I was walking past the news stand at the local Stripes store and the one major headline style adopted by the local daily caught my eye.
There, in bold letters, the headline informed us that the action was "Heating Up" in Matamoros.
Well, I said. This is news.
Not that we didn't know the confrontations between armed groups and other groups and between them and the military were hot as Hades, but rather that our local daily put it so blithely. Heating up indeed.
Go downtown to Matamoros and you can count the people on one hand who venture out into the city at night. Same goes for some of the more violent colonias.
Hear the people talking in line at the pharmacy at Wal-Mart.
"We don't even like to cross the bridge anymore," said a lady to another as they waited for their prescriptions. "Every night you hear the gunfire and cars speeding by. Nobody goes out at night to drink coffee at the cafes. "I guess we'll just have to wait until they move to another city."
The border area north of the Rio Grande has long been the scene of conflict that spills over from one side to the other. Whether it was the U.S. military crossing the river and invading Matamoros, or armed forays by armed groups of men from one side to the other after cattle, money or each other, this area has always been a scenario for violence.
However, the intensity of this activity lately has a decidedly different character. Long gone are the days when most armed groups would not dare attack the military. I remember passing by the military barracks near the Juarez Market in Matamoros and my father telling me not to look the soldiers with the automatic rifles in the eye.
Today, they are not only looking them in the eye, but they are cutting off their heads and hanging up their bodies.
A Mexican acquaintance was telling me that it was partly the result of local politicians selling the "plaza" to different armed groups at the same time, a sort of suicidal double dealing. I always wondered whether the killings of elected officials were due to their positions of authority or whether there was something else involved. Apparently, there is plenty more involved here.
Now, after the government's strategy of keeping everything under wraps by silencing the news media has failed, the truth of the matter has shown itself for the monumental societal dysfunction that exists right across the river.
But don't feel too safe. For years we have known that some of the most important players of the Mexican tragedy lived among us. Many Mexican government officials – from politicians to military and organized crime figures – shop alongside you at the local HEB and Wal-Mart.
Their kids attend local schools and their wives go to local beauty shops to get their facials like anyone else. It's only when they cross the river that they enter the declared battleground and no truce is in place.
Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia was right when he said that the cartel's hits on the Zetas – or vice versa – were aimed at specific targets. The recent hit on two men off FM 511 attests to that fact. If you're up to no good, no good will find you.
Not too long ago a friend of mine from up the Valley was asking me why it didn't appear to him that we had a gang problem in Brownsville. Everywhere else, he said, even Harlingen, was plagued by gangs of youth fighting with each other and the law.
I though about it for a while and finally hit upon the answer.
"It's not good for business," I replied. "We already have cartels. Who needs gangs to mess everything up? It just attracts the law and gets in the way of profits. They don't want that."
In the same vein, a few years ago a friend called me up to ask if I knew where an acquaintance of his who didn't like too much public attention could sit down and relax safely with a cold beer.
At the time there was a bar named Domino's on 14th Street owned by a woman named Juanita who took care that her place remained cold in the middle of summer and just dark enough to guarantee her customers privacy. We went there.
My friend arrived with a young guy wearing a field jacket in the middle of the steaming summer afternoon. A few bulges around his waist indicated he was heavily armed.
After a few pleasantries, he told me he was from the Estado Major in Mexico City and could cross the border armed with weapons on the weight of his diplomatic pass. He was sent here to take care of business and make sure everybody knew what they were supposed to do.
"I'm not here to stop the people from doing business," he said, referring to the drug trade. "But sometimes somebody along the river wants to charge more than they should for providing a crossing area and people complain. We can live with the business, we just want to make sure everything goes smoothly."
Today, it appears that this philosophy has backfired on the government and that unlike the status quo of the past, Mexico can no longer live with it and its people are dying as a result.
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