Merger with Mexico: the worst of both worlds.(Mexican government corruption)

In May 2005, Mexican federales gunned down three innocent university students in the border town of Reynosa. Immediately after the shooting, Mexican federal authorities painted the victims as drug-runners, a transparent ruse immediately discredited through the efforts of local journalists.

"Nearly a year later," reports the April 24 Houston Chronicle, "the case remains unresolved. None of the federal officers, nearly 1,000 of whom were assigned to the city in January 2005 to combat rising drug violence, has been arrested. And the students have not been exonerated."

Mexican federal authorities claimed that the victims were armed drug traffickers like those who had killed federal agents in earlier skirmishes. Hernan Aleman Serrato, an eyewitness who was a friend of one of the slain students, testifies that "several trucks of federal agents surrounded their pickup and unleashed a hail of gunfire, continuing even after the students identified themselves--an account backed up by other witnesses," continues the Chronicle. "A forensic team later leaked evidence to the media, showing no traces of gunpowder on the students' hands. The finding contradicted police reports that the students had ...