Tijuana News

Spectacular killings like the slaughter of eight people inside a seafood restaurant November 28 have rightly earned Ciudad Juarez the reputation as the most violent and dangerous place in Mexico. But on another side of the border, in Baja California, Tijuana is running a close second. Since the beginning of the year, about 700 people have been reportedly murdered in the border city, while 187 others have suffered forced disappearances, according to the president of a non-governmental human rights group.

“Fifteen of these disappearances have occurred in the last month,” said Fernando Oseguera, president of Citizens United against Impunity.“ Many families have decided to keep this a secret because they do not have confidence in the authorities.” On Friday, November 28, Oseguera’s organization took the issue of forced disappearance public by exhibiting photographs of disappeared people in front of government offices in Tijuana.

Like Ciudad Juarez, the streets of Tijuana are a battleground between heavily armed organized criminal gangs that often include current or former policemen. Although the Mexican army has been repeatedly deployed since beginning of the Calderon administration, it has failed to contain the violence in Tijuana and other parts of Baja California.

Despite multiple claims by US and Mexican officials that cross-border law enforcement initiatives have largely finished off the long-dominant Arellano Felix crime organization in Baja, bands of gunmen roam the landscape. The latest press accounts reported at least 14 people murdered on November 28 and November 29. Incidents included the apparent execution of a man inside a church, and the fatal shooting of one woman and the wounding of another outside a Tijuana bus station. Armed assaults were also reported against a tire shop and an auto junk parts dealer.

A prevailing climate of crime, violence and impunity has been accompanied by a rise in human rights complaints registered by the Baja California Attorney General for Human Rights. According to state human rights ombudsman Francisco Javier Sanchez Corona, his office has handled 1,622 complaints during 2008 so far-one thousand more than in 2007.

Of the complaints, 355 were against members of the municipal police forces, 125 against state police and 65 against employees of the district attorney’s office. The most common complaints included arbitrary detention (209), physical injury (135) and irregularities in preliminary investigations (90). The official state human rights commission also received 26 complaints of torture in Baja California jails.

The complaints do not include any which may have been made against the Mexican army or federal police, since jurisdiction for human rights abuses committed by federal employees falls with the Mexico City-based National Human Rights Commission.

In response to public outcries about the deteriorating public security situation, state and federal officials are taking a number of steps. On November 28, Baja California State Attorney General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez announced the appointment of Miguel Angel Guerrero Castro as the new special prosecutor for forced disappearances, a post which had been vacant in recent months. And earlier this month, more local policing duties were turned over to the Mexican army and federal police. The military is also currently charged with training about 500 officers of the 2,000-member Tijuana municipal police force.

Sources: Lapolaka.com, November 28, 2008. Frontera, November 18, 28 and 29, 2008. La Jornada, November 18 and 29, 2008. Articles by Antonio Heras, Javier Valdez and correspondents. El Universal, October 4, 2008 and November 28, 2008. Articles by Julieta Martinez and editorial staff.

Big questions linger from last week’s horrific violence at Tijuana’s La Mesa prison. While official accounts report 23 prisoners dead after uprisings on September 14 and 17, relatives of inmates contend as many 33 prisoners could have perished. The first bout of violence broke out after 19-year-old prisoner Israel Marquez Blanco was beaten and killed by jailers on the evening of September 13.

Complaining of restrictive conditions, bad food and torture by guards after the September 14 uprising, inmates rebelled again three days later. A fair amount of the turmoil occurred in the women’s section of the prison.

While large numbers of prisoners shouted demands from a prison roof-top during the second incident, hundreds of frustrated family members clashed with police outside the 56-year-old correctional facility. A police cruiser was set on fire, and 15 people were detained.

“It’s true there are family members who are worried about what is going on with their relatives inside the prison,” said Tijuana police chief Julian Leyzaola, “but it’s also true that a number of vandals got together and only placed in doubt the needs of the rest of the population.”

In addition to the dead, scores of people, including several police officers, were reported injured last week at La Mesa. Eleven victims were listed in critical condition at Tijuana’s General Hospital. Many of the slain victims were killed by gunshot wounds consistent with injuries from the type of bullets used by federal police forces that participated in retaking the prison on September 17.

Janice Weiner, spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Mexico City, said two of the slain inmates were US citizens. Several of the injured prisoners were also US citizens, Weiner said, adding that about 250 US-origin prisoners were incarcerated at La Mesa. The names of the slain and injured US citizens were not immediately disclosed. Nearly all the slain or seriously injured inmates were men.

Anonymous police sources pointed the finger at the Federal Preventive Police for the killings, but the Baja California state attorney general’s office claimed evidence showed some prisoners fired weapons. However, authorities did not produce the firearms allegedly used by the rebellious inmates. An undetermined number of prisoners reportedly escaped during the chaos.

Baja California state legislator Carlos Barboza demanded a thorough investigation to determine who was responsible for the killings. “If it was the police, we need to know who gave the order,” Barboza said. “If it was the inmates, we need to know where the arms are and how they got into La Mesa.”

Official heads rolled as a result of the violence. On September 17, Baja California Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan announced the firings of Warden Carlos Arturo Gonzalez Garcia and two other high-ranking state correctional officials: Simona Garcia and Miguel Angel Canett Sanchez. The three officials were then detained on charges of administrative negligence. A guard was also taken into custody, and 30 other prison personnel subjected to investigation.

In addition, arrest warrants were issued for prison officers Marco Antonio Ibarra Chavez and Daniel Ibarra Perez, both of whom are accused of killing Israel Marquez on September 13; Baja California officials suspect the two men could have crossed the border north into neighboring California.

Inmates were also slapped with disciplinary action. Authorities transferred more than 200 prisoners, both male and female, to state prisons in Ensenada and Tecate and a maximum security joint outside Mexico City.

Observers blamed long-running, bad conditions at La Mesa for the upheaval. First built in 1952 with a capacity of 600 inmates, La Mesa was eventually expanded to hold 3,000 people. Today, an estimated 8,000 prisoners are crowded into the facility. More than half the inmates are imprisoned on federal charges, which usually involve illegal drugs. Like many prisons in the United States and other parts of the Americas, Mexican penitentiaries are dangerously overcrowded.

Until 2002, a large section of La Mesa was known by the folkloric name of “El Pueblito,” or “Little Town.” Basically run by prisoners, “El Pueblito” was a society behind bars in which prisoners’ families resided and left to work on the outside. Bringing in an estimated $100,000 every day, a brisk contraband trade even gave a life of luxury to some inside the walls.

In 2004 and 2006, La Mesa was the scene of two jail-breaks by members of the Zetas and Arellano-Felix drug gangs.

Beginning in 1990, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) issued multiple recommendations and reports about La Mesa. The CNDH identified corruption, inmate self-governance, drug trafficking, torture, mistreatment, mixing of male and female prisoners, lumping together convicts with non-convicts, and the lack of educational and rehabilitative programs as serious matters needing addressing.

In February 2002, the CNDH charged that authorities were either unwilling or unable to resolve problems. On July 23, 2004, the federal human rights commission recommended to then-Governor Eugenio Elorduy Walther that La Mesa’s warden spend money from the institutional budget to make sure prisoners had access to healthy food.

Most recently, the Baja California Attorney General for Human Rights and Citizen Protection added its own criticism. Issuing Recommendation 01/2008 to the State Public Safety Secretariat earlier this year, the official state human rights commission urged officials to establish rules for the revision of inmate cells and property. According to Francisco Sanchez Corona, state human rights ombudsman, other irregularities included the use of torture as a means of obliging a prisoner to render statements or provide information to jailers.

“This is the situation that provoked the riots of Sunday and Wednesday,” Sanchez said. “Nonetheless, the lack of a response on the part of the authorities could provoke a third inmate riot in the coming hours. I hope I am wrong.”

Reacting to the events at the Tijuana prison, Governor Osuna convened a committee of state personnel to study inmate complaints and demands. In a subsequent meeting with Mexico’s National Security Council and President Felipe Calderon, he requested funding for the construction of a new prison to replace La Mesa, long-considered obsolete.

“I don’t see any talk about resources for prisons and they are urgent,” Governor Osuna was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, as uncertainty continued to swirl around the future of La Mesa, federal police and Mexican soldiers responded to another prison disturbance September 18 in the northern Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon. No serious injuries were reported at the Topo Chico prison in Cadereyta, which is located northeast of Monterrey. The non-governmental group Citizens in Support of Human Rights warned that bad conditions at Topo Chico could be jeopardizing the safety of inmates and employees.

Sources: Frontera, September 18 and 20, 2008. El Sur/Agencia Proceso, September 19, 2008. La Jornada, September 18, 19 and 20, 2008. Articles by Antonio Heras and David Carrizales. El Universal, September 19, 2008. Article by Julieta Martinez. Univision, September 18, 2008.

In an unsurprising development, Baja California’s once-vaunted, US-oriented residential real estate market has ground to a virtual halt, according to a high-ranking Mexican official.

“Some are important investments such as the Trump towers or Bella Vista,” said Luis Bustamante Fernandez, director of Baja California’s Indivi state housing agency. “What’s needed is for the United States to resolve its economic problem, which will surely happen after the elections and a change of government.”

A former president of a Tijuana real estate development association, Bustamante said that 60 of 100 big residential developments in the Tijuana-Ensenada coastal corridor are paralyzed. According to the state official, investments in the neighborhood of $12 billion are in the cooler.

Undergoing a boom in recent years, the Tijuana-Ensenada corridor has been popular among US residents seeking a weekend getaway home or a new life south of the border.

While the once sizzling Baja real estate market is in the damper, big money looms from international trade. In an Ensenada ceremony last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Communications and Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez officially unveiled the massive, planned Punta Colonet international trade terminal. Protected by Mexican war ships, the federal officials detailed the magnitude of a project that could wean much of the China trade away from Long Beach and other US ports.

Slated for completion in 2020, the multi-billion dollar sea port is expected to also include an airport, rail link, warehouse facility and desalinization plant. “From here, six million containers will be moved every year,” Secretary Tellez vowed. Punta Colonet will “make the economy of Mexico dynamic,” President Calderon added.

If Punta Colonet’s promoters are on mark, the port could serve as the entry point for new trade networks across northern Mexico and into the US Midwest. Mexican environmentalists, however, have questioned the impact of the port construction and facility on a fragile ecosystem.

Sources: Frontera, September 1, 2008. Article by Sandra Cervantes. Frontenet.com/El Universal, August 28, 2008. La Jornada, August 25, 2008. Article by Ivan Restrepo.

In a press conference, Baja California Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan announced that shortages of diesel fuel should be relieved by the coming weekend.
In Tijuana and other Baja California cities, low diesel supplies caused scores of stations to run out of fuel or limit heavy truck purchases to $100 in recent days. Long lines resulted from the crisis, and in at least one instance Tijuana police had to intervene to quell the tempers of upset truck drivers.

Sales outlets were ordered to reserve enough fuel for emergency providers like the fire department, said Joaquin Avina Sanchez, president of the Tijuana Gasoline Station Owners Association.

Governor Osuna blamed the immediate shortage on a cargo ship that was delayed because of bad weather. However, reports indicate that US buyers have been making runs on cheaper diesel fuel sold across the border in Baja California. Diesel consumption in the Tijuana area was reportedly 34% greater in May 2008 than in December 2007.

As diesel ran low, rumors of pending gasoline shortages circulated in Baja California. A reader of Frontera NorteSur wrote in to report that residents of San Felipe were told to expect gasoline shortages during the next 7-14 days. No dry-up of gasoline supplies has been reported so far. Tanker trucks from Ciudad Juarez were able to resupply some diesel during the shortage this week.

The Baja diesel shortage came amid a deepening controversy over the future of Mexico’s national oil company, Pemex. Legislation proposed by President Felipe Calderon to reform Pemex is awaiting action in the Mexican Congress, but faces stiff opposition from center-left lawmakers and a mass movement against privatization led by former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Governor Osuna, said he supports the Calderon initiative, insisting that the legislation does not amount to the privatization of the oil giant. According to Governor Osuna, an extra 150,000 barrels of diesel should arrive on a ship to Baja California this weekend.

Additional sources: El Sol de Tijuana, June 19 and 20, 2008. Articles by Ana Luz Sanchez Aguirre, Adan Mondragon and editorial staff. El-mexicano.net (Ensenada), June 20, 2008. Frontera, June 19, 2008. Article by Sandra Cervantes.

Professional trash scavengers known as pepenadores conducted a blockade June 2 of Tijuana’s municipal landfill for several hours, preventing garbage trucks from entering the facility. More than 600 people participated in the action to protest a new recycling program they contend will throw them out of work. As informal workers who make a living from gathering and selling recyclable materials, the disgruntled garbage collectors fear new machinery that processes cardboard and aluminum will result in their displacement.

Protest leader Mario Rodriguez charged that Tijuana’s municipal government had not complied with earlier promises to leave some materials for the pepenadores. Rodriguez contended that the city government was using new employees to recycle more than two tons of material every day. Advised of the blockade, Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos reiterated his disposition to negotiate with the protestors, but warned that force could be used to end the blockade and allow sanitation trucks back into the landfill.

After meeting with Department of Urban Development chief Marcos Sarabia, the protestors agreed to lift their blockade and resume negotiations on June 3. Sarabia said the city was willing to accommodate the needs of the numerous landfill scavengers. “If it’s necessary, we’re going to put a recycling plant in the landfill so these people can have permanent work,” Sarabia vowed.

Although Mexican cities like Tijuana are barely ratcheting up formally-organized recycling programs, thousands of people across the country have long earned their livelihoods scavenging dumps for aluminum cans and other recyclables. Additionally, large public gatherings or scheduled events like the arrival of cruise ships to tourist ports attract individuals who scour the ground and poke through trash cans to recover goods that can be sold and recycled.

Sources: El Sol de Tijuana, June 3, 2008. Article by Fernando Barroso. Frontera, June 2, 2008. Articles by Daniel Salinas.

A proposed project run by the private military contractor Blackwater Worldwide is once again kicking up political hay on the US-Mexico border. Earlier rebuffed in its attempt to open a large training camp in the rural San Diego County community of Potrero, Blackwater now finds itself in a battle over the company’s bid to open a training facility for the US Navy. Like Potrero, the latest controversy has pried open a Pandora’s Box of thorny issues ranging from border relations to the Iraq war. The current dispute centers on Blackwater’s plans to manage a 48-student school in San Diego County’s Otay Mesa on the US-Mexico border and just down the road from US Border Patrol offices. According to Blackwater’s plans, the site will offer in-door shooting instruction and simulated ship training to improve the anti-terrorist skills of naval personnel.

US Congressman Bob Filner (D-Ca.), a leading Blackwater critic, said in radio interview late last week that the presence of a “private mercenary army” on the border, where it is hard to tell who is a citizen and who is not, was a “recipe for disaster.” Rep. Filner and other Blackwater opponents often cite the company’s record in Iraq as grounds for opposing the North Carolina-based firm’s further expansion into the public sphere. Blackwater has been mired in controversies arising from the 2004 killing of four company personnel in Fallujah, Iraq, and from the shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater employees last year. “They shoot first and ask later,” Rep. Filner charged.

On April 25, Rep. Filner and San Diego City Councilman Ben Hueso joined about 30 community activists for a rally against an Otay Mesa Blackwater school.

Brian Bonfiglio, Blackwater vice-president, dismissed the opposition as ideologically-driven. Bonfiglio said that Blackwater has been conducting military training for five years at other locations in San Diego County, including the privately-owned American Shooting Center. The Otay Mesa school would not train private security contractors, he said.

The San Diego Development Services Department issued a permit March 19 for the Otay Mesa site without a public hearing. Kelly Broughton, department director, said Blackwater’s permit complied with an earlier designation of the Otay Mesa building as a vocational school. Broughton said the training of “future police or security” guards would be a proper activity meeting a vocational trade definition.

But Rep. Filner and members of the San Diego City Council contend that Blackwater could have used deceptive practices to obtain the permit, which was obtained by Raven Development Group, a Blackwater affiliate. The design plans for the school were submitted under the name of Southwest Law Enforcement, another Blackwater affiliate. According to the California congressman, he is working with the city council and county attorney to investigate the permit and determine if there are reasons to revoke it. He urged community activists to “take a look” to see how many places along the border Blackwater was operating under different names.

In earlier comments to the local press, Blackwater’s Bonfiglio insisted that the company had nothing to hide and that the legality of the permit was above-board. Bonfiglio added that the Otay Mesa row could have repercussions for others. “If they go after our range, they are getting ready to take on every other firearms business in the county,” he said.

Last March, Blackwater withdrew its application for a 824-acre training camp in Potrero after gunfire tests showed potential noise from the facility would exceed county standards. The proposed Potrero camp generated stiff citizen opposition, resulting in the voter recall of all five members of the planning board who approved the project. Initially surfacing in Potrero, anti-Blackwater sentiments are now focused on Otay Mesa.

“We need more training for peace,” said Jeanette Hartman, chairwoman of a local Sierra Club committee. “I’ll be happy when they open a peace center.”

Sources: Pacifica Radio/Democracy Now, May 2, 2008. San Diego Union Tribune, April 23, 26 and 29, 2008. Articles by Anne Krueger and Tanya Mannes. NBC-San Diego, April 22, 2008. Stopblackwater.net

Lengthy waits, lost time and frayed nerves have been the order of the day for many people attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico at land ports of entry in recent years. From Matamoros to Tijuana, border residents complain of lost business and reduced tourism because of tightened US security procedures. Added traffic congestion on international bridges also has consequences for the environment and public health as
automobiles spew more contaminants into already-stressed border air basins. To address the problem, authorities from both the US and Mexico are discussing adding new international bridges and ports of entry at several locations along their common 2,000-mile frontier.

In Baja California, state officials have announced that two new customs lanes and booths will be built at the Tijuana-San Ysidro Port of Entry beginning in June. According to Baja California Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan, the Mexican federal government plans to invest approximately $6 million in the project. Governor Osuna informed representatives of the California state government of the Mexican government’s intentions at a recent meeting.

Tijuana Mayor Jose Ramos Hernandez welcomed the news. Mayor Ramos said
the current local border crossing infrastructure was surpassed 12 years ago by increased commerce and visitation in the region. According to the border mayor,
40,000 jobs have been lost in Tijuana due to the extra congestion. Public insecurity, exemplified by the narco war raging away in the borderlands, is another factor in lost tourism, according to other sources. Tijuana was one of the places mentioned in an updated US State Department travel advisory issued this month.

According to a Mexican press story, border crossings at the San Ysidro-Tijuana Port of entry dropped in 2007. On average, 50,000 vehicles and 25,000 pedestrians reportedly made the crossing every day last year. In 2006, the daily numbers reported were 65,000 vehicles and 35,000 pedestrians.

Sources: El Paso Times, April 14, 2008. Article by Louie Gilot. El Universal,April 13, 2008. Article by Louie Gilot.

In the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana, the imprint of the narco
is everywhere. A city long dominated by the Arellano-Felix drug cartel, the influence of the illegal narcotics trade permeates business, politics and other aspects of public life. Despite the deployment of the Mexican army in Tijuana's streets this month, the latest round of bloody killings, kidnappings and gun battles attests to the stubborn power of organized crime. Intrigued by the sociological implications of the drug business, Mexican researcher Paola Ovalle recently explored the opinions of Tijuana university students about drug traffickers and their business.

A researcher with the Autonomous University of Baja California, Ovalle administered 400 surveys to students at four universities, two private and two public. In general terms, Ovalle detected two very different schools of thought among the university students she questioned.

"One of them sees (drug trafficking) as a monster that provokes the ills which exist in Tijuana, and holds that drug traffickers deserve the death penalty, that they traffic in poison and that they are violent people," Ovalle said in an interview with the Mexican press. "On the other side, we find another, apparently contrasting representation that falls into indifference, in which we find the majority of the students."

According to the specialist in drug trafficking and security studies, many Tijuana youths view the drug trade as just another socially-harmful economic activity that is not really much different from polluting industries or the cigarette and alcohol businesses. Many youths advocate the legalization of certain drugs, Ovalle added.

The border researcher contended that the institutionalized presence
of organized crime and constant media exposure have transformed the drug underworld into an integral part of the Tijuana’s contemporary cultural landscape. "On many occasions the symbolic content of drug trafficking is exalted," Ovalle said.

Still, most university students do not want to become drug traffickers themselves, Ovalle said, adding that young people regard
involvement in "the business" as a risky venture that leads to short life spans. Notably, the Tijuana scholar found one interesting difference in the answers of private and public university students.

"In contrast to public universities, it caught my attention that some students of private schools said they personally knew or had contact with drug traffickers or their families," Ovalle said.

All along the US-Mexico border, familiar, seasonal scenes are taking shape at international crossings and on highways. Weighted down with presents and goods of all kinds, immigrant caravans fleeted with pick-ups, SUVs and any four-wheeled vehicle that moves are headed south to visit hometowns, relatives and friends for the winter holidays. Meanwhile, long lines of cars and pedestrians inch across the US border on their way to Christmas shopping sprees in popular malls and border shopping districts.

In places like San Diego, the critical Christmas shopping season would be much bleaker for local businesses if it weren't for Mexican customers. A recent article in the Mexican journal Frontera Norte, for example, reported that Mexican shoppers and tourists, mainly from Tijuana, contributed more than $3.0 billion annually to the San Diego economy. However, some Tijuana business leaders observe the money flow with more than a hint of dismay.

Cesar Cazares Diaz de Leon, president of the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce, recently told a Mexican reporter that Mexican spending in neighboring San Diego would increase by nearly a half billion dollars this year in comparison to 2006's sum.

"We anticipate this season with a lot of desperation, because these are the times when our sales could go up, but we see with displeasure how the loss of consumers grew by $400 million this year," Cazares said. "We are going to lose $400 million in sales this year. That is how the loss of consumers has grown year after year. We can't compete with (San Diego) under these circumstances."

A recent development blamed for the loss of commercial business in Tijuana was the opening of a new mall in San Ysidro, California, that quickly attracted an almost exclusively Mexican clientele.

Sources: Frontera, December 9, 2007. Article by Daniel Salinas. Frontera Norte, January-June 2007.

Straddling the US border, sections of Mexico’s Baja California state were singed by the raging fires that erupted across the border in southern California in recent days. Blanketing the border with bad air conditions, smoke and haze from the fires prompted Mexican authorities to close schools in Tijuana, Tecate, Ensenada and Playas de Rosaritos early this week. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican students were left without classes until further notice.

According to Juan Elvira Quesada, chief of the federal Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) several dozen acres of Mexican land were burned by border-jumping blazes. Some of the flames threatened areas well-known as crossing corridors for undocumented workers. Four cabins at Rancho La Puerta, a popular tourist destination near Tecate, were burned in a fire. The emergency conditions forced the evacuation of at least 100 families in Ensenada, 60 households in Tecate and several dozen more people in Tijuana. Except for one report of a child suffering burns in Tijuana, the casualty list from fires in Mexico was initially blank.

Reminiscent of their deployment during the 2003 San Diego area fires, Mexican firefighters and fire control experts were dispatched to the United States to help bring the flames under control. Sixty firefighters from Tijuana and Tecate crossed the border October 21 to assist in fire suppression work on the US side, but were withdrawn the next day after they were suddenly needed to combat fires beginning to spread into Mexico. Semarnat head Elvira said that a separate group of 32 Mexican fire control experts were sent to California, with another 100 on stand-by in Mexican territory.

As the fires picked up in strength, concern was expressed by both Mexican and US authorities that immigrant smugglers, or “coyotes,” would see the disaster as a distraction to aid them in crossing undocumented migrants across the border. California National Guard units which had been assigned to border patrol duty were ordered north for fire control duty.

Alberto Lozano Merino, spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in San Diego, said that two groups of migrants were detained October 22 attempting to cross the border in the midst of the fires. According to Lozano, one migrant suffered second degree burns and several others registered light burns. A group of 50 migrants reportedly surrendered to US Border Patrol agents October 21, but agency spokesperson Wendy Lee said she could not confirm the incident.

“The detentions are constant. Yes, there are groups of between five and ten people that try to cross,” Lee said. “It’s important to publicize the alerts about the big dangers that they expose themselves to, which are normally significant but much greater now because of the fires.”

Sources: Frontera, October 22 and 23, 2007. Articles by German Ramos, Laura Duran, Luis Adolfo San, Junuen Lugo, and the Associated Press news agency. El Universal/EFE/AP, October 23, 2007. La Jornada/ Notimex/AFP, October 22 and 23,
2007. El Diario de Juarez, October 23, 2007.

Now that the initial clouds of smoke have begun clearing from Baja California's August 5 election, political actors and analysts are assessing the local, national and international repercussions of the raucous race. Final results announced by the Baja California State Election Council show the conservative National Action Party (PAN) of President Felipe Calderon as the winner. Not only did the PAN manage to retain control of the governor's office, but the party re-conquered the city halls of Tijuana, Mexicali and Tecate as well.

The PAN also preserved its majority in the state congress, upping its representation from 13 to 15 seats, while the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) remained with 9 seats and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) dropped from two seats to one. Two small parties that united with the PAN are also expected to gain seats in the state legislature.

Despite pre-election polls that showed a neck-to-neck race between PAN gubernatorial candidate Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan and principal rival Jorge Hank Rhon of the PRI-led So That You Can Live Better Alliance, the final tallies gave Osuna a large victory margin of 54,000 votes. "The people have spoken," declared a triumphant Osuna.

In the view of the PRI, however, the election is far from over. State party leader Mario Madrigal Magana announced August 21 that the PRI and two allied parties will file a legal challenge with the State Electoral Council that seeks to annul the election results.

Ironically, the PRI is basing its case on alleged irregularities that were once perfected by Mexico’s former ruling party. According to Magana, police intimidation, vote-buying and the interference of PAN Governor Elorduy Walther during the political campaign all made the election illegitimate.

“We have all the legal elements to challenge the elections with the goal of annulling them,” affirmed Madrigal.

For the moment, however, the PAN’s August 5 victory is sweet relief for a political force that is beset by divisions and which has lost key electoral strongholds in elections in Yucatan and Aguascalientes this year. But Osuna and his fellow Panistas weren’t the only winners. Good old-fashioned political trickery, lavish spending, negative campaigning, voter abstention, and the seemingly unstoppable Elba Esther Gordillo emerged as the other prime victors.

Feared violence did not materialize, but only days after the vote the secretary-general of Tijuana branch of the Mexican Green Party, Fausto Rodriguez was briefly kidnapped by an armed commando. Rodriguez had earlier had earlier resigned from the PRI-Green party alliance to protest the imposition of candidates, but it is not known if his kidnapping was in any way connected to the election.

As usual, most major US media were oblivious to the national and binational implications of a Mexican state election, even though this one happened smack dab on the border of the US's largest state when unresolved immigration, border walls, narco-violence and trade and investment policy issues define US-Mexico relations. Running against the mainstream current was the San Francisco Chronicle, which ran a full-page election day story that discussed gubernatorial hopeful Hank's alleged ties to organized crime.

In the days preceding the vote, mutual accusations of unfair campaigning, vote-buying, police harassment, and government coercion at all levels splashed the headlines. On election eve, recordings of police band radio conversations between Tijuana municipal police and alleged drug traffickers were leaked to the media and played on the airwaves.

Allegedly in the possession of the Office of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) since 2004, it is uncertain how the federal police used the recordings prior to their release three years later; the timing of the audiotapes' leaking, reminiscent of the Carlos Ahumada videotapes which showed PRD politicians accepting suitcases of money in the run-up to the 2006 presidential elections, also raised intriguing , still-unanswered questions. Coupled with PAN campaign spots that implied a connection between organized crime and former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank, the tapes could have been a decisive, last-minute blow to the PRI’s controversial standard-bearer.

The leader of the massive, national teachers' union, Elba Esther Gordillo, landed another dizzying punch to Hank. Long embroiled in a feud with key Hank backer and former PRI presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo, Gordillo arrived on the scene to rally her troops in a get-out-the-vote drive for Osuna. The PAN's victorious candidate recognized that hundreds of mobilized teachers contributed to his victory.

For Gordillo, the political alliance with the PAN was a matter of expediency. "We aren't Panistas, because we aren't conservatives, but we are at a special juncture," she argued just prior to the election.

Some analysts noted the similarities between Gordillo's role in the Baja election and her crucial support for PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderon in last year's election, a political move that is credited by some for pushing Calderon over the top in his tight race with the PRD's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Undoubtedly, the PAN victory in Baja California reinforces Gordillo's growing clout on the national political scene, and it will have repercussions in the struggle over the management and direction of the National Education Ministry. In Baja, Gordillo will likely wield influence through the teacher-based National Alliance Party that teamed with the PAN in this year's electoral coalition.

Used to winning the spin of the roulette wheel, losing PRI gubernatorial candidate and billionaire gaming businessman Jorge Hank expressed no public bitterness at his defeat. Hank's conciliatory tone contrasted with state PRI leader Madrgial’s vows to overturn the election.

Commenting that "sleeping" would soothe his post-election blues, Hank blamed delays in opening voting booths, popular fear of violence and voter abstention for his defeat. "I didn't know how to motivate the people," Hank conceded.

In one press conference with reporters held at his “eccentric offices” outside the Agua Caliente race track, Hank waxed philosophical about the election outcome. Speaking in a room furnished with Mayan effigies in sexual positions, draped animal parts and a large surrealist painting by artist Napiq that depicts scenes of Hank as a clown and a hooded man preparing to decapitate a smiling woman, Hank vowed he'd remain a loyal “soldier” in the PRI’s army.

Abstentionism was another big winner on August 5. Only about 41 percent of eligible voters turned out to the polls, a figure that was slightly better than the 36.5 percent turnout in the last state election held in 2001. Nonetheless, the 2001 and 2007 state elections registered sharp huge drops in voter participation since 1995, when fully 63 percent of the electorate showed up to cast ballots.

Gaston Luken, an ex-president of the state election council, and Victor Alejandro Espinoza, a political scientist with the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, agreed that widespread public rejection of the candidates and their political projects factored into this year's low turnout. Both Luken and Espinoza identified migration as another key element in explaining the poor voter numbers. They contended that Baja California's location on the US border lures a constant stream of potential voters across the frontier before election time.

Historically lacking a significant presence in Baja California, the center left PRD party was relegated to an even more obscure political corner in this year's election. Postulating Jaime Hurtado de Mendoza as its gubernatorial candidate, the PRD only managed to pull in about 2 percent of the votes. Once again, the party failed to capitalize at the state level on the multi-party alliance and grassroots movement that characterized Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's bid for president last year.

The Convergence party, which supported Lopez Obrador in 2006 and is currently allied with the PRD in the federal congress, ran a woman for governor, Mercedes Maciel, who threw her support behind Hank at the last minute. Jaime Martinez Veloz, a columnist for Mexico City's La Jornada daily, assessed the August 5 election as a wake-up call for the border left.

"The left has the moral obligation to undertake a profound internal reflection of its role and its place in the border problematic," Martinez wrote. “Reality obliges us to come up with an articulated program that puts the concerns and problems of the citizenry at the center of our political activity. Otherwise we will not have a future in the societies of the northern part of the country."

Nationally, the PRD's embarrassing Baja performance is likely to wind up as more loose ammunition in the party's internal battle between followers of Lopez Obrador and centrist politicians who are more inclined to negotiating with President Calderon. Both sides can claim grist from the crumbling Baja mill.

Beyond the post-campaign soul-searching and political reshuffling, problems of poverty, migration, drug addiction and criminal violence will remain burning issues in the immediate future. On the issue of criminal violence, Governor-elect Osuna pledged to draft a new public safety plan and request "the intervention of the army when necessary."

Osuna's victory means that the PAN, which wrested control of the governor's office from the PRI in the historic 1989 election, will complete a 24-year reign of power in Baja California when Osuna's term ends in 2013. In Mexican political terms, the PAN’s Baja California dynasty is only comparable in longevity to the decades-long rule of the PRI or the reign of dictator Porfirio Diaz in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Sources: Proceso/Apro, August 7 and 8, 2007. Articles by Jose Gil Olmos and Rosalia Vergara. El Sur, August 20, 2007. Article by Juan Angulo Osorio. La Jornada, August 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 13, 16, 17, 2007. Articles by Antonio Heras, Alonso Urrutia, Jaime Martinez Veloz, and editorial staff. El Universal, August 1, 7, 8, 11, 13, 19, 21, 2007. Articles by Rosa Maria Mendez Fierros, Marcelo Beyliss, Jorge Zepeda Patterson, and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, August 6, 2007. San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 2007. Article by Gunther Hamm. Univision, July 31, 2007.

On August 5, Jorge Hank Rhon could be elected the next governor of Baja California. Now purportedly a billionaire, the gaming magnate is one of the most controversial politicians on the Mexican political scene today. Hank Rhon is the 51-year-old son of the late, legendary godfather of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Carlos "El Profesor" Hank Gonzalez, whose now-classic quote, "A poor politician is a bad politician," has became a cliche of Mexican politics.

A collector of exotic animals, Hank is notorious for throwing lavish parties,
rewarding allies generously and wearing flashy clothes. Perhaps in jest, Hank recently told a pair of journalists that a desired piece of clothing would be a vest made from a donkey's penis.

Once widely vilified for calling women his "favorite" animal, Hank's name has been linked to organized criminal activity, including the murders of two Baja California journalists, but the PRI's gubernatorial hopeful has never been convicted of a serious crime.

Born in Mexico state, Hank is the owner of Tijuana's old Agua Caliente horse racing track, hotel and real estate properties and the Grupo Caliente gambling establishments.

In 1985, "El Profesor" handed over the Agua Caliente concession to his young son. The late Tijuana journalist and Zeta newspaper publisher Jesus Blancornelas once described how Hank made a splash in the burgeoning border city:

"He was a friendly young man, an innovator who was attempting to modify the operation of the Agua Caliente race track. He helped a lot of people, many people, and sponsored generations of students. He became such a popular figure that even in those days it occurred to him to consider being a serious aspirant for mayor of Tijuana."

It wouldn't be long, however, before Hank ran into hassles involving Agua Caliente and its employees. From 1987 to 1990, Hank confronted labor conflicts at the race track that threatened to end in violence. Neighbors complained of improperly dumped trash and accumulating mounds of horse excrement. Questions arose over the legality of subdividing the property.

Over the years, Hank's security detail drew individuals once associated with Mexico City police officials Arturo "El Negro" Durazo and Francisco Sahagun Baca, both of whom were linked to the torture and forced disappearance of suspected guerrillas and dissidents during the Dirty War of the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1988, three of Hank's bodyguards were implicated in the murder of Tijuana journalist and Zeta newspaper co-founder Hector "Gato" Felix, who was once on friendly terms with Hank but turned increasingly critical of the businessman in his last columns. Insinuating about alleged money-laundering at the Agua Caliente track, Felix had also written critically about Hank associates like Alberto Murguia.

One of Hank's bodyguards, Antonio Vera Palestina, is serving a prison term for Felix's murder; another suspect in the crime, Emigidio Nevarez, was executed gangland-style in 1992. Jesus Blancornelas considered Hank the mastermind of his colleague's murder, but in a press conference Hank denied any involvement in the crime.

"I'd say that Hector lived off gossip, not journalism, of making jokes that were a little heavy..," Hank said.

Blancornelas maintained that "all roads lead to Hank." He contended that Hank's powerful father, who served as a high official in different federal and state PRI administrations, attempted to bribe the journalist to drop the Felix investigation.

In 2006, Hank's chief bodyguard, Jorge Vera, the son of convicted Felix killer Antonio Vera, was questioned by Baja California state law enforcement officials probing the murder of Tijuana municipal police official Antonio Cabadas. Because of his testimony, Vera was supposedly threatened over police-band radio frequencies. In January 2007, Vera’s armored vehicle repelled bullets fired at the security man in an assassination attempt near Hank’s Tijuana home. Reportedly, Vera had just dropped off Hank after the outgoing mayor returned from a trip to Cuba. A former Hank bodyguard and ex-Tijuana policeman, Enrique Fuerte Mateos, wasn’t as lucky as Vera. In 2005, Fuerte was found murdered gangland-style in Tijuana.

Hank had other brushes with the law in 1994 and 1995. Ever the risk-taker, he unveiled Las Vegas-style machines at his gaming Tijuana enterprises. The federal Ministry of Interior considered the one-armed bandits illegal under Mexican law and forced Hank to withdraw the machines. The following year, Hank was detained for 11 hours in a Mexico City jail for allegedly attempting to smuggle contraband and exotic animal skins into the country. Reportedly, he once tried to obtain a gorilla.

Despite multiple controversies, Hank's business empire expanded in Mexico, Central America, South America, and Europe. In Mexico, Hank's biggest competitor is the Televisa entertainment network, which was awarded 130 gaming permits by the federal Interior Ministry in 2005, a year when the department was headed by then-presidential hopeful Santiago Creel. Now the coordinator of the National Action Party (PAN) fraction of the Mexican Senate, Creel is openly backing the PAN candidate in the current Baja California governor's contest.

Within the national PRI, Hank is close to politicians such as former presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo and Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector "Teto" Murguia.

In 2004, Hank finally ran for mayor of Tijuana on the PRI ticket. As the campaign unfolded, an official review of the 1988 Felix murder investigation prompted by an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommendation was underway. Sitting on the Felix task force were the Inter-American Press Society, Mexican law enforcement authorities and Zeta editor Francisco Ortiz.

Initially representing the Baja California state attorney general’s involvement in the review was Francisco Castro Trenti, the brother of Hank mayoral campaign coordinator Fernando Castro Trenti. The new investigation had the potential of exposing possible contradictory testimony earlier made by Hank. Once the relationship between the Castro brothers was made public, Francisco Castro turned the matter over to Maria Teresa Valadez, a Baja California assistant state prosecutor.

In June 2004, as the Felix homicide review was picking up steam, Zeta’s Francisco Ortiz was murdered. Again, Blancornelas cited Hank as a possible suspect in the latest attack against a Zeta journalist. Other suspects in the murder included members of San Diego’s Barrio Logan gang, the Gulf Cartel and the Arellano Felix cartel. Mexican law enforcement officials have pinned the Ortiz crime on Arellano Felix syndicate gunmen.

Hank won the 2004 mayoral election, serving slightly more than two years in office
before receiving a leave of absence to run for governor. Hank's term was characterized by road construction, administrative shake-ups, salary increases for high officials, expensive Christmas season parties, and the appointment of young women with dubious professional qualifications but noticeable physical attributes as municipal functionaries.

"We're not bringing in fat or ugly women, alright?" quipped an unidentified municipal official to Proceso magazine in 2005.

On the policy front, the Hank administration legalized massage parlor sex, stressed the rehabilitation of drug addicts, helped HIV-infected children, and deployed a mounted police force that was trained at the old Agua Caliente track. Hank proposed that a casino permit be granted to the annual Tijuana fair held every September. At Freedom of Expression Day celebrations in 2005 and 2006, journalists were awarded hotel, spa and restaurant passes, electronic gadgets and properties. Coinciding in office, Hank and “Teto” Murguia proclaimed Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez as “sister cities.”

Hank's stint as mayor coincided with increasing numbers of narco-executions and kidnappings, including of Hank associates. Early this year, the Mexican army disarmed Tijuana's municipal police force, which was accused of widespread collusion with drug traffickers. Hank declared that the operation was carried out without his prior knowledge.

Questioned about the violence overwhelming his city, Hank offered a sociological analysis.

"We're the only municipality that recognizes the existence of drug addiction," he told an interviewer. "We have 100,000 sick people that don't want to work and only think about their next dose. Besides, we are a receptor of a big migrant population and neighbors of one of the most drug-consuming states of the United States."

Occasionally, Hank-related properties have been the scenes of violent incidents. Last May, for instance, a suspected explosive device was discovered outside Hank's Tijuana home. In late 2005, a 15-year-old girl, Sara Benazir Chagoya was tossed hand-cuffed from a moving vehicle in front of the Pueblo Amigo shopping center associated with Hank and once reportedly frequented by the Arellano Felix brothers of the Tijuana drug cartel. The high school student died from her injuries, and her parent's quest for justice, which initially pointed to the son of a judge as the possible murderer, has been fruitless.

Hank kicked off his 2007 gubernatorial run with a Roman Catholic mass. Tijuana police officers were soon spotted serving as the candidate's bodyguards. But Hank's flashy political foray was almost terminated when a state election court ruled last month that his candidacy violated a Baja California law that prohibited elected officials from running for another office while still in the original post. In early July, a federal election court reversed the lower court's decision on appeal and permitted Hank to resume campaigning. The decision is sparking criticism that a heavy-handed federal government has trampled a state constitution and impeded the ability of lawmakers to regulate elections.

Although he is competing against four other candidates, Hank's main campaign rival is another former Tijuana mayor, Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan of the PAN-PANAL alliance.

Until now, Hank's campaign has been defined by a fusion of pesos, populism and public relations crafted by masterful Mexico City image-maker Carlos Alazrazi. If elected governor, Hank pledges to municipalize Tijuana's water, privatize energy production (a federal decision) and expand the network of evening day-care centers founded by his wife, Maria Elvia Amaya.

"I don't have any commitments other than reading the little book that tells what must be done to be governor..," Hank said of his political philosophy earlier this year. "I am an enemy of the line that you only help your friends; you have to help everyone. You give (people) that have little the possibility of having a little more and you help those that have a lot have a lot more."

As the August 5 election draws near, acerbic rhetoric, campaign irregularities and bouts of violence are marring the contest. Like the good old days of Mexican politics, grupos de choque (goon squads) and warehouses pregnant with vote-buying goodies are surfacing here and there. On Wednesday, July 18, Hank and Osuna supporters violently clashed outside a Tijuana candidates' debate, leaving 12 people injured.

Tijuana journalist Maria Asuncion Gutierrez denounced that she was retained against her will for 15 minutes in a municipal government warehouse July 20 by two men who confronted her while she was observing and filming a supply pick-up that could have been destined for political purposes.

Running in a state where President Felipe Calderon's PAN has held the governor's office for the last 18 years, Osuna is confident that he will beat Hank. Still, the dealer's hand might well favor Hank this round. The conservative PAN has generally fared badly this year in local elections, losing races in Yucatan, Durango and Chihuahua, and the anti-PAN trend could benefit Hank in Baja California. A low voter turn-out could also boost's Hank's PRI, which is adept at turning out its troops in even in the most publicly shunned contests.

The prospects of a Hank triumph are drawing sharp remarks from some Mexican commentators. Far from being a Panista, prominent Mexican writer and cultural critic Carlos Monsivais sarcastically warned that a Hank victory could mean that "the cages of (Hank's) preferred animals" will be filled with women.

“Mr. Hank already describes what his government program will be, when he says he wants to have a vest made from a donkey’s penis," Monsivais said.

Sources: El Sol de Tijuana, July 5, 2007. Article by Fernando Barroso. El Sur, June 25, 26, 27, 28, 2004; January 24, 2007; July 7, 8, 20, 22, 2007. Articles by Margarita Vega, Miguel Angel Granados Chapa, Miguel Cervantes, Aline Corpus, Agencia Reforma, Notimex, and editorial staff. Aguas, July 12, 2007. Article by Carlos Ramirez. La Jornada, April 12, 2005; July 19 and 20, 2007. Articles by Ernesto Fidel Gonzalez, Antonio Heras and Jaime Martinez Veloz.

With six weeks to go before voters elect a new governor and other state and local representatives, the election process in Baja California is in turmoil. A state election court threw a wrench into the heated contest June 20 when it annulled the gubernatorial candidacy of gaming magnate Jorge Hank Rhon of the So You Can Live Better Alliance, a grouping made up of Hank's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexican Green Party and Baja California State Party. The court ordered the PRI and its allies to find a substitute candidate within 10 days of June 22.

Rejecting the possibility of substituting a candidate for Hank, the national PRI leadership announced it will pull out its heavy legal guns and appeal the Baja California court decision to the federal election court.

Accompanied on a Mexicali campaign swing by Alejandro Gallego Basteri, brother of popular singer Luis Miguel, Hank initially said that he would continue giving press interviews as the "non-candidate." Later, while waiting for legal challenges to take their course, the embattled gubernatorial hopeful suspended his campaign.

The election tribunal ruled that Hank's campaign bid violated Baja California's so-called "grasshopper" law that prohibits elected officials from running for another office while still serving terms in their original positions.

Hank abandoned his job as Tijuana mayor to run for the Baja California governor's seat, but could be considered in technical violation of the law since he requested a leave of absence to pursue higher office.

Hank's supporters immediately denounced the court's decision, blaming Baja California Eugenio Elorduy of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party (PAN) for interfering in the state election.

"(Elorduy) not only stuck his hands into the election process, but his entire body," charged Hank campaign advisor Eduardo Bernal. In a June 23 Tijuana ceremony held to honor athletes, Gov. Elorduy declined to comment on the latest political developments.

Obdulio Avila Mayo, a federal deputy and PAN national leader, ridiculed the PRI for shedding crocodile tears over a candidate who was supposedly 8 points behind the PAN’S Jose Osuna Millan in the polls. In apparent reference to the controversial Hank, Avila contended that Mexicans must prevent politics from becoming infested with mafia-like types.

Meanwhile, in the state capital of Mexicali, youthful PRI members staged a weekend protest against the electoral court’s decision to remove Hank from the race.

The annulment of Hank's candidacy was the latest development to unsettle an already turbulent election process. Earlier this month, the State Electoral Institute (IEE), the state agency responsible for organizing and overseeing the election, warned that the PAN-led state government's failure to increase the election budget threatened to bankrupt the IEE and force it to dip into the retirement funds of its workers to pay for the August 5 election.

Members of the IEE registered complaints with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the federal government and national political parties, charging that the state government is trying to “sabotage” the electoral process."

Baja California political consultant Felipe Morales predicted that the mounting pre-election day conflicts, coupled with the negative media campaign between Hank and Osuna, will turn off voters and possibly cause many to stay home on election day.

"We can observe that the campaigns in this electoral process have not gone beyond the membership of each of the strong parties," Morales said. “(The campaigns) consign society to the sidelines in favor of the publicists involved with the politicians, and they don't offer alternatives to society."

On the national level, it remains to be seen how the Baja California election crisis will influence the PRI’s collaboration with President Felipe Calderon on economic and social policy questions.

Sources: La Jornada, June 20 and 23, 2007. Articles by Antonio Heras and the Notimex news agency. El Universal, June 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 2007. Articles by Rosa Maria Mendez, Francisco Resendiz, Lilia Saul, and the Notimex news agency. Frontera, June 23, 2007.

Amid a charged political environment, candidates for state and municipal offices in Baja California are blazing the campaign trail. Leading up to the August 5 election, a whirl-wind of negative campaigning, controversial court rulings, accusations of government interference, church-state flirtations, allegations of attempted vote-buying, and conflicts between election authorities and the state government have so far marked the process. Stirred into an already hot pot is a re-warmed dash of the Roberto Madrazo-Elba Esther Gordillo rivalry that split the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the run-up to last year's presidential election.

Easily grabbing the most attention is the contest for the governorship. The two leading candidates are gaming czar and former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon of the awkwardly -named So that You Can Live Better Alliance, which also includes the Mexican Green Party and the local Baja California State party, and longtime politician Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan of the Alliance for Baja California, a formation made up of the National Action (PAN), New Alliance (PANAL) and Social Encounter parties.

Three other candidates, including two women, are also competing for the governor's post. They include Enrique Hurtado Mendoza of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Carmen Garcia Montano of the Alternative Social Democrat Party and Mercedes Maciel of Labor Party/ Convergencia alliance.

Similar to the current campaign for the Ciudad Juarez city government, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's 2006 national coalition has not held together at the local level, with the PRD and Labor Party/Convergencia fielding rival candidates in the 2007 Baja gubernatorial election.

A Hank triumph would be a sweet victory for the PRI, ending 18 years of PAN domination of the governor's office. An Osuna win is a must for the PAN, which lost the Yucatan state election on May 20. Early polls showed Osuna comfortably ahead of Hank, but some recent reports suggest that the controversial PRI candidate is closing the gap in the race.

In an effort to make sure Hank doesn't lose, the national PRI has sent in professional advisors from the state of Mexico as well as the party's losing 2006 presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, who has reemerged on the national political scene and is promoting his new book entitled The Betrayal. A Hank win would represent political revenge for Madrazo, whose arch-enemy, national teachers' union chief Elba Esther Gordillo, is reportedly backing Osuna.

Hank, Osuna and even the PRD’s Hurtado kicked off their official campaigns May 24 with masses in Roman Catholic churches. Exiting the Mexicali Cathedral, Hank quipped, "We ask the blessing of the Lord to bring luck to the proposals we will make to society.

Hank promises to purge the police, provide free education to Baja's residents and make English a mandatory subject in schools. Osuna vows to pave more roads, promote a new power plant for Mexicali and pay attention to the controversy over the United States’ planned construction of a parallel, cement-lined canal to the existing All-American Canal on the Mexico-US border.

In an exchange perhaps worthy of a sequel to "The Sopranos," both the Osuna and Hank camps are implying that their opponent has ties to organized crime. In response to a pointed PAN spot, Eduardo Bernal, campaign coordinator for Hank's coalition, contended that his candidate seeks to end the alleged relationship that exists between the state government and drug traffickers.

Charges of campaign irregularities and worse have surfaced during the electoral process. Juan Carlos Ruiz, the PRD's candidate for mayor of Mexicali, has filed a complaint with the State Electoral Institute that accuses the pro-Hank coalition of giving out pre-paid cell phone cards to private residences in Mexicali, while Jaime Martinez Veloz, the center-left party’s candidate for Tijuana mayor, has accused the city's PRI-led municipal government of destroying campaign publicity.

Last March, anti-Gordillo forces within the teachers' union alleged that the PAN state government was paying members of the Gordillo-inspired PANAL from a state education account as a way of bolstering the Osuna coalition member's presence and power. In a denunciation to the Mexico City-based La Jornada newspaper, the Gordillo critics charged that the scheme was similar to one employed during the 2006 presidential election. A former PRI leader, Gordillo is widely credited with helping the PAN’s Felipe Calderon win the presidency.

Minutes after delivering documentation supporting the accusations, one of the whistleblowers, teacher Guillermo Estrada Ruelas, was reportedly physically assaulted in a Mexico City metro station by three individuals who warned, "If you say anything to the media, you are going to die."

Different political actors accuse the PAN-led state government of preparing a "state election" to usher in a Osuna win. On a visit to Mexicali earlier this year, President Felipe Calderon announced the extension of electricity subsidies until 2009. Calderon hit on a popular issue in a state that suffers from blistering temperatures and high electric bills during the summer months, which this year coincide with the election. Calderon was accompanied by PAN Baja California Governor Eugenio Elorduy, who denies interfering in the election process.

Likewise rejecting accusations of a state-manipulated election, Osuna recently took a pot shot at the PRI's political machine. "The only state campaign I know of is the one from the state of Mexico."

An estimated two million voters will be eligible to cast ballots on August 5.
Responsibility for the preliminary vote count has been outsourced to a private firm, PROISI of Saltillo, Coahuila.

The Baja California election comes at a critical moment in the history of growing northern border state, home of numerous foreign-owned maquildoras as well as a growing population of US-born residents who are buying up properties. While narco-violence disturbs the peace on a regular basis, mounting social discontent is evident on a variety of fronts. Making headlines are the stalled immigration accord with the US, massive teacher rejection of the Gordillo-brokered national social security reform and popular opposition to the planned cement border canal that farmers, environmentalists and business representatives charge will dry up water supplies for the arid state.

Sources: Frontenet.com/Notimex, June 8, 2007. Proceso/Apro, June 8, 2007. Article by Armando Guzman. La Jornada, Feburary 18, 2007; March 20 and 30, 2007; April 5, 2007; May 25, 2007. June 5, 7, 8, 10, 2007. Articles by Antonio Heras, Karen Aviles, Ciro Perez Silva, and the Notimex news agency. El Universal, March 20 and 29, 2007; May 24 and 28, 2007; June 3, 6 and 10, 2007. Articles by Rosa Maria Mendez Fierros, Julieta Martinez and the Notimex news agency. Frontera, February 20 and May 24, 2007. Articles by Luis Adolfo San and Carlos Acevedo. El Diario de El Paso/Notimex. March 17, 2007.

A proposal to establish a private security force training camp on the US-Mexico border is stirring controversy. The camp in question would be set up in San Diego County, California, by the North Carolina-based military contractor Blackwater USA. Now undergoing official review is a plan for an 824-acre training camp envisioned for a site near the small town of Potrero, California, which is located several miles north of the Baja California municipality of Tecate.

The proposed camp site is close to an area called the "Mushroom Zone," where undocumented workers are known to cross the border, and near a wilderness area.

According to reports, Blackwater seeks approval for a camp operated by 60-100 former military personnel who will train up to 300 students at a time in firearms, urban assault techniques and other skills. If opened, the facility is expected to include dormitories, 15 shooting ranges and a helicopter landing pad.

Residents of Potrero, a town of about 900 people, are voicing their opposition to the camp. Reportedly, about half the registered voters in Potrero have signed a petition against the proposed facility. Resident Carl Meyer told a San Diego television station that the camp could disturb animals in the zone, while another unidentified resident expressed concern about noise.

Owned by millionaire Erik Prince, Blackwater defines itself as the "most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping and stability operations company in the world.” Author and journalist Jeremy Scahill, who has written a new book about the company, regards Blackwater as the world's largest emercenary army.

According to Scahill, Blackwater USA holds a $300-million State Department contract to provide security for Iraq. Military contractors in the country receive up to $1,000 per day, according to a General Accounting Office report cited by Scahill in a recent article. Killed or wounded personnel from Blackwater and other military contractors are not included in the official US military casualty list.

In addition to its work in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater was contracted to provide security in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. On the West Coast, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has held discussions with the company about providing emergency disaster relief operations.

"Blackwater now envisions itself as the FedEx of defense and homeland security operations," writes Scahill.

There was no immediate word about the possible missions of graduates from a future Blackwater US-Mexico border camp. The San Diego County government will have the final word over whether or not the proposed Blackwater camp opens.

Sources: El Universal/Frontera/La Jornada /Notimex, April 6, 2007. Blackwaterusa.com. San DiegoReader.com, February 22, 2007. Article by Don Bauder. Counterpunch.org, January 25, 2007. Article by Jeremy Scahill. Calitics.com.

An icon of Mexican journalism, Jesus Blancornelas died November 23 in a Tijuana hospital from long-running health problems. Praising the 70-year-old Blancornelas as a "paragon of journalism," Tijuana journalist Oscar Genel said society should not "underestimate" the contributions of the late investigative reporter and columnist. Best known as the former editor of the scrappy Tijuana daily Zeta, Blancornelas had a long and illustrious career as a newspaperman. Beginning in his native state of San Luis Potosi , Blancornelas moved on to Sonora and later to Tijuana , where he first founded the ABC newspaper before launching Zeta in 1980 with the late Felix "El Gato" Miranda.

A public hit, Zeta acquired a reputation for probing government corruption and organized crime. Blancornelas was especially known for investigating the Arellano Felix Cartel, an activity which the author of the long-running "Private Conversations" syndicated column claimed earned a bounty of $250,000 dollars on his head. "He never sold out," said Francisco Bazan Penaloza, president of the Tijuana Bar Association. "He was a person who was true to what he did. He also put the name of Mexico high on the world stage."

The author of 5 books, Blancornelas won numerous awards from Columbia University , UNESCO and other organizations. A co-author of From Lomas Taurinas to Los Pinos, Blancornelas advanced the controversial thesis that the assassin of slain 1994 PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio acted alone.

A faithful Catholic, Blancornelas was pained by the murders of two close colleagues: "El Gato" Miranda, who was killed in 1988, and Zeta co-editor Francisco Ortiz Franco, who was murdered in 1994. Miranda's killing has been tied to former bodyguards for the current mayor of Tijuana , Jorge Hank Rhon, but the Ortiz murder remains unsolved. Asked to comment on Blancornelas' passing, Mayor Hank extended condolences to the late journalist's family but said there would be no public commemoration of his life.

Blancornelas was a victim of the violence he so often penned about in his reports and columns. Ironically, he was a featured speaker at a November 1997 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference held at the Hotel Lucerna in Ciudad Juarez on the same afternoon a former policemen was executed gang-land style in a sushi bar only two blocks away from the meeting site. Days later, Blancornelas was ambushed in Tijuana by five gunmen. The feisty journalist survived his wounds, but his bodyguard, Luis Lauro Valero, was killed.

Following the 1997 attack, Blancornelas' movements were heavily restricted. Escorted everywhere he went by a squad of Mexican soldiers sent to protect him, Blancornelas was reluctant to go out in public or to social gatherings. Under doctors' advice, he formally retired from Zeta in April of this year and passed on the torch to a new generation. However, Blancornelas continued writing when he could and had plans to publish two books next year about the leaders of the Tijuana and Sinaloa drug cartels.

In an interview granted to Proceso magazine only one month before his death, Blancornelas told journalist Ricardo Ravelo that his major goals were to interview Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the purported chief of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Enedina Arellano, a woman Blancornelas considered the true head of the Arellano Felix Cartel. "She's the only woman who heads a criminal organization," Blancornelas maintained. "There is not another one."

"I want to speak with Enedina Arellano to ask her if they are still planning to kill me," Blancornelas said. "I believe the time has come to talk. The most rigid men of the cartel are not around anymore. I want to speak with (the cartel) to make this clarification, and also for a journalistic reason."

The day-to-day risks encountered by Blancornelas and other journalists were tragically played out in the six-week period leading up to the Tijuana legend's death. Since October, four journalists have suffered violent or mysterious deaths in Mexico . The victims include US filmmaker Bradley Will, who was shot to death by presumed government officials in Oaxaca; Roberto Marcos Garcia, a reporter for Veracruz magazine Testimony, who was gunned down by unknown assailants; Misael Tamayo, the owner and editor of the Despertar de la Costa newspaper in Zihuatanejo, who was found dead in a hotel with mysterious puncture marks in his body, and Jose Manuel Nava, a former editor of Excelsior, who was discovered stabbed to death in his Mexico City apartment. A fifth journalist, Guevara Guevara Dominguez, an editor for the Century 21 news organization, vanished after leaving Guadalajara for Chihuahua on October 8.

According to the Paris-based organization Reporters Without Borders, Mexico is the second most dangerous places in the word to practice journalism, surpassed only by Iraq . The Office of the Federal Attorney General set up a special unit to handle crimes against journalists, but to date none of the latest or previous violent crimes against journalists have been successfully prosecuted.

�President Vicente Fox's term of office is ending with the grim toll of 20 journalists murdered, without any of the instigators of these killings every being bothered by the authorities,� said Reporters Without Borders in a recent statement.

In a speech last year, Blancornelas summed up the murky web of power that confronts Mexican muckrakers. "Narco-politics is what dominates a big part of the public spectrum of the country today," Blancornelas contended. "It has infiltrated (political) parties, judges, police, etc." Despite his international stature, Blancornelas was buried in a quiet Tijuana ceremony attended by close friends, colleagues, family members, and priests.

Sources: Proceso/Apro, October 24 and November 24, 2006. Articles by Homero Campa and Ricardo Ravelo. Frontera, November 23 and 24, 2006. Articles by Ariel Montoya, Daniel Salinas, Luis Adolfo San, and editorial staff. El Universal/Norte November 23, 2006. El Universal/EFE, October 25, 2006. La Jornada, November 16 and 21, 2006. Articles by Andres T. Morales and editorial staff. Despertar de la Costa, November 10, 2006. Article by Luvos Cesar Amaro. El Sur, November 11 and 14, 2006. Articles by Brenda Escobar and Ezequial Flores Contreras. rsf.org. protectiononline.org. pgr.gob.mx

A 16-day march against public insecurity and for the rights of crime victims culminated last weekend in the Baja California state capital of Mexicali . Organized by the Public Safety Citizen Council of Baja California, a non-governmental group, the march kicked off on October 21 in San Quintin, passed through Playas de Rosarito, stopped in Tijuana and Tecate and terminated in Mexicali at a November 5 rally attended by 1,200-1,500 people, including crime victims, businessmen, motorcycle club members, government bureaucrats, and civic and church groups. Along the march route, crosses commemorating victims of violence were erected.

"We want to leave in peace! We want to live in peace!" chanted marchers dressed in white as they gathered November 5 in Mexicali 's Civic Center . "Corruption is the mother of impunity" and "Out with functionaries who don't function" were the messages leaping from protest signs. "Let's not be satisfied with the rhetoric of the authorities," thundered Alberto Capella Ibarra, the president of the statewide Citizen Council. "We're not going to take it anymore!"

Catalyzing the march was a rapidly deteriorating public safety climate. Almost 400 people have been murdered in Baja California Norte so far this year, with more than 300 of the killings registered in Tijuana alone. Official and non-official sources also report a rise in the number of kidnappings and "levantones," or forced disappearances carried out by organized crime groups.

According to Baja California State Attorney General Jose Carlos Vizcarra, 29 people were kidnapped in Baja California from January to September 2006, a sharp jump from last year when 9 individuals were kidnapped during the course of the entire year. Levantones, which typically don't involve demands for ransom and end in executions, reached 75 during the first 9 months of the year, compared to 93 for 2005. Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon recently acknowledged that at least 10 of his acquaintances have suffered kidnappings.

Many sources contend that the official crime statistics understate the extent of the violence overwhelming Baja California . Jose Carlos Vizcarra Lomeli, the president of Mexicali's Public Safety Citizen Council, estimates that 80 percent of the crimes committed in his state are not denounced because of "fear of the police" and the widespread belief that authorities are not going to resolve anything.

David Fuentes, a researcher at the Institute of Social Research of the University of Baja California , attributed the crime upsurge to the diversification of organized crime as well as the corruption of authorities.

"Despite the accomplishments of state police, the situation has not improved but worsened," Fuentes said. "This has to do with the profound level of decomposition of the different police agencies, and although almost 90 people have been detained and sent to maximum security prisons, the criminal bands continue growing."

In recent months, at least 12 officers of the State Preventive Police (PEP) an agency envisioned as a "clean" force above the corruptions of other departments, have been murdered. New officers are reportedly in fear of their lives, and some only accepted assignment in Tijuana under protest. PEP recruits have complained that they are lodged in flea-bag hotels and "left to die alone."

Fed up with the growing violence and mayhem, the Citizen Council and crime victims decided to organize a statewide march to put all levels of government on notice that decisive actions need to be taken.

An October 29 stop in Tijuana drew the largest participation in the march, when 5-9,000 people turned out to hear speakers that included Sara Ruiz, the mother of slain Tijuana teenager, Sara Benazir, whose 2005 murder allegedly at the hands of the son of a government official symbolized the violence and impunity that have plagued Baja California in recent years. Receiving applause, Ruiz blamed authorities for the high rates of crime.

Although much of the marchers' rhetoric was directed against government officials, Baja California Governor Eugenio Elorduy of the PAN party, State Attorney General Martinez and Mexicali Mayor Samuel Ramos joined the protest procession on its final legs.

Besides strongly criticizing the Mexican authorities, some march organizers took aim at the United States government as well. Genaro de la Torre, for instance, contended that US authorities allow known drug traffickers to reside in their territory unmolested, and permit arms to flow south to criminal enterprises. "They should collaborate with the government of Mexico to detain (criminals) and undertake a more active struggle against drug trafficking," de la Torre demanded.

The gravity of Baja California 's growing problem with violence was tragically evident during the long public safety march. Six suspected murder victims were discovered in Tijuana on November 4 and 5. A few days earlier, three women inside the city's New Image hair-styling salon were shot and wounded in broad daylight by a two-man fire team who showed up at the business establishment dressed in black and blasting AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles. The victims included the owner, Mariza Migueles, an employee and a customer. A small child, who was in the bathroom with his mother at the time of the shooting, escaped injury.

Sources: Frontera, October 21 and 29, 2006; November 5 and 6, 2006. Articles by Luis A. San, Manuel Villegas, Angel Ruiz, Carlos Acevedo, and the Notimex news agency. La Jornada, November 6, 2006 . Article by Antonio Heras. La Voz de Nuevo Mexico /Reforma News Agency, November 3, 2006 . El Universal, October 4 and 21, 2006; November 5, 2006 . Articles by Julieta Martinez and Rosa Maria Mendez Fierros.

Backed by some of the world's biggest names in capital, mega-projects are transforming the landscapes of northwestern Mexico . Representatives of US tycoon Donald Trump, for instance, recently announced a new $200 million-dollar condominium development slated for Baja California 's Rosarito Beach area, a popular tourist destination located about 30 minutes south of San Diego . Sources inside Trump Ocean Resort Baja disclosed that the 400-unit condo complex in the exclusive, ocean-front Punta Bandera zone will be flanked by a shopping center and world-class restaurants.

Gabriel Robles, president of Tourist Developers Association of Baja California, commented that Trump's project joins the fast pace of growth in the Tijuana-Rosarito-Ensenada corridor, where 2,500 new projects are underway. "This shows us that foreign capital is confident about investing in Mexico , especially Baja California ," Robles said.

The Baja real estate boom is the Pacific Coast 's version of a similar condo and real estate frenzy that is unfolding across the Gulf of California in the state of Sonora . As a result, residents of Phoenix , Arizona , once consigned to a landlocked, blistering piece of desert described by some as a hell-hole during the high months of summer, now enjoy their own beach. The three-and-one-half hour trip from Phoenix to Puerto Penasco , Sonora , is getting cut considerably with the completion of a coastal highway in northwestern Sonora . Already, an estimated 1.6 million tourists, especially Arizonans, visit Puerto Penasco and Rocky Point every year.

Boosting the fortunes of Puerto Penasco's tourist industry is the propensity of US tourists to seek safe vacation getaways in the wake of 9-11, according to some observers. Following the pattern of international tourist development, Puerto Penasco has become a second home for many affluent tourists who were enamored by their first visits and then decided to purchase land.

Some credit fallout from the US housing market across the border for also propelling Puerto Penasco's rapid growth. "Low mortgage interest rates and the boom in real estate values in the United States allowed many people to make extra money to invest it in cheaper properties," said Juan Luis Martin, president of the Playa Norte company.

Investments in the once-quiet resort have soared from an estimated $56 million dollars in 2001 to a projected $1.2 billion dollars for the 2006-09 time period. Residential real estate sales are so hot in Puerto Penasco that tiny apartments in the upscale Bella Sirena development fetch about $600,000 dollars. Still, for the less well-heeled, Puerto Penasco offers options in the form of 4 trailer parks that rent lots with utility hook-ups for $20 dollars per night.

Exploding on the coastal fringes, northern Mexico 's development bonanza could move inland if an idea floated by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu comes to pass. The head of the new Ideal development and construction company, Slim recently proposed the construction of a new highway along the northern Mexican border.

Speaking at a border development forum in Mexicali this month, Slim suggested the opening of a Mexican highway running parallel to US Interstate 10 across the border. According to Gabriel Flores Viramontes, the president of the Business Coordinating Council of Ciudad Juarez, Slim contended that a new border highway would enhance the economic competitiveness of Mexico 's northern border cities. Among others, outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox and prominent Ciudad Juarez businessman Miguel Fernandez Iturbide attended the Mexicali meeting.

Sources: Norte, October 13, 2006 . Article by Cesar Ruiz. La Jornada, October 8, 2006 . Article by Antonio Heras and the AFP news agency. Agencia Reforma/La Voz de Nuevo Mexico , July 21, 2006 .

Frustrated by continued violence, prominent business leaders in Tijuana are urging the Mexican army to assume a bigger crime-fighting role. According to Daniel Romero Mejia, the president of Tijuana 's Business Coordinating Council (CEE), local, state and federal police forces are too hamstrung by limited resources to effectively fight public insecurity and organized crime. Romero's contentions contradict recent statements by the federal Ministry of Public Security ( SSP ) and the Federal Office of the Attorney General ( PGR ) that emphasized crime-fighting progress in Tijuana and Baja California , including the recent detention of Javier Arellano Felix, a leading member of the Tijuana Cartel, by US law enforcement personnel.

In a report made public last week, the SSP said more than 90 members of kidnapping rings, mainly consisting of current or former police officers, have been arrested since the implementation of Operation Safe Mexico in June 2005. In a separate statement also issued last week, the PGR said 120 members of the Tijuana Cartel have been arrested during the Fox Administration. The PGR added that defendants in 26 cases were sentenced to 20 years or more in prison.

Nonetheless, the CCE 's Romero and other business leaders contend that Mexican law enforcement authorities are increasingly hard-pressed and surpassed by criminal violence. "(Police) have done their intelligence and investigative work," Romero insisted, "(but) we haven't seen the expected results, given that kidnappings, forced disappearances and shoot-outs in broad daylight are daily news."

In another spate of violence, two young men were shot to death in one of Tijuana 's subdivisions early in the morning of Saturday, August 19. One of the victims, 25-year-old Carlos Gualberto Ontiveros Aragon, worked as a bodyguard for the chief of the internal affairs division of the Baja California Office of the Attorney General.

In an effort to curb the border city's high rate of violent crime, business leaders from the CCE , Chamber of Commerce and other private sector organizations have requested extra help from Mexican President Vicente Fox at meetings in May 2005 and again last week. Some now clamor for the Mexican army to step in and take control Tijuana 's security situation.

While praising the arrest of Arellano Felix, many Mexican and US observers warn that the cartel figure's detention could actually trigger an escalation of violence as wannabes and rivals duke it out for control of the valuable Tijuana "plaza." Laura Freeman, a Mexico program associate for the non-profit Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), cautioned against relying on "quick fix" solutions to organized criminal activity like deploying more Mexican soldiers in the anti-drug war.

In a new WOLA report on drug-related violence and corruption in Mexico, Freeman criticized shows of force like the current Operation Safe Mexico as ultimately falling far short of suppressing violence, corruption and drug trafficking. "A massive show of force does not reduce trafficking or the crime and corruption that accompany it," Freeman said. "These vicious cycles of violence can best be quelled by reducing drug demand in the United States and undertaking serious police and justice reform in Mexico over the long term."

Sources: Frontera, August 16, 17 , 18, and 19, 2006. Articles by Luis Adolfo San and Ana Cecilia Ramirez. El Universal, August 15, 16 , 17, 18, 20, 2006. Articles by Maria de la Luz Gonzalez, Julieta Martinez, Javier Cabrera, and the Notimex news agency. Washington Office on Latin America , August 17, 2006 . Press statement. La Jornada, August 16, 2006 . Proceso/Apro, May 26, 2005 . Article by Juan Arturo Salinas.

In many cities of the United States , the pay-day loan storefront is a landmark of today's economy. Struggling low-income workers, including many military personnel, sometimes resort to taking out extremely high-interest loans from the loan shark-like businesses as a means of survival until the next paycheck. In Mexico , pawn-shops, especially those specializing in jewelry and precious metals, increasingly perform a similar function. Like other Mexican cities, pawn shops in the Baja California border city of Tijuana are sprouting up on more and more street corners. A recent review of the business registry in Tijuana 's treasurer's office by the city's Frontera newspaper revealed that the number of pawn shops in Tijuana has more than tripled since 2001.

Hosting only 11 hock shops for many years, Tijuana now counts 36 such outlets. The number doesn't include pawn shops in Tecate and Rosarito, nearby cities which also are experiencing a surge in the pawn shop economy. A handful of pawn operations appear to dominate the business in

Tijuana and Baja California . Monte de Baja California , Bazar Internacional, Bazar de Empenos, Tijuana Casa de Empeno, Prendamex, and Monte Mexicano all are enterprises that maintain multiple stores throughout the border state. The oldest pawn shop businesses registered in the municipal treasurer's office are Monte de Baja California and Cantiles Dorado, which date from 1960 and 1968, respectively.

Amado Olivares Leal, an academic program coordinator at the University of Sonora , attributed the pawn shop boom to economic difficulties confronting the lower and middle classes. Olivares contended that the buying power of the middle class has fallen by 26 percent in recent years, while the purchasing capacity of the lower class has plummeted by 32 percent. Olivares added that difficulties in obtaining bank credit encourage some people to hock their family heirlooms and other valuables, which they quite frequently end up losing because of problems in paying off loans.

In some ways, Olivares' conclusions contradict a statement made by Mexican President Vicente Fox in Queretaro this week that lauded the supposed boom of the middle class during his administration. Citing numbers from the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI), President Fox pointed to increased ownership of automobiles, washing machines and refrigerators as solid proof that the Mexican middle class is moving forward. The president estimated that more than 70 percent of Mexican households now possess heavy consumer goods. President Fox did not mention whether the INEGI's figures can tie the rise of consumerism to income from remittances earned abroad or from credit cards, which together with pawn shops, constitute sources of personal income that have soared in recent years.

Sources: El Universal/ SUN , May 30, 2006 . Frontera, May 22, 2006 . Article by Daniel Salinas.

Lately, generous media attention has been given to the economic factors that encourage Mexican migration to the United States . Little, if any, coverage has reported on violence and insecurity as other motives. In Tijuana , however, the president of a restaurant owners' trade association is citing rampant kidnapping as the reason some people are relocating to the United States .

Francisco Villegas Peralta, the president of the National Chamber of the Restaurant and Condiment Industry (Canirac), told Tijuana 's Frontera newspaper that at least 200 restaurant operators have moved to neighboring San Diego in a bid to escape a wave of kidnappings directed against members of their industry. Combined with family members and employees, the total number of people involved in the migration wave could number in the hundreds.

According to Villegas, some expatriate restaurant owners are moving their capital and labor force to San Diego and opening new establishments. Villegas said others continue to run their eateries by "remote control" from the US side of the border. The trade industry leader added that Tijuana 's surviving restaurateurs have adopted extreme security measures. "We are careful about work routines, leave at different hours and send our children to school with many precautions," Villegas said. "But little by little, we are leaving to live in ( San Diego ), though there are still some brave souls who are staying because they love their city."

Making kidnap risks even worse is the growing possibility that a crime might end in murder. A recent study by Baja California's Citizen Council for Public Security and Legal Justice, a non-governmental organization, revealed that Baja California ranks fifth nationally in the number of kidnap victims murdered by their captors. According to figures from Mexican state law enforcement agencies compiled by the group, 22 kidnap victims in Baja California were killed from 1995 to February 2006.

Since last February, at least three other kidnap victims have been murdered. The recent kidnap-murder victims included Chinese-Mexican seafood distributor George Koi Choy. In 1999 Baja California was among 10 Mexican states with the least number of kidnappings ending in murder. Now, the trend is going in the opposite direction. Last year, the northern border state was rated number three nationally for kidnap-murders, only falling behind Mexico City and neighboring Mexico state.

Alberto Capella Ibarra, the president of the citizen council, said he knows of at least 10 unresolved kidnappings at the moment, including 6 that happened in the span of one week during early May. Some officials speculate that many kidnappings in the restaurant industry are due to owners' involvement with illicit activities, usually drug trafficking and money laundering. Contending that accusations without hard evidence smear reputations, Canirac's Villegas criticized statements tying individuals in the restaurant sector to organized crime.

Sources: Frontera, May 11 and 12, 2006. Articles by Juan Arturo Salinas and Daniel Salinas.

In response to a complaint from a murdered teen-age girl's parents, the Baja California Attorney General for Human Rights (PDH) recommended on April 20 that sanctions be levied against officials from the Baja California Office of the Attorney General (PJE) for negligence. The recommendation stems from the December 2005 murder of 15-year-old Tijuana high school student Sara Benazir Chagoya Ruiz, who was brutally beaten and thrown from a moving vehicle in front of the El Pueblo shopping center. Benazir later died from her injuries.

In a report, the PDH noted that evidence exists of official foot-dragging in bringing to justice to the prime suspect Benazir's slaying, Fernando Emmanuel Valencia Perez. According to the PDH, hair found in Valencia 's vehicle last December was positively identified by a state criminal laboratory as belonging to Benazir, but the sample was archived without further action taken against the suspect. A nephew of Baja California state judge Efrain Murillo , Valencia was questioned last December but reportedly has since left Tijuana .

Sara Elena Ruiz Meza, the mother of Sara Benazir, said a second hair sample from Valencia 's vehicle that was independently tested by a San Diego laboratory and confirmed as belonging to her daughter is in the possession of the PDH. The murder victim's father, Manuel Chagoya Flores, said Valencia should be charged with his daughter's murder. Benazir's murder provoked popular outrage in Tijuana , sparking demonstrations by the teenage girl's classmates and others. Addressing 1,500 protestors who gathered to protest violence in Tijuana last January, Chagoya contended that PJE officials confidently assured that the murder was close to being resolved but then pulled back.

"The investigator pompously declared to the media that the case was 80 percent resolved, with a name and a face (of a suspect) said Chagoya , "...when suddenly, the investigation stopped and we met with the attorney general and he told us and everyone else concerned, that the case was only 50 percent (resolved.) Chagoya added that his family's initial trust in the authorities was so great that the family cremated Sara's body certain the investigation was on the verge of being resolved.

In its report, the PDH also recommended that the Benazir murder case be turned over for investigation to the new federal special prosecutor for women's homicides headed by Alicia Perez. The human rights agency's recommendations can be accepted or rejected by the PJE, but the state's position is still not publicly known. Nor are the names of the officials cited for alleged negligence by the PDH. A high-profile murder, the Benazir case shares similarities with many of the Ciudad Juarez women's murder investigations in the sense that key evidence was lost or hidden and suspects allowed to get away.

Sources: Frontera, April 29, 2006 . Article by Bernardo Cisneros.
www.afntijuana.info, January 29, 2006 .

Soaring gasoline prices that topped three dollars per-gallon this week touched off taxi driver protests in Baja California. On Wednesday, April 19, more than 100 cabbies from four companies blockaded an international bridge between Mexicali and Calexico to demonstrate their rejection of escalating fuel prices. "We don't want to increase the fare that we currently charge," said Fermin Vargas, a taxi driver leader. "We demand a halt to the constant increase in gasoline prices," Vargas added. In Mexicali, gasoline prices for the regular unleaded and the premium formulaes have jumped 42 percent and 28 percent, respectively, during the last year.

In the Baja California city of Rosarito, meanwhile, a strike by taxi drivers was suspended on Thursday, April 20, after Mayor Antonio Macias agreed to a 30 percent fare increase within the next 15 days. Taxi drivers, however, demand a 50 percent increase. It remains to be seen how the public will react to the steep fare hikes.

The Mexicali and Rosarito protests occurred after an April 19 meeting in the Baja California capital of Mexicali attended by Mayor Samuel Ramos, state legislators, transportation company representatives, and members of the Mexicali Civic Front. A broad citizens' front then joined a special state congressional commission to demand that federal Mexican authorities put a brake on inflationary gasoline prices. Mexicali taxi driver leader Vargas wasn't impressed with the meeting. "These types of meetings or working groups don't solve our immediate problem, which is the constant increase in the price of gasoline," Vargas declared.

On the other hand, Alfonso Alvarez Juan, the president of the Tijuana branch of the Canacintra business association, said the formation of the special commission/broad front was a step in the right direction. Alvarez contended that gasoline price increases are especially hurting small and medium enterprises, forcing business owners to use pick up trucks and other smaller vehicles to haul their merchandise. Alvarez said he supports gasoline price controls as essential for maintaining economic competivity.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez/El Universal, April 20, 2006. Article by Rosa Maria Mendez. La Cronica, April 20, 2006. Articles by Carmen Gutierrez and editorial staff.

Chinese businessman George Koi Choy became the latest kidnap victim in the border city of Tijuana this week. The seafood distributor was kidnapped outside his business on Monday, April 10, by armed men who arrived in three vehicles, threatened Choy and then forced the 50-year-old businessman into a Ford Blazer with tinted windows and California license plates. An employee of Choy's who attempted to stop the kidnapping was also reportedly kidnapped.

Choy was the second Asian businessman to suffer a kidnapping in Tijuana within the space of just a few days. In a strange case, Korean businessman Yong Hang King was kidnapped on April 6 at the Florido Industrial Park by captors who requested a $2 million-dollar ransom. However, the Hyundai sub-contractor suddenly reappeared 24 hours later after claiming he had escaped from his victimizers who had fallen asleep during guard watch. Five men from Sinaloa state were quickly arrested for the kidnapping.

After his purported escape, Hang King was escorted by municipal police agents including Antonio Vera Palestine, a member of Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon's security detail. Prior to Hang Kim's surprise escape, Baja California State Attorney General Antonio Martinez Luna announced that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation was assisting in the search for the kidnap victim. In the past, Asian businessmen have been the targets of crimes in Tijuana . In 1996, Sanyo executive Mamoru Kono was kidnapped by a ring that allegedly included employees of the firm. Japanese businessman Shiro Sasayama was killed during the same year during a robbery attempt.

Mexican businessmen also have been the targets of recent Tijuana kidnappings. Two local kidnap victims, Arnulfo Rivas Ortega and Miguel Angel Garcia Lopez, were freed the first week of April after being held in captivity. The Choy kidnapping is under investigation by the Baja California State Preventive Police and anti-kidnapping squad of state law enforcement.

Sources: El Sol de Tijuana, April 12, 2006. Article by Manuel Cordero. Frontera, April 11, 2006. Article by Bernardo Cisneros. El Universal, April 7, 2006. Article by Julieta Martinez. Proceso/Apro, April 7, 2006. Article by Juan Arturo Salinas.

The energy giant Chevron Texaco has informed Mexican authorities that the company is suspending work on a controversial regasification facility off the Baja California coast. On a visit to Baja California last week, federal Energy Secretary Fernando Canales Clarion confirmed the company decided to suspend construction for two years of the complex slated for the Coronado Islands . According to Canales, fuel supply problems caused Chevron to announce the suspension. The plant has been touted as a new source of natural gas for the energy-hungry border and US markets.

Although Mexican authorities have given the green-light for the regasification plant, Mexican and US environmental groups oppose it. Last year, several organizations filed a complaint over the Coronado Islands project with the Canada-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), a body set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement to hear citizen grievances about development projects in the three NAFTA member nations.

In their pending complaint, Greenpeace Mexico, the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups and activists charged that the Mexican government's environmental impact statement for Chevron Texaco's project neglected key provisions of Mexican environmental law and the Coronado Islands' status as a specially protected area. The environmentalists contend several endangered species could be jeopardized by a regasification complex. Currently, the CEC is reviewing the Mexican government's response to the citizen complaint.

Once considered by many Mexicans a characteristic of the decadent society north of the border, drug addiction is a growing problem in their own country. From north to south, the use of crack, cocaine powder, crystal meth and other illegal substances are on the rise. In Baja California , state authorities have decided that rehabilitation and not punishment is the correct path to turn back the drug abuse tide. Beginning in March, a new program expected to serve upwards of 25,000 addicts will be launched.

Called Attention to Addicts, the state-funded program will focus on providing treatment and therapy to drug users enrolled in rehabilitation centers approved by the Baja California Health Department. Baja California Health Secretary Francisco Vera Gonzalez said patients will be signed on to the program voluntarily or by petition of their family members. Also, drug abusers arrested on minor offenses will be eligible to receive the services, according to Vera. The state health official contended the program will help prevent addicts from breaking the law to obtain money for their habits. Vera said the program is set up to last up to 12 months, although some enrollees might be able to complete treatment as out-patients in much less time.

Going hand-in-hand with the new program will be a renewed emphasis in public elementary and middle schools on preventing drug abuse, Vera added. A joint campaign between the Baja California Health Department, school personnel, other professionals and parents will be the cornerstone of the educational push. Vera said between 10 and 12 percent of the population has experimented with illegal drugs, but not all previous users should be considered addicts.

Source: lacronica.com ( Mexicali ), February 28, 2006. Article by Carmen Gutierrez.

In different Tijuana high schools, grunge, rocker, street-smart, and sexy looks are out. The border city's Colegio de Bachilleres (Cobach) recently re-issued dress code rules that prohibit piercings, tattoos, long hair, baggy pants and faded tennis shoes for males. For females, visible earrings, tattoos, excessive make-up, short skirts, torn pants, and tight blouses are cause for a discipline problem.

Alberto Osuna Olivas, the director of the Cobach's Ruben Vizcaino campus, said the regulations aren't intended to repress youthful taste and expression. Osuna said educational authorities will strive to be flexible in enforcing the dress code, which actually dates back to the 1980s.

News of the Cobach dress code set off a lively debate on the website operated by Tijuana 's Frontera newspaper. In an unscientific on-line poll, Frontera asked readers to respond to the question: "Do you agree that students of some high schools should be prohibited from wearing earrings, tattoos or strange clothing?" By the start of the weekend of February 11-12, an overwhelming 81.05 percent of the 781 votes said yes, while a 18.95 percent minority answered no.

Dozens of written opinions about the controversy were posted on the Frontera website in response to a solicitation by the news organization. Readers' comments departed from the immediate issue of the dress code to address issues ranging from the breakdown of the social fabric to the disrepute some sectors of Mexican society hold for teachers and politicians. In some responses, the PRI and PAN political parties were blasted for allegedly trampling on the civil rights of youth.

In light of what she contended was the degeneration of social and moral codes, one reader identified as Abril rated the dress code as positive. "It's for this reason that few people respect stop signs, traffic lights, give the right of way to pedestrians, say 'Good Morning,' etc.", Abril said. Another reader simply identified as Zopilote characterized the dress code as an assault on civil rights, adding that if authorities really wanted to crack down on errant behavior they should prohibit Sunday afternoon "senorita" parties where drinking, pill-popping and pot smoking routinely take place.

A respondent named Ruben said the dress code smacked of myopia. "Studies exist that students with rocker inclinations end up being engineers or having technical careers, not politicians or middle-school teachers," claimed Ruben. "What do you all prefer?" For her part, Karla wrote the schools should pay more attention to their basic mission of teaching rather than judging and imposing dress styles. "Why do they want students free of tattoos and piercings if they don't even read?" Karla wrote. One anonymous writer praised the dress code, saying it is the obligation of schools and parents to form exemplary citizens. "If we want our children to exhibit all kinds of strange objects, it's just better to send them to the circus," suggested the unknown columnist.

The Cobach schools aren't alone in mandating dress codes. For instance, Tijuana 's Xochialco High School requires students to wear uniforms. At Xochialco, however, military-style haircuts for males are banned. According to Principal Federico Canizalez Zamora, students in violation of the dress code could be slapped with verbal or written warnings, put on short-term suspension or expelled from the school.

Industrialists in Tijuana and Baja California just got a bit of good, early New Year's news. Lower electricity rates for industrial users agreed to by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) were announced this week for the peak, hot weather-use period running from May to October 2006. Responding to years of protests by industrial users, who long complained that high electricity charges were rendering their businesses uncompetitive, the CFE has agreed to cut back charges for peak-use, daily rates from six hours to four during the 5-month period. A similar rate-cut for residential users was not immediately announced.

The state agreement with the CFE grew out of an earlier meeting between Mexican President Vicente Fox and Baja California Governor Eugenio Elorduy. Bernardo Martinez Aguirre, Baja California 's government secretary, said the new rates will be a competitive boost to his state's manufacturers. According to previous studies, Baja California 's industrialists paid 65 percent higher summer electricity rates than similar users elsewhere in Mexico . A study conducted three years ago also showed Baja California industrial users paying more for electricity than their counterparts in California . Industrial users in Baja California represent 54.7 percent of the electricity consumed in the state but account for only 47 percent of revenues collected by the CFE in the entity.

Citing current electricity costs, some contend that the CFE actually has been losing money in the state because of growing energy imports from across the border in California . Alfonso Alvarez Juan, the president of the Canacintra business association in Baja California , estimated that between 13 to 15 industrial users in Tijuana and Mexicali imported electricity from California last summer. Instead of initially slashing rates as demanded by industrialists, the CFE last year authorized the importation of electricity from the United States during peak-use months. A 2002 scheme elaborated by the CFE to allow some reductions in peak summer costs and stagger electricity charges over the year did not satisfy industrial users.

Firefighters and other emergency response personnel in Baja California had their hands full in recent days battling a series of wild blazes across the northern Mexican state. Since November 14, more than 6,000 acres of landscape have burned up around Tijuana , Ensenada , Tecate and other areas. Chaparral, pasture and coastal brush all went up in smoke as winds carried flames to new hotspots. Approximately 500 people were evacuated for their own protection. Twenty-one homes caught on fire in Tijuana last weekend

"There have been some difficult hours, but we haven't had any deaths to lament," commented Manuel Machain Cazarez, the director of the Tijuana fire department. "The prinicipal cause is the Santa Ana winds."

In a press conference attended by state and other officials, Juan Pablo Hernandez, Baja California 's secretary of agro-fisheries development, said fire-fighting coordination between the three levels of government-federal, state and municipal-was moving forward. In addition to regular firefighters, federal personnel from the National Foresty Commission and Mexican Defense Ministry lent a helping hand.

Persistent fires in two large garbage heaps were among the biggest problems that confronted responders. One blaze hit an illegal dump in El Alamar, while a second fire broke out in Tijuana 's old municipal dump. It's not known if any hazardous substances were on blaze at the fire scenes. At least 337 wild fires affecting more than 75,000 acres have been reported in Baja California during 2005.

Sources: Proceso/Apro, November 22, 2005. Article by Arturo Salinas. Frontera, November 22 and 23, 2004. Article by Manuel Villegas and Nicte Madrigal.

Hundreds of thousands of Mexican students have been without classes since Monday, October 24, when their teachers went on strike. Catalyzed by salary complaints, the strike hit national branches of the Bachelor's Colleges (Cobach) and Scientific and Technological Colleges (Cecitis). In Tijuana, some students and parents were surprised by the job action. Despite being advised by their teachers the previous week of a pending strike, the majority of students of the Ruben Vizcaino Cobach branch showed up as usual at the beginning of the morning and afternoon shifts. Accompanied by his friends, student Jorge Barrera then decided to spend the day at the movies instead of in the classroom.

Margarita Flores, the mother of a Ruben Vizcaino student, said she did not agree with the teacher work stoppage. "It's okay for them to ask for better salaries, they have a right to be paid better, but this is not the right way to express their grievances," Flores said. "The students will be the ones most impacted." An estimated 25,000 students in Baja California are affected by the strike, including 5-8,000 in Tijuana.

Members of the National Union of Bachelors Colleges Unions justified the walkout as a last resort, alleging protests demanding the payment of a promised salary hike fell on deaf ears. According to union leaders, the Mexican Congress approved a teacher salary increase last December but educators still haven't seen the additional money in their pay checks. Saul Garcia Pacheco, the secretary general of the Baja California teachers' union,
blamed federal budget and taxation chief Francisco Gil Diaz for not complying with the congressional action.

Garcia contended that Cobach and Cecitis teachers are severely underpaid in comparison with their counterparts at public middle schools. "There are middle school teachers that earn between 70 and 200 percent more than a Bachelor's College teacher," Garcia said.