SUSPICIOUS PROTESTS: DID DRUG CARTELS CLOSE BRIDGES?

We join officials in Juarez who are suspicious about the motives for
blockage of three international ports of entry Tuesday.

For about four hours, commerce did not flow, and border commerce is
our economy, that along with the money generated here by Fort Bliss.

Early word on Tuesday was that concerned Juarez citizens were
protesting alleged mistreatment by Mexican soldiers sent to fight drug
cartels.

Such concerns had not been made public before. Why
now?

One answer could be that the protests were instigated by the drug
cartels, themselves, as a way to discredit the Mexican Army. Juarez
officials, along with several witnesses, charge that people were paid
to protest.

They were loaded on buses and taken to the bridges where they blocked
traffic flow much of the work day.

Meanwhile, the governor of Nuevo Leon says a drug cartel was behind
anti-army protests in his area last week. Gov. Natividad Gonzalez
Paras blamed the Gulf cartel Zetas for instigating protests in Nuevo
Leon, Tamaulipas and Veracruz.

If it's true drug cartels can shut down commerce, that's another
horror in the ongoing drug, kidnapping, theft and extortion violence
that saw more than 5,000 persons killed in Mexico in 2008, some 1,600
of them in Juarez. So far this year, there have been more than 200
killings in Juarez.

And just after Tuesday's bridge protest, four Juarez police officers
were assassinated, including high-ranking police director Sacramento
Perez Serrano. He had been recruited from the interior of Mexico to
help reorganize the Juarez police force. Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes
Ferriz has fired hundreds of Juarez police officers in recent months,
linking them to corruption and crime.

Then on Wednesday, signs began to appear in Juarez warning that more
police officers would be killed unless the police chief resigns.

Shutting down our bridges doesn't look to have been a protest against
the Mexican army. It looks to be another scary step by drug cartels to
convince people that they control government in Mexico.