HIST 361: The Mexican Revolution: Birth, Life, Death

updated 7:41 p.m. ET, Mon., Dec. 15, 2008

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Gunmen staged four attacks on police within a half-hour period, killing four officers in a Mexican border city overrun by drug violence, an official said Monday.

Authorities are investigating whether the attacks Sunday night were coordinated, municipal police spokesman Jaime Torres said.

More than 40 Ciudad Juarez police have been killed this year, many of them in attacks blamed on drug gangs trying to consolidate territory. Many officers have quit out of fear for their lives, often after their names have appeared on hit lists left in public.

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The Latin Americanist - Dec. 13, 2008

Millions of Mexicans celebrated the Day of the Virgen de Guadalupe on Friday. Yet as Mexico’s female patron saint was venerated several events brought to light the dangers faced by Mexican women.

Silvia Vargas had gone missing since September 2007 and her kidnapping symbolized the anguish felt by thousands of families throughout Mexico. “I have cried. I have begged… Find my daughter. Find my Silvia,” pleaded her father- Nelson Vargas- last month as he angrily denounced police incompetence in finding his daughter.

On Thursday, Nelson’s worse nightmares came true as prosecutors said to have found Silvia’s remains. “We ask everyone to pray for her and all those people who have suffered the same pain that we have felt” the family said in a written statement. Silvia was buried today at a funeral attended by dignitaries including Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Vargas’ death was tragic but so have the unsolved deaths of nearly 400 women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Despite lip service by the federal government, these deaths continue and have gone largely in impunity.
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 The Latin Americanist - Dec. 10, 2008

One group of victims in an increasingly violent Mexico is journalists. The death of Bradley Will in Oaxaca two years ago comes to mind though those killed are mostly locals like “top crime reporter” Armando Rodriguez who was gunned down last month. Is it any wonder that in 2007 Reporters Without Borders named Mexico the second-most dangerous country in the world for journalists?

Thus, it’s disheartening to read that some Mexican officials are trying to sugar-coat such a dangerous situation for journalists:

Only three of 25 reporters who died violently in the last two years in Mexico were killed because of their work, the country’s special prosecutor for crimes against journalists said Tuesday.

Octavio Orellana said most of the reporters who died were bystanders in attacks against other people, were killed in accidents or committed suicide. He said several victims who worked with media outlets were not reporters.

The motives behind most reporters’ deaths “are similar to what affects the rest of Mexicans,” Orellana added, referring to sharply increased murder rates across the country.

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Julie Watson, Huffington Post - December 6, 2008

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — As the photographer pulled his 2000 Ford Explorer into a soccer field, the crackle of his police scanner was broken by a lone accordion riff.

The riff, a fragment of a “narcocorrido” glorifying drug smugglers, was an announcement that the death toll in Mexico’s drug war _ already above 4,000 this year _ had just risen.

Hector Dayer already knew that as he looked out at the seven bodies, bound, beaten and repeatedly shot. What he didn’t know was whether yet another colleague was among the victims.

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Dec 3 2008 - NACLA News

John Ross

The fiery November 4th crash of a private Lear jet here not a mile from Los Pinos, the Mexican White House, that killed President Felipe Calderón’s closest collaborator Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño was largely buried by the U.S. press, coming as it did on Election Day USA and the subsequent eruption of Obamamania.

As Interior Secretary responsible for domestic security, Mouriño who had just met with outgoing U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to map out bilateral drug war strategies, was the second most powerful official in Mexico.

Also killed in the crash that took a total of 19 lives was Mexico’s former drug czar Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, himself a frequent assassination target for Mexican drug gangs. Last spring Vasconcelos was replaced as top dog at the SIEDO (”Sub-prosecutor for Special Investigations into Organized Crime”), which he had directed for eight years and appointed special drug war advisor to Calderón.

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From Annie Strother, Dec. 1:

“All Things Considered” did a twenty minute segment today on the massacre at Tlatelolco that features the testimonies of several of the protesters:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97546687&ft=1&f=1004

The Latin Americanist, Nov. 28, 2008

For a country that’s trying to tackle rampant crime the results of a recent report are a black eye for law enforcement.

According to a recently released report, 49.4% of nearly 56,000 Mexican police officers have failed background and security exams. The number of policemen cited in the report represents roughly one in five of the country’s total number of cops, and were tested by using tests like psychological profiles and polygraph machines.

The report should raise eyebrows north of the border since it cited several northern Mexican states as embarrassingly unskilled:

In Baja California, home to the border city of Tijuana, some 89 percent of police tested failed, and only 4 percent were judged “recommendable.” Officers there have been periodically disarmed, detained and investigated by federal investigators and army troops on suspicion of aiding drug traffickers.

The shocking report comes at a time when Mexican forces have their backs to the wall in trying to stem the tide of drug-fueled violence. Small strides have been made to combat corruption in Mexico’s police including the arrest yesterday of an officer accused of being involved in a September massacre near Mexico City.

Image- ABC News (“Police investigators work at a crime scene where seven bodies were found gunned down in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, northern Mexico, November 25, 2008.”)
Sources- The Latin Americanist, Toronto Star, AP, La Plaza, IHT

Stephanie Hanson, Council on Foreign Relations, Daily Analysis, Nov. 21, 2008

Mexico’s economy is slowing–remittances from abroad are down, as is U.S. demand for Mexican exports. But one sector is doing a brisk business–the funeral industry near the U.S. border (Reuters). Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon began his offensive against drug cartels and organized criminals in December 2006, drug-related killings have escalated, as has the need for undertakers. Though the drug war receives minimal attention north of the border, some authorities say it increasingly threatens the stability of the Mexican state and poses a security threat to the United States.

Calderon has moved aggressively against Mexico’s drug cartels. He has deployed over thirty thousand soldiers across the country, purged several police forces of corrupt members, and pushed a judicial reform package through Congress. But the violence has only mounted. More than four thousand people have died in drug-related violence this year, up from more than 2,500 deaths in 2007. The escalation is so great that drug gangs are widely suspected of causing the plane crash in early November that killed the interior minister, though the government says pilot error was the cause (NYT).

The drug cartels’ infiltration of the police, judiciary, and political parties has severely compromised the government’s ability to fight the drug cartels, some experts say. As Alma Guillermoprieto writes in the New Yorker, the end of one-party rule in Mexico precipitated the need to run expensive election campaigns, which the drug cartels are reported to now fund. The Mexican army is considered relatively clean, but its deployment has presented new opportunities for corruption, and causes tension with local security forces.

Experts say little progress will be made until Mexico’s police and judiciary are reformed. Mexican professor Ana Laura Magaloni, speaking at the Wilson Center in May 2008, says the focus should be on state-level reforms of the criminal justice system. In the meantime, concerns mount about drug-related violence spilling across the border. “International drug cartels pose an extraordinary threat both here and abroad,” said U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in September 2008. Mexico’s drug gangs could be a greater threat to the United States than global terrorism, adds John P. Sullivan of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

Calderon has sought U.S. assistance to tackle the problem. A new aid package known as the Merida Initiative (PDF) will provide $400 million in equipment and communications systems this year, with plans for further funding in the next two years. Some Mexican and U.S. analysts criticize the package for its focus on equipment rather than training and institution building. Others note that the package does not address how to reduce U.S. drug demand.

Drug trafficking is not the only issue of mutual interest between Mexico and the United States. Mexico is the third most important source of oil to the United States but output has been dropping since 2005. A package of energy reforms passed Mexico’s Congress on October 28, but industry experts say it likely does not go far enough to attract the kind of private investment needed to build capacity.

Immigration also complicates the U.S.-Mexico relationship–the majority of illegal immigrants in the United States are Mexicans. The U.S. Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation in 2007, but some are hopeful that President-elect Barack Obama might revive the issue. It was one of the topics he discussed with his presidential rival, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in a November 17 meeting aimed at building bipartisan momentum for congressional initiatives. A recent CFR Independent Task Force on U.S.-Latin American relations recommends a U.S. guest worker programs, legalized a path to citizenship, and addressing circular migration for agriculture workers.