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Old 08-05-09, 05:20 PM   #1
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Post 5 bodies, 1 headless, found in Ciudad Juarez (AP)

MEXICO CITY – Five bodies, one of them headless, were found in a van in the border city of Ciudad Juarez on Wednesday, a day when a prominent U.S. senator blocked some aid to Mexico over alleged human rights violations by soldiers and police fighting violent drug cartels.

The killings, along with five more Tuesday and hundreds this year, highlight concerns raised by some U.S. officials that Mexico's military strategy to control drug cartels is failing.

Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for a regional prosecutor's office in Ciudad Juarez, said the five bodies were piled inside a red Jeep Patriot parked downtown early Wednesday. The severed head of one was wrapped in a black plastic bag.

Police said four other bodies were found in a truck in the city late Tuesday. Earlier that day in the nearby town of Llano Blanco, police chief Gerardo Silva, 40, was found dead in a pickup truck, shot five times.

Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, is one of Mexico's deadliest cities. More than 800 drug-related killings have been recorded this year, bloodshed that has gone unchecked by the February deployment of more than 5,000 soldiers.

Nationwide, President Felipe Calderon has more than 45,000 troops fighting cartels, and drug violence has killed more than 11,000 people since he took office in December 2006.

The latest deaths in Ciudad Juarez came ahead of President Barack Obama's scheduled weekend visit to Guadalajara, Mexico, where he is meeting with Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

One item likely to be discussed is that U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, has delayed the release of $100 million of a $1.4 billion, three-year package meant to help Mexico combat drug traffickers. Congress can withhold a portion of the money until the State Department confirms Mexico is not violating human rights while prosecuting the drug war.

"All Americans are sympathetic to the challenges faced by the Mexican government and all of us want them to be successful," Leahy said Wednesday. But he said Mexico's "military strategy alone is not a solution in the long term nor is it yet clear what it can achieve in the short term."

Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, said Mexico needs effective police forces and a justice system that works.

The Washington Post reported that the State Department had intended to send a report praising Mexico's progress on human rights to Congress this week but that Leahy blocked its release, citing reports of torture and forced disappearances.

Amnesty International director Susan Lee backed Leahy's position, saying the Mexican government has failed to make sufficient progress in the investigation and prosecution of human rights abuses by security forces.

"Giving money and equipment to the Mexican military without adequate controls on its use risks contributing to an escalation of human rights abuses," Lee said. "Assistance should be focused on preventing abuses, improving investigations and the delivery of justice."

Since 2006, more than 2,220 complaints of human rights abuses such as disappearances, killings and torture have been lodged against the Mexican military with the Mexican National Commission for Human Rights, according to Amnesty.






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