Mexican military marches as citizens react to bombings
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Even by the extraordinarily brutal standards of recent months, Tuesday’s grenade attack on a crowd celebrating Independence Day in the provincial capital of Morelia was a shocker. As the L.A. Times’ Ken Ellingwood reports today, Mexican authorities are blaming narcotics-related organized crime for the blasts that killed at least seven people and injured more than 100.
‘The explosions, which officials believed were caused by fragmentation grenades, ripped through crowds in the capital of Michoacan state late Monday night during the traditional cry of independence, or grito,’ Ellingwood reports.
‘The violence jolted a Mexican population already unnerved by the rising death toll from the nation’s drug war, and raised fears that it might represent the start of a Colombia-style terrorism campaign by drug traffickers. No one claimed responsibility.’
The attacks were believed to have been a symbolic slap at Mexico’s president Felipe Calderon, a Michaocan native, who 21 months ago launched a major military-backed offensive against the country’s ruthless drug gangs. Since then, drug-related violence has soared to epidemic levels, adding to the usual problems of police corruption, kidnappings and general insecurity with which Mexicans are all too familiar.
Yesterday in Mexico City, the military put on a carefully choreographed display of force to mark the anniversary of the country’s war of independence from Spain in 1810-1820. But as the interviews in this video suggest, the celebratory mood in the nation’s capital was mixed with apprehension that the country is slipping out of control.
-- Reed Johnson in Los Angeles
