Golf star Lorena Ochoa swings strong in face of Mexico drug war (The Christian Science Monitor)

Mexico City – Nearly a year after retiring as the most celebrated golfer in Mexican history, Lorena Ochoa teed off Wednesday in her first Mayakoba Golf Classic, her star power lending a needed boost to sports events in violence-wracked Mexico.

Hailing from a country where golfers, especially women, were invisible next to soccer icons, the four-time LPGA Player of the Year became the first Mexican golfer to rank No. 1 in the world – and she kept that ranking for three consecutive years while also winning over Mexican fans with her unassuming manner and charity work.

Her tireless promotion of golf in Mexico now has an added advantage: Ms. Ochoa’s participation in Mexico’s only PGA Tour event “provides us with a very powerful tool to show the sense of safety that we have in Cancún,” says Jesús Almaguer, CEO of Cancún’s Tourism Promotion Trust, a corporate ally of the Mayakoba Golf Classic held in nearby Playa del Carmen, near Cancún.

IN PICTURES: Mexico's drug war

The sense of safety that Mr. Almagueris mentions does not exist everywhere. Earlier this month, the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LGPA) dropped April’s Tres María Championship in drug-plagued Morelia, Michoacán, citing the violence there. Shortly thereafter the United States issued a travel alert for Guadalajara, the city hosting LGPA’s Lorena Ochoa Invitational in November. Organizers reportedly said they are monitoring the situation but did not cancel the event.

This year Mexico will host more high-profile international games than it has seen in two decades, experts in the field say, even as drug-related violence spreads to major cities where the events will take place. Ochoa’s presence this week was seen by some as a promotion of these tournaments just as they come under scrutiny about security concerns related to the violent drug war.

Security scrutinized ahead of Pan Am GamesIn October, more than 40 countries from across the Americas will send some 6,500 athletes to Mexico’s second city, Guadalajara, for the Pan American Games. Security has become a hot topic after criminal groups blocked major streets by forcefully commandeering buses and trucks and setting them on fire in early February and later lobbed a grenade at a night club, killing six people.

In reaction, the US Consulate General in Guadalajara prohibited US officials from traveling after dark between the city and its international airport and recommended that US citizens consider similar precautions.

Organizers of the Pan Am Games, which take place every four years, are taking extensive security precautions, securing the athletes’ village with electrified barriers and video cameras. Federal police will patrol the city, which is reportedly requesting that civil protection personnel participate from other countries.

Sports stars fight bad press from drug warAnd just like Ochoa at Mayakoba, celebrities will do their part to promote the Pan Am Games and calm fears, says Hector Lopez Zatarain, a sports marketing consultant working for the Pan Am Games.

Guadalajara’s own Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez of Manchester United and Formula 1 champion Sergio Perez are on the list to campaign for the event. Ochoa, another Guadalajara native, will publicize her upcoming golf tournament, according to Mr. Lopez Zatarain. “They will help to promote the city as a safe city, as a nice place to visit,” he says.

The FIFA Under 17 World Cup will also hold games in Guadalajara, playing in June and July in seven Mexican cities, including troubled Morelia and Monterrey.

Killings during tennis' Mexico Open fuel concernsAll the preparation in the world, however, may do little to calm organizers’ jitters, which were on full display this week at the Mexican Open in Acapulco, the largest tournament in Latin America. The men’s Association of Tennis Professionals, or ATP, warned against traveling outside hotels and players were advised to leave the resort city right after being eliminated, The Associated Press reported.

"We [players] are a bit scared about this and we're trying to decide what to do," said Argentine athlete David Nalbandian.

This past weekend 12 taxi drivers and passengers were gunned down in Acapulco, local media said, just before the tournament opened Monday. Last month 15 headless bodies were scattered outside a mall.

Acapulco spring break reservations have since plummeted to 1,000, down from 9,000 last year, the Mexican daily El Universal reported, saying that other violent beach towns in Sinaloa and Sonora have taken major hits this year.

Calmer resorts like Cancún have not yet witnessed a drop in tourism, says Almaguer, the tourism promoter. And many hope that Ochoa's noted swing at the pro-am portion of the Mayakoba Golf Classic from Feb. 23-27 will help keep tourism strong.

"What she's done for golf in Mexico could never be repeated," golfing great Greg Norman said Tuesday before the tournament began. "She's been a great ambassador for the game of golf. She's represented her country as well as I've seen anybody represent their country."

Tournament Director Larson Segerdahl agreed. "Not only does she represent the very best in the game of golf but she represents the very best of Mexico," he said in a statement.

IN PICTURES: Mexico's drug war

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Mexico: Drug-War Tensions Rise with U.S. Agent's Killing (Time.com)

The dreaded phone call came in at the U.S. embassy during a baking-hot Mexico City afternoon on Feb. 15. Special agent Victor Avila reported that he and his partner were under attack after a dozen gunmen surrounded them on a central Mexican highway; both agents had taken hits, and Avila was watching scores of other shells bounce off their armor-plated Suburban. It was this cry for help that saved Avila's life. American officials contacted their drug-war allies in the Mexican federal police, who swept the area, making the gunmen flee, and airlifted the agents to a hospital. Avila survived after two bullets were removed from his legs. But his colleague Jaime Zapata died from his wounds and is due to be buried with honors Wednesday in his native Brownsville, Texas - both Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano are expected to attend the funeral.

President Obama personally called Zapata's family to offer his condolences, which underscored the grim milestone. Zapata's killing marks the first murder of an American agent in the line of duty in Mexico's drug war, which has raged relentlessly since President Felipe CalderÓn took office in December 2006 and declared an unprecedented attack on cartels. As such, it adds extra pressure to the already strained U.S.-Mexico drug-war alliance. (See pictures of Mexico's drug tunnels.)

Publicly, the CalderÓn and Obama administrations have continued to paint a rosy picture of the U.S. and Mexico marching side by side to defeat the common adversary of drug cartels. But as revealed in WikiLeaks cables and offhand comments by officials on both sides of the border, tensions are growing. U.S. officials complain that they cannot completely rely on Mexico's institutions - and this concern is exacerbated when their lives are on the line. For their part, Mexicans protest that they suffer from failed American policies on drugs and guns. The Obama Administration's recent refusal to fast-track new reporting requirements for assault-weapon sales along the Mexican border only added to their frustration.

The Mexican complaint that they have unfairly borne the brunt of the war is shown in cruel numbers. In the four years of conflict, gangsters have killed more than 2,000 officers of Mexico's security forces, including members of its military, federal and local police. As tragic as it is, the single death of an American agent pales in comparison. Politicians of various stripes have commented that Mexico supplies the dead while the U.S. supplies the dollars. And it is not even that much money. Obama's proposed drug-war aid in the 2012 budget was lower than expected at $334 million - compared with Mexico's own federal security budget of some $14 billion per year. Meanwhile, American drug users provide the cartels with an estimated $30 billion in revenues. (See pictures of a Mexican drug gang's "holy war.")

However, such disparities offer little comfort to agents on the ground such as Avila and Zapata, who worked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under Mexican law, they are not allowed to carry guns - meanwhile, cartel hit squads have an endless supply of automatic rifles (usually bought in American stores). Their (supposed to be) best defense is that if gangsters attack Americans, they will bear the brunt of U.S. efforts to hunt them down. Napolitano raised the flag for a massive response within hours of Zapata's murder. "Let me be clear: any act of violence against our ICE personnel," she said, "is an attack against all those who serve our nation and put their lives at risk for our safety."

The tough talk masks the fear that Mexican drug gangs, who have radicalized amid the conflict to use car bombs and directly attack civilians, no longer respect the wrath of Uncle Sam. The gunmen shot Zapata and Avila despite the fact that their car had diplomatic plates. Furthermore, according to details of the incident described by officials, they warned the attackers they were American agents, to which an attacker replied in Spanish, "I don't give a f___." (See pictures of Culiac[a {a}]n, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.)

The identities and motives of the attackers remain unclear. The agents had met colleagues in the state of San Luis PotosÍ to drop off communications equipment before they came under attack on the drive home to Mexico City. It is still uncertain exactly what they were investigating. ICE uses undercover work, paid informants and other techniques to sting all kinds of cross-border menaces, from human smugglers to sex tourists, as well as working together with - and sometimes stepping on the toes of - the Drug Enforcement Administration. Any such probes could anger Mexico's cartels, which now run a portfolio of crimes. Gangsters could also just have been trying to carjack the Suburban truck for their operations - an increasingly common occurrence on Mexican roads. Officials have mentioned the Zetas gang as suspects, since they are strong in the area, although they have said it is too early to be sure.

If the agents were deliberately targeted, the inevitable suspicion is that someone passed information of their movements to the cartels. In recent years, dozens of Mexican officials have been arrested for leaking data to gangsters. "There could be many ways of tracking the agents, including bugging their phones. But the suspicion of traitors is bound to be there," says David Shirk of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute. A distrust of Mexican security institutions was also highlighted by WikiLeaks. In one cable dating from December 2009, U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual complained the army had deliberately failed to move on American information about a wanted trafficker. In another cable, John Feeley, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. embassy in Mexico City, wrote a scathing assessment of the Mexican armed forces, saying they were "incapable of processing information and evidence." (Comment on this story.)

But perhaps the biggest pressure on the drug-war alliance is its failure to stop violence. After four years of record-breaking busts and the shooting or arrests of a dozen kingpins, the bloodshed has sunk to new depths. The same week as the murder of Zapata saw a single massacre of 18 victims and a grenade attack on shoppers. Between Feb. 17 and Feb. 19 alone, there were a stunning 51 murders in the border city of Ciudad JuÁrez, the worst rate in recent memory. In total there have been more than 35,000 killings in Mexico's drug war, including gangsters, security forces and civilians. But now that an American law-enforcement agent has become one of the casualties, Washington may re-examine the rationale of a war that many observers believe is only further inflamed by the attacks on the cartels.

See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.

Watch TIME's video "Seeking a Safe Place in Drug-Embattled Ju[a {a}]rez."

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Mexico police unearth human fragments in Tijuana (AP)

TIJUANA, Mexico – Prosecutors have unearthed what appear to be fat, skin and bones at properties in the border city of Tijuana once used by a man known as the "stew-maker," who confessed to dissolving the bodies of drug cartel victims.

Authorities have confirmed the finds but say it is unclear if the fragmentary remains are human. The remains have been sent to Mexico City for testing.

But anti-crime activist Fernando Ocegueda says there is reason to believe the remains belong to victims of cartel body-handler Santiago Meza Lopez.

Meza Lopez was arrested in 2009 and confessed to dissolving at least 300 bodies in caustic soda.

A similar caustic substance is used to prepare hominy for the Mexican stew known as pozole.

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Mexico gunmen kill U.S. customs agent, wound another (Reuters)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead a U.S. customs and immigration agent and wounded another on Tuesday in Mexico, where violence between powerful drug cartels and security forces has surged.

The two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were driving north on Mexico's main highway on official business when they were attacked in broad daylight.

It was not immediately clear why they were targeted.

The U.S. government condemned the attack, which came just over two weeks after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Mexico's drug cartels not to take their violent tactics across the border.

"Any act of violence against our ICE personnel ... is an attack against all those who serve our nation and put their lives at risk for our safety," Napolitano said in a statement after the agents were shot.

They were shot in the mid-afternoon south of the city of San Luis Potosi, which is roughly half way between Mexico City and Monterrey, the country's business capital where drug-related violence has soared over the past year.

The two agents may have been ambushed after stopping at what appeared to be a military checkpoint, said a Mexican official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the case.

Mexican drug cartels have been known to set up official-looking checkpoints, and the official said security forces had no checkpoints in the area.

Television footage showed a blue sports utility vehicle with several large bullet holes lying in the median of the highway, which was guarded by heavily armed Mexican federal police.

The U.S. agents were rushed to a hospital where one died of his injuries. The second agent, who was shot in the arm and the leg, remains hospitalized, ICE said.

More than 15,000 people were killed in drug violence in Mexico last year but, despite growing domestic criticism of President Felipe Calderon's army-led strategy, the government has vowed to press on with its campaign to crush the cartels.

The violence has alarmed Washington, which worries that the fighting could spill over the border. It has also prompted some companies to reconsider plans to invest in Mexico.

The United States has provided funds and training to help Mexico in its fight against the cartels and intelligence from U.S. law enforcement sources is credited with helping Mexico kill and capture several cartel leaders in recent years.

FIRST ICE DEATHS

Attacks on Mexican police by drug gangs are common but U.S. government employees are rarely targeted despite Washington's strong support of Calderon.

San Luis Potosi is home to a federal police academy and has not experienced many drug war killings, but gangs have been moving in to use it as a base for trafficking operations to the north.

Monterrey, Guadalajara and other Mexican cities once far from the front lines of the drug war have seen a recent spike in killings.

ICE said the two men were the first of its agents shot in the line of duty in Mexico.

If there is any evidence that drug gangs targeted the two agents, it would mark an escalation in the conflict.

"What we would hope is that there would be an incredibly strong response from the U.S. government ... Otherwise we could have a situation where it's open season on U.S. federal agents at the border," said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.

Enrique Camarena, an undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered while on assignment in Mexico in 1985.

More recently, two U.S. citizens and a Mexican linked to staff at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez were killed in March last year, prompting the State Department to tighten security at its diplomatic missions in northern Mexico.

(Additional reporting by Krista Hughes, Adriana Barrera and Armando Tovar in Mexico City; Robin Emmott in Monterrey; Tim Gaynor in Phoenix and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)

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Gunmen kill US agent, wound another, in Mexico (AP)

MEXICO CITY – The killing of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and wounding of another in Mexico highlights the risk for American officials helping fight Mexico's bloody drug war under increasing cooperation between the two countries.

Special Agent Jaime Zapata, on assignment to the ICE Attache in Mexico City from his post in Laredo, Texas, died Tuesday when gunmen attacked the agents' blue Suburban vehicle as they drove through the northern state of San Luis Potosi.

The second agent, who wasn't identified, was shot in the arm and leg and was in stable condition, according to statements from the Department of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the fatal attack on American law enforcement, the highest-profile since the 1985 torture and killing of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, won't change the U.S. commitment to supporting Mexico in its crackdown on organized crime.

"Let me be clear: any act of violence against our ICE personnel — or any DHS personnel — is an attack against all those who serve our nation and put their lives at risk for our safety," Napolitano said in a statement. "We remain committed in our broader support for Mexico's efforts to combat violence within its borders."

U.S. and Mexican officials said they were working closely together to investigate the shooting and find those responsible.

The two agents were driving a four-lane, federal highway between Mexico City and the northern city of Monterrey when they were stopped at what may have appeared to be a military checkpoint, according to one Mexican official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. Mexican military officers said they had no checkpoints in the area.

After they stopped, someone opened fire on them, the official said.

San Luis Potosi police said gunmen killed one person and wounded another on Highway 57 near the town of Santa Maria Del Rio at about 2:30 p.m., though they couldn't confirm they were the ICE agents. Police said a checkpoint was unlikely on such high-speed stretch of highway and that the bullet-riddled Suburban was found off to one side.

"This worries us very much because this type of incident doesn't happen very often in San Luis Potosi," said a police spokesman, who was not authorized to give his name because the investigation is being carried out by federal police.

While San Luis Potosi has seen sporadic incidents of drug violence, it borders two states where cartels are waging a bloody fight for territory.

Mexico is fighting heavily armed and powerful drug cartels that supply the U.S. market. Since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on organized crime shortly after taking office in December 2006, almost 35,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence.

The U.S. has increased equipment and training support for Mexico in recent years through its $1.4 billion Merida Initiative.

Former director Julie Myers said ICE agents in Mexico investigate drugs, money laundering, and smuggling of weapons and other contraband. As of January last year, 26 ICE special agents also had trained over 4,000 new Mexican police recruits, according to the embassy.

Zapata, who joined ICE in 2006, served on the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit as well as the Border Enforcement Security Task Force. He also served as a member of the U.S. Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona. The agency didn't provide his age but said he was a native of Brownsville, Texas, who graduated from the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2005.

Though Mexico is seeing record rates of violence, it is rare for U.S. officials to be attacked. The U.S. government, however, has become increasingly concerned about the safety of its employees in Mexico.

In March, an U.S. employee of the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez, her husband and a Mexican tied to the consulate were killed when drug gang members fired on their cars as they left a children's party in the city across from El Paso, Texas.

The U.S. State Department has taken several measures over the past year to protect consulate employees and their families. It has at times authorized the departure of relatives of U.S. government employees in northern Mexican cities.

In July, it temporarily closed the consulate in Ciudad Juarez after receiving unspecified threats. Earlier this month, the consulate in Guadalajara prohibited U.S. government officials from traveling after dark on the road to the airport because of cartel-related attacks in Mexico's second-largest city.

___

Associated Press writers Alexandra Olson in Mexico City, Mark Walsh in Monterrey, Mexico, Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz, California, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, and Alicia A. Caldwell and Suzanne Gamboa in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.

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Mexico to boycott French festival over Cassez spat (AP)

MEXICO CITY – The Mexican government said Monday it will not participate in France's yearlong festival celebrating Mexican culture because of a feud over a French woman convicted of kidnapping.

The Foreign Relations Department said it is shocked that French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the festival should be used to draw attention to case of Florence Cassez.

"It is really surprising that a head of state would make a foreign policy decision that affects ties between two nations and governments in consultation with a person condemned by Mexican justice for a particularly serious crime," the statement said.

Tensions over the five-year-old case reignited last week when an appeals court upheld Cassez's conviction and 60-year prison sentence. Her lawyer and the French government say the case has been plagued with abuses, but the Mexican government insists her guilt has been proven.

Mexico "will not allow its artists and creators, or its businessmen and other participants in this program, to be exposed" to the furor over the Cassez case, the Foreign Relations Department said in a statement.

"Regrettably the government of Mexico will not be able to participate in the activities" of the festival, it added.

It was unclear how the Mexican government's refusal to participate would affect the "Year of Mexico" celebrations, which France launched last week. It features about 350 concerts, exhibits and other events throughout 2011.

Last week, French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said she would snub the festival because of the Cassez case, but the French government has said it will not be canceled.

Cassez, who was arrested in late 2005, has acknowledged she lived at a ranch where the kidnap victims were held. But she said she was simply dating a Mexican arrested in the case and did not know the people there had been kidnapped.

Cassez's imprisonment became a hotly debated issue in France after Mexican police acknowledged they staged a televised raid of the ranch in which officers appeared to rescue the hostages and detain Cassez and a Mexican man. The Attorney General's Office acknowledged that, in fact, Cassez had been arrested the day before outside the ranch.

One of the victims identified Cassez's voice as that of one of her captors, and another suspect in the case said the Frenchwoman not only participated in abductions, but helped lead the gang that carried them out.

Her lawyer, Agustin Acosta, said the victims changed their testimony several times during the trial. He said that at first, three victims said they could not identify Cassez. But after the staging of the raid was discovered — two months after authorities first announced her arrest — two of the victims told police they could identify her, Acosta said.

In 2009, President Felipe Calderon rejected a request from Sarkozy that Cassez serve her sentence in France.

The Foreign Relations Department reiterated that stance Monday and insisted "the trial of Florence Cassez has demonstrated her guilt."

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