Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Why did the Zetas, in two massacres, murder 268 people, the majority Central American, Mexican and South American migrants? The history of some of the Salvadorans who died in these bloodbaths in northern Mexico, the voice of one of El Salvador's coyote patriarchs and some documents all indicate that everything was part of a process of making the coyotes understand that they either had to pay or could not pass. Not them, nor their migrants. The rules have changed. The coyotes are no longer the roughest guys on the road.
The "coyote" -- a criminal that specializes in smuggling undocumented migrants -- returned much sooner than expected. Normally, he was gone more than 20 days, but this time only five or six days had passed since he had crossed the border between Guatemala and Mexico. This is why Fernando, the coyote's driver in El Salvador, thought it was strange when he received the call from his boss. It was August 2010, and the coyote ordered his driver to pick him up at the San Cristobal border crossing, on the Salvadoran side. He came alone, without any of the six migrants that he had brought. The coyote, Fernando noted when he told the story to the Attorney General's Office, came back seeming nervous, without explaining what had happened, giving half-hearted excuses. "A dog bit me," Fernando remembered the coyote saying. Some days later, Fernando would discover that the coyote was not bitten by a dog in Mexico. He was bitten by something much bigger.
Excellent article.