Panamanian Troops stand guard aboard the seized North Korean vessel Chong Chon Gang as police cadets prepare to search the ship's cargo hold for additional weapons and military hardware. Carlos Jasso photo
Authorities in Panama discovered a cache of Cold War era weaponry after seizing and boarding a North Korean cargo vessel that was approaching the Panama Canal. Panamanian authorities became suspicious when the vessel approached the canal with its maritime transponder shut off and believed the vessel was carrying drugs.
The captain of the North Korean-flagged dry-bulk freighter Chong Chon Gang reportedly had a heart attack and attempted to kill himself as Panamanian soldiers boarded the vessel while the crew resisted arrest before the vessel was redirected to the Caribbean port of Colon. A search of one of the cargo holds turned up Soviet-era surface to air missiles and guidance system components buried among tons of sugar. The ship's crew and captain were detained by Panamanian troops on charges of violating national security and transporting undeclared weapons.
The freighter was returning from Cuba and the government of Raul Castro claimed that the weapons found were Cuban and being sent to North Korea for refurbishment, despite an international arms embargo against the secretive Marxist regime. A further search of the Chong Chon Gang's cargo hold has also turned up two MiG 21 fighter jets in addition to 15 engines- also concealed among two tons of sugar. Officials estimate there are a total of 27 container under the sugar in the Chong Chon Gang's cargo hold and are awaiting the arrival of a team of UN inspectors to further examine the ship next week.
Under current sanctions, all U.N. member states are prohibited from directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring arms, missiles or missile systems and the equipment and technology to make them to North Korea, with the exception of small arms and light weapons.
It also lets countries inspect cargo destined for North Korea if a state has credible information the cargo could violate Security Council resolutions.
The discovery aboard the freighter Chong Chon Gang was expected to trigger an investigation by the U.N. Security Council committee that monitors the sanctions against North Korea.
If Cuba wanted to send the weapons for repairs and have them returned, it would have needed to get a waiver from the Security Council committee monitoring the North Korea sanctions.
According to maritime blogger Convenient Flags, North Korean merchant ships appearing in Panamanian waters is relatively rare, with a grand total of five traversing the Panama Canal since 2010. The Chong Chon Gang passed through the Panama Canal on its way to Cuba earlier with a load of sheet metal- Panamanian authorities inspected the vessel then. The seized freighter's route and ports of call were similar to that of the 2012 voyage another North Korean vessel made in 2012- only the O Un Chong Nyon Ho's voyage didn't attract as much attention at the time.
Cuba had told Panamanian officials that the outbound cargo on board the Chong Chon Gang was a 'donation' of sugar to North Korea and both North Korea and Cuba have called for the ship's release. Former Colombian president Alviro Uribe also speculated that the arms on board could be destined for a third party if they were on their way to being refurbished by North Korea- Uribe says he believes Ecuador or one of the nations that was part of Hugo Chavez's Bolivar Axis was a likely destination.
[I maintain that the ship's final destination was actually Mike Bloomberg's New York, and the contraband sugar would've been smuggled in by hiding them among the MiG jets and surface to air missiles- NANESB!]
The two Americans, attached to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, were hospitalized with gunshot wounds and reported in stable condition. A Mexican naval captain traveling with them sustained minor injuries in the Friday attack.
No one disputes that Mexican police opened fire on the Americans' black armored Toyota with diplomatic license plates. The question is why.
The Americans were traveling on the road to Cuernavaca, a popular tourist resort south of Mexico City, when their vehicle was intercepted by a carload of gunmen who gave chase as the Americans attempted to escape, U.S. and Mexican officials said. Federal police in at least three patrol cars joined the chase and opened fire on the Americans until the Mexican military, summoned by the naval captain under fire, intervened.
The carload of gunmen and the federal police reportedly fled the scene at that point.
Pictures of the heavily damaged car showed the front passenger window splattered with bullet holes and most of the tires blown out. More than 30 spent casings reportedly littered the roadway where the crippled vehicle came to a stop.
The Reforma newspaper quoted an unnamed Mexican marine who was part of the rescue effort as saying the police and the first group of gunmen appeared to be working together.
"This was an aggression by the federal police," the marine said, according to the paper. "We don't know who they are working for."
In February of 2011, assailants from a local Zetas cell pursued two US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (ICE) in a clearly marked Suburban with US Diplomatic plates and opened fire on the vehicle after running it off the highway in San Luis Potosi. Agent Jamie Zapata was fatally shot by the gunmen and his partner Victor Avila was wounded.
The detained individuals, which reportedly include a former Mexican police officer, will face a September 5th court date where they will face charges of money laundering. The party was travelling in multiple vehicles bearing the logo of Mexico's Televisa network and claimed they were journalists. Televisa later confirmed that none of the detained individuals were working for their network.
While some speculate that the cash was ultimately destined for Colombia in a deal brokered between the cartels in Mexico and Colombia, the bogus journalists were caught just days before a high profile trial in the capital city of Managua where 24 people stand accused of trafficking Colombian drugs to Guatemala where they would ultimately be handed off to Mexican cartels.
NEW MEXICO- A Federal judge in Texas ruled that more than 400 racehorses seized in June during a coordinated series of raids on horse farms in Oklahoma and New Mexico can be put up for auction. Federal prosecutors allege that high ranking members of the Zetas invested proceeds from their drug trafficking into breeding and training racehorses.
Authorities seized 49 of the most valuable horses and claimed control of the remaining 414. Prosecutors said in court documents that four horses have died. Others have been injured due to overcrowding. Caring for the horses is also expensive.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks last week ruled proceeds would be held until the case is resolved. Five horses won't go up for sale.
In a number of instances, its not unusual for bidders of opaque origins to pay large sums of cash for prize racehorses at auction.
Just after he watched his quarter horse win almost $1 million at a prestigious race in Ruidoso two years ago, one of the main leaders of the brutal Los Zetas drug cartel boasted that he had fixed the race by bribing the people who held horses in the gates, according to a federal court document.
Another informant said the horse, Mr Piloto, was doped with drugs purchased in Juárez before his long-shot win at the 2010 All American Futurity, the affidavit said.
It's unclear whether the claims are true or just boasts by members of Mexico's macho cartel culture. Seven people were arrested on charges that Los Zetas laundered $20 million since 2009 in U.S. quarter-horse racing -- much of it in Ruidoso.
A federal grand jury sitting in Austin on May 30 indicted Miguel Treviño in connection with the alleged money laundering. Federal prosecutors describe Treviño, 38, as "co-leader" of the Nuevo Laredo-based Zetas, who are known for ruthlessly killing and dismembering scores of victims.
Also indicted was his brother, Oscar Omar Treviño Morales, known as "42," whom the indictment describes as also a member of Los Zetas' leadership. Both brothers are believed to be in Mexico.
Agents on Tuesday arrested a third brother, Jose Treviño Morales, 45, and his wife, Zulema Treviño, 38, in Oklahoma. They ran a company, Tremor Enterprises LLC, that is accused of helping launder drug money by buying, selling and racing quarter horses.
Federal agents searched property used by Jose and Zulema Treviño and Trevor Enterprises in Balch Springs, Texas, on Tuesday. The affidavit, in which claims about race fixing and horse doping are made, supports the warrant to search the property.
U.S. officials have offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Miguel Treviño.
The affidavit says he, his brother Oscar, and two confidential informants watched the 2010 All American Futurity on a computer -- presumably in Mexico, where the informants say they met Miguel Treviño.
After the win, which paid Tremor Enterprises $968,440, Miguel Treviño said "he and his associates paid approximately $10,000 to the gate keepers to hold back the horses competing against Mr Piloto," the affidavit quotes the two informants as saying.
Mr Piloto only won the 2010 All American Futurity by a nose over JLS Mr Bigtime, the 2-1 co-favorite.
Darrel Soileau, trainer of JLS Mr Bigtime, wouldn't comment Thursday on claims in the federal affidavit that the race had been fixed and that the winning horse had been doped
The running of the 2010 AQHA All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs is archived on YouTube- contrary to Treviño Morales' boasts, the video shows no significant delay in the other horses leaving the starting gate. In fact, Mr Piloto is seemingly at a disadvantage at first as the horse veers off towards the railing closest to the crowd before regaining lost ground. The race ended in a 3-way photo finish between Mr Piloto, JLS Mr Bigtime and Dominyun.
NEVADA- The days of mob-run casinos on the Las Vegas strip may be gone, but that's not to say organized crime is no longer interested in Sin City.
Mexican cartels attempting to move product in Clark County or use southern Nevada as a staging area to ship drugs elsewhere are anxious to get a foothold in Las Vegas, according to a recent report from the Las Vegas Sun.
The vast majority of drugs entering the region still come via long-established routes through Phoenix or Southern California and are overseen by middlemen. But with greater frequency, traffickers here are ordering drugs directly from cartels in Mexico, enforcement officers have found.
“There’s no denying that these cartels are slowly inching themselves into our community,” said Lt. Laz Chavez of Metro Police’s narcotics section
The deliveries from Mexico include cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine, typically transported by vehicle in hidden compartments.
Last year, task forces seized more than $66 million in drugs in Southern Nevada, more than double the amount seized in 2010, according to authorities.
Authorities suspect Mexican drug cartels are sending splinter groups — associates but not cartel leaders — to the Las Vegas area to, as Chavez puts it, “test the waters.”
They’re purchasing homes and own enough vehicles to operate in the region, all funded by money from the cartels, he said. Chavez said he thinks that as these associates attempt to set up shop, they’re keeping an eye on police activity — in other words, “how much they can get away with.”
There’s not one cartel running Southern Nevada, though. Authorities have come across drug traffickers with direct connection to the Sinaloa, La Familia and the Knights Templar cartels.
Besides the potentially lucrative drug market, cartels could also possibly use the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip to help launder proceeds from their drug trafficking. From a criminal's standpoint, part of the problem with money laundering and large scale black-market transactions is the largest denominated currency typically available is the US $100 bill or Mexican 1000 Peso bill (currently worth US$75 give or take). While some drug traffickers in Europe or South America have gravitated towards the €500 note, some organized crime groups in Canada have been known to transfer high-denomination casino chips between one another in order to launder money. Althugh one is usually limited to redeeming the chips at just the one establishment, some casinos issue chips worth as much as US$500 or $1000, making them easier to handle or transport than the cash equivalent.
MEXICO CITY: Mexican president Felipe Calderon took the unusual step of meeting with peace activists and victims of Mexico's drug violence in a televised meeting called 'Dialogue for Peace', but defended his hard-line strategy of using the military to crack down against the drug cartels.
[Poet-activist Javier] Sicilia demanded Calderon apologize for carnage that has left an estimated 40,000 dead, and demanded a change in the government's anti-crime strategy. But Calderon, flanked by Cabinet officials, repeated once more that it would be wrong to alter the basic thrust — a military-led campaign against the country's powerful cartels.
Calderon also said he would like to be remembered for other things he has done during his administration, such as building hospitals, fortifying education and legal institutions, and his environmental initiatives. But the conservative president admitted he will "probably be remembered for [the drug war], and probably with much injustice."
The meeting, at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City, was televised live and attended by other relatives of victims of drug-related violence.
May not be too often I get to say this, but Calderon is absolutely correct. The problem of corruption and emboldened narcocriminals killing with impunity simply does not go away if the president orders the troops to the barracks, and state and local police have often demonstrated that they are unwilling to take on the cartels- or even operate in concert with them.
TAMAULIPAS: Members of the Mexican military on patrol on the northwestern state last month discovered a pair of homemade 'tanks' reportedly belonging to Los Zetas.
The patrol came across the warehouse when they clashed with a group of armed men in the town of Ciudad Camargo, in the far northeastern state of Tamaulipas. Two of the gunmen were killed in a firefight, while two hid inside the warehouse.
"We found two home-made armored trucks in the warehouse, which belongs to the Gulf Cartel," the military source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The trucks were covered in steel plates one inch (2.5 centimeters) thick, strong enough to "resist the caliber of personal weapons the soldiers use," said the source.
The air-conditioned armored vehicles were equipped with portholes where snipers could open fire from and remain protected.
The home-made tanks are used in clashes with other drug cartels as well as to protect drug shipments.
In recent years, soldiers deployed in the northeastern Mexican border region have confiscated 109 home-made armored vehicles -- including one dubbed the "Popemobile" because it carried an armored cabin similar to that used to protect Pope Benedict XVI in foreign trips.
In May, police in the western state of Jalisco carrying out a sweep against the Los Zetas drug cartel discovered an armored vehicle large enough to carry 20 armed men and also equipped with weapons portholes.
The soldiers also found more than 20 big rigs in the warehouse that were apparently waiting to be up-armoured.
Over the last couple of years, the Mexican military has seized over 100 of these home made armoured vehicles- sometimes dubbed 'El Monstruo' by locals- designed to either attack rival gangs or protect high value shipments. The vehicles often cobbled together from dump trucks, garbage trucks or even heavy duty work trucks with inch-thick steel plating welded on. While the plating and strategically placed bulletproof glass make the vehicles nearly impervious to small-arms fire, they also are exceptionally slow and cumbersome, thus largely offsetting whatever advantage they'd provide in an assault with having to move it from point A to point B while maintaining the element of surprise.
ELSEWHERE IN TAMAULIPAS: The Houston Chronicle published a report earlier this month citing an unnamed cartel operative who claimed that Los Zetas had kidnapped passengers from buses running along Mexican National highway 101 through Tamaulipas and forced some of the abducted passengers into death matches with each other while raping and killing others.
In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiator like fights to groom fresh assassins.
Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, "Who is going to be the next hit man?"
"They cut guys to pieces," he said.
The victims are likely among the hundreds of people found in mass graves in recent months, he said.
Many are believed to have been dragged off buses traveling through Mexico, but little has been said about the circumstances of their deaths.
The trafficker said those who survive are taken captive and eventually given suicide missions, such as riding into a town controlled by rivals and shooting up the place.
The trafficker said he did not see the clashes, but his fellow criminals have boasted to him of their exploits.
Former and current federal law-enforcement officers in the U.S. said that while they knew Mexican bus passengers had been targeted for violence, they'd never before heard of forcing passengers into death matches.
But given the level of violence in Mexico — nearly 40,000 killed in gangland warfare over the past several years — they didn't find it tough to believe.
Borderland Beat, a blog specializing in drug cartels, reported an account in April of bus passengers brutalized by Zeta thugs and taunted into fighting.
"The stuff you would not think possible a few years ago is now commonplace," said Peter Hanna, a retired FBI agent who built his career focusing on Mexico's cartels. "It used to be you'd find dead bodies in drums with acid; now there are beheadings."
Even so, Hanna noted, killing people this way would be time-consuming and inefficient. "It would be more for amusement," he suggested. "I don't see it as intimidation or a successful way to recruit people."
While an outlandish anonymously-sourced story from an individual with a criminal background, the tale of forcing bus passengers into death matches would be consistent with autopsy findings that most of the 183 people pulled from the graves were killed by blunt force trauma, not gunshot wounds.
MICHOACAN: Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas- aka "El Chango" (the monkey)- was arrested by Mexican federal police at a checkpoint in the state of Aguascalientes without incident this week. Vargas, who was the de-facto head of the cult-like La Familia Michoacana cartel after military raids resulted in the killing or capture of top members back in December, started out as a hitman for the Gulf cartel, but cast his lot with the quasi-evangelical La Familia cartel when they asserted themselves along Mexico's western coast and in their namesake state in recent years.
La Familia was reportedly financially struggling to the point where they couldn't afford to pay hitmen, while Vargas was soliciting help and manpower from one-time rivals Los Zetas. After La Familia shot down a Mexican Army helicopter in May. Acting on documents obtained in the raid where the helicopter was downed, Police raided a meeting in nearby Jalisco. Information from one of the suspects arrested in that meeting led to the arrest of Vargas. While Vargas' capture may very well be the death knell for La Familia, other organizations including one made up of former La Familia members displaced after the December army raids continue to operate openly in the state.
The remnants of La Familia had been fighting with another faction that had broken off to form another cartel called the Knights Templar, which like La Familia, portrays themselves as Robin Hood-esque figures protecting the people of Michoacan from the invasive designs of the police, military or rival drug gangs.
CHIHUAHUA: A CBS investigative report has discovered that an AK47-variant rifle allowed to cross the Mexican border from the USA as part of the ATF's disastrous Operation Fast & Furious was involved in the abduction and slaying of Mario Gonzalez Rodgriguez- the brother of Chihuahua's then-state attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez. In a video filmed shortly before he was killed in 2010, Mario appears in handcuffs and flanked by masked gunmen while being forced to read a statement that his sister was working on behalf of La Linea cartel.
Police later arrested 8 members of the Sinaloa cartel, confiscated their weapons and found Gonzalez Rodriguez's body buried under a home under construction in Chihuahua.
ELSEWHERE IN CHIHUAHUA: The police chief for the embattled border city of Ciudad Juarez survived an assassination attempt on Thursday in downtown Juarez.
City officials said two men opened fire on Leyzaola and his motorcade while they patrolled La Chaveña neighborhood near downtown Juárez, an area known for crime.
Leyzaola's bodyguards returned fire and wounded one of the attackers, identified as Roberto López Valles, 24, officials said. The other attacker fled.
Authorities detained López Valles in connection with the ambush and seized a gun and a weapon's magazine at the scene.
A retired Mexican army officer, Police Chief Julian Leyzaola was sworn in as the city's police chief in March and vowed to crack down on organized crime operating in the city and purge corrupt officers from the Juarez police department.
TEXAS: Officers from the Texas Rangers and other law enforcement agencies were involved in a cross-border shootout outside the town of Abram, TX earlier this month.
The incident began about 6:30 a.m. Thursday, when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted a Dodge Durango near the lightly populated border town of Abram, Texas, said Steve McGraw, director of the Department of Public Safety Director. He joined officials from Border Patrol and Texas Fish and Wildlife for a news conference Friday in Weslaco, roughly 250 miles south of San Antonio and just north of the river separating Mexico and the U.S.
Agents who gave chase found the truck abandoned on the banks of the Rio Grande, and a group of people on the Mexican shore unloading bundles of marijuana from rubber rafts, according to the Department of Public Safety.
Border Patrol agents say Mexican smugglers often use small, high-quality rafts to float drugs into U.S. territory, where they load them onto waiting vehicles to be taken farther north. Of late, however, smugglers wait with the rafts in American territory in case the vehicles are spotted and have to flee back to the river. There, they quickly put the drugs back onto the rafts and head back to Mexico to keep U.S. authorities from seizing the load.
The group threw rocks and shot "at least six" rounds at American agents, who responded by flooding the area with gunfire, the Department of Public Safety said. A U.S. Border Patrol boat was the first to arrive on the scene, followed by boats from Texas Parks and Wildlife and one belonging to the Texas Rangers, it said.
Authorities said they are still looking into how many Americans fired shots and what agencies they were from.
Three suspects on the Mexican side of the river were believed injured or killed, although authorities in that country were still working to confirm that. Two U.S. game wardens were treated for cuts and abrasions after being struck with rocks.
A video shot from a Department of Public Safety helicopter shows a blue raft with bundles of marijuana packed in plastic and burlap. Smoke is seen pouring from a small structure nearby, although what caused the fire is unclear.
U.S. authorities seized the Durango but found no drugs in it. They contacted authorities in Mexico, who seized about 400 pounds of marijuana on that side of the river and destroyed a raft left behind. No arrests were made.
The Texas Department of Public Safety, whose Rangers were involved in the shootout, said such an overwhelming response was standard given the United States' zero tolerance policy when guns are pointed at its authorities. Department officials previously said the Americans were under "heavy fire," but they've since backed away from that.
Police found more than 1,700 rounds of military-grade ammunition, commonly used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, during a Monday evening traffic stop.
Investigators believe the load was headed to Mexico.
San Juan police stopped the driver of a Ford F-150 pickup near the intersection of “I” Road and Business 83 about 7:30 p.m. after an officer noticed the vehicle had a broken tail light, Sgt. Rolando Garcia said.
The driver, later identified in a federal court document as 34-year-old Miguel Angel Avendano-Reyna, drove into the parking lot of an H-E-B near the area before he and his passenger tried to flee on foot, police said. But two officers at the scene, including Garcia, were able to apprehend both of them after a short pursuit.
A search of the vehicle led to the discovery of 16 boxes and a black duffle bag under the truck’s back seat, Garcia said. Each container was filled with at least 100 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition.
The suspects had apparently picked up the load from an undisclosed residence in San Juan, and they had agreed to drop it off to an unidentified person in Hidalgo County for a payment of $250, officials said.
“This is something different for us. We usually get marijuana or other narcotics, but this type of seizure is big, especially with this type of ammunition,” Garcia said. The bullets were attached to a belt used for automatic weapons. “These have had confirmed kills in the military from as far as 3 miles away and it’s very destructive. It’s a very deadly round.”
The bullets are so powerful that they will go through bullet-proof vests and even armored vehicles and tanks, Garcia said.
San Juan police teamed up with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to continue investigating, Garcia said.
Avendano-Reyna and his passenger Jose Resendez-Olivares, 37, both are illegal immigrants who previously were deported a few months ago, according to federal court documents.
Avendano-Reyna, who admitted to authorities he knowingly possessed the rounds, was deported in September, while Resendez-Olivares, who claimed he helped load the boxes but didn’t know what was in them, was removed from the U.S. in November, documents show.
Mexican officials have long said the most of the guns used by the cartels are smuggled in from the United States.
But Gen. David Munguia warns that the gangs have expanded into Central America are also trying to buy weapons there.
Munguia said Tuesday "there is a real threat," just days after his army arrested two noncommissioned officers and four soldiers accused of trying to steal 1,812 grenades.
The soldiers were allegedly trying to sell the grenades to gang members and drug traffickers in neighboring Guatemala, where Mexico's Zetas cartel has been active.
Earlier this month, Salvadoran military intelligence agents arrested a junior officer who deserted in December 2010 and was attempting to sell three M-16 rifles as well as uniforms to a civilian through to be an intermediary for drug traffickers.
GUATEMALA: Guatemalan president Alvaro Colomdeclared a state of siege in the northern border province of Alta Verapaz, claiming that Los Zetas were infiltrating the porous border region along the Mexican frontier. The declaration gives Guatemala's military sweeping powers and is generally used in the event of a conspiracy against the government or terrorist plot.
In response to the declaration, Los Zetas reportedly coerced radio stations in northern Guatemala to broadcast their threat to declare war on civilians unless Guatemalan authorities stopped tracking the organization.
Los Zetas was thought to have established a presence in Guatemala as early as 2006 and have been known to recruit from the ranks of Guatemala's Kaibiles- special operations soldiers in Guatemala's military specializing in jungle warfare and counterinsurgency operations.
It is unknown at this time if Los Zetas are attempting to set up shop in Guatemala as a means of escaping the pressure Mexican authorities and other cartels have been putting on them or if they are simply attempting to expand their operations.
To kick off the New Year's, La FamiliaMichoacan had reportedly offered a 30-day 'truce' with Mexican law enforcement and military in a one-page missive distributed by e-mail and door-to-door in some towns. The authenticity or origin of the offer could not immediately be verified, but a number of recent arrests and deaths of La Familia leaders is likely what prompted the offer, according to Michoacan state prosecutors.
Observers say that La Familia likely wouldn't be making the offer for a truce if they weren't still trying to reconstitute itself from the death or capture of senior cartel members in clashes with Mexican police and soldiers last month that culminated in fleeing gunmen blockading roads into the state capital of Michoacan with burning vehicles.
BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE: The military commander for Baja California's 2nd Military Zone announced the arrest of Jesus Israel de la Cruz Lopez, aka 'eltomate', who was the leader of a powerful criminal cell affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel. De la Cruz reportedly led a campaign of murder and intimidation of municipal police in Tijuana and elsewhere in Baja California starting in 2007.
Observers and scholars on this side of the border note that de la Cruz never really rose through the hierarchy of the Sinaloa cartel as much as he was afforded more autonomy and decision-making by the organization through necessity after the fragmentation of their leadership in recent years.
