As we on this side of the Rio Grande battled with the Super Bowl hangover, bore the onslaught of a major cold front and worried about what to buy our better halves for Valentine's Day, Mexican citizens continue to bear the riptide of watershed events that has rent the country's social fabric.
For the first time since 1953 when women were given the right to vote in this county, a woman has been elected as the nominee for the conservative Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) to battle the nominees of the PRI (Enrique Peña Prieto) ousted from the presidency 12 years ago and the decidedly left-wing liberal PRD headed by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Josefina Vazquez Mota, 51, beat out two other PAN candidates (one of them outgoing president Felipe Calderon's favorite) without having to go to a runoff (53 percent).
What she inherits if she should win and become the first female president of Mexico is a failed state virtually under military occupation.
In a campaign marred by the disclosure that the ruling PAN administration has wiretapping the Mexican Congress and that the PRI had sent $25 million pesos (about $2 million in US dollars) to buy the party's primary in Veracruz for an unnamed candidate, her victory has turned everything on its head.
These event take place just as the effects of her predecessor Calderon's policies against organized drug cartels have led to a situation most resembling a society occupied by the Mexican military who rule with an iron fist (and machine guns) without answering to any form of authority other than its own leadership.
For those who believed that sending in the military to battle these organized drug (and crime) cartels was the answer, take a look at what has happened to our neighbors in Matamoros after its 650 local policemen were replaced by 200 troops of the various armed forces. Now, this for a city of more than 800,000 residents.
In April 2001, the last month that local police were on duty, there were about 2,000 arrests (1,892) for crimes ranging from home burglaries, auto theft, armed robbery, business robbery, homicides, and fraud and sexual assaults, among others.
In April 2001, the last month that local police were on duty, there were about 2,000 arrests (1,892) for crimes ranging from home burglaries, auto theft, armed robbery, business robbery, homicides, and fraud and sexual assaults, among others.
The very next month, in May 2011, there were 22 arrests for this crimes.
Does that mean that crime stopped altogether with the coming of the military? Not really. The above quoted figures were for arrests of suspects. The number of emergency calls (066 in Mata) continue at a "stable" 1,600 monthly throughout the same period.
Of the 9,783 suspects detained by the police and military combined for the year, 9,261 were apprehended during the four months from January to April while local police were on duty, and the rest – only 522 – were arrested after the military took over the vigilance of the city.Any way you cut it, the arrests under the military's watch equals only 5 percent in double the time (eight months) than when local police were on duty.
In May and June of that year, the military arrested only 33 suspects, when on average, the number of arrests by police in Matamoros averaged some 1,300 thieves, robbers, murderers, and criminals of every stripe.
Just recently, the Calderon government announced that another 600 troops would be sent to Mier, another 600 to San Fernando and another 600 to El Mante. There are some 200 troops routinely rotated in and out of Matamoros, according to Tamaulipas news media. Their length of service ends without them getting to know the city or the haunts of the criminals. Since the troops travel in convoys, criminals know where they are and routinely appear during their change in shifts by watch9ing their movements out of the military zones.
The void in security left by the local police who know the local criminals and their habitats has been quickly filled in by a sort of Black Hand element made up of thugs, common criminals, organized crime gangs and even some members of local government who prey on the citizenry.
Using extortion, blackmail, intimidation, kidnappings, and outright force, these elements have come to be known loosely as "La Maña," a sort of homegrown mafia that preys on businesses driving them to the Rio Grande Valley to escape their rapacious extortion and blackmail and has left Matamoros a virtual ghost town after dark.
Such is reality in our sister city. Just last Saturday a student at the Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas was traveling through a thoroughfare in the middle of the city with his girlfriend when a convoy of troops opened fire indiscriminately and a military round when through the driver's door and struck him on the left side, piercing his lung. Matamoros authorities (not police) were prevented from entering the cordoned area, as were the news media.
As has happened in previous events where civilians are shot, killed, or assaulted by the military, this student and his family will have no recourse to punish those soldiers who shot him without any apparent cause. Will Mexicans continue to support the PAN and its elected nominee to the presidency if it requires that they relinquish the last vestiges of civil life in return?
2 comments:
Mexico is a great culture that has contributed much to the cultural richness of all of North and South America. But there has never been a time when public officials of any party have not been corrupt to the bone. PRI, PAN or PISS doesn't make any difference. If you don't have palanca or a gun, you are shit out of luck. Lots of lofty words down there and ideals never lived out.
I don't expect anything to change, but it sure would be nice for public safety to increase to the point you only had to worry about a little money for the mordelones.
El Pinche Gringo
I wouldn't worry about this candidate. Have you heard her speak?? Let's revisit after you hear her air. She's to the election what Rick Perry was to the presidential one.
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