At least a quarter of a million Mexicans marched through the capital and other cities on Sunday to protest authorities' failure to control lawlessness in one of the world's most crime-ridden nations.
In the biggest demonstration in Mexico in more than 10 years, protesters dressed in white filled Mexico City's main Zocalo Square, which holds more than 100,000 people, and packed surrounding avenues.
PHOTO: EPA
Many carried banners urging the death penalty for kidnappers, rapists and murderers.
Even crime-hardened Mexicans have been shocked by a recent wave of kidnappings. In one case last month, two brothers were abducted, shot dead and their bodies dumped in a garbage bin even though their parents had paid a US$600,000 ransom.
The bells of the city's cathedral rang out to greet marchers who sang Mexico's nation anthem in the square.
In Tijuana, near the US border, 15,000 people marched through to protest crime, and smaller protests took place in other Mexican cities, local media said.
Mexico United Against Crime, one of the march organizers, said anywhere between 350,000 and two million people took part in the protest. Local media put attendance at more than 250,000.
From 1992 to 2002, Mexicans reported at least 15,000 kidnappings, second only to war-torn Colombia, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.
March organizers said most violent crime goes unreported, partly because of police corruption and a sense that nothing will be done.
"We are afraid. We can't go out onto the street and the police do absolutely nothing to protect us," said Yolanda Tellez, 62.
A group of businessmen hired New York's crime-busting former mayor Rudolph Giuliani last year for US$4.3 million to help clean up Mexico City and police say tough new "zero tolerance" measures in the capital are working.
But kidnapping and assaults are still common and federal police last week arrested a group of elite policemen in Mexico City who abducted businessmen using false arrest warrants.
The march has pitted President Vicente Fox against political rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the mayor of Mexico City, who protesters accuse of being too soft on violent crime.
Conservative Fox said last week he was waging "the mother of all battles against crime" and urged Mexico City's leftist administration to do more.
But protesters were unimpressed by both Fox and city hall.
"They have politicized the issue so much instead of doing something about crime," said Victor Manuel Rojas, riding a horse and carrying a flag with Mexico's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The event was billed as silent but protesters broke into chants of "Mexico, Mexico."
The murder of crusading journalist Francisco Ortiz Franco in Tijuana this week was a reminder that drug gangs flourish on the US-Mexican border despite a crackdown by Fox's government.
Police have also failed to make headway in solving the murders of more than 300 women in the last 10 years in the city of Ciudad Juarez, near the border with the US. Amnesty International has accused police in the city of gross negligence in failing to end the killings.
In Mexico City, marchers carried photographs of murder victims.
"She was my cousin," said protester Eduardo Torres, clutching a framed picture of a young girl in a party dress. "They kidnapped her and killed her two months ago."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia