamaulipas state, which abuts Texas, are quite different. Most of the bodies in the Tamaulipas graves appear to be of passengers on two interstate public buses pulled off by hooded members of Los Zetas, a brutal drug gang, who gave them a choice: Join the gang or face execution.

One surprising thing is that the Durango massacre occurred there at all. Until lately, it's been quite quiet there (translated by Google):

Durango used to be a very quiet, however the last few months the violence has grown, members of various criminal groups do their will in the capital and in towns.