Mexico in Focus

When did Mexico screw up? Part 3 /

It all depends on the eyes of the beholder.

And for sure, in President Felipe Calderon’s eyes, the country is not in such bad shape.

On Wednesday, Calderon will submit his fourth State of the Union report and on Thursday he will deliver a message to the nation.

If you have had the opportunity to see the multiple interviews that he has offered to the media or if you have seen the commercial that he has done to promote his government’s achievements, you probably have the idea that Mexico has a lot of problems, but it is not in dire straits.

If you haven’t seen them, here is a summary (in italics) of some of Calderon’s messages in those ads:

–After facing the worse economic crisis last year, Mexico’s economy is in the process of recovery. In a period of six months this year, the government created half a million jobs. 

What the commercial doesn’t address is that the unemployment rate in Mexico is still very high (5.7%) and just in July; 2.6 million people lost their jobs. The commercial also doesn’t discuss the existence of seven million young people who are called “ni-nis,” a Spanish nickname for those who don’t study, don’t work (ni estudia, ni trabaja) because there are not enough job opportunities for them. Many of those young people have become potential recruiters of organized crime.

–As never before, the government is weakening the strength and structure of organized crime through historical seizures of drugs, money and weapons. Besides that, Mexico has a professional well-equipped and trained federal police force.

It is true that the government is trying to create a reliable police force, but we are still very, very far away from having it. The majority of people in Mexico still mistrust police forces.

–Violence has spiked up because the cartels have been affected by the government’s war on drugs.

Really?  Is that the explanation for the recent assassination of two mayors and a candidate for governor in the state of Tamaulipas, the execution of 72 migrants and the increasing violence in Monterrey, Cuernavaca, Veracruz, Acapulco, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Torreón and many other cities and states in Mexico? 

–The construction of infrastructure –especially highways and roads–has opened opportunities for education and health to rural and indigenous communities, reducing levels of poverty.

There are no numbers to measure how the new infrastructure is impacting levels of health and education. A highway does not necessarily open the doors of a university of high school. 

One must recognize that during these televised and radio interviews, Calderon has tried to be honest when saying that the violence is not going to stop soon. He is predicting that we’ll have more violence before we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

He is asking citizens, political parties and civil organizations to have hope and to work together to fight the common enemy. But in political terms, his presidency is almost finished. He still have two remaining years, but in reality, he has just one more  before the elections begin. His presidency is winding down, and he only has one more year to change the fate of the country and to convince us that the country is not screwed up yet.

 

Shame On Us

Seventy-two immigrants (58 men, 14 women) executed by members of organized crime. Seventy-two dreams broken, 72 families destroyed.

How can Mexico defend the rights of its own migrant citizens after this shameful episode?

With the massacre of the 72 immigrants from Central American and Latin American countries Monday, organized crime has showed again how powerful it is. And once again it has showed that its business goes beyond the drug trafficking to include human traffic, prostitution, extortion, kidnapping…

Last year, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) of Mexico released a report stating that 54 undocumented immigrants are kidnapped in Mexico every day. They are kidnapped by organized crime or by local authorities.

The report said that between September 2008 and February 2009 a total of 9,758 migrants were kidnapped.  Most of the kidnapping cases remain unpunished, even when authorities are aware of the crime. The report also indicated that most part of the kidnapped migrants victims, do not file the corresponding denounces fearing retaliation against them or their families; because they distrust authorities and the eventual outcome of the denounce.

Amnesty International said that the killing of the 72 immigrants in the state of Tamaulipas could become an emblem of Mexico’s government ability or inability to halt the abuses committed every single day against immigrants from other countries that are trying to get into the United States.

The only hope is that more than an emblem, the tragedy will move the Mexican government to really do something to protect the rights of immigrants, in the same way that it has demand the United States to do it with Mexican immigrants.

When did Mexico screw up? Part 2

A dreadful story is on the front page of many of Mexico’s newspapers today:

The bodies of 72 people were found yesterday in a concealed mass grave at a ranch in the northern state of Tamaulipas, around 100 miles away from Brownsville, Texas. According to preliminary investigation, the bodies belonged to people from Central America and Latin America countries, who were trying to make their way to the United States.

The same preliminary results –not confirmed yet–indicate that the migrants were kidnapped by the Zetas, an organized crime group that has established its own laws in the state of Tamaulipas. The migrants could have been killed because they refused to work for the organization or because they didn’t pay the extortion fees the Zetas demand.

Stories such as these bring up the original concerns from my previous posting and also bring up the issue of parallel states that are challenging and threatening the established institutions and government of Mexico.

Some readers have thoughtfully participated in this exchange of ideas and have submitted their opinions about what has led to this level of deterioration in Mexico. Issues such as poverty, unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities, widespread corruption and lack of confidence in the judicial system have appeared in most of the comments.

I have been receiving more responses to my question from different people in Mexico.The most recent was from Octavio Rivera, a journalist based in Mexico City, who links the disintegration of the country to several causes. He sent a list of thoughts that he hopes will add more elements to this discussion.  Here are his comments:

Mexico is not the poorest country in the world, but it is the most unequal. For years and years, entire generations have lived in hunger and they have been condemned to a life without opportunities and dreams.

Also, for years and years, politicians have seen politics as a path to get rich. For them, a vocation for service and honesty are concepts that are practically non-existent. When you have a political class and a bureaucracy moved only by greed, corruption imposes its reign. In Mexico, corruption is endemic. It has affected vital institutions such as the judicial system.

Because of this corruption, organized crime has been able to infiltrate in the political system. For that reason, the war against it is condemned to fail because the state is fighting an enemy within itself.

 Furthermore, Mexico shares its border with the major consumer of illegal drugs in the world. Millions of U.S. addicts require their doses of drugs and somebody has to supply it. What would happen if for one day, one week or one month, those addicts didn’t get their drugs? I have the impression that the U.S. anti-drug policy is just a hypocritical  ruse. The U.S. needs the drugs, although its discourse says the contrary.

What was the breaking point?

When organized crime understood that they didn’t have to be subordinate to the political power, as supposedly it was in the decades before the 2000 election.  Because of its growing firepower and its multimillion profits, organized crime is the biggest threat to Mexico today.

After the news today, one doesn't have any other choice than to agree with Rivera's comment. Let's continue the discussion.

When did Mexico screw up?

I have to admit it.

I feel absolutely hopeless and completely appalled by the deterioration that Mexico has suffered in less than five years. And every single morning, after learning the news from Mexico, the same question comes to my mind again and again.

When did the country screw up? What was the breaking point?

I’ve asked this question to Mexican friends, scholars, and people that I interview for news stories. Their answers vary, which means that there is not a single explanation for what is going on in the country. In fact, not everybody agrees on the idea that the country is speeding downhill, which makes me think that being so close to Ciudad Juárez has affected my general vision on the country.

For the next days I’ll be sharing with you some of the answers that I have received for my questions and hopefully, these will lead us to a better understanding of the problem. You can add your own answers too.

Ismael Romero is a veteran journalist based in Mexico City. Here is his response:

I believe we should never see this with fatalism. People and countries don´t  break. I cannot see Mexico as a failed nation, as some people do.

I don´t think these questions should fuel a debate on Mexico´s situation. And we shouldn´t engage in confirming hypothesis in this direction. Mexico is not in a breaking point; Mexicans are not in a breaking point and there are no breaking points.

Where do you want to see that? In the number of behead people? In the number of corpses thrown on roads and streets? In the failures of President Felipe Calderon’s government? What a limited vision!

We are a country with a variety of cultures, we aspire to be a mature democracy. On that road, there will be problems, but not breaking points. 

The country has gone through different states and they all have left a mark.  We had an Independence movement that we still don’t understand; a political reform (Leyes de Reforma) that benefited the Church and protected a bunch of pedophiles; a Revolution that only benefited rich people. We also had a student movement that gave us hope and changes;  an election in 1988 that opened our eyes to democracy, an indians rights movement that played with our dreams, an economic crisis (1994-1995) that destroyed thousands of lives. We have an election in 2000 –which ended up 70 years of the PRI’s governments- and made us think that everything was possible, but in the end, it was just a big disappointment.

None of this has put Mexico in a turning point. We have overcome every chapter. We have a regular life, we are still here. A breaking point?

 

 

Politics and gay issues in Mexico

It is official: homosexual couples from Mexico now have the constitutional right to adopt children.

The news was released Monday, when the Supreme Court of Mexico ruled, with nine votes in favor and two against, that married homosexual couples have the right to adopt children. One of the judge’s arguments on the ruling was that adoption by a gay couple does not impinge on the rights of children and, on the contrary, it would give them the opportunity to have a family.

The Supreme Court judges also emphasized that tolerance and respect are the basis of a secular state. In this sense, they said that denying the right of adoption to those couples would be discriminatory.

As was expected, members of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy not only raised their concerns about the Supreme Court’s decision, but they also accused the judges of taking money in exchange for their ruling. One bishop went further and made derogative comments about homosexuals.

“It is an aberration…Who would like to be adopted by a couple of queers or lesbians?” said bishop Juan Sandoval Iñiguez.  It is deplorable that a Catholic leader –from whom one should expect respect and compassion– have used derogative and discriminatory words to argue against a legal decision. It is also ironic that a bishop cannot be able to explain in a rational way his opposition to the Supreme Court’s ruling.

As is usual with controversial issues, the arguments are at times visceral, and people seldom take the time to think about the political, sociological and economic issues that usually are behind the facts.  Just few days ago, I was listening on the radio to a political analyst, who was arguing that the approval of gay marriages in  several countries is really related to economic reasons.

In Argentina, for example, the approval of gay marriage is expected to bring about an increase in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered tourists this year, according to tourism officials quoted in a newspaper article. That segment of the market accounted for 17.8 percent of visitors to the country in 2008. 

And the same can be said for Mexico City, whose officials are getting prepared for an expected increase in gay tourism. In July, Mexico City opened its first gay tourism office for homosexuals in the region.

I’m not saying that the Supreme Court judges had these issues in mind when they made their decision. In fact, their arguments were mainly focused on the constitutional rights of individuals. But I do think that Mexico City’s legislators probably did think about that when they submitted a bill that they knew was going to be so controversial. Most likely, they considered the impact that the bill (legalizing gay marriages and adoption) was going to have not only in the economic and social arena, but also mainly in the political arena.

In Mexico, like in other places in the world, the gay community is considered a strong segment of the voting population. What we cannot overlook is the fact that Mexico is in the prelude of the 2012 elections; so most political decisions should be seen through that lens.

Taking justice in their own hands. When citizens don't trust justice

Tired of being victims of crime and robbery, the habitants of Tlachaloya, a small community of around 5,000 people in the Estado de México, decided to take justice into their own hands.

According to news reports, the incident took place Friday after a group of thieves robbed a family business. The owners of the business asked for people to help  capture the thieves and more than 400 residents participated in the pursuit of the bad guys. When they were finally captured, the thieves were taken to a soccer field, where the residents beat them so badly, that three of them had to be taken to the hospital in serious condition.

When the police arrived at the scene, they had to negotiate for at least three hours with the residents to convince them to hand over the thieves. The officers assured the residents that –this time– the criminals will be keep in jail.

The incident of Tlachaloya is one clear example of how fed up people are with the failures of the judicial system. If they decided to take justice in their own hands, it was because many times before, they have seen criminals being put into jail, spending two or three nights there, and then walking free without any punishment.

Tlachaloya is the most recent case and by no means the first one. One of the most dramatic incidents occurred in November 2004, when an out-of-control mob killed and burned two police officers and left another one seriously injured.  The officers were participating in an undercover operation and they failed to identify themselves. A mob of local citizens confused them with kidnappers and attacked them.

Besides the usual condemnation that incidents like these deserve, they clearly show the amount of frustration that society is feeling, and they also show how profoundly deep people’s lack of trust is in the judicial system.

It is interesting that the Tlachaloya event took place the same week that President Felipe Calderon concluded his Conversations on National Security (Dialogos para la Seguridad), in which he held several meetings with academicians,  entrepreneurs, politicians, judges and prosecutors, among others, to publicly debate his anti-crime strategy.

In his meeting with representatives of the judicial system, the issue of impunity came up over and over. Calderón even admitted that the main problem of justice in Mexico “is the impunity that, unfortunately, criminals enjoy.”   Admitting that fact is a good step, but it is not enough to solve the problem.

A recent story from Associated Press documented the severity of impunity in Mexico. According to court documents and public records, AP found that in Ciudad Juárez alone, prosecutors filled 93 homicide cases, but got just 19 convictions in 2009.

The topic is not new, but once again it brings us to the roots of many of the problems that Mexico is facing now: corruption.

If Mexico is not able to solve the problem of corruption, nothing will work.  In that sense, it seems useless to be talking about legalization of drugs, the  ”professionalization” of the police corps or any other measures if there is not a strong will to return to the basics and dismantle the web of corruption.

The government can spend a lot of money and time debating in public forums the best strategies to fight organized crime, but besides all that blah, blah, blah, what Mexico really needs is real and concrete actions against corruption and impunity.

The incident in Tlachaloya is just another reminder on how far a society can go when they feel that the people in authority have constantly failed them. 

Police forces and the Mexican Hydra.

The federal police’s mutiny and rebellion last Saturday in Ciudad Juárez opened Pandora’s Box, exposing in an open and public way what has been already known by the majority of the Juarenses–that the federal police forces are corrupt.

What make the issue so compelling are the details that the rebels gave about their bosses. They gave names and details about their commanders’ modus operandi. They accused them of participating in extortions, kidnappings, robberies and other crimes.

I bet that nobody in Cd. Juárez was surprised by the cause of the rebellion. The corruption of local, state and federal police forces has been a well-known secret, not just in Juarez, but also in many other cities of Mexico.  Let’s remember that just last month, more than 50 local law enforcement officers were arrested in Tijuana under suspicion of giving protection to a powerful drug cartel.

Also in a recent meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, the Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna admitted that drug cartels pay around $100 million a month in bribes to municipal police officers nationwide.

Unfortunately, the news about police corruption is as old as my grandmother would be if she were still alive.  One case that I clearly recall is the one that involved “La Hermandad” (The Brotherhood), a Mexico City network of policemen, who acted as a mafia for several decades.

“La Hermandad” was known in the ‘90s for participating in kidnappings, telephone extortions, robberies and providing protection to organized crime, among other criminal activities. The brotherhood was founded in the ‘70s by the infamous Arturo Durazo Moreno, who was Mexico City’s police chief. He spent eight years in prison after being convicted of corruption, drug trafficking, nepotism and abuse of authority. Authorities in Mexico City attempted several times to disband the organizations, but the corruption has never been eradicated.

In any other city of Mexico, one can find current examples to illustrate how corruption impregnates the police forces. Of course, there are some good apples, but as the old saying goes, one bad apple spoils the entire bunch.

One would think that the arrival of a true democracy in 2000 would bring radical changes in areas such as law enforcement, but it didn’t happen. Why?  Probably because corruption in Mexico is equivalent to the Greek myth of Hydra, the many-headed serpent–where for every head that was cut off, two would grow back in its place.

The policemen who dared to rebel Saturday had the courage to denounce an insufferable situation. Ironically, they may be suspended or even fired for this public protest. But I’m wondering what would have happened if  – as their superiors suggested – they would have followed the “proper channels” to complain. Would that have had the same impact?  And, would anyone have even heard about it?

A police protest, such as the one involving federal agents in Juarez, should bring shame to any government. In addition to an internal investigation, it should also provoke visible actions and changes to attack the problem of corruption.

But honestly, nothing is going to change. In other words, aspirin will not cure the cancer. If you ask me what is the solution–I have no answer. If I had one, I would be a politician, not a writer.

There have been several attempts to change the situation – with training, better salaries, hiring of new personnel and even changing the way that police forces are organized. But the structure of the police corporations has not changed and corruption has not been attacked in an aggressive manner.

Going back to the metaphor of the Hydra, Mexico needs a Hercules, somebody who would be able to cut off all the heads of the monster and kill it with one precise and lethal blow.  

Cd. Juárez, seeing death as an spectacle

-What’s up, friend?

-There’s an event—two “ejecutaditos.” (two executed people)

-Did you get them?

-Sure, no worries.

That was the beginning of my Friday in Ciudad Juárez. The conversation above took place between two cameramen working for local TV stations.  I was working on a story for a U.S. television network and one of the cameramen was helping me with shooting the video.

I had my production plan for the whole day, but the “events” –as reporters refer to killings, executions or any bloody situation–changed my plans.  When we were heading to an interview with a psychologist, the cameraman received news about riots at the state jail. For him that was a story.  So, we went there, driving 90 mph and running red lights. We arrived at the jail only to find out that the “trifulca,” a fight between inmates, was already under control.

One of the cameramen there was disappointed that he did not get good images. He boasted that the last time he was at the prison, there was a riot and he was able to record the exact moment when one guy was falling after having been shot. 

Later on, another guy showed me, also very proudly, the video that he was able to take of a person who had been shot and as he was dying inside his car.

The “events” reported yesterday in Ciudad Juárez –until 9:45 p.m.—also included a bomb threat at a federal government office (SAT), and the killing of at least eight people, among them, an American citizen and a woman. When we arrived to the last crime scene –around 9:30 p.m.—the forensic team had already taken the body, but the cameraman was sure that he would be able to get the images the next day.  “We help each other a lot,” he told me.

Being around a person, who was so used to the images of violence, made me think about the process of how one could lose one’s sensitivity to the loss of life.  When did you start seeing dead people as something so ordinary? I asked him.

He said that his first assignments dealing with death occurred in the 90's, when the killing of women in Cd, Juárez became national and international news. That would mean that he has been recording dead bodies and violent acts for more than 10 years.

“I don’t think about it anymore,” he said. “I try to separate my job from my personal life.  Sometimes, when I go and shoot, I think about my family, that something can happen to them or to me, but I try not to think about it.”

Thinking that way, disconnecting yourself from the “events,” is a survival strategy. How else could all those reporters, policeman, forensics personnel, paramedics, doctors and nurses survive in a city plagued by extremely violent crime?

What is most shocking is that in all these “events,” it is possible to see complete families looking at the crime scene. They seem to be looking at death as a family spectacle.

A producer for a national Hispanic network told me once that “blood sells.” And unfortunately that is true. People like to see crime stories on television. No wonder series such as Law and Order or NCIS are so popular here and abroad, but watching crime in a newscast or on a TV series is absolutely different from watching it in real life.

Maybe now we should pause to really think about what all these killings mean. Getting used to these images is equivalent to accepting that the degradation of society is something unavoidable. As a psychologist told me yesterday, it also can paralyze a society.

A part of Juarez’s society is already experiencing that kind of paralysis. The question that comes to mind is that when a society gets to this point, how will it recover its sense of indignation? Does anybody have an answer?

A shocking reality of Mexico's justice system

Two Mexican lawyers and filmmakers have produced an extraordinary documentary on the failures of the judicial system in Mexico.

Roberto Hernández, a graduate student in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and his wife Layda Negrete, a lawyer with more than 10 years of experience conducting research on the Mexico criminal justice system, produced “Presumed Guilty”, a 55 minutes documentary that exposes the reality of Mexican courtrooms.

The documentary features the case of Antonio Zuñiga, a street vendor in Mexico City, who was accused of a murder that he didn’t commit. As happen in many other cases, Zúñiga was arrested without any evidence of his participation in the crime and the guilty verdict was based on the testimony of just one witness.

During their research on the case, Hernández and Negrete discovered that Zuñiga’s lawyer had a fake license, which allowed the defendant and his new lawyers to apply for a retrial. The filmmakers got permission to introduce their cameras to the prison and also to record the complete second trial.

The material they were able to film is amazing. It really takes the viewer to the heart of the judicial system. It shows how the prosecutors “make” their cases, how they “collect” evidence, how they prepare their witness, how the judges “judge”, in few words, how dysfunctional and corrupt the system can be.

Whatever I can say falls short in front of the reality showed by the filmmakers. It is a very unique piece, shameful for the Mexican system, but very important to shed light on things that must be changed if we aspire to eradicate corruption and to have a reliable and accountable justice system one day.

The PBS documentary will be streaming online from today to Aug 4. You can watch it at the following address:

 http://www.pbs.org/pov/presumedguilty/photo_gallery_watch.php