Juarez, I Still Hear You Crying

(I've written about this before, here (fiction), here and here. I confess that I can't get this out of my head. I can't just forget about this and move on. So here is more.)

This is far too short to be an essay. But it's long enough to be the beginning of a epitaph. Unfortunately, though, it can't be personal, because there are far too many unidentified, dead women and parts of them in the graves in the desert. It's impossible to talk about any one person. And many of the graves still have not yet been found.

Juarez, I hear you crying.

And maybe The New York Times hears Juarez crying, too.

I hope you can hear it, as well:

Roughly 60 women and girls have been killed here so far this year; at least 100 have been reported missing over the past two years. And though the death toll for women so far this year is on track to fall below the high of 304 in 2010, state officials say there have already been more women killed in 2012 than in any year of the earlier so-called femicide era.

Juarez, I hear you crying.

Mexican authorities have made promises to prioritize cases like these for years, and in the wake of international pressure, prosecutors now argue that more of the killings are being solved. But arrests and convictions are exceedingly rare. For the victims found in the mass grave in the Juárez Valley, even the most basic details were still a mystery months later: forensic teams said they were not even sure how many women were buried there.

To many, these women are now part of what looks like a slaughter with peaks and valleys, but no end. In the state office opened a few years ago to investigate violence against women, desks are perpetually covered with stomach-turning case files.

Juarez, I hear you crying.

“Here, the only one who gives us justice and obedience to the law is God,” she said. “And there’s no escaping.”

Juarez, I hear you crying.

Juarez, I Can Hear You Crying, Part 2

Mexico hates you, EPN

This LA Times Op-Ed doesn't pull any punches about Mexico's upcoming presidential election and the PRI's illustrious candidate for president:

The Mexican version of the old Soviet Politburo is poised to make a comeback, with potentially disastrous consequences for North America. In 2000, the world hailed the end of more than 70 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, as a sign of democratic transition. Today, the PRI's presidential candidate in the July 1 election, Enrique Peña Nieto, threatens to bring back the authoritarian ways of the past.

The PRI has not cleaned up its act or modernized over the last 12 years. To the contrary, it has deepened its networks of corruption and illegality in the territories it still controls. The 10 states where the PRI has never lost power are among the most violent, underdeveloped and corrupt in the country. In these states, democratic transition and accountability are exotic concepts and the local governors rule like despotic feudal lords.

For example, the state of Veracruz is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Recently, four journalists were assassinated in a single week. In January, officials close to the governor were detained in an airport with a suitcase containing nearly $2 million in cash, supposedly for an advertising campaign.

What this isn't, is a surprise. Shocking perhaps. Business as usual, perhaps. But, sadly, no surprise at all. And you don't need to read deeply in Paco Igancio Taibo II or Martin Solares or the Mexican press to be reminded that it's been like this for quite some time. For a very, very long time. It's a tradition. A way of life.

And, of course, the Op Ed actually says it:

Peña Nieto is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He hides behind a telegenic smile and sharp attire, but he represents Mexico's old corrupt political class. Last week, for example, a high-ranking general apparently close to Peña Nieto and his group of politicians from Mexico state was arrested on organized-crime charges.

During his governorship, Peña Nieto allegedly spent tens of millions in public funds to illegally boost his image on national television. But he has few ideas of his own and questionable moral character. He fathered a son in an extramarital affair and has come under fire from the boy's mother for being an irresponsible parent.

When Peña Nieto was asked at a book fair to name three books he had read, he could only mention that he had gone over "parts" of the Bible. The late Carlos Fuentes, who died May 15, said that Peña Nieto's "ignorance" cast serious doubts on his ability to be a good president. No intellectual or independent journalist is willing to publicly endorse Peña Nieto's candidacy.

Well, your Bloguero can relate to all of this. Most Norteamericanos should be able to, also. After all, your Bloguero lives in a country that has "elected" the seeming Village Idiot in 2000 and, as if that weren't enough, again in 2004. So the piquant smell of opaque stooge-ism and favoritism and corruption and hypocrisy and plunder of the system by its supposed curators isn't at all unfamiliar. You could wish such things were only for Banana Republics. What a joke.

Meanwhile, the current Mexican administration, once the supposed antidote to PRI's pervasive corruption, is engaged in its own crazy, deathly War on Drugs that has left more than 50,000 people dead in its wake and has reduced cities like Juarez to places to escape from. Places where the army fights pitched battles with the cartels. Places where innocent people get killed. Or kidnapped. Or maimed. Places where going out at night is extremely dangerous. Where being in public places is a risk. Where speaking out or blogging or posting on FB leads to reprisals. Where riding public transportation may expose the commuter to a hail of random bullets. In sum, Juarez represents the dystopian narco-state at its most virulent and most dangerous.

And then there's this, lest one think that the PRI has the monopoly on corruption and that the War on Drugs has nothing to do with that:

President Felipe Calderon's reliance on the army in Mexico's war on drugs was shaken in the past days with the arrest of three generals and a lieutenant colonel on corruption charges.

With Mexico's presidential election just six weeks away and political campaigns in full swing, supporters allege that at least one of the arrests is politically motivated.

Most shocking was the detention of retired major general Tomas Angeles, a close aid to Defense Minister Guillermo Galvan and a soldier with a sterling reputation.

Angeles was the second highest-ranking officer in the ministry during the first two years of Calderon's administration and had been seen as a likely candidate for defense minister until his retirement in 2008.

Javier Sicilia may have a solution to all of this. But even if he does, it's going to take major upheaval and time to move the inert, corrupt narco-state in a direction away from corruption and toward peace. One thing is sure: EPN and Calderon both have no plan, no idea, nothing relevant to say that will end the killing. They continue to fill their pockets. And they attempt to shoulder their rivals away from the public trough.

All that means, I am sorry to note, that Juarez, City of Tears and Death and Displacement, your weeping is in vain. And your obvious, uncontrollable pain is not going to be swiftly abated.

Juarez, I Hear You Crying

Ciudad Juarez. 1.3 million souls across the Rio Grande from El Paso. The murder rate is supposedly down from a record of 30,000 in 2010.

I am waiting for the bus at a bus stop. I don’t have cash for a taxi. It is too far to walk. There are about 24 other resigned people here waiting. It’s after 6 pm, we’re tired, we all want to go home. This is routine here. When the bus comes, there may not be room for all of us. So we will push and shove and some of us will still be here waiting for the next bus. Eventually, we’ll all get home.

Since the narco wars started, going home has become more important. It’s the only real chance of being safe. Nobody goes out here in the evening. Ever. And nobody goes out for a walk. Going out is like asking to be shot or kidnapped. Going out to a bar for a drink and to watch the futbol game is like declaring that you’re a combatant on one of the four or fives sides of the War in Juarez. So getting home has some urgency. 60,000 people have already died in Mexico since the War on Drugs started. Nobody here wants to be in that statistic.

Years ago at this stop, the bus pulled in and there was a shooting. That was just at the start of the much greater wave of killings brought by the maquiladoras and the War on Drugs. When the door opened, a young man climbed up the steps to the driver to pay his fare, took out a small automatic machine gun, and shot the driver 16 times. I don’t know why. I can’t imagine why. Then as if the bullets had turned everyone to cement, the young man quickly made his getaway on foot. Later, nobody could provide any details at all about the shooter. Those shots were for me the opening fusillade in the War in Juarez.

I am waiting for the bus. I hope it comes soon. There is a small Toyota pickup parked across the street from the stop in the dark shade. There is something about it I don’t like. The driver has mirrored sunglasses. I can see that. And there is a big man, also with sunglasses, standing in the bed. I thought he might have a big gun, a machine gun of some kind, but I can’t see clearly from here what that is. What is he doing with a machine gun in daylight in Juarez? All I can see is that he’s got something big and heavy.

The bus comes. It is entirely too full of other passengers to take all of us. Those who are at the front of our disorderly, disorganized line struggle and get on, then there is no room for anyone else. There’s pushing and shoving, some cursing. The driver closes the door, and he leaves behind a cloud of dust and diesel exhaust and sweaty people, who will continue to wait for the bus.

At this, I look across the street. At the Toyota. The guy in the back clearly has a big machine gun. It is mounted on top of some kind of stand. It has long lines of bullets hanging from it. The truck pulls quickly out from the curb, makes a wide left turn so that it is now coming quickly toward the bus stop. At that, the man begins to shoot. I feel a bullet crush my right arm at the elbow. And in slow motion, I see the line of people to the right of me fall down one after the other. Blood is spattered everywhere, and there are pools of blood on the ground. And people are screaming and crying and dying.

There is nothing I can do. I have no idea why I have been shot. I sit on the corner of the bench, and I wait for an ambulance. Hopefully, it will come soon.

Demonstrations Called For June 10 In Ciudad Juarez

Javier Sicilia has announced a June 10th protest in Ciudad Juarez. CNN reports:

A popular Mexican poet who led a massive peace march in the nation's capital last weekend says he's chosen a new battleground for his fight for justice: Ciudad Juarez.

Javier Sicilia said Thursday that he is planning a June 10 protest in the violence-plagued city, which shares a border with El Paso, Texas.

"We must not lose what Juarez symbolizes. ... It is the symbol that the country is torn," said Sicilia, who has become one of the most vocal opponents of Mexico's drug war since his son's killing by suspected cartel members in March.

But Mexico's government has shown no signs of changing its strategy.

On Thursday the country's national security spokesman announced that hundreds of additional troops would be deployed to the border state of Tamaulipas…and also told reporters that top federal officials were willing meet with representatives from Sicilia's Network for Peace and Justice.

About 35,000 people have died in the drug related violence in Mexico since 2006. The Government is unwilling or unable to alter the strategy it has unsuccessfully followed since 2006. Intractably stuck in its policy, the Government refuses to budge. And the narco gangs continue to fight each other and the Government. The movement led by Sicilia is a people’s movement to end the war and to stop the killing.

The question for those of us presently in the US is this: how can we support this movement and urge the US and Mexican governments to take steps to stop the drug war violence. Ideas? Please use the comments.