Back in September, it was confirmed by Mexican Attorney General Marisel Morales that at least 200 Mexican citizens have been killed as a result of the Obama Justice Department's Operation Fast and Furious. Last week, Mexican Ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukan said the lethal operation, of which the Mexican government was left in the dark about, has caused a major loss of trust in the U.S. from the Mexican people.
"Mexico was never apprised how the operation would be designed and implemented," Sarukhan told officials at a forum hosted by the New Democrat Network, or NDN, a center-left think tank and advocacy organization, and the New Policy Institute, one of its sister organizations.
"Regardless of whether this was or was not the intent or the design of Fast and Furious," Sarukhan said, "the thinking that you can let guns walk across the border and maintain operational control of those weapons is really an outstanding lack of understanding of how these criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders."
He added that the ill-conceived operation had "poisoned the wellsprings" of public opinion in Mexico, putting strains on the strides that had been achieved between the United States and Mexico in combating illegal gun trafficking.
Now, families of "Rapido y Furioso" in Mexico are preparing a civil lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the lawyer representing them is risking everything, including her life, to represent them. The following is a translated portion of this Spanish article.
A Mexican lawyer is preparing a civil lawsuit against the Agency Snuff, Firearms and Explosives (ATF, for its acronym in English) United States, representing relatives of victims of the operation 'Fast and Furious', with which the U.S. government illegally brought weapons into the country to trace and catch the criminals that were acquired.
This is Eugenia Gonzalez Diana Saldana, who has two master's degrees in Criminal Science and Criminology from the University Autonomous of Nuevo Leon, and who, in coordination with an office in Houston, Texas, intends to take legal action against U.S. dependence for the damage caused by the operation, whose failure has already been publicly acknowledged by the government of Barack Obama.
This would, she says, the first lawsuit brought by Mexico against the promoters of the failed plan to trace weapons smuggled into Mexico, most of which ended up, of course, at the hands of organized crime.
In an interview, the lawyer who litigates in particular, specifies that the Texan firm that shall assist asked to collect 50 cases to present solid way of a civil complaint in the neighboring country to the north.
Currently, she says, has documented four cases, including that of Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez, brother of the exprocuradora the state of Chihuahua, Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez, who was kidnapped and killed by one of the two thousand weapons smuggled into the country as part of the operation "Fast and Furious".
With this lawsuit, which claims not charged to those affected, she risks her integrity, but feels the need to do citizen, said the criminal.
"I'm playing the single. I'm risking my life, my things, my family, everything, but it's something that someone has to do because nobody has had the pants to do so. I can not believe anyone has come up with this idea, but what happens is that everyone is afraid, for angas or sleeves, "says Gonzalez.
H/T David Codrea
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