Mexican Cartel calls for a truce during Pope's visit

Who knew the ruler of the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI, could broker a peace deal between rival Mexican drug cartel members, but that’s what the Knights Templar, a vicious so-called religious drug trafficking organization has called for during the Catholic leader’s visit to Mexico on March 23.

The Associated Press posted a photo they received from Mexico Municipal Police department that suggested a truce should be honored ahead of the archdiocese March visit.

"We just want to warn that we do not want more groups in the state of Guanajuato. Confrontations will be inevitable. You have been warned, New Generation, we want Guanajuato in Peace, so don't think about moving in and much less causing violence, precisely at this time when His Holiness Benedict XVI is coming,” the banner read. (Story here)

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Who knew the ruler of the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI, could broker a peace deal between rival Mexican drug cartel members, but that’s what the Knights Templar, a vicious so-called religious drug trafficking organization has called for during the Catholic leader’s visit to Mexico on March 23.

The Associated Press posted a photo they received from Mexico Municipal Police department that suggested a truce should be honored ahead of the archdiocese March visit.

"We just want to warn that we do not want more groups in the state of Guanajuato. Confrontations will be inevitable. You have been warned, New Generation, we want Guanajuato in Peace, so don't think about moving in and much less causing violence, precisely at this time when His Holiness Benedict XVI is coming,” the banner read. (Story here)

The carefully placed banners asking for a rival cartel truce were discovered by police on heavily –travelled Mexico City bridges. The narco banners were also found and removed in several locations throughout central Mexico.

“Police spokesman Gabriel Cordero said in an e-mail that the banners had been taken down and handed over to federal prosecutors. On Jan. 22, Leon Archbishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago called on drug cartels to observe a sort of truce during the Pope's visit,” according to the Associated Press.

"To those who do evil, if my words can reach them, I would tell them to realize that we are living times of grace and peace, and that they should help by allowing all these people to come to an event that is totally respectable and not to take advantage to do anything that could lead to an experience of mourning and death," Leon Archbishop Rabago said. "I trust that in their hearts, they are human in the end, there is enough sensitivity to respect people's lives."

The Knights Templar (it’s name came from medieval religious warriors) have self-described their religious beliefs in a training manual and reportedly have included a “code of conduct” for their members. One of the so-called rules prohibits cartel members to kill people for money or drugs. However, most experts agree that cartels follow no rules in the gruesome, dark world of narco violence.

Rabago asked the cartels to "collaborate at least to allow that all these people to attend a totally respectable act. Don't take advantage (of the situation) to do something that will take us to a place of sorrow and death."

Mexico’s law enforcement officials say they are ramping up security ahead of the Papal leader visit. The country’s leaders have also reassured the Vatican as well as Mexican residents that they will be able to honor Pope Benedict safely.

More than 50,000 deaths, many victims were women and children, can be attributed to the brutal drug cartel turf-war over the past five years.

For more stories; http://www.examiner.com/homeland-security-in-national/kimberly-dvorak

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