COMANDANTE LETY IN MILITARY DUDS: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

By Juan Montoya
A charismatic politician comes in on a wave of approval from an electorate which is tired of the widespread corruption and lawlessness.
He or she promises a firm hand and an end to the corrupt bureaucracy that is eating away at the life's blood of the people.
He or she places her trusted lieutenants in positions of influence and power. The ministry of this, the ministry of that is filled with her acolytes.
Slowly, a cult develops. Word soon spreads that if you want to be in the inner circle, his or her every whim must be obeyed. Small transgressions from the inner circle are overlooked. They (and the leader) can do no wrong. And if they do, the government apparatus will make it all right.
In an unstable economy, perilous security situation, and a chaotic societal setting, there is need for order, or at least a semblance of it.
Order, we must have order.
And so, if it isn't brownshirts, or SS, or a paramilitary force to secure the safety and well-being of the leader and her cadre, a similar force is invented and established.
And so, in Matamoros, we have seen the rise of such a leader in the person of Mayor Leticia Vasquez Salazar, elected on July 2013 by an overwhelming popular vote.
It didn't take long for her to raise the ire of the national government by her autocratic edicts.
Mexico's interior minister, Miguel Osorio Chong in November 2013 dismissed claims made by Salazar that criminal groups were terrorizing the city.
According to a news account which appeared in the online edition of Milenio news daily, Osorio Chong said that he regretted the Matamoros mayor's for a curfew, characterizing the call as unneeded.
Because of the federalization of internal security in Mexico, the only other official who can impose curfew is the president of the republic, but only after votes by the council of ministers and the Mexican national legislature.
But she soon followed with other, more draconian measures:
According to sources in our sister city, Comandante Vasquez was taped in a conversation where she tells her listeners that – as far as Matamoros goes – there is no holier power there after God than her. She further said that she would allow no one to take over the city aside from her.

Now, given the power of the cartels, the presence of the Mexican Marines, and the pervasive "Maña" that control most activity in that city, this claim may be nothing more than a bit of bravado on Herroner's part.

Herroner has done her best to remove the evil secular bent of Matamorenses with such edicts such as the destruction of Santa Muerte altars in the city, closing bars and taverns featuring table dances, and even prohibiting women from promoting alcoholic sales in convenience stores under the pretext that the practice promoted prostitution (?).
How these edicts are going to help the people in Matamoros make a living seems to have escaped Da mayor.
However, one of her ministers – Luis Biasi, the Secretaty of Social Development – was linked to a warehouse full of liquor and cigarettes allegedly smuggled into Matamoros without the benefit of paying tariffs to local customs. The merchandise was seized and the matter quickly taken care and he continued his social development work unhindered
 He is even sent to represent the city in neighboring Brownsville to push for the BiNationael Economic Development (BiNED) scam perpetrated by the likes of Carlos Marin, IBC's Fred Rusteberg and Imagina Matamoros Sergio Arguelles. (That's him with the white open shirt on the right. Rusteberg is the bald guy at top left.)
Then, in order to convey a message of security and safety in this violence-wracked city, Da mayor and her cadre decide to form a sort of Praetorian Guard unit to reassure the population that all is well. She forms the Grupo Táctico Operativo Hércules under the justification that it will "guarantee individual rights, the conservation of order (we must have order) and domestic tranquility."
She ( al a George W. Bush) even dons a paramilitary jumpsuit and strides into the spotlight to give legitimacy to the paramilitary group. Most observers say that the Grupo Hercules amounts to nothing more than a personal security guard for Salzar and her inner circle.
Is the mission to bring social order and domestic tranquility a "mission accomplished" in Matamoros then? Or is there a greater evil than the cartels and "La Maña" underway in our sister city?