Under Attack From Drug Thugs, The Mayor of Reynosa Moves To McAllen...

By Patrick Alcatraz

Editor

McALLEN, TX - The mayor of strife-torn Reynosa, Mexico has taken refuge in this South Texas town. Reeling from months of drug-war lawlessness that has engulfed his Mexican bordertown, Oscar Luebbert Gutierrez decided the time had come to move his wife and children across the border.

Luebbert recently explained that he sees nothing wrong in making the move, noting that he still spends most of his days in Reynosa and commutes via a helicopter to and from the Reynosa Municipal Palace. Lubbert Gutierrez, a member of the opposition PRI political party, has a home only blocks from the Reynosa City Hall. And he insists that he sleeps there from time to time. But most of his sundowns and overnights are spent some 12 miles north in McAllen, where, he added, his wife owns a home.

At present, he is overseeing a community tired of wanton gunfighting between members of the Mexican Army and those of the Zetas and Gulf Cartels. In steady however-muffled growling, citizens of the once-popular Mexican tourist town have taken to branding their government - local, state and federal - as being cowardly, unwilling to take-on and defeat the drug pushers and thugs that presently rule the streets and neighborhoods.

Luebbert Gutierrez (shown in photo) blames the government of President Felipe Calderon, a member of the PAN Party. The bloody warring that has consumed proud Reynosa has not abated. Almost daily, reports surface of gun battles as vicious as any between fearless armies of opposing nations. Grenades fly through the air like water balloons, is how one shoeshine boy put it the other day.

For Luebbert Gutierrez, the solution is elusive. He has no firepower to speak of. His city's police department is outgunned and outmaneuvered by the criminal element to the point of comedy.

"The Zetas are trying to gain territory," said a Reynosa resident familair with the mess. "They have taken to winning the hearts of the citizenry by giving money away. We hear that they will stop at a traffic light and, if you honk your car's horn, they will step out and menace you. If you wait calmly, they will leave their vehicles and walk over to hand you 500 pesos (about $50)."

The Gulf Cartel seems just as benevolent. Their vehicles are emblazoned with the letters CDG (Cartel Del Golfo) and are quite visible throughout Reynosa. About this, Luebbert Gutierrez could say nothing, resigned to merely shake his head. Asked about the voiced characterization by the citizenry that Reynosa is a ghost town after sundown, the moving mayor said he had heard such a thing, explaining that everyone recognizes that it is dangerous in his city these days.

And, he made it a point to add that the very governor of Tamaulipas also owns an expensive home in one of the more exclusive subdivisions of the City of Palms...

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