[NYTr] Mexican rebels claim oil pipeline attacks, Threaten more
 
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:17:21 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
AP via Yahoo - Sep 11, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070911/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_pipeline_explosions

Mexican rebels claim pipeline attacks

By MIGUEL HERNANDEZ
Associated Press Writer 

VERACRUZ, Mexico - A shadowy leftist guerrilla group took credit for a
string of explosions that ripped apart at least six Mexican oil and gas
pipelines Monday, rattling financial markets and causing hundreds of
millions of dollars in lost production.

The six explosions could be seen miles away, and set off fires that
sent flames and black smoke shooting high above the Gulf coast state of
Veracruz.

At least a dozen pipelines, most carrying natural gas, were affected,
said Jesus Reyes Heroles, the head of Mexico's oil monopoly Petroleos
Mexicanos, without providing specifics. The explosions occurred in
valve stations where different pipelines intersect.

He said there would be hundreds of millions of dollars in lost
production and about nine states and the capital, Mexico City, would be
affected.

"It is a big blow," he said. "You can't store natural gas or transport
it by truck."

The blasts caused brief jitters in international markets, with natural
gas futures up as much as 20.2 cents on news of the explosions,
although prices dropped in later trading. One oil pipeline was hit in
Monday's attack but Pemex said the damage wouldn't affect crude exports.

Some local factories were forced to shut after natural gas supplies
were cut. Residential supplies were not expected to be affected.

There were no immediate reports of injuries directly caused by the
explosions and fires, although Fernando Leon Yepez, a civil defense
official in Omealca, reported that two elderly women died of heart
attacks shortly after the explosions.

It was the second time in three months that the so-called People's
Revolutionary Army claimed responsibility for a pipeline attack as part
of what it has labeled its "prolonged people's war" against "the
anti-people government."

The group, known as the EPR, is a secretive, tiny rebel group that
staged several armed attacks on government and police installations in
southern Mexico in the 1990s. It was later weakened by internal
divisions, leaving it unclear which splinter group may have carried out
Monday's attacks.

At least one undetonated explosive device was later found beside a
pipeline in a swampy area about 500 yards away from a highway toll
booth just north of the port of Veracruz, said the Veracruz state civil
defense coordinator, Ismael Reyes.

That explosive device was accompanied by a note signed by the EPR,
according to a Veracruz state police official who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A federal police official, also requesting anonymity for the same
reason, described the note to The Associated Press, saying it contained
demands for the release of purported political prisoners in language
similar to rebel communiques made public after earlier blasts.

It was impossible to independently confirm the existence or contents of
the note. However, Veracruz Gov. Fidel Herrera told reporters "there
was a note, and the indication was that it could be these groups, there
are precedents." He did not clarify the contents of the message or
specify to which groups he was referring.

The EPR claimed responsibility for a July attack on a major gas
pipeline from Mexico City to Guadalajara in western Mexico that forced
at least a dozen major companies, including Honda Motor Co., Kellogg
Co. and The Hershey Co., to suspend or scale back operations.

That attack sent the Mexican government scrambling to increase security
at "strategic installations" across Mexico. It was not clear what
security measures were in place at the pipelines that exploded Monday.

The government did not immediately confirm the EPR's claim of
responsibility. Interior Secretary Francisco Ramirez said the federal
Attorney General's Office was trying to determine who was responsible.

"Pemex's fundamental installations are adequately protected by our
armed forces, and we will do our utmost to find those responsible,"
Ramirez said.

At least 21,000 people were evacuated as a precaution. Some of them
were later allowed to return home.

Flames could be seen up to six miles away, said Pedro Jimenez, a
resident who was packing his family into a truck to leave. "You could
see the fields of crops lit up."

President Felipe Calderon condemned the attacks in a statement from
India, where he was on a state visit.

"I want to say that my government severely condemns this and all other
acts of violence and those who promote it in our country and anywhere
in the world," he said. "There is no room for such criminal acts in a
democratic Mexico."

Mexico is a major oil producer and exporter, with oil and related taxes
accounting for over a third of the federal government's revenue. The
U.S. imported 12.7 million cubic feet of natural gas from Mexico in
2006, only about 0.3 percent of total imports that year.

                            ***

Reuters via Yahoo - Sep 11, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070911/wl_nm/mexico_pipelines_dc

Mexico pipeline bombers threaten new attacks

By Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell 

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A leftist rebel group claimed responsibility on
Tuesday for bomb attacks on Mexican oil and gas pipelines earlier this
week, and threatened more assaults against the state-owned oil company.

Blasts at six pipelines on Monday disrupted oil and gas supplies,
forced thousands from their homes and caused hundreds of millions of
dollars in damage to oil monopoly Pemex and other businesses. No one
was injured.

It was the second such attack in two months and the Popular
Revolutionary Army, or EPR, rebel group said it planned more. The group
accuses the government of secretly abducting two of its guerrilla
organizers.

"Our political-military activities will not be stopped until our two
abducted or disappeared companions are shown free and alive," the
rebels said in a statement sent to a Mexican newspaper. They promised
to avoid casualties.

The EPR shocked Mexico when it emerged over a decade ago with a series
of lethal attacks on army and police outposts but had been quiet for
years until it emerged again in July.

Huge billowing flames leaped into the sky after Monday's blasts and
more than 20,000 people were rushed from their homes to emergency
shelters as gas and oil spewed from the ruptured pipes.

The bombings halted 60 percent of Mexico's steel industry and affected
more than 2,5000 companies, causing daily losses of $100 million while
gas supplies are cut, business groups said. Supplies are unlikely to be
restored until next week.

The EPR's new strategy of bomb attacks on energy pipelines began in
July with a wave of bombings that cut natural gas supplies to thousands
of businesses. Monday's bombings were on an even larger scale.

Most of the fires were out by Tuesday and repair crews were due to
start work, but flames still poured from two natural gas pipelines
where there was still fuel to burn off, a Pemex spokesman in the
eastern state of Veracruz said.

RURAL GUERRILLAS

The EPR burst into public view in 1996 when about 70 masked and armed
men strode onto a stage at a rally in the poor southern state of
Guerrero. The rebels fired 17 shots in the air, one for each peasant
killed in an infamous police massacre there a year earlier.

At the time, the group claimed 500 members across Mexico. Within months
it launched a string of lethal ambushes on rural police and army bases,
culminating in two days of coordinated attacks in several states.
Dozens of police and soldiers were killed.

The group set off a bomb at a Sears department store in Oaxaca in
August and attacked a jail under construction in the southern state of
Chiapas in July.

Mexico has deployed soldiers and federal police to protect pipelines
but President Felipe Calderon has acknowledged it is almost impossible
to completely secure the vast network.

Mexico is a major exporter of crude to the United States but its six
refineries were operating as normal and exports of oil, gas and fuel
products were not affected, Pemex said.

German automaker Volkswagen suspended production at its plant in Puebla
state in central Mexico, due to a lack of natural gas following the
bombings.

The plant is Volkswagen's sole factory in North America and produces
the New Beetle.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer)

 
                                 *
=================================================================
.NY Transfer News Collective     *    A Service of Blythe Systems
.          Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us          .
.339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012      http://www.blythe.org
.  List Archives:      https://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
.  Subscribe:    https://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
=================================================================