Mexico in Focus

Vignettes of the non-sense violence

What is happening in Mexico today is crossing the line of absurdity.

In the early morning hours today, an armed group burst into the state police headquarters in Chihuahua and stole around 45 AR-15 riffles and several bulletproof vests.

According to preliminary versions, the men were wearing police uniforms, which allowed them to get into the building without any problem.

The first question that comes to mind has to do with the process of identification. Were they really police members? Does the state police have any reliable process of identification besides the use of a uniform? Most likely no, and that would explain how easily this group made a mockery of the police’s safety proceedings.

Also today, another mayor was killed in a barbaric way.

Gustavo Sanchez, interim mayor of Tancítaro, in the central state of Michoacan, was smashed with a rock. His hands were tied and his face was unrecognizable.

Sanchez became mayor last December after the entire city council resigned alluding to pressures from organized crime. 

And if these events were not bad enough, on Sunday, a 72-year-old woman was killed in her own home in Los Pochotes -in the northern state of Sinaloa- when praying the “novenario” (the nine-day rosary) for her two sons, who were executed one week before.  

These are just a few “scenes” of daily life in Mexico. It is hard to try to make sense of the growing and absurd violence that is permeating almost any city in the country. It is even more difficult to visualize where are we heading as a country and when are we going to reach the bottom.

All the country is bleeding and nobody seems to be able to stop the hemorrhage. Isn’t is the time to rethink what are we doing wrong?

Helping Mexico to get out of the mud

 Parishioners of the La Purisima Mission in Socorro are honoring their patron, Saint Michael,the Archangel (San Miguel Arcángel) this weekend.

On Saturday, the square around the mission was full of men, women and children of all ages participating in the religious celebration. Four groups of Matachines (traditional religious dancers) enlivened the festivities, and added a special touch that characterizes Mexican religiosity.

The Socorro Mission is just five miles away from San Elizario, a town that, like Socorro, has recently seen the influx of many people fleeing from the violence in Ciudad Juárez. It is a reality that has not escaped the attention of the Catholic priests in the area.

Rev. Robert Dueweke, director of the Tepeyac Institute from the El Paso Catholic Diocese, spoke about this phenomenon during his completely bilingual sermon yesterday.

He began by telling the story about how Saint Michael became the Socorro Mission’s patron saint. It has been said that a statue of Saint Michael was being transported on an ox cart when suddenly it was trapped in the mud. The inhabitants of Socorro made some attempts to move it, but there was no way to get the statue out of the mud. People interpreted the problem as a sign that the saint wanted to stay at the Socorro Mission.

Dueweke used the metaphor of getting stuck in the mud to talk about the need to help each other. “We can liberate ourselves and get out of the mud if we help somebody else,” he said.

Then he spoke about the people of Juarez. “There are too many people escaping from the violence in Juarez. They need so much help because they are stuck in the mud of the violence, they have come without anything--no money, no house, no family,” he said. “We are obligated to help them. When I free somebody, I free myself.”

It was a moving message, especially when he said that in solidarity, people create a new justice. 

When talking about Mexico, I’m usually a pessimistic person, but I felt grateful for Dueweke’s words and I’m sure many people inside the church felt the same way.

Mexico needs all kinds of help now, but sometimes just listening to encouraging words can provide some kind of relief and a sense of hope for the future.

The dangers of being Mayor in Mexico

In a period of just five months, five mayors in Mexico have been shot.

Just few hours ago, an armed group shot Ricardo Solís Manriquez, the elected mayor of Gran Morelos, in the state of Chihuahua.  According to preliminary reports, he was shot in front of his veterinary business. As of Friday afternoon, his condition is reported as serious. 

Yesterday, Prisciliano Rodriguez, mayor of Doctor Gonzalez, a small town of around 4,000 people in the state of Nuevo León, was also killed. He was shot outside of his home. Rodriguez represented a coalition of political forces that include the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI), Partido del Trabajo (PT) and others.

On Sept. 8, Alexander Lopez, mayor of El Naranjo, a small municipality in San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, was also killed. This time, the killers went into city hall and killed him in his own office.  He was 35 years old and was representing a coalition between the Partido Verde Ecologista and the PRI.

On Aug. 16, the body of Edelmiro Cavazos was dumped near a waterfall in a popular tourist area close to Monterrey in the state of Nuevo León. Cavazos’ hands were bound and his head was wrapped in tape. Cavazos was the mayor of Santiago, a town of 37,800 people. He was 38 years old and a member of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), which is President Felipe Calderon’s party.  Cavazos was kidnapped from his own home and according to the investigations, members of the municipal police forces were involved in the kidnapping and the killing.

On June 19, Jesús Manuel Lara Rodriguez, mayor of Guadalupe Distrito Bravo in Chihuahua, was also killed near his home. According to news reports, he had received death threats before.

According to Mexican newspaper El Universal, during Calderon’s administration a total of 57 politicians and their relatives have been killed. The total includes public officials, police chiefs, prosecutors and judges. The killers have targeted members of all Mexican political forces.

A few months ago, Fernando Gomez Mont, former Minister of the Interior, warned that organized crime was changing its tactics to focus more on authorities than on their own rivalries. “They are trying to address their firepower to what they are fearful of, which is authority,” he said.

It is difficult to believe that organized crime is fearful of the authorities. They seem to be more concentrated on their strategy to weaken political institutions and to create a widespread atmosphere of fear and terror among citizens.

It looks like they are honing their terrorist strategies, which will only bring more blood and suffering to Mexico. Unfortunately, we still have not reached the bottom of the abyss.

El Diario's shout for help

An editorial published by El Diario de Juarez last Sunday has arisen too much controversy.

The newspaper asked organized crime for a truce after the killing last week of a young photographer. This was the second journalist killed from El Diario in two years.

People who criticize the editorial argue that the newspaper is giving up independent reporting and freedom of expression. My reading, however, is that the editorial is a desperate scream for help. El Diario is calling attention to an extreme situation that is happening in Mexico. The editorial expresses the frustration, despair and defenselessness of all journalists in Ciudad Juárez and other regions of Mexico.

The editorial has provoked an avalanche of articles in national and U.S. media, and that by itself is good because is generating a necessary discussion about freedom of the press in the country.

It is easy to criticize when you live in a comfortable situation, when you don’t face the kind of threats that journalists in the border regions are facing. The government has already condemned the editorial because they say it is not appropriate to negotiate or to ask for a truce to criminal groups, but they haven’t offered any guarantees to reporters to do their job in safety conditions.

Reporters in Ciudad Juárez are living in an extreme situation and they really need guarantees to work. An editorial doesn’t affect freedom of expression, what really affects that freedom is the lack of security and the impunity behind the killing of journalists.

The article linked below clearly shows what kind of conditions reporters in Juarez are facing every single day.    

http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=OTk4MDg2MQ==

Another blow to Mexico's journalism

Seven days after Chihuahua’s state Congress approved a bill  to toughen punishment against criminals accused of killing journalists or any other people who work in mass communication, two photographers from El Diario de Juárez were shot.

Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco, 21, died inside the vehicle that he was driving, while his colleague, Carlos Manuel Sanchez Colunga was taken to a hospital in serious condition.

 In two years, El Diario has lost three reporters due to violence. In November 2008, Armando Rodriguez, a reporter who covered the police beat, was shot in front of his house. As of today, the crime has not been solved.

At El Diario reporters were in shock. “I’m extremely angry,” said a reporter from El Diario. “This is barbaric, not a civilized country.”

What is of the most concerns to her is impunity. “It is clear that they can do whatever they want to us because nothing happens… The trauma of the homicide is one thing, but the other trauma is the one of impunity.”

 According to numbers published by El Diario, Chihuahua is one of the most dangerous places for doing journalism in the world. In the last 14 years, at least 10 people who worked in mass communication media have been killed. 

“People usually tell you ‘take care,’ ‘be careful,’ but the problem is from who we must take care? Who is the enemy or why we should be careful? We don’t know who the killers are, we don’t know why they killed them, because there is total impunity,” the reporter said angrily.

While in other parts of the country the press has been silenced by organized crime, reporters in Ciudad Juarez have been really brave. They have been persistent in their defense of freedom of expression, they have fought the odds, but the murders today are a terrible blow to their efforts.

Clearly, the assassination is meant to send a message to the media, but if the crime is not solved, the message will be the worst one that journalists have received in recent years.

 

Mexico and its Army: A complicated relationship

 

While watching the images of the Mexico’s City military parade today, I thought about the relationship that societies have with their country’s armed forces.

 

Here in the U.S., it is very common in to see images of common citizens greeting soldiers. The most familiar image is perhaps the one of soldiers being welcomed home by family and friends after a long period of deployment in a foreign country. The  majority of the Americans see their soldiers as heroes, and they have some historical reasons for this.

 

From a Latin American point of view, the idea of considering soldiers as heroes is just bizarre, and there are also some historical reasons for this fact.  Countries such as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Guatemala and Perú, among others, have had bitter experiences with military regimes, especially during dictatorships.

 

Mexico’s contemporary history doesn’t include a military dictatorship experience, but Mexican citizens’ relationship with the army has not ever been a cordial one. However the relationship has changed  throughout time.

 

Perhaps the worse times were during the late ‘60s and ‘70s, when the army played a crucial role in fighting the social guerrilla movements.  That period of Mexico’s history is known as the Dirty War era or La Guerra Sucia.

 

Even today, the real number of people, who were killed, tortured and disappeared as a result of military actions against insurgents, is still unknown. It was not until the administration of Vicente Fox (2000-2006) that the government decided to investigate what really happened during those years.  Unfortunately, the results of the majority of those investigations have not been made public because of national security issues.

 

After the Dirty War, the army went back to its normal role and soldiers rarely interacted with the public.  During the ‘80s, soldiers were more visible because of their role during disaster situations such as the big earthquake in Mexico City, In many other disaster situations caused by hurricanes or floods, the army helped and served the public.

 

In the ‘90s, Mexican soldiers were sent out again to fight insurgents. This time their objective was an army of 3,000 impoverished indigenous people from Chiapas, who were integrated into the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN). For 11 days in 1994, the Mexican army fiercely fought the guerrillas, resulting in heavy casualties and the government taking control of the Zapatista’s land.

 

Surprisingly, Mexican society strongly defended the EZLN and protested the massacres, which provoked a cease-fire. However, through the years, complaints against the army for human rights violations in isolated communities continue to arise.

 

With President Felipe Calderon, the Mexican Army began a new era in its relationship with Mexican society. Although soldiers were involved in the efforts to combat drug trafficking before, during Calderon’s administration they have been at the forefront of the effort.

 

In their war against drugs, the army has been compelled to explain incidents where civilians have been killed, something they have never done before.  It is estimated that during Calderon’s administration, approximately 4,000 complaints against the army have been filled with the Human Rights National Commission (CNDH). In some cases, the army has been obligated to pay reparations to the victims or to their relatives.

 

While these actions illustrate a change in the army’s relationship with the citizenry, according to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, 90 percent of complaints are not solved and go unpunished.

 

One of the main complaints against the Army is its resistance to opening their internal proceedings for investigating or the punishments rendered for the misconduct of its members. For that reason, legislators are discussing and will hopefully vote for a bill that, if passed, will allow military members to be tried in civilian courts.  The logic behind the bill is that in its current state, the army is its own judge, which results in impunity.

 

The approval of this bill seems to be complicated, but without question it would be an enormous step toward making the army accountable for its actions and will go a long way toward improving their relationship and credibility with Mexican society.

 

Millions will celebrate tonight in Mexico

Tonight is the night.

After 5 p.m. today and for several hours, millions of Mexican people will be gathering in public places to celebrate the 200 years of Independence.

Practically, the majority of the country will be celebrating, although the biggest party will be in Mexico City, where almost every corner, every street, every public square will become an entertainment space, a spot where people can forget momentarily about the many problem that afflicted them.

Hopefully this will be a wonderful night. Hopefully nothing bad is going to happen. Hopefully, we will remember this night just because its particular significance. Hopefully, the happiness and proud symbolized in the famous “Viva Mexico!” shout will resonate for several days in people’s mood.

However, in some municipalities and cities around the country there won’t be public celebrations. As you probably know, Ciudad Juarez and a dozen of municipalities in the states of Chihuahua and Tamaulipas –where the violence is rampant– cancelled massive celebrations because the security issue.  And that was a painful reminder of our current situation.

David Torres, a Mexican journalist currently based in Los Angeles, also brought an acute reminder of the reality that Mexico is facing today.  In Torres’s particular vision, Mexico is facing a new type of domain after its 200 years of independence from Spain.

This time, Torres says, the dominion doesn’t come from an external power, but from an inside force, which is so organized, so powerful that it has kidnapped the entire country. He is talking about organized crime.

Unlike any other historical movement, such as the Independence o the Revolution, what Mexico is going through today is not an historical watershed that will result in the creation of something new, Torres says. Organized crime is not bringing any social changes.  On the contrary, organized crime is oppressing the society and the clamor to rescue the country is growing everyday.

“The younger generations are receiving a destroyed country and I’m wondering what kind of transformation could come from a situation as this”, Torres says. “After 200 years of its Independence and 100 years from its Revolution movements, Mexico could have been born again, but today, organized crime has compromised the country’s possibilities.”

Yes, Torres’s reflection is a sharp reminder of our current situation. But probably not many Mexicans want to think about that tonight… For one night, maybe for this particular night, they just want to think of a country that no longer exists. 

Mexico's Bicentennial. What do we celebrate?

                                                                                                To the victims of 9/11

Mexican celebrations of the bicentennial anniversary of its Independence and Revolution are going to be monumental.

The Mexican government is spending around $ 180 million in a variety of cultural events, among them the huge celebration of “El Grito” on the night of Sept. 15 and the traditional parade of Sept. 16.

September is known as the Month of the Nation (Mes de la Patria) and it is usually a time when, in the middle of all kind of celebrations, Mexicans reflect about their past, their present and their future.

This year, however, many Mexicans are asking themselves if we, as a nation, have reasons to celebrate. And in a country of more than 100 million inhabitants, it is impossible to have a unanimous response.

Businessman and philanthropist Alfredo Harp Helú, whose personal fortune places him in # 937 in the Forbes Magazine list of world’s billionaires, says that although Mexico is going through difficult times, there are many reasons to celebrate.

“The overwhelming majority of Mexicans get up every day to work for a more fairness and productive country”, Harp Helú wrote in a public letter (link in Spanish). He mentioned the natural beauties of the country, the value of friendship, the flavors of Mexican food, the music of the trios and the mariachis, the many triumphs of the Mexicans athletes (Fernando Valezuela, Chicharito Hernández, Hugo Sánchez) and the devotion to the Lady of Guadalupe, as some of the reasons that we have to celebrate.

He adds to the list the history and the freedoms that Mexicans enjoy, the strength of Mexico’s educational institutions and the quality of the national health institutions. 

 The letter left me with an uncomfortable feeling. When I was reading it, I could clearly see the images that he was invoking, but I also recognized the romanticism behind those images. I could hear his yearn for a Mexico that no longer exists.

Yes, we could celebrate that the majority of the country’s institutions still work, but we cannot forget that in some states of the country those institutions have been kidnapped by organized crime, threatening the stability of the state.  We cannot forget that the drug-trafficking violence is highly concentrated in 162 municipalities and because of that, the inhabitants of those towns are living in terror.

We could celebrate that some people get up every day to work, but we cannot forget that more than 7 million young Mexicans are not finding enough job opportunities and many of them are flirting with organized crime.

We could boast and celebrate that we have the most wonderful food in the world, but cannot forget that 50.6 million people are living in poverty, with an income barely enough to satisfy basic needs such as food, housing, clothing, education and transportation. Of those people, 19.5 million are considered in nutritional poverty, which means that they don’t have enough income to even acquire food. 

We could celebrate the richness of Mexico culture, but we cannot forget that the main enemy of Mexico today is corruption and impunity, both deeply rooted in Mexico’ conscience.

Mexico, as many other country in the world, have thousands of things that make us feel proud, but the seriousness of its problems today overshadows any romantic idea of the nation.

Yes, we could celebrate 200 years of history, but definitely there are not reasons to forget the enormous difficulties and challenges that Mexico is facing today. In that sense, the celebration should be more an exercise of reflection than a magnificent party with all the squandering that it implies.

In defense of public cultural events in Juarez

For at least this month, Ciudad Juárez will try to be a regular city, one where people can attend massive concerts, go to the theater, attend a literature conference and take the family to different cultural events without fear. 

The Sixth International Chihuahua Festival is bringing together more than 40 well-known Mexican and international artists, writers and musicians to provide citizens with an opportunity to enjoy their city like they used to not too long ago.

Some of the well-known names in the music arena that will perform in Cd. Juárez are Mexican-American singer Lila Downs, trombonist and bandleader Willie Colon (Azúcar!) and the musician from Mali, Salif-Keita. If you are a fan of the Cuban Buena Vista Social Club, you’ll have the opportunity to see and listen to the marvelous Omara Portuondo, one of the last few remaining voices of the famous ensemble.  And if you grew up listening to the Nueva Trova Cubana, you surely would like to attend Silvio Rodríguez’s massive concert in the Olympic Stadium-Benito Juarez.  Perhaps you, as well as myself, will revive good memories listening his music.

The festival also features the conference “Literatura en el Bravo,” which will bring authors from El Paso, Mexico, Spain, Venezuela, Colombia and the Caribbean countries to talk about writing and books. There will be 23 roundtable sessions with more than 40 writers, so you should have plenty of topics to choose from.

Clearly, to organize a festival as ambitious as this one represents a big effort by the cultural authorities of Chihuahua. According to poet Jorge Humberto Chávez, in previous years more than 1,500 people have attended just the literature conference alone, a figure that speaks for itself about the interest of the Chihuahuenses in cultural events.  It is estimated that the previous festivals have attracted more than two million people to its different events.

“It is important that people know that Juárez is going through very difficult times,” said Chavez in an interview with El Financiero, a newspaper from Mexico City.  “What we want to do is to propose a different reality through literature and creativity.”

This festival also brings up the fact that authorities in Cd. Juárez cancelled the public celebration of the Bicentennial on Sept. 15 because of the increasing violence. Unfortunately, this means that organized crime has taken away Juarenses’ right to commemorate this historical event as they have done year after year. 

Criminals, by their actions, have taken away the publics’ basic right to go out and enjoy festivities and events, and that I something we cannot allow.  Events such as this festival help us to learn about other people and cultures, and help us to broaden our perspectives about the world. Mexico’s citizens should fight for their rights by attending these events.

But it is absolutely necessary that authorities take extra measures to guarantee the safety of the people who will attend the festival. The Juarenses and the people of the border deserve to enjoy the city and to recover the use of their public spaces. Hopefully the authorities will do whatever is needed to guarantee a non-violent event.

The festival was launched last Saturday, and events will continue throughout the month of September. The literature conference will begin Sept. 9 and some of the concerts will also be this weekend.  To check the schedule and make your plans, visit http://www.chihuahua.gob.mx/festival/

Two voices lost in Mexico's daily analysis

I don’t know how to make people laugh when talking about serious things.  I don’t know how to use humor to provoke reflection, but I admire those who do it in every piece they write.

In less than three months, Mexico have has lost two of these writers. Carlos Monsiváis, a down-to-earth writer, who was known as  “Mexico’s conscience”, passed away last June. His essays and newspaper articles were always sharp and deep, but at the same time full of humor and satire.

Last Thursday, we lost German Dehesa, 66, a writer and author of “La Gaceta del Ángel” a humoristic and colloquial daily opinion column published by national newspaper Reforma and 50 more diaries in the country.

It was almost impossible not to smile when reading Dehesa’s columns. He could write about any issue, from his own family life, to literature, films, music to politics. And everyday for four years now, Dehesa would end his column with the same question: “How did you sleep, Mr. Montiel?”

The phrase was an attempt to remind politicians involved in corruption scandals that somebody was looking at them. At the time that he started using it, Arturo Montiel, a former governor, was involved in a a corruption scandal. He allegedly increased his personal fortune using public funds and traffic of influences. 

“How did you sleep, Mr. Montiel?” was Dehesa’s daily reminder, since Montiel was never put to trail. An assistant to his funeral yesterday said she would continue with this claim thru tweeter until justice is done.

Monsiváis and Dehesa were needed voices in difficult times. They made us laugh and think. They opened our eyes to things we probably hadn’t seen. They used humor as a tool. They were playful with words. They also reminded us that Mexico is more than its problems. They were terribly smart people. 

As Dehesa wrote of himself in one of his articles, he always tried to find the lightest side of the darkest things. He had that gift and many readers, as myself, will miss his insightful and creative interpretation of events.