Frontera NorteSur
Apr - Jun   2008

Chihuahua’s Highway of Doom?

Chihuahua state authorities say it could take up to a month to officially identify the victims of a fiery truck-bus crash that claimed 14 lives north of Chihuahua City early on the morning of June 29.  The collision happened when a tractor trailer slammed into a bus that was pulled alongside the Pan American Highway. 

Belonging to the Omnibus de la Comarca Lagunera line, the Ciudad Juarez-destined bus had stopped to help another bus from the same company that was stranded with a flat tire. Suddenly, a tractor-trailer transporting tons of glass rammed into the Good Samaritan bus, spreading diesel fuel that caught fire and engulfed trapped passengers in flames.  
“I was taking off the tire and I felt a strong hit and fell over,” said Alonso Maciel, who was attempting to help the driver. Conflicting reports emerged about the ability of passengers to escape an instant death-trap. One news story reported that passengers were able to leave through emergency exits, but another piece contended that exits did not function.

In addition to the 14 dead, most of whom were burned beyond recognition, 46 people were reported injured, 9 of them seriously. Among the dead was the driver of the truck. The two buses were carrying 86 people at the time of the accident, and the death toll  would likely have been higher if many people had not left the buses to walk around while the flat was being repaired.
A report from the Federal Police placed blame equally on the bus operators and the truck driver for the tragic collision. According to the initial investigation, the bus drivers had not parked their vehicles entirely off the highway while the truck driver was supposedly driving recklessly.

Sadly, the June 29 tragedy was but the latest in a series of fatal bus accidents that have haunted the stretch of the Pan American Highway between Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City in recent years. On April 14, 2007, another early morning bus-truck collision killed 25 people and injured 21 others. Similar to this year’s accident, a 15-ton tractor trailer rear-ended a bus, spilling diesel fuel that rapidly ignited and burned victims to death. An April 2006 bus accident outside Ciudad Juarez killed 9 people and injured 21 others. In late 2004, a so-called "pirate" bus, or one that did not have official authorization, crashed on the highway outside Ciudad Juarez, resulting in the deaths of 12 passengers.

As in the wake of previous tragedies, questions were immediately raised about bus company practices as well as the government’s record of enforcing transportation and safety laws. The company involved in the June 29 accident, Omnibus de la Comarca Lagunera, is among numerous outfits that offer low-cost bus fares from Ciudad Juarez to various cities in the Mexican interior. Most of the economy bus lines are licensed as tourist enterprises, which raises questions about their constant inter-city runs.  Break-downs and flat tires often accompany the long-distance journeys between the border and interior destinations.

Mexican law permits the companies to operate buses as old as 15 years, but some media reports allege vehicles manufactured as far back as 1970 are being used.

Situated in downtown Ciudad Juarez and other departure points in the border city, the low-fare bus lines are popular with maquiladora workers and others who find that the bigger national companies which operate from the city’s main bus terminal are too expensive.

Under current law, inter-city bus lines that use national highways mainly come under the regulatory authority of the federal Secretariat of Communications and Transportation and the Federal Police, Chihuahua state government spokespersons said. Still, state and federal authorities plan to carry out joint inspections and reviews of the operation of bus companies, said Sergio Granados Pineda, Chihuahua state government secretary.

“It’s not a matter of seeing who is responsible for this thing or that, but cooperating to make sure that the service being offered is good,” Granados said.

As public schools dismiss for summer vacation, bus travel is expected to increase significantly in the coming days.

Father Ignacio Villanueva, parish priest for Ciudad Juarez’s downtown cathedral, lamented the June 29 tragedy, and urged the government to crack down on bus companies that jeopardize lives.

The people already know the risks they run when using these kinds of buses, Father  Villanueva said,  “but they continue using them to save a few pesos in spite of the risks.”

Sources: Norte June 30, 2008; July 1 and 2, 2008. Articles by Angel Zubia Garcia, Ricardo Espinoza and Felix A. Gonzalez. La Jornada, July 1, 2008. Article by M.Breach and Ruben Villalpando. El Diario de Juarez, June 29, 2008. Article by David Alvidrez and Orlando Chavez. Lapolaka.com, June 29 and 30, 2008.

Mexican Army Human Rights Abuses Charged  

Nearly three months after the Mexican army kicked off Operation Chihuahua Together against drug trafficking organizations in Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua, multiple accusations of human rights violations committed by soldiers are surfacing in the press .

A hot point of contention is in the Juarez Valley just outside the border city of the same name. Long the stomping ground of drug traffickers and other criminal bands, the rural area bordering the Rio Grande has been the target of repeated army raids in recent weeks.
While the operations have netted arrests and drug loads, some residents charge the army is going overboard and harassing innocent citizens. On June 14, valley residents staged protests outside the offices of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) and in the downtown plaza in Ciudad Juarez.

Josefina Reyes, a resident of the town of Guadalupe Bravo, charged that soldiers recently raided her home and destroyed property before making off with a cell phone and other goods. “On that day, there were around 25 more searches in which they made off with various people,” Reyes said.

As of mid-June,  50 legal complaints against the army had been filed with the PGR’s Ciudad Juarez office. The complaints accuse the army of committing abuses of authority, carrying  out illegal detentions, forcibly disappearing citizens, conducting improper searches, and  inflicting bodily injuries and damages.

In one of the worst incidents, three men were shot to death by soldiers June 8 at an army checkpoint near Cuahtemoc in the central part of Chihuahua. The full story of the incident is still not thoroughly known, and it isn’t certain whether the killings were the result of an intentional attempt by the victims to run the roadblock or due to an accident related to possible drunken driving and/or the failing brakes of the victims’ car. Reportedly, the soldiers began shooting after the suspect vehicle struck and severely injured a soldier.

A reporter on the scene, El Diario’s Hugo Reyes, was forced to lie on the ground by soldiers. A member of the Chihuahua State Congress’ human rights commission,  legislator Victor Quintana, showed up at the site of the incident but said he was denied access by the military.

Meanwhile, Chihuahua’s official State Human Rights Commission (CEDH) received 28 complaints about the army in May and an additional 32, mainly from the border town of Ojinaga, during the first 11 days of June.  Jose Luis Armendariz Gonzalez, CEDH president, said complaints have also come from the municipalities of Chihuahua, Manuel Benavides, Madera, Guachochi, Delicias, Cuahtemoc, Namiquipa, Bachiniva, and Casas Grandes.  According to Armendariz,  human rights cases involving the army are turned over to the National Human Rights Commission in Mexico City for further action.

CEDH investigator Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson contended that human rights violations  shared a “dangerous pattern.” Many of the purported victims, he said, were small-time drug dealers and addicts who were beaten and tortured. According to the official, detainees have been allegedly subjected to electric shocks, simulated suffocations with plastic bags and razor cuts at army installations. De la Rosa compared the reports with the rampages of the 1970s Dirty War, a period of time when torture and disappearance were widely employed by the Mexican government against dissidents and suspected guerrillas.

There was no immediate comment from the Mexican military on either the PGR or CEDH complaints.  At the state level, elected officials have begun showing some concern about the army’s alleged abuses. Earlier this month, the Chihuahua State Congress exhorted the Defense Ministry to punish any soldier involved in abuses. State Congress President Jorge Alberto Gutierrez Casas later urged military officials to come clean about the Cuahtemoc checkpoint shooting.

“We are going to demand from the legislative branch that human rights not be violated in a struggle that is focused on organized crime, because what happened at the checkpoint doesn’t justify the response of the army members.” Gutierrez said. “The army is one of the institutions which has more prestige and credibility in the eyes of the citizenry, and because of this we must not permit isolated situations to end up discrediting the confidence that society has in them.”

Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz struck a similar tone about the army’s reputation. 
Insisting that no abuses had occurred during the last weeks since the municipal police began participating in joint operations, Mayor Reyes said the army as a whole should not be held responsible for a few bad apples. “Like any other big force that exists in Ciudad Juarez, there will always be abuses,” the mayor said, “but abuses by individuals, by persons, and not by the army, by the institution.”

Reports of human rights complaints in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua come at an especially sensitive time for both the federal Mexican and US governments. The Mexican army is expected to be the primary beneficiary of the Bush Administration’s proposed anti-drug assistance package to Mexico known as the Merida Initiative. A version of the billion dollar-plus aid plan passed the US House of Representatives last week, but it is still waiting action in the US Senate where lawmakers have attached human rights and justice system reform conditions.

Both the Bush and Calderon administrations have criticized conditioning the Merida assistance as an affront to Mexico’s national sovereignty. On June 16, President Bush appealed to US lawmakers to approve Merida “without many conditions.”

Human rights advocates in Mexico and abroad have long contended that the use of the Mexican military in the drug war is a violation of the nation’s Constitution which precludes the army from acting domestically in times of peace.  Pressured by the escalating narco-violence, many Mexican lawmakers, business and civic leaders have agreed that the army is the only force capable of taking on the highly-organized and well-armed private armies of the various drug syndicates.

Officially launched to bring organized crime under control, Operation Chihuahua Together has had decidedly mixed results even by its own objectives. Mexican soldiers and federal police have detained scores of suspects, confiscated some weapons and seized several large drug loads, but none of the leaders of the warring cartels have been arrested so far. 

Perhaps most importantly, the deployment has not halted the violence.  Indeed, an analysis of homicide rates in Ciudad Juarez before and after the beginning of
the military operation reveals that the violence has actually worsened since the army deployed in late March. According to press accounts, 210 people were murdered from January 1 to March 31. From April 1- only a few days after the army operation began- to June 16, a reported 276 people were murdered.

In a startling declaration, Mayor Reyes told the El Paso Times that local authorities knew that a major, violent confrontation between rival cartels was imminent early this year.
Reyes said the local government even knew the date when the violence would
commence and passed the tip on to federal authorities. According to Reyes’ account, the information was available nearly three months before a government operation to contain the violence was announced.  Even though narco-violence has long been a stark feature of Ciudad Juarez, the level of violence witnessed in 2008 is unprecedented. 

Additionally, new manifestations of violence that never existed before in Ciudad Juarez have surrounded the implementation of the military operation. For instance, a dozen businesses have been torched by presumed cartel elements in recent days. On the Internet, rival drug organizations wage a cyber-war complete with threatening videos and insulting messages. In another development heretofore unseen on the border, individuals have started hanging execution lists and “narco-banners” from public monuments and overpasses.  Postings are even seemingly tied to coincide with rush hour and maximum exposure. In the 21st Century battle for the Ciudad Juarez drug “plaza,” a  psychological war increasingly accompanies the physical one.

Sources: Norte, June 16, 2008. Article by Pablo Hernandez Batista. El Paso Times,
June 15, 2008. Article by Daniel Borunda. La Jornada, June 13 and 16, Articles by Ruben Villalpando and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, June 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 2008. Articles by Alejandro Quintero, Sandra Rodriguez Nieto, Blanca Carmona, Luz del Carmen Sosa, Araly Castanon, and editorial staff.Lapolaka.com, June 3, 11, 14, 16, 2008. El Universal, June 12, 13 and 16, 2008. Articles by Silvia Otero, Natalia Gomez Quintero and the Notimex News Service. Frontenet.com, June 9, 2008. Article by Janeth Rogelio.  Frontera/SUN,  June 6, 2008.

Narcos, Soccer and the Public Good

Catapulted into Mexico’s First Division, Ciudad Juarez’s Indios soccer team is hot.
The May 25 victory over Leon brought perhaps tens of thousands of people pouring out of their homes and into the streets for an ecstatic celebration that magically transformed the social mood in a city otherwise battered by narco-violence- if for only a fleeting moment. “Not even the narcos can stop us,” gushed resident Alejandro Amador. “Everyone in Juarez is with the Indios.”

The triumph of the hometown favorites provided the occasion for heady declarations about the future of the privately-owned Indios. Cited in El Diario de El Paso, a report from Mexico’s Economist newspaper claimed the Indios’ ascension into the First Division shot up the value of the team from $4 million to $17 million. The Indios’ owner,   Francisco Ibarra Molina, would not confirm the Economist’s story, but he soon joined with government officials to unveil a plan to take the Indios to even greater heights of glory. 

Flush with pride, Ibarra and Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza appeared together at a  press conference to announce that the state government will support the construction of a new  stadium  for the Indios.  Governor Reyes Baeza did not say how much the stadium will cost or how it will be fully financed, but he said that 400 VIP boxes could be sold to help pay for the project, which is envisioned for completion in 2010. An undetermined amount of state funding will be allocated for the stadium, Chihuahua’s governor added.

Left undisclosed was where the stadium will be built. At the moment several zones of Ciudad Juarez are undergoing redevelopment, including sections of the historic downtown and the area near the future US Consulate. The northwestern edges of Ciudad Juarez, encompassing the Lomas de Poleo and Anapra neighborhoods near the New Mexico border, are likewise within the perimeter of important future developments. 

Currently, the Indios practice and play at a stadium owned by the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ). Under the terms of an agreement between the public university and Indios, the soccer team’s rent payment comes out to about $250,000 per year. Nonetheless, the Indios avoid paying most of the amount in cash by including the UACJ logo on players’ shirts, by giving a number of free tickets to the university, and by paying for maintenance costs. The Indios are responsible for upgrades of the school’s sporting complex, and the team donates money for academic grants.

Private sponsors including  Home Depot, Lala, Plastimex, IDN and Grupo Yvasa support the Indios to the tune of a reported $15 million annually. Team owner Francisco Ibarra heads a company that received the contract for the building of the new Camino Real highway on the outskirts of the city during the previous municipal administration of Hector “Teto” Murguia.

Apart from the private sector, the Indios get monetary support from both the state and municipal governments. In the last 7 months, the two public entities have funneled  $340,000 to the Indios and a basketball team, the Club Gallos de Pelea.  

The use of tax money to support a private team, however popular, is beginning to stir controversy in a city where thousands of people still lack running water, where major boulevards suffer cave-ins from rotting infrastructure and where a public safety crisis is the order of the day. Ciudad Juarez City Council member Leticia Corral Jurado, who represents the opposition National Action Party, said subsidies given to the Indios might be better spent elsewhere. “I know sports are important for our community, but it seems to me there are other priorities instead of giving equivalent resources to private companies,” Jurado said.

An admitted soccer fan, state legislator Victor Quintana of the Democratic Party of the Revolution urged transparency in any dealings between government and private sports clubs. Quintana cited numerous scandals involving soccer teams, including the Necaxa club of Aguascalientes, which got a legally-questionable sweetheart deal complete with an improved stadium, tax exemptions and other breaks when it relocated to the central Mexican city earlier in the decade.

Like professional US sports, scandals over money, power and fame have become part and parcel of the action in Mexico’s soccer world in recent years. First apparent in Colombia, alleged ties between some soccer clubs and the illegal drug underworld also have tarnished the Mexican sporting world. Before his reported death in 1997, Ciudad Juarez drug kingpin Amador Carrillo Fuentes reportedly tried to buy La Corregidora stadium and more than 50 acres in Queretaro.

In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, more than a few are rooting for the Indios and a return to the brief hours of bliss that unfolded in the city on the evening of May 25. Since the Indios’ memorable victory, the scene on the streets has returned to the bloody “normalcy” that’s defined the year so far.

Within the past three days alone, at least 10 people were slain in the gangland wars. Two innocent bystanders were among the victims, including an unlucky  laborer who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” according to press accounts, and 24-year-old Neri Dominguez Pacheco, a single mother of three who was three months pregnant. An emotionally devastated Hilario Dominguez, Neri’s father, recounted how his family had moved like so many others from the state of Veracruz in search of a better life in a city that the sign at the southern entrance of Ciudad Juarez boasts is “the best border” in Mexico.

“She was happy, lately dedicating herself to her children,” Dominguez said of his slain daughter. “She was a worker, washing cars, cleaning houses, and helping out in a little restaurant..”

Sources: Lapolaka.com, June 5, 2008. El Diario de Juarez, May 26, 2008; June 4 and 5, 2008. Articles by Armando Rodriguez, Horacio Carrasco, A. Quintero and editorial staff.  Proceso/Apro, June 2, 2008. Article by Veronica Espinosa. El Diario de El Paso, May 28, 29, 30, 31, 2008. Articles by Sergio Arturo Duarte, A. Salmon, Gabriela Minjares, and editorial staff. Proceso, June 20, 2004. Article by Raul Ochoa and Ricardo Ravelo. El Sol del Centro, July 22, 2003.

Bad Moon Rising: The Crisis in Ciudad Juarez

Known for its irreverent tone and sarcastic headlines, Ciudad Juarez’s Lapolaka.com news service summed up the mood in the border city: “Ciudad Juarez is out of control, and it is entering into a stage of collective hysteria and war this Friday.” The Internet news site was, of course, referring to a still-mysterious and widely-distributed e-mail that  warned of extreme violence planned for Ciudad Juarez last weekend. In a city ravaged by seemingly endless killings connected to a war between rival drug cartels, many people took the advice of the e-mail seriously and stayed home.  Business at bars and restaurants evaporated, a bull fight was cancelled and a concert featuring what passes these days as the old US rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival was similarly given the no-go.  

“Ciudad Juarez resembled a ghost town on Saturday afternoon and evening,” said journalism student Claudia Moreno Torres.

“I’ve never seen a crisis like this one before,” said Pascual Hernandez, a restaurant owner in the Avenida Juarez tourist district who counts 40 years in the business. By last weekend, what began as a public safety crisis earlier this year had evolved into a broader political-economic one as well. Restaurants, bars, hotels, pharmacies, and other businesses have reported losing between 20-70 percent of normal sales in recent days. Leopoldina Aguirre Anchondo, executive director of the Small Business Chamber of Commerce, said 350 small businesses have shut their doors since the beginning of 2008. Stirred in with the narco war and rising street crime, kidnappings for ransom, which could exceed more than 40 cases this year so far, are creating a generalized sense of insecurity.

According to Jorge Pedroza Serrano, executive director of the Maquiladora Association, it was business as usual for the hundreds of export factories that supply the US consumer market.  “Our workers and employees can circulate throughout the different sections of the city with the certainty that their physical integrity is respected,” Serrano insisted. “The different police agencies are ready to make sure of that.”

Talk is emerging of a “Nuevo Laredo Effect” shaking Ciudad Juarez, in allusion to the narco war that devastated Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, several years ago, when pitched street battles that even included bazookas dried up tourism, shut down businesses and sent perhaps thousands fleeing across the border to Laredo, Texas. Already, prominent Juarenses are reported lying low in neighboring El Paso, Texas.
 
Last weekend’s events partially bore out the e-mail’s predictions. On Friday, a man was kidnapped in front of his 6-year-old daughter at the Plaza Juarez Mall. While no massacres occurred in bars or restaurants, 25 people were reported murdered gangland style in separate incidents between May 23 and 25. In a gruesome scene, the bodies of five men were found dumped between a church and maquiladora export plant. Two of the victims were decapitated, and a “narco-message” bearing the signature of “La Linea,” reportedly a group of corrupt policemen, was left as a warning to others. Early Sunday morning, arsonists torched the La Finca bar, Vaqueras y Broncos nightclub and a National Autos lot.

The latest slayings brought this year’s murder toll to at least 371 victims, a statistic which surpasses the homicide count of 316 for all of 2007. So many killings are taking place that bodies are stacking up in the city morgue. And this year’s murder roll doesn’t include the 46 bodies discovered in two clandestine graves. According to Jaime Hervella, director of the Association of Relatives and Friends of Disappeared Persons in El Paso, the bodies could have been buried from 5 to 10 years ago.  Not one corpse has been publicly identified so far, Hervella said. 

“Juarez has been lost to us,” shrugged Arturo Dominguez, president of the city public safety commission. “The crime rate comes from not paying attention. All of us, citizens, functionaries and businessmen, lost control of the city watching was happening on the corner but saying nothing. It is regrettable there is no order, but if we’ve lost control, 
we shouldn’t at least lose hope.”

Prominent residents of the city were buried during the bloody month of May. Longtime bar operator Willie Moya, who ran Hooligan’s, Vaqueras y Broncos, Frida’s,  Tabasco’s, Arriba Chihuahua, Willy’s Country Disco and other clubs popular among both US and Mexican citizens,  was gunned down outside one of his establishments. The 48-year-old Moya was called Ciudad Juarez’s “King Midas” by some members of the local community.

Former federal Congressman Carlos Camacho, who served as the Chihuahua state delegate for the Attorney General for Environmental Protection, was kidnapped by men possibly dressed as soldiers and strangled to death. Camacho was known by many environmental activists from both sides of the border for his fervent opposition to a nuclear waste dump that was planned for Sierra Blanca, Texas, during the 1990s.  

Targeted by killers, police continued falling in the line of hostile gunfire. Two municipal policemen were gunned down May 24 near the Delicias substation, bringing to 14 the number of city cops slain this year so far. On May 25, a new list of policemen targeted for death was discovered posted in Chihuahua City. Unlike the previous list which focused Ciudad Juarez municipal policemen, the latest one also puts state officers squarely in the aim of assassins.

Last weekend’s events, in which an anonymous e-mail triggered the partial shutdown of an industrial city of more than 1.3 million people, raised hotly-debated questions about media, cyberspace, government and the drug culture. The Spanish-language US television network Univision reported that organized crime succeeded in bringing a city to its knees by means of an anonymous threat, but the truth of the matter is that no one is sure who was the author of  the e-mail.  Theories ranged from criminal gangs to social conservatives to a teenager playing a bad joke on the Internet.  

Ricardo Ramirez Vela, president of the local branch of the Canirac restaurant industry association, floated a novel theory: “I don’t doubt that this (e-mail) could have come from people who have businesses in the United States and are trying to profit from what is happening in our city.”  

Across the Rio Grande, the jolting e-mail and ongoing violence sparked an emotionally charged but intellectually challenged exchange on the El Paso Times web site. A contributor who claimed to have witnessed the aftermath of a recent execution offered a tip of practical advice to anyone visiting Ciudad Juarez. He advised motorists to keep their windows cracked and the radio tuned down so sounds of gunshots could be easily heard.

While some writers took the opportunity to explore issues like the connection between the consumption of illegal drugs in the United States and violence in Mexico, others used the forum as a platform to expound thinly-disguised racist attitudes toward Mexicans. Some called for closing the border, deploying US troops, constructing a huge wall and firing Patriot missiles into Mexico. As one writer commented in response to the proposal for an artillery barrage, Patriot missiles are shot into the air at other missiles. Until now, Ciudad Juarez’s latest narco war has not spilled across the border into the US, though the US Embassy in Mexico City cautioned citizens about visiting the city last weekend.  

Many people questioned the actions of elected officials, law enforcement authorities and the federal government. Even as new bodies were piling up for processing in the city morgue, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz flew off to a mass transportation conference in Bogota, Colombia. Mayor Reyes left the city in the hands of a retired military officer, former Major Roberto Orduna, who was appointed only days earlier and almost immediately faced a rebellion by a unit of officers complaining of unreasonably long work shifts.  

Out of sight during Ciudad Juarez’s worst crisis in recent years, the mayor and the governor drew critical comments in the press. Both men cut short their trips only to return to a blood-soaked homeland.

Many citizens wonder what the army is really doing in their city. Since March, more than 3,000 federal troops and police have been dispatched to Ciudad Juarez as part of an officially-proclaimed campaign to quell violence and bring organized crime to heel, but the violence has only worsened since the federales put their boots on the ground. With trained troops supposedly on patrol, it’s not clear how groups of armed men can freely roam the streets executing victims in broad daylight and burning down buildings without at least one or two of the assailants getting caught.

Hernan Ortiz, spokesman for the Popular Independent Organization, said the current round of events wasn’t surprising in view of the impunity that is practically institutionalized. Ortiz cited the unresolved femicides, aggressions against residents of the Lomas de Poleo neighborhood, round-the-clock drug markets and the proliferation of thousands of illegally-imported cars as examples of unanswered wake up calls.   

“There is no government or authority capable of putting order to the situation,” Ortiz said. “The crimes against women are also a point of reference that says everything about the existing problem.”

By the evening of May 25, some residents were ready to lay their city’s deep heartaches to rest. A rowdy crowd of tens of thousands braved the uncertain evening and overwhelmed the city’s airport to greet Ciudad Juarez’s returning Indios soccer team. In a weekend match, the local heroes defeated the Esmeraldas in the rival team’s hometown of Leon, Guanajuato. The game witnessed a riot, with police firing tear gas and helicopters buzzing fans. 

The collective euphoria at the airport aside, the lyrics from an old Creedence Clearwater Revival hit that were not sang live in Ciudad Juarez as expected perhaps best captured the spirit of the times in the troubled border city:  

I see the bad moon rising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin.
I see bad times today.

Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life.
There’s a bad moon on the rise…

Additional Sources: El Universal/AP, May 25, 2008. Frontenet.com, May 21, 24 and 25, 2008. El Paso Times, May 24, 25 and 26, 2008. Articles by Diana Washington Valdez, Adriana Chavez, Darren Mertiz, and Stephanie Sanchez. Lapolaka.com, May 16, 23, 24, 25, 2008. Norte,  May 20, 22, 24,  25, 26, 2008. Articles by Antonio Rebolledo, Nohemi Barraza, Francisco Lujan, and Pablo Hernandez Batista.  El Diario de Juarez, May 18, 23, 24, 25, 26, 2008. Articles by Armando Rodriguez,  Blanca Carmona, Gabriel Simental, and editorial staff. La Jornada, May 18 and 25, 2008. Articles by Ruben Villalpando, the Notimex news agency and editorial staff. www.lyricsfreak.com

The Rice Crisis Hits the Border

Living in the US-Mexico borderlands, residents grow up eating mouth-watering, inexpensive meals rounded off by beans and rice. At least that was the case until now.  In El Paso, Texas, residents are stunned by sharp price increases that saw the wholesale value of a ton of Thai-produced rice shoot up by more than 100 percent since last January. At the retail level, rice prices increased by ten percent just last month, according to government reports. El Paso resident Estela Garcia is among locals who are expressing mounting concern about the availability and affordability of a culturally-defining food.

“But as we know everything goes up in this country, except wages. I hope that other grains don’t go up, like wheat, which is also a staple,” Garcia said. In Garcia’s hometown, the international rice price crisis hit made local news last week when Sam’s Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart, announced it was limiting sales of jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice to four 20-lb. sacks per customer. Costco also reportedly instituted a similar local policy. According to a statement from Sam’s Club, the sales rationing was implemented in order to assure a steady supply of a basic product. In a place where enchiladas with beans and rice or burritos with beans and rice are daily
vittles, the prospect of no rice was a disturbing  to some.

“I’ve never found myself in a situation where there is no rice,” said restaurant customer
Arturo Duran.
 
But Siria Rocha is one person who is already looking at rice-free pantries. Rocha,    marketing director for the West Texas Food Bank, which serves 100,000 needy people in 22 counties, said her organization has not received a new shipment of rice since last October. 

And in an increasingly multi-cultural city, the rice price hikes have jolted owners and workers at East Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants. The responses of restaurateurs  have been mixed, with some trying to hold the line on prices while others are jacking up meal prices by a dollar or two, according to press accounts. “I cannot afford to run out of rice. Oh, my God. That’s like a Mexican restaurant without tortillas,” said Francisco Wong, the owner of three Chinese-style diners in El Paso.

Sam’s Club restrictions on local rice sales quickly became international news, with the online edition of the Mexico City-based La Jornada daily posting a story on its home page. Many analysts discount an actual rice shortage, attributing the sudden price increase to speculation in futures markets, where basic grains currently fetch hefty profits, as well as the strategic decision of countries like the United States to subsidize and promote the production of biofuels at the expense of crops produced for animal and human consumption. 

Sources: El Diario de El Paso, April 24 and 25, 2008. Articles by Gustavo Cabullo.
El Paso Times, April 25, 2008. Article by Doug Pullen and Maria Cortes Gonzalez.
La Jornada/DPA/Notimex, April 25, 2008. KFOX News (El Paso), April 24, 2008. Pagina 24/Notimex, April 22, 2008.

Prominent Women’s Activist, Farm Leader Arrested

Cipriana Jurado, a prominent Ciudad Juarez women’s rights activist, is now free after posting a $700 bond. The director of the Worker Research and Solidarity Center, Jurado was arrested by Mexican federal police outside her home on Wednesday, April 2. The veteran activist was charged with blocking a public roadway during an October 2005 protest sponsored by the binational Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and other organizations at one of the international bridges that link Ciudad Juarez with El Paso, Texas. Also arrested on the same charges as Jurado was Carlos Chavez Quevedo, who was reportedly picked up by federal police in the city of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. Chavez is a co-founder of the National Agrodynamic farm organization, whose leader Armando Villareal Martha was assassinated in Nuevo Casas Grandes last month. According to Chihuahua state legislator Victor Quintana, at least 40 other arrest warrants stemming from the October 2005 protest are pending. No additional word of Chavez’s detention status was available as Frontera NorteSur went to press.

A former maquiladora worker and a member of the PRD political party, Jurado has been active in a variety of labor, environmental and human rights causes in Ciudad Juarez and the Mexico-US border region. A long-time supporter of relatives of femicide victims, Jurado was reportedly arrested after returning from forensic offices where she had gone on business related to investigations of the women’s murders. Interviewed by the local press after her release, Jurado contended that she resisted officers who did not show her an arrest warrant. The policemen were driving a vehicle without license plates and with tainted windows (similar to the vehicles employed by drug cartel hit men) and possessed dubious identifications, she said. As a result of the stand-off, the police officers shoved her into their vehicle, Jurado charged.

Jurado’s detention came in the middle of a major operation by Mexican federal police and soldiers ostensibly aimed at organized crime in Ciudad Juarez. On Friday, April 4, US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza visited Ciudad Juarez to express the Bush Administration’s support for Mexico City’s border military offensive. It wasn’t immediately clear why the Mexican federal government suddenly acted on legal issues almost three years old at a time when Mexican troops and federal police were supposedly focused on dislodging the power of well-rooted drug cartels.

“(Government officials) are taking advantage of this situation to resolve one thing with another,” said former Chihuahua Women’s Institute head Vicky Caraveo. “We don’t know the purposes of the (arrests). We know we are in a difficult situation and we know they are carrying out operations against delinquency, but (Jurado) is not a delinquent. She’s an authentic social activist. If this happens to her, it is a warning to us what will follow.” Jurado’s arrest quickly drew responses from US and Mexican supporters who sent e-mails and organized a demonstration in front of federal court offices in Ciudad Juarez. Individuals and groups who rallied to Jurado’s defense included Casa Amiga’s Esther Chavez Cano and Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. After leaving jail, Jurado charged that her detention was a case of government repression.

“We are going to continue struggling for the causes we have struggled for all these years,” she said, “because we have a commitment to the community and to our children. We don’t want them to live with the repression and the problems with which we are living.”

Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, April 4 and 5, 2008. La Jornada, April 4 and 5, 2008. Articles by Ruben Villalpando and M.Breach. Norte, April 5, 2008. Articles by Luis Carlos Ortega and Felix A. Gonzalez. El Diario de Juarez, April 5, 2008. Articles by Gabriela Minjares, Juan de Dios Olivas and Sandra Rodríguez.

Farm Leader Assassinated

Armando Villareal, a prominent farm activist in the state of Chihuahua, has been murdered. The 50-year-old head of the Agrodinamica Nacional organization was shot to death March 14 gangland-style in broad daylight while driving with his son in the rural town of Nuevo Casas Grandes. According to preliminary reports, Villareal was ambushed by another vehicle containing a masked man attired in military-style clothing.  The assailant fired repeated shots from an AK-47 assault rifle, killing Villareal.  The farm leader’s 18-year-old son survived the attack. Max Correa, the leader of the Central Campesina Cardenista organization, demanded that the state and federal governments punish the perpetrators of Villareal’s assassination.

“The movement  (Villareal) headed and the declarations he made affected many interests of agricultural speculators and those who benefit from big importations of basic grains,” Correa said.

A controversial figure, Villareal led a group of farmers with a significant presence
in the northwestern section of Chihuahua state. The region where Agrodinamica Nacional is active is embroiled in disputes over power rates, water resources and drug trafficking. Villareal was perhaps best known for leading repeated protests against Federal Electricity Commission charges for use of water wells. As a result of his militant activities, Villareal was imprisoned for more than one year beginning in 2002. The farm leader proclaimed himself the first political prisoner of the Vicente Fox era. Most recently, Villareal participated in the revived movement against the North American Free Trade Agreement. He was involved in the Pancho Villa tractorcade that traveled between Ciudad Juarez and Mexico City last January.

“He waged a fierce struggle to lower the costs of electrical energy for the farmers so they could produce in better conditions,” said Fernando Flores, a member of the
Democratic Campesino Front of Chihuahua.
 
The son of Mexican General Armando Villareal Maya and a former student of the closed Hermanos Escobar Agricultural School in Ciudad Juarez, Villareal was active in politics. In 2007, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for the state legislature on the ticket of the Convergencia party. In 2006, the Chihuahua state leader of  Convergencia, Ciudad Juarez lawyer Sergio Dante Almaraz, was shot to death in almost exactly the same manner as Villareal-on a public thoroughfare during daytime hours. The Convergencia organization is part of the Broad Progressive Front that supports former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez, and it is currently involved organizing a mass protest against the privatization of Mexican oil set for March 18 in the Mexican capital. 

Villareal’s lawyer, Sergio Conde Varela, said his client and companions were followed by unidentified individuals after leaving the Ciudad Juarez airport last Thursday. The group had just returned from a Mexico City farm policy forum.  In the past,  Villareal was followed by agents from the Federal Investigations Agency (AFI), Varela added

According to another unidentified source quoted in the Ciudad Juarez press, Thursday´s episode escalated into a high-speed chase that only ended when Villareal lost his pursuers in the municipality of Ascension, Chihuahua.
 
Villareal’s murder happened as a spiral of violence reached new heights in Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez. Since the beginning of the year, more than 130 people have been killed in the northern Mexican state in incidents attributed to organized crime. From March 12 to March 15 alone, the bodies of at least 15 murder victims were recovered in Ciudad Juarez and in and near Chihuahua City. Also, a sergeant for the Ciudad Juarez municipal police force was reported kidnapped.  In addition to Villareal, the latest victims include policemen and a young woman whose body was found off the highway outside Chihuahua City.

Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, March 14 and 15, 2008. Norte,March 15, 2008. Articles by Carlos Huerta, G. Salcido and A.ZubiaEl Diario de Juarez, March 15, 2008. El Sur/Agencia Reforma,March 14 and 15, 2008.

Texas Gives Green Light to Copper Smelter

Despite widespread cross-border opposition, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has given a mothballed El Paso plant the go ahead to once again start smelting copper. At a February 13 meeting in Austin, Texas, TCEQ commissioners voted 3-0 to give the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) a five-year air quality permit.

Asarco's air permit request was opposed by numerous non-governmental organizations and governmental entities from Texas, New Mexico and Ciudad Juarez. Straddling the Rio Grande, Asarco’s El Paso smelter is located directly across the river from Ciudad Juarez and within one mile of the New Mexico border.
  
Smelter opponents contended a reopened smelter would degrade the binational Paso del Norte airshed, which already suffers significant pollution levels.

"This smelter has had a sad history of fouling the air and potentially harming the health of citizens in Southern New Mexico," said New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who wrote a letter of concern to Texas Governor Rick Perry prior to the TCEQ's long-delayed decision.

TCEQ commissioners argued that current state law forced officials to grant approval to Asarco’s permit. “If I were king for the day, the Texas Clean Air Act wouldn’t look anything like it does today,” said Commissioner Larry Soward, who was quoted in the El Paso Times. The TCEQ did attach a number of recommendations and conditions to the permit, including the setting up of four lead monitors for the smelter.

Spokespersons for Asarco were pleased by the TCEQ’s decision. “You don’t have to choose between jobs and the environment,” Asarco attorney Pam Giblin said to TCEQ commissioners. “You can really have both.”

The City of El Paso, which was among several parties formally contesting Asarco's permit application, had unsuccessfully lobbied the TCEQ to postpone the February 13 meeting because of pending, unresolved issues related to the smelter’s operation.  

Austin attorney Erich Birch, who represents the City of El Paso, told Frontera NorteSur that upcoming US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lead emissions standards which could go into effect later this year are expected to mandate stricter limits than are currently on the books. Also, the City of El Paso plans to petition the TCEQ to revoke Asarco's permission to operate because of alleged violations of the company's air permit that happened before Asarco suspended its operations in 1999, Birch said.  

Last but far from least is the issue of who is responsible for Asarco. Embroiled in Texas bankruptcy proceedings, Asarco is owned by Grupo Mexico but controlled by a court-appointed independent board of directors that could sell off the smelter and its assets. 

A subsidiary of Grupo Mexico, Asarco, Inc., is attempting to recuperate management control of the company. Late last month, Asarco, Inc. announced it would not reopen the smelter if it regains management authority.  In a statement, the company pledged to work with environmental authorities and the community to clean up contamination at the plant site.

"There's all this stuff in limbo," Birch said, adding that he didn't expect the smelter to reopen overnight. Meanwhile, the City of El Paso has the right to appeal the TCEQ's action to state District Court, according to Birch. "I'm sure the City will appeal this decision," he said.   
 
The TCEQ's February 13 meeting in the Texas state capital drew hundreds of smelter critics and supporters who traveled from the borderlands. Groups turning out the troops included the Sierra Club, Sunland Park Grassroots Environmental Group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and Citizens Organized for Integral Community Development of Ciudad Juarez. After the TCEQ's decision was announced, anti-smelter activists staged a protest rally outside the agency's Austin offices.

Environmental activists plan to press their fight. The controversy spread to Mexico's federal Chamber of Deputies last week, when legislators passed a resolution that requested the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs invoke the 1983 La Paz Agreement between Mexico and the US and raise the issue of Asarco with both the TCEQ and the EPA. The Mexican congressmen seek compensation for Ciudad Juarez neighborhoods allegedly contaminated by lead and other heavy metals from Asarco's previous operations.

The Mexican congressional resolution also requested that the possible reopening of Asarco be discussed at the next meeting of the Joint Advisory Committee for the Improvement of Air Quality scheduled for February 28 in El Paso. Made up of government representatives and citizens from both sides of the border, the ccommittee reviews pollution control strategies and issues recommendations for the Paso del Norte international air basin. 

Additional sources:  Newspapertree.com  (El Paso), February 13, 2008. Articles by Sito Negron. Norte, February 12, 2008. Article by Herika Martinez Prado. El Diario de Juarez, February 12, 2008. February 8, 2008. El Paso Times, January 24, 2008;  February 9 and 13, 2008. Articles by Brandi Grissom and editorial staff. 

Murder, Theft and Business Up In 2007

Official numbers for 2007 show a rise in some violent and property crimes in the industrial border city of Ciudad Juarez. Cited in the local press,
statistics from the Chihuahua State Office of the Attorney General (PGJE) report 301 homicides were committed in Ciudad Juarez last year. Un-official accounts put the number at more than 320. Thirteen of last year’s murder victims were state or municipal policemen. Many of Ciudad Juarez’s murders were linked to organized criminal or gang activity.

The official 2007 murder toll is the highest on record since 1995, a year when 294 people were slain. Ciudad Juarez’s population has increased by more than an estimated 400,000 people to nearly 1.4 million residents during the last 12 years. Nonetheless, homicide rates have demonstrated a steady increase during the last four years, a time when population growth rates slowed in comparison to the boom years of the 1990s. In 2003, at least 186 people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, 204 in 2004, 227 in 2005 and 253 in 2006.

According to the PGJE, 25 women were murdered in 2007. The Mexico City-based Cimac news service recently reported at least 29 women and girls were slain in Ciudad Juarez last year. Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez blamed domestic violence for the majority of
killings. Killed December 30 in an apparent murder-suicide, Sandra Teresa Morales was the last woman of the year to be murdered.

In addition to murder, auto thefts doubled from two years ago when 10 to 15 were reported daily to 30 per day in 2007. Commercial robberies also rose, increasing from 4,599 during the months of January-November 2006 to 5,288 for the same time period of 2007.

Soon after the year’s crime statistics were released on New Year’s Eve, government officials, academics and clergy began giving their interpretations to the press.

Jaime Torres Valadez, spokesman for Ciudad Juarez’s public safety department, called the homicide numbers “worrisome.” Characterizing the murder rate primarily as a social problem and not a police one, Torres said his officers will nevertheless redouble
their crime prevention efforts in 2008. The city police force is slated for an expansion from 1,644 to 2,244 personnel this year, he added. For the first time, city police will have the legal authority to investigate
murders under the new Chihuahua state criminal code that went into effect
on January 1.

Dr. Rodolfo Rubio, a demographer and geographer with El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, said Ciudad Juarez’s overall crime rate is well above thenational Mexican norm, but still below averages for cities including
Mexico City, Tijuana and Culiacan. Dr. Rubio added that only one-fourth of Ciudad Juarez’s crime victims ever bother to file formal complaints because of a widespread perceived sense of futility among the public.

Ciudad Juarez’s 2007 murder spike came in a year of political transition from the municipal administration of former Mayor Hector “Teto” Murguia to the current one headed by Mayor Jose Reyes Feliz. The killings also coincided with a campaign mounted by some officials and businessmen to “clean-up” Ciudad Juarez’s image abroad. Campaign boosters have contended that exaggerated media attention on the femicides and other violence is damaging the city’s ability to attract investors and tourists.

Little or no evidence exists to show a link between media coverage of violent crime and economic downturn in Ciudad Juarez. Last year, 31 new enterprises were registered in the local maquiladora program, while 18,656 new jobs were created locally.

“Employment has increased a little, economic activity is better,” said Albertico Ibarra, assistant director of industry for the Economy Ministry.“The economy is sound and dynamic, and we feel it.”

Violence, meanwhile, continued to rear its ugly head into 2008. The first day of the new year was ushered in with the discovery of a young murder victim inside her home. A 20-year-old student and retail store employee, Joanna Radilla Lucero was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death on
January 1.

“This is a femicide,”said State Attorney General Gonzalez. “You all know what is really the motive in a femicide: machismo, misogyny, violence against women, which has not stopped in Juarez or in the rest of the country.” Gonzalez said law enforcement authorities were confident the Radilla murder would soon be solved.

Sources: Lapolaka.com, January 2 and 3, 2008. Norte, December 17, 24 and 31, 2007; January 3, 2008. Articles by Herika Martinez Prado, Nohemi Barraza and Luis Carlos Ortega. El Diario de Juarez, November 19, 2007;December 18, 30 and 31, 2007; January 1, 2 and 3, 2008. Cimacnoticias.com, December 21, 2007. Article by Jonathan Pardinas.

Indigenous Groups Defend Mexican Corn

Meeting in Chihuahua's Sierra Tarahumara last weekend, representatives of more than 20 indigenous Raramuri and Tepehuan communities vowed to defend the traditional corn that nourishes their cultures and livelihoods. At the Third Annual Corn Fair held in Ejido Bacabureachi, indigenous leaders agreed to implement measures aimed at protecting their corn from genetically modified (GM) varieties. Among the proposals considered was a demand to require that any corn entering the Sierra Tarahumara for any purpose have a certificate of origin.

Maria Teresa Guerrero, director of the Chihuahua City-based Community
Technical Consultants, a non-governmental environmental and indigenous rights advocacy organization, said indigenous leaders also agreed that more effective lobbying was needed to goad Mexican federal authorities into taking protective actions on behalf of indigenous communities. "Until now, (authorities) have only shown commitments with businessmen," Guerrero said.

In recent months, the introduction of GM corn has become a hot issue in northern Mexican border states.  Opponents fear that GM products will contaminate native corn species, as has already happened in different parts of Mexico, and with unpredictable, long-term environmental consequences.

On the other hand, a large group of corn producers in the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Chihuahua is seriously mulling the massive planting of GM crops. The pro-GM farmers view the new crops as beacons of progress and promise that will help them survive the January 1, 2008 elimination of corn tariffs under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Reportedly, GM corn produces a much greater per-acre yield than traditional species.

According to Perfecto Solis, president of the Tamaulipas Corn Producers Council, farmers are growing frustrated by regulatory delays at the federal level in Mexico. Since 1999, Mexico has followed an official moratorium on the commercial planting of GM corn.

"We can't wait five years more, especially when we have been placed at a   competitive disadvantage with US corn producers," Solis said. "With or without regulation, we will begin to plant transgenic corn and, if necessary, we will recur to the use of force to defend our crops."

But indigenous corn growers in Chihuahua, who cultivate small plots less than seven acres in size, maintain that the agricultural future still rests with the old corn varieties adapted to the high and dry environmental conditions of the Sierra Tarahumara. Persistent drought in the region remains a major challenge for small farmers who rely on the rains. 

Speaking at the corn fair, Marcelino Moreno of Ejido Las Lajas  affirmed that traditional farming wasn't a mystery. "With the moon, as we always have done, as our elders did it, without chemicals and with a lot of work," Moreno advised. Other fair participants stressed organic fertilization and crop rotation as essential farming methods to ensure healthy harvests.

Bacabureachi resident Luz Maria said preserving native corn was indispensable for the survival of indigenous culture. "Don't let them do away with corn," Luz Maria appealed, "because if corn is finished, so are the people."

On a related note, the environmental group Greenpeace Mexico collected samples in Chihuahua in late November to test for the presence of genetically-modified organisms. Greenpeace’s  sampling took place in corn-growing districts of the municipalities of Namiquipa, Nuevo Casas Grandes, Buenaventura and Cuahtemoc.

Sources: La Jornada, November 13 and December 2, 2007. Articles by Matilde Perez U. and Miroslava Breach Velducea.  Americaspolicy.org, December 3, 2007. Article by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero.

Carlos Slim Stages a Border Water Coup

In a flashy desert ceremony replete with mariachis and cheering supporters, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza kicked off a huge, new water supply and sanitation project for Ciudad Juarez on November 23. Designed to provide virtually the entire city with potable water while upgrading outdated wastewater treatment plants, the nearly $300 million public works project should be finished by 2009 or 2010, according to officials. Constructed to pipe in groundwater to existing low-income neighborhoods, the new Conejos-Medanos Aqueduct will be the crown jewel of the project. Once completed, the project could serve an estimated 345,000 residents of Ciudad Juarez. Funding for the water systems expansion will come from both the public and private sectors.

"Today we initiate this project of social transcendence," Gov. Reyes said. "Today this dream is made possible thanks to the joint efforts and work of the government, private enterprise and civil society." A much-needed benefit of the project, Gov. Reyes pledged, would be the elimination of the nasty-smelling wastewater spills that make life miserable for residents of neighborhoods like Riberas del Bravo. He called Conejos-Medanos the most important undertaking of his 3-year-old administration.

The water for the project will be drawn from the Conejos-Medanos aquifer that straddles the borderlands. Known as the Mesilla aquifer in the United States, the vital groundwater source supplies the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and other towns on the US side with drinking water. According to Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua state officials, 23 new deep wells will be drilled to provide water for the Mexican side.

Once laid down, miles of new water distribution lines will add a flow of 1,000 liters per second to Ciudad Juarez's water supply, officials estimate. Manuel Herrera, a spokesman for Ciudad Juarez's Municipal Water and Sanitation Department, said each city resident currently consumes an average 280 liters of water every day, a figure which is 120 liters less than in 2000 when each resident used about 400 liters daily. Herrera affirmed that a concerted effort is underway to cut down on wasteful water use.

"We've arrived at these numbers due to the committed work of society and government," he said. "The results have been very positive."  

The Conejos-Medanos project has implications for nearby US border communities. Greater tapping of the aquifer on the Mexican side will likely impact future water supplies in fast-growing southern New Mexico, where rapid development has become a growing political issue.

For example, the  November 6 Las Cruces municipal election resulted in the election of a new mayor and city councilors considered to hold more growth-cautious positions.

In Mexico, the financing and management of the Conejos-Medanos project is certain to spark controversy.  Standing out in the package is the concession granted to the Carso Infrastructure and Construction company (CISCA). Part of Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim's Grupo Carso, CISCA will invest about $100 million dollars in the project and be in charge of its construction.  In return for the investment, the company was awarded a ten-year concession by the Chihuahua state government to sell water to Ciudad Juarez's municipal government. No further details about the agreement have been publicly released.

Barely unveiled, the Conejos-Medanos project is already drawing critical commentaries on Ciudad Juarez’s Lapolaka.com news website. One writer, for instance, noted the proximity of the project to sections of Ciudad Juarez witnessing land speculation and highway construction connected to new border economic development plans for the planned binational city of Jeronimo-Santa Teresa on the Chihuahua-Mexico border and Anapra across from Sunland Park, New Mexico. Mexican officials did not immediately disclose whether Conejos-Medanos will directly benefit the two envisioned border growth-zones.

In Mexican cities like Aguascalientes, meanwhile, private management of water supplies is generating public criticism of high rates and allegedly bad service. Last year, the Chihuahua City-based Community Technical Consultants banded together with 13 other farm, consumer and environmental organizations to launch a campaign in opposition to water privatization in Chihuahua.

Perhaps in a pre-emptive strike at nascent Conejos-Medanos critics, Gov. Reyes denied that the arrangement with Slim's Grupo Carso would produce economic hardships for water users.

"This will not have a direct impact on the people, on the bill they receive for home water consumption. We all pay water, sewage and sanitation. This is not going to have a negative repercussion on the economy of Juarez residents," Gov. Reyes contended. "The (Ciudad Juarez) water department, with its financial engineering, is going to cover the cost. The private investment has to be paid. The important thing here is that the department, with its financial management exercises every year, will cover this expense without impacting the population."

The Chihuahua state government's high-stakes investment in Conejos-Medanos was readily evident during the kick-off ceremony held at a desert stopping on the Jeronimo-Santa Teresa Highway just outside Ciudad Juarez. The event was attended by Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz (no relation to the governor), Chihuahua State Supreme Court Chief Justice Rodolfo Acosta Munoz, state elected officials and representatives of the Mexican army. Promised gifts in return for their attendance, hundreds of residents of low-income neighborhoods were transported to the ceremony on private buses. 

"This is a project of life," said Uriel Chavez, one of the attendees, told the governor. "Thanks for thinking about us." Gov. Reyes, in turn, thanked Carlos Slim for making Conejos-Medanos a reality and invited the magnate for a toast of water once the project is done.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, November 23 and 24, 2007. Articles by Luz del Carmen Sosa. Norte, November 24, 2007. Article by Salvador Castro. Frontenet.com, November 23, 2007. Articles by Felix Gonzalez.  Lapolaka.com, November 23, 24 and 25, 2007. Ecoamericas.com, December 2006. Frontera NorteSur/Environment, September 2000. Las-cruces.org/vote007.

Ciudad Juarez Air Pollution Plan Unveiled

Situated between mountain ranges and undergoing steady growth, Ciudad Juarez suffers a long-standing air pollution problem.  Commercial trucks, city buses, personal automobiles, brick kilns, and unpaved roads all contribute to the degradation of the air shed. In recognition of the problem, the new municipal administration of Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz has drafted a set of goals to attack a problem that has dogged previous local governments. The plan was unveiled at a November 8 meeting of the Joint Advisory Committee (JAC) in the border community of Sunland Park, New Mexico. Founded in the 1990s, the JAC is a group made up of government and civil society representatives from Mexico and the United States that promotes clean air on both sides of the border.

"We're trying to take a dynamic direction," said Hector Sandoval, the new director of Ciudad Juarez's ecology department. Sandoval, who ran as the Mexican Green Party's candidate for mayor in this year's election, laid out 13 clean air policy goals established by the Reyes administration. Highlights of the strategy include installing four air quality monitoring stations, requiring air emissions stickers on private vehicles, conducting inspections of private businesses, promoting a car-pooling lane on the heavily-traveled, international Bridge of the Americas, and bringing the municipal environmental ordinance up to date.

To achieve its goals, the Reyes administration banks on working with the Chihuahua state government and the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ) in upgrading air pollution detection technology and in monitoring the old buses that rattle Ciudad Juarez's streets, Sandoval said.  In a similar fashion, the city government is collaborating with the university and other authorities to promote the use of cleaner brick kilns as well as the construction of an "ecological park" to house the city's brick-making industry.

According to Sandoval, getting older, dirty vehicles off the roads is a priority of the Reyes administration. The environment department chief told Frontera NorteSur that the city government plans a 500-vehicle pilot project similar to "cash for clunkers" schemes in the United States. Sandoval said the Ciudad Juarez program will offer cash payments to owners of old vehicles that can be recycled or used for parts.  A seller will then be able to use the money from a car as a down payment on a new vehicle, he said. As an extra benefit of the planned vehicle buy-out, Mexico could utilize carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, Sandoval added. No start-up date for Ciudad Juarez's "cash for clunkers" program has been set. 

Sandoval acknowledged that convincing car owners to part with their vehicles won't be easy. A sprawling city with a difficult public transportation system, many low-income Ciudad Juarez residents depend on cheap, used vehicles imported from the United States. The Ciudad Juarez Municipal Planning Department estimates 79 percent of city residents use vehicles which average 13 years in age.  Ana Maria Contreras, air quality chief for the federal Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), estimates that 30 percent or less of the approximately 450,000 vehicles circulating in Ciudad Juarez have been inspected for air emissions.  

Mexican environmental authorities worry that the lifting of restrictions on the importation of used vehicles from Canada and the US  set for January 2008 will result in even greater numbers of  discarded, polluting cars and trucks coming into the borderlands from the North  "This will create a big problem for the city," predicted Gerardo Tarin of Semarnat's Ciudad Juarez delegation.

Tarin said enforcing a Mexican customs regulation requiring that used imported vehicle have an environmental sticker will hopefully curb the worst vehicles from entering Mexico. "It's hard to stop this from day to night, but at least we could stop the polluting ones," Hector Sandoval added. 

In Mexico, concerns are mounting about the environmental effects of a new used car import boom happening at the same time of meticulous US security inspections. Some environmental experts say that official air quality monitoring reports, which measure contaminants over relatively dispersed areas during extended periods of time, don't adequately gauge the impact of short-term, air pollution bursts caused by idling traffic near the region's international bridges where crossing times have reached as much as three hours at times in 2007.

Alma Leticia Figueroa, twice head of Ciudad Juarez's ecology department and the current coordinator of the biology program at the UACJ, said the health of Mexican and US government workers, vendors, local residents and border-crossing students is jeopardized by the bridge congestion.

"They are all people exposed to an air quality outside the norm," Figueroa said. A JAC participant for nearly a decade, Figueroa recalled attending numerous meetings with officials from Mexico and the US in which a “maximum” goal of 20 minutes crossing time was agreed to for bridge users. However, the current situation represents a step “backwards from what we proposed," Figueroa said.

In an interview, Figueroa endorsed a special car pool lane, proposed harmonizing export-import environmental standards for used cars and suggested reserving thorough auto inspections at border crossings for secondary stations specifically meant to check suspicious cars and passengers. Figueroa contended that a pressing need exists in the United States for an educational campaign aimed at coaxing people not to dump their old, polluting vehicles on Mexico. Ultimately, she emphasized, Ciudad Juarez's air pollution problem is not confined by a glass barrier at the border.

"El Paso, Sunland and Juarez are in a basin, a common space. We breathe the same quality of air," Figueroa said.

A Prison Gang War Unsettles the City

Law enforcement authorities have reestablished control over the city's sprawling prison (Cereso) that exploded in bloody combat on Thursday, November 1. In an all-too-familiar scene, hundreds of inmates armed with guns and sharp objects battled for control of the overcrowded facility. The fighting erupted as 300 relatives of inmates were visiting their loved ones. Caught in a cross-fire of rocks, bullets and tear gas, visiting families feared for their lives.

"The prisoners wanted to kill us," said a terrified, 7-year-old Miguel Betancourt. Some relatives credited prisoners for saving their lives from rampaging inmates while prison guards stood by without intervening. Called to the scene, municipal police were able to evacuate some of the trapped visitors.

"It was obvious that relatives were stuck between the two gangs and one of them was threatening to open fire on the visitors, including dozens of children and women." said city police spokesman Jaime Torres Valadez. "If this had been put down by force instead of by dialogue, we would have had a greater number of dead people." 

When the battle was finally over, two inmates, Humberto Hermelano Aguirre Candelario and Octavio Vargas Chavez lay dead, and 70 others were injured.
 
 Rebellious inmates held sections of the prison for 63 hours. An early Sunday morning assault on November 4 by nearly 500 state and municipal police officers led by Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez regained control of the Cereso. Authorities confiscated three firearms, 33 Molotov cocktails and more than 600 other weapons. However, two shotguns and a fully automatic AR-15 rifle that were supposedly used by the Aztecas were not reported found. Video cameras captured inmates toting the still-missing weapons during the melee. 

The uprising was the first crisis to test the new city administration of Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz, who took office last month. Amid reports that prison guards allowed inmates to riot, Mayor Reyes fired Warden Jose Grajeda Almaraz and prison guard commander Anastasia Gallegos Gonzalez.  State Attorney General Gonzalez's office quickly filed negligence charges against Gallegos and another prison employee. But Grajeda leaped  to  Gallegos’ defense. "He's honest, a worker, and has dignity and respect," Grajeda said.  "It's unjust that people dedicated to their work are made to look like devils, and all of this because they give more credence to the bad apples, who are the ones that criticize Anastasio.”  

Grajeda maintained that he inherited a disastrous, explosive situation when he took over the job running the prison. The sacked warden added that he requested municipal and state officials transfer 101 inmates one week before the Cereso blew up,

The November 1 violence pitted members of the Aztecas street gang against their longtime rivals from the Mexicles gang. The two groups have long struggled for control of the lucrative illegal drug business inside the prison. A third gang, "Killer Artists," also has a presence in the Cereso.  State Attorney General Gonzalez said witnesses have accused former prison guard commander Gallegos of protecting the Aztecas.

Since late 2005, the Cereso has been the scene of violent power struggles between inmate gangs. With the latest violence, at least 18 inmates have been killed and more than 100 injured during the last two years. In the worst incident, nine prisoners were killed during a March 2006 fight. Earlier this year, two tunnels under the prison were discovered by authorities. Built to hold 1,500 inmates, the Cereso housed more than 3,000 prisoners when it erupted in violence last week. 

It's not publicly known what sparked the latest clash, but a reported Aztecas member and former Chihuahua State Judicial Police officer,   Prisciliano Martinez Herrera, was murdered gangland-style on the streets of Ciudad Juarez two days before the prison violence erupted.  Other alleged links between the Aztecas and former and current state policemen have been reported in the local press.  According to State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez, events inside the prison are controlled from the outside by gang leaders who live in Ciudad Juarez or neighboring El Paso, Texas.  

Mayor Reyes appointed a veteran ex-state police official, Salvador Barrendo, as the new Cereso warden.  Previously associated with the administration of former Governor Patricio Martinez (1998-2004) and his top cop, "Chito” Solis, the new warden immediately fended off criticism from some inmates about alleged corruption on his record. Barrendo said he would "dialogue" with prisoners, but ruled out formal negotiations.

In a press conference, State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez confirmed that her office will probe the background to the November 1 violence.  “We are looking at the probable responsibility and participation of authorities that were at the Cereso earlier, but these are preliminary investigations separate from the ones having to do with November 1,” Gonzalez clarified.

As immediate steps to head off further bloodshed, authorities announced the transfer of some inmates and the construction of a concrete wall to separate members of the Aztecas and Mexicles gangs inside the prison.

"The root problem won't be resolved until we build a new Cereso," said
Mayor Reyes. "The situation is very complicated. We received a prison in grave condition. Without having the certainty  (violent outbreaks) like this one aren't going to happen, we are taking measures to control them."

Legislators Jorge Neaves Chacon and Antonio Andreu Rodriguez of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party announced they will seek support from Mexican President Calderon’s administration to construct a new federal prison in Ciudad Juarez. Although the Cereso is set up to incarcerate local and state lawbreakers, about half its current inmate population consists of individuals charged with federal offenses, which typically involve drug law violations.   

Business and social leaders condemned the November 1 bloodletting, with some also urging federal intervention as well as an end to the widespread corruption which has allegedly characterized management of the prison. Gabriel Flores Viramontes, president of the local branch of the Canacintra business association, urged the construction of a new federal prison to hold problematic inmates. Laurencio Barraza Limon, a representative of the Independent Popular Organization, contended that a long overdue revamping of the prison system should include therapeutic treatment programs and rehabilitative activities.

Sources: Norte, November 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2007. Articles by Nohemi Barraza, Carlos Huerta, Salvador Castro, Pablo Hernandez Batista, and Jorge Chairez Daniel. La Polaka.com, November 2, 3, 5, 6, 2007. Frontenet.com, November 4, 2007.  El Diario de Juarez, October 31, 2007; November 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2007. Articles by Armando Rodriguez and editorial staff.

Security Guards Block NGO Forum

Tensions in a land dispute that pits members of a prominent Ciudad Juarez family against long-time residents of a poor neighborhood and their supporters were revved up a notch this past weekend.  A citizen’s forum scheduled for Saturday, October 20, at school in  Lomas de Poleo, a  working-class settlement on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, was prevented from convening by guards employed by Pedro and Jorge Zaragoza.  On Saturday, members of non-governmental organizations from Mexico and the United States arrived at Lomas de Poleo  to discuss the land ownership battle only to find access to the neighborhood blocked by Zaragoza security personnel.

Zaragoza representative Catarino del Rio Camacho argued that as private property owners his bosses had a right to prevent outsiders from entering the legally-contested lands. “The people who live here have free access but those who come to create conflict can’t enter because we don’t see any reason for them to be here.”
 
Forum organizers earlier said they planned to conduct a peaceful meeting between NGOs and Lomas de Poleo residents.  Groups supporting Lomas de Poleo residents include the Border Agricultural Workers Union,  Paso del Sur Group, Pastoral Obrera, Mexico Solidarity Network, Rezizte,  the Other Campaign, and many others.

In a statement distributed late Friday evening, Lomas de Poleo residents and their supporters denounced the presence of large numbers of armed men who were surrounding the neighborhood in an apparent attempt to thwart the next day’s planned forum.  The statement criticized the deployment as an escalation of the violence which has punctuated the land dispute during the last few years.

“One resident has been murdered, (and ) two children have been burned to death inside a home purposely set on fire as part of the demolitions of more than 40 homes by the Zaragoza guards,” the statement charged. “The Lomas de Poleo inhabitants have been cut off from the rest of the city and are currently within a state of siege at the hands of the powerful developers mentioned above.”

Once a wind-swept, largely forgotten mesa that housed maquiladora workers and others trying to get by in Ciudad Juarez, Lomas de Poleo is now a prime chunk of real estate as city development creeps towards the planned binational city of Jeronimo-Santa Teresa. Lomas de Poleo is also close to Sunland Park, New Mexico, which could see a new international crossing and become a border business hub within the next few years. In 1996, Lomas de Poleo gained international notoriety as one of the places where the bodies of raped and murdered women were dumped.

As a result of Saturday’s incident, the official Chihuaha State Human Rights Commission initiated an investigation to determine possible violations of residents’ and supporters’ rights, including the right to free transit. “The people have showed me the authorization of the director of the school to hold this event and the gate stops it from happening,” said commission representative Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson.

Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, October 21, 2007. Norte, October 21, 2007.
Article by Nohemi Barraza. El Diario de Juarez, October 20 and 21, 2007. Articles by
Alejandro Quintero and Juan de Dios Olivas.

FNS Special Report : A Public Transportation Disaster Awaits Action

Improving public transportation will be a hot item on the plate of issues facing Jose Reyes Ferriz when he takes office as the new mayor of Ciudad Juarez on October 10. In extensive coverage during the past two years, Ciudad Juarez media have documented bountiful irregularities, safety hazards and routine inefficiencies that plague a transportation system which ferries more than 450,000 people around the city every day. In an important sense, however, "public" transportation is a misnomer since Ciudad Juarez's urban buses are owned by private individuals who obtain concessions from the government in exchange for providing service.

Fatal accidents, drunk and drugged bus drivers, unsafe and environmentally obsolete vehicles, spotty service, and alleged corruption are all issues that have received wide attention in local media. Speeding, racing, running red lights, improper turning and failing to yield are commonly reported behaviors of many of Ciudad Juarez's bus drivers. "The buses are all broken down,” moaned bus rider Claudia Perez. The bus drivers drive like crazies.."

To top it all off, rickety units careening down Ciudad Juarez's streets frequently lack all their seats, forcing users to sit on plastic buckets at the back of the bus. A one-way trip on the bus costs approximately 40 cents. Maquiladora plant workers and residents of outlying low-income neighborhoods known as colonias are particularly at the mercy of the bus owners.

Daredevil Journeys of Death and Destruction

Official statistics reported in the Diario and Norte newspapers tell part of the story. From January to August 31 of this year, 569 bus-related accidents left 8 people dead and 19 injured. Forty-one drivers were cited for drunk driving, and 1,010 fines were levied for traffic violations ranging from making unauthorized stops to smoking on the bus. According to Hector Hernandez Varela, Chihuahua state government secretary,  2160 of 2700 buses in Ciudad Juarez are substandard and in violation of the Public Transportation Law. In early 2007, 82 maquiladora buses were removed from service. 

In 2006, 10 people were killed in bus-related accidents, while 14 perished in 2005. In 2006, the local branch of the Mexican Social Security Institute attended 1,600 work-related transportation accidents, 55 percent of which involved city or maquiladora buses.

With three months remaining in the year, the fatality toll for 2007 already equals the number of deaths registered in 2006.  Two pedestrians were killed by buses September, adding to the already high death roll tallied during the first eight months of the year. A 64-year-old woman, Maria Elvia Rangel was killed September 19 as she walked in front of city hall. The latest  accidents stoked rising public indignation.   

"I met with the concessionaries yesterday and made it very clear to them that we aren't going to look the other way, said Ruben Luna Caldera, state transportation department chief in Ciudad Juarez. “Any irregularity will be sanctioned and the permit revoked in the event of reoccurrences or grave omissions,” Luna pledged.  

Untrained, overworked and even substance-abusing drivers are a big concern. Of 1994 drivers tested for drug use this year so far, 68 showed positive results.  In August, it was revealed that a Lear Corporation-contracted bus driver had worked three successive shifts before he hit a car. Sixteen workers were injured and 40 others shaken-up badly in the accident. 

Some bus drivers blame careless pedestrians and passengers for making a difficult traffic situation even more hazardous. "(Passengers) don't respect the official bus stops for getting on and getting off," said driver Humberto Rangel. "They oblige the driver to stop and double park because the rider is demanding that the driver let him off, and if the driver doesn't let the passengers get off where they want, the passengers get mad and insult the driver."

The Environmental  Fallout

In an age when governments issue high-sounding proclamations about curbing greenhouse gases to combat climate change, Ciudad Juarez's deepening public transportation crisis has profound environmental implications. A city built on the sprawl model, Ciudad Juarez's layout is not conducive to a rapid, efficient bus system. Stirring in  problems of poor and dangerous service, it’s understandable that many individuals who might be convinced to use the bus opt for cheap, used cars instead. Indeed, the city is filled with highly-polluting, older-model automobiles practically dumped from the United States.

"There is no alternative public transportation service that invites the citizen to leave behind the car," said Fernando Lozada Islas, an academic researcher in urbanization and urban mobility. "In my own case, I would use public transportation if there were a safe and reliable (system) in terms of schedule and coverage, and it could help the city's streets become less congested and contaminated."

If anything, the unpopularity of public transportation is growing. In addition to unsafe transportation conditions, would-be users quickly discover that there are no published or posted route schedules. According to Ciudad Juarez’s Municipal Institute of Research and Planning, the percentage of trips in the city realized by means of public transportation plummeted from 45 percent in 1989 to 18 percent by 2006.

The Bus as a Magnet of Public Discontent

It remains to be seen if Ciudad Juarez's public transportation crisis turns into a flashpoint of political and social conflict as it has elsewhere in Mexico. Like Ciudad Juarez, "public" bus service across Mexico is in the hands of private concessionaires.

In 2007, public anger over bus service has provoked public demonstrations and even violence in various regions of the country. In February, an estimated 1,000 residents of Chimaulcan, Mexico state, burned two buses and seized others after more than 20 accidents in the space of a few months alarmed the population.  On two separate occasions, Acapulco residents protested the killings of two child pedestrians by bus drivers.  In the most recent incident earlier this month, angry crowds upset over the death of 8-year-old Daniel Pineda Rodriguez burned a bus, attacked news photographers and later confronted police.  

In recent days, the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo was the scene of a popular uprising sparked by the unveiling of a new state bus system dubbed SUBA. Thousands of people took to the streets and blockaded highways to protest the loss of bus routes and, in some cases, the tripling of out-of-pocket expenses for bus fares.

"I was paying 10 pesos to go to my work. Now I have to take 6 buses, when  I only took two before," said Rosabla Valenzuela. "That's to say that I am spending 30 pesos every day to arrive to my destination..”

Stunned by the public outcry, Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours announced that the old routes would be reestablished. “We recognize that we weren’t prepared to deal with the confrontations that happened during the week when SUBA was presented,” Governor Bours conceded.

In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, a representative of the Chihuahua state government announced that the administration of Governor Jose Reyes Baeza will conduct an audit of the local public transportation office. Allegations of false paperwork, under-the-table permit sales and the cancellation of fines in return for bribes have floated in the press.  Ultimately, the audits could serve the purpose of taking concessions away from some individuals and awarding them to others.

While on the campaign trail, mayor-elect Jose Reyes Ferrriz laid out general policies he said that his administration would like to pursue in the public transportation realm. Calling for greater investment, Reyes proposed a far-reaching system redesign, new transfer and pick-up hubs and expanded cross-border service to neighboring El Paso, Texas.  Until now, the issue of public ownership of mass transportation, as is typical in the United States and Europe, hasn't been a prominent part of the debate over improving Ciudad Juarez's troubled bus service.

Sources: Lapolaka.com. September 19 and 25, 2007. La Jornada, September 19, 27 and 28, 2007. Articles by Sergio Ocampo, Ulises Gutierrez  and La Jornada Guerrero. Frontenet.com, August 15, 2007. El Diario de El Paso, September 20, 21, 22, 23, 2007. Articles by Mauricio Rodriguez, Luz Del Carmen Sosa, Hugo Chavez, and Juan Manuel Cruz. Norte, February 24 and 27, 2007; March 5 and 6, 2007; August 16 and 28, 2007; September 1, 2 and 9, 2007. El Diario de Juarez, August 30 and September 2, 2006; May 27, 2007; August 28, 2007; September 25, 26, 27, 29 2007. Articles by Horacio Carrasco, Blanca Carmona and editorial staff. El Sur, March 1 and September 19, 2007.  Articles by Daniel Velazquez  Olea and Aurora Harrision.  El Universal, February 17, 2007. Article by Fernando Martinez.  El Imparcial, September 29, 2007.

The Absurd Deaths of Jazmin and Andres Move a City

In Ciudad Juarez, the earth literally swallows its children. Early on the morning of September 11, Lucina Baca Perez was walking her 12-year-old daughter Jazmin Garcia Baca to middle school just like any other day. Crossing at the intersection of Ejercito Nacional and Valentin Fuentes avenues, Jazmin suddenly fell into a hole that seemingly appeared from nowhere in the collapsing street. She was sucked into a sewer drain more than 12 feet deep that was bursting with run-off from the previous day's storm.   

Panicking over the fate of her only daughter, Baca cried out for help. Two men getting off a passing bus, Andres Castro Azcarate and Abel Guajardo, responded to Baca's pleas and descended into the hole in an attempt to save Jazmin's life. Despite his heroic effort, Castro was swept to his death along with Jazmin in a fresh torrent of raging water; Guajardo was pulled to safety by passerby. 

The bizarre deaths of Jazmin and Andres jolted Ciudad Juarez, refocusing attention on the development paradox of an ever- growing industrial city that is one of the historic pillars of the modern global economy but which is plagued with decaying public works 15 years after the negotiators of the North American Free Trade Agreement pledged to improve infrastructure on the Mexico-US border.

Ernesto Mendoza Viveros, president of Ciudad Juarez's municipal water agency, acknowledged that as much as 50 percent of the city's wastewater drainage system is obsolete, with some sections 50 years old. Another city official, Miguel Angel Jurado Marquez, said that the system, built underneath sandy soil, gets overwhelmed during storms. 

"Every time it rains we are subject to cave-ins," Jurado said. "There have been 220 cave-ins in the city  during 2007 alone." Mendoza confirmed that city work crews will replace part of the system as well as analyze the conditions of an estimated 400 kilometers of pipes in order to prioritize repairs. State and municipal authorities plan to put up warning flags and mark street lanes at 10 sites deemed too risky for pedestrians and motorists after it rains.

"These alerts aren't mean to create a psychosis among the population," said 
Issac Olivas Vega, coordinator for the Chihuahua state civil protection department, "but they do propose that (people) avoid certain lanes and walkways and search for alternative routes in the event of rain." Olivas stressed that the drainage system should inspected after every downpour.

Ciudad Juarez residents expressed outrage over the September 11 tragedy. The incident inspired strongly-worded commentaries about spending priorities, city development plans and alleged government corruption and negligence. El Diario de Juarez reported that its electronic news service received more than 400 e-mails from citizens. In an open letter to Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and state legislators posted on the Lapolaka news website, engineer Norberto Guereque Cedillos and a group of anonymous friends lashed out at the management of public works programs. "How much is a life worth? 250 million pesos or a billion pesos?" Guereque questioned.

As Ciudad Juarez geared up for the traditional September 16 independence day celebration, the memories of Jazmin and Andres were on the minds of many citizens. Cell phones and e-mails buzzed away in a sort of electronic protest grapevine, urging residents to boycott the official celebration. "Juarez is in mourning, NO to the grito," read one message.

"The city will always be in mourning when it loses one of its residents," said
Elizabeth Flores, president of the Roman Catholic Church-affiliated labor rights group Pastoral Obrera, "and even more so when there are such absurd and horrible circumstances."  Flores added, "Based on our analysis and reflection of how these persons lost their lives, we need to demand that responsibilities be delineated and the guilty one be sanctioned for these acts." 

Last week, Jazmin and Andres were buried at separate funerals, with Jazmin's burial preceded by a mass officiated by Auxiliary Bishop Guadalupe Torres. At Jazmin's funeral, a large crowd watched a white dove fly to the heavens and heard a mariachi group strum songs like "Eternal Love" for a little girl whose life was unfathomably cut short. Jazmin's mother and uncle gave thanks to the public and press for standing by them in their hour of crisis. Accorded the status of a hero, Andres' funeral procession was escorted by a police honor guard.  

Ciudad Juarez's city council and outgoing Mayor Hector "Teto" Murguia jointly agreed to name a street after Andres Castro Azcarate and possibly give his surviving children financial support. The officials also agreed to recognize Abel Guajardo, who survived the attempt to rescue Jazmin. In a city beset by innumerable tragedies, residents are claiming two of their own as exemplary citizens in a time of social, economic and political troubles.

Sources: Lapolaka.com, September 13 and 14, 2007. Norte, September 12, 14, 15, 2007. Articles by Linda Mendoza,  Salvador Castro, and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, September 11, 12, 14, 15, 2007.

Fumes, Frustration and Fury at Border Crossings

Frayed nerves, hot tempers and sharp words are in abundance these days at border crossings in the Paso del Norte region. In scenes reminiscent of the days following the 9-11 attacks, some motorists have waited recently for up to 2-3 hours to cross from Mexico into the United States. Even the so-called "fast lane" that theoretically allows  pre-screened border crossers willing to pay a hefty annual fee to zip across the border has witnessed delays of 10-15 minutes. The causes for the delays are multiple: tightened US security checks, limited inspection personnel, bridge fare increases, computer breakdowns and construction projects.

In a sister city defined by binational social relationships and cross-border commercial transactions, many are sounding the alarm bell about negative impacts to local economies and lives.

"The number of customers has gone down considerably," affirmed Ciudad Juarez market seller Jorge Puentes Martinez. "The long lines on the bridges have resulted in the decrease of tourists that come." Lisa Johnson, a US tourist, agreed that the lengthy border crossing times discourage US residents from spending their dollars in Mexico. "We love to come over and buy arts and crafts but the wait of more than two hours on the bridge makes you not want to come," Johnson said.

If long waits on the US-Mexico border aren’t enough,  Mexican truckers coming from the south now sometimes confront two-hour delays south of Ciudad Juarez at checkpoints set up to detect illegal drugs, arms and Central American migrants.

Ciudad Juarez is not the only potential loser in the border crossing back-up. A study by Texas A&M Professor Michael Patrick found that an estimated 30-40 percent of economic activity on the Texas border is linked to Mexico, whose citizens frequently shop in US cities like El Paso. Patrick’s study contended that a 10 percent reduction in border crossings could result in sales reductions of more than one percent, slashes in local tax collections of about two percent and a rise in the unemployment rate of one percent.  

The Border Trade Alliance, a cross-border business promotion organization, is studying the economic impact in El Paso-Ciudad Juarez of the crossing times, an issue which concerns locals at a moment when talk of recession is in the air.  Besides the economy, border crossing delays impact the environment and public health. Long lines of idling vehicles emit more exhaust fumes, contributing to the pollution of an already dirty airshed and threatening the health of border crossing workers and street vendors who spend hours every day on the international bridges.

In 2001, two children died after being exposed to excessive levels of carbon monoxide that built up in the family vehicle as it was returning to El Paso from Ciudad Juarez.
Carlos Rincon, the director of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s El Paso office, has called the area’s five border crossings “points of chronic suffocation.”

A US construction project to expand the number of vehicle lanes on the Santa Fe Bridge crossing, which is scheduled for completion in 2009, is partly credited for boosting the number of pedestrians using the bridge from about 17,000 to about 22,000 every day, thus exposing more people to automobile fumes. The spike in pedestrian crossings also coincides with a City of El Paso-mandated fare increase of sixty cents on the Santa Fe Bridge for vehicles; pedestrian fees of thirty-five cents remained unchanged.  

Although most traffic tie-ups are occurring on crossings into the United States, bottlenecks on El Paso streets heading into Mexico have also unsettled drivers in recent days. A decision by the El Paso City Council to raise crossing fees for commercial trucks from $15 to $17.50 per carrier prompted Ciudad Juarez transportation companies to launch a "boycott" of the Zaragoza Bridge that normally handles a large amount of the export goods-laden traffic. Instead of the Zaragoza Bridge, more truckers are planning to use the so-called "Free Bridge", or the Bridge of the Americas. On the Mexican side, glitches in the custom agency’s computer system that inspects returning trucks recently congested El Paso approaches to the Bridge of the Americas. 

"I am hysterical. I'm running out of gasoline, and I want to go to the bathroom. I was planning to look for tickets to the Mana (top Mexican rock group) concert and I can't get out of here," said Gabriela Montezuma, who was trapped in the traffic.

The border crossing headaches in the Paso del Norte region are not new or unexpected. For instance, a 2005 report by the University of Texas at El Paso’s Border Region Monitoring Project found that truck traffic from Mexico into El Paso jumped from 597,000 vehicles in 1997 to 720,000 in 2004.

A 2006 report by the US-based Good Neighbor Environmental Board, a presidential advisory group, blamed under-funded budgets for long vehicle lines and waits, shipping delays and environmental problems. Along the entire US-Mexico border, passenger vehicle crossings rose from 66.4 million in 1994 to 91.3 million in 2004, while truck crossings surged from 2.9 million to 4.5 million during the same time period, which coincided with the first ten years of the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Border gridlock has stirred some officials to action, with mixed results. A recent extension of hours at New Mexico's Santa Teresa Port of Entry just outside Ciudad Juarez-El Paso added another crossing option, though 2-3 hours crossing times were occasionally reported at Santa Teresa as well. Last month, the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security issued a directive to its agents urging that crossing times be speeded-up when possible.

Some view expanded public transportation as one solution to the border crossing mess.  For the first time since 2004, a bus line between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez is providing service. Operated by Dos Naciones, a company owned by Omnibus de Mexico, the bus system is expected to handle between 1,200-1,500 passengers until 7 pm every day.   

Nonetheless, current US policies do not provide extra incentives for bus use. Buses are not given special "fast lanes" and must line up in the same traffic with cars carrying only one passenger.

Long-distance lines have long transported passengers from the Ciudad Juarez bus station to terminals in El Paso, but companies like Greyhound's Americanos occasionally leave passengers stranded at the border if immigration and security checks take a lot of time, which they frequently do, especially when inspectors suddenly close stations even as long lines wriggle out the station door.

The Border Legislative Conference, a group of lawmakers from the US and Mexico, is proposing a two-pronged solution to border tie-ups that utilizes both expanded public transportation and "smart" technology.  Last week, the lawmakers proposed the construction of a light rail system between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. Additionally, the legislators advocate electronic manifests, finger-printing, security deposits and GPS technology to facilitate the traffic flow between the US and Mexico.

"Through the use of technology the authorities can know who is getting on the train as well as their background in the country without the need of interrupting the flow of people on the border”, said Texas State Senator Elliot Shapleigh, who represents El Paso. The border lawmakers' group but did not release any initial cost estimates for the envisioned binational project.

Additional Sources:  Norte, September 7, 2007. Article by Norma E. Favela Munoz. El Diario de Juarez, June 13, 2007; August 26 and 27, 2007; September 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2007. Albuquerque Journal, August 27, 2007. Article by Jerry Pacheco. El Diario de El Paso, May 28, 2006 and August 19, 2007. Articles by Lorena Figueroa. El Paso Times, April 13, 2007; August 9, 2007; September 2, 2007. Articles by Louie Gilot. Albuquerque Tribune/Scripps Howard News Service. March 14, 2006. Article by James W. Brosnan. University of Texas at El Paso, November 2005.
Borderplex Economic Outlook 2005-2007.

Controversy Mounts over Ciudad Juarez Curfew

Set to go into effect on June 15, a citywide youth curfew in Ciudad Juarez is drawing legal opposition from non-governmental organizations. The measure, which follows the gradual implementation of curfews in different neighborhoods and districts of the city in recent weeks, prohibits any person below 18 years of age from being outside the home without adult supervision after 10 pm. The curfew complements a similar ordinance in neighboring El Paso that prohibits minors on the streets without adult chaperones after 11 pm.

In a complaint filed this week with the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission (CEDH), more than 20 non-governmental organizations and representatives of neighborhood associations challenged the curfew on human rights and civil liberties grounds.  The NGOs maintained that civil liberties can only be restricted by the President of the Republic with the consent of the federal Senate.

Groups filing the CEDH complaint included the Paso del Norte Human Rights Center, Center for Youth Promotion and Advisement, Popular Independent Organization, Casa Amiga, and Caritas Diocesana, as well as residents of the Division del Norte, Altavista, Morelos and Oasis Revolution neighborhoods.  In a June 14 open letter to the Ciudad Juarez community, a group of Ciudad Juarez sociologists also weighed in against the curfew and urged a broader public discussion of the issue. 

Oscar Altamirano, a member of the Paso Del Norte Human Rights Center, argued that the curfew suspends constitutional guarantees like the right of free transit.

Curfew opponents also contended that the municipal ordinance doesn't specify what treatment will be accorded to the many working-class youths of 16-18 years of age who work the swing shift in maquiladora plants and late night hours in restaurants and stores. An additional argument against the curfew is that it will lead to police extortion of minors, who will be allowed to go free in return for bribes. Curfew violators are supposed to be transported to the social work department of the Ciudad Juarez city police department and held until their parents come to take them home. 

Prior to the NGOs' complaint, the CEDH opened a general file on the curfew. "Any restriction of transit is a delicate matter," said CEDH President Leopoldo Gonzalez Baeza, "but if after an investigation we find it is a positive measure we are going to support it and if there is the smallest complaint we are going to investigate it."

The movement for a citywide youth curfew in Ciudad Juarez picked up steam earlier this year after a group of parents in the Oasis Revolution neighborhood, with the support of parish priest Mario Manriquez, launched a pilot curfew called "It's Better to be at Home after Ten." The goal of the program is to curb youth delinquency and cut down on violence affecting young people.

Citing statistics from the Chihuahua Agency for Investigations and journalistic accounts, the local press recently reported that at least 44 minors were murdered in Ciudad Juarez from 2005 to late April 2007. Since 2005, the percentage of the city's murder victims which is made up of minors has steadily increased, almost doubling from 7.4 percent to 14.2 percent of total homicide victims. The police reports cited indicate that the majority of victims died in incidents linked to street gangs, but didn't explain if most victims were killed in the day or evening.

Since the Oasis Revolution curfew, the program has been extended to an additional 51 neighborhoods and the downtown Avenida Juarez nightlife district.

Mixed reports have surfaced about the partial curfew's impact so far. Some parents in Oasis Revolution and other sections of the city strongly support the program, praising the curfew for reducing delinquency, improving family relationships and arming parents with legal backing for effective discipline. "I agree with this program," said Ciudad Juarez resident Concepcion Robles. "What business does a minor have being outside his home after ten o'clock in the evening?"

Chris Mears, spokesman for the El Paso Police Department, supported the Ciudad Juarez curfew as a tool to combat underage drinking on Avenida Juarez, a place where minors from El Paso and southern New Mexico are accustomed to drinking in popular bars and discos. Illegal drugs are also widely available in the zone. US minors picked up in Ciudad Juarez for curfew violations will be returned to the El Paso Police Department under an agreement between the Ciudad Juarez and El Paso law enforcement.  

On the critical side, some youths and adults report arbitrary detentions and attempted police shakedowns. Others complain of the lack of police patrols to enforce the curfew. A resident of Oasis Revolution, Jorge M Torres, posted a letter on the LaPolaka Internet news site that questioned the right of Father Manriquez and pro-curfew parents to speak for the entire community. Torres contended that the curfew was misplaced, wrongly targeting youths for the acts of others. Referring to his own experience, Torres added that the theft of his SUV in the neighborhood was committed by professionals who “probably count on some police protection.”

The curfew has become an issue in the Ciudad Juarez municipal election campaign. Mayoral candidates were invited to attend a June 10 event in the Oasis Revolution neighborhood to sign a document in support of the sector curfew in the presence of Father Manriquez and residents. Francisco Javier Franco, The candidate for the Party of Democratic Revolution, was among the signatories.

While most mayoral hopefuls backed the Oasis Revolution curfew, the Mexican Green Party's Hector Sandoval opposed it. Labeling the curfew a "desperate measure," Sandoval proposed more educational and recreational opportunities for young people.

Critics have slammed the curfew as a poor substitute for focused, professional law enforcement, and as a diversion away from providing social and economic alternatives for  Ciudad Juarez's young people.

"(Authorities) forget that the factors behind delinquency are also found in the lack of sporting and cultural spaces for young people," said the Paso del Norte Human Rights Center's Altamirano. "They also forget that young people need secure work spaces, and not have to leave work at twelve o'clock at night, for example."   
 

Sources: La Jornada, June 14, 2007. Article by Ruben Villalpando.Frontenet.com, June 12, 2007. Article by Sergio Valdez. Norte, June 6, 11 and 14, 2007. Articles by Ricardo Espinoza, Linda Mendoza and Cesar Ruiz. LaPolaka.com, June 3, 10 and 14, 2007. El Diario de Juarez, April 22 and June 13, 2007. El Diario de El Paso, June 2, 2007. Article by Aileen B.Flores.

Rural Water/Energy Conflict Intensifies

A long-running battle over electricity rates intensified in recent days as tempers flared and violence ensued in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. The conflict pits Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) against small farmers who've waged a five-year payment strike in protest of what they charge are excessive electricity rates for pumping water from the ground.

Disputed versions surround an incident in the municipality of Ascension that left one protestor run over, CFE official Ricardo Caraveo beaten up and several CFE vehicles burned or damaged last weekend. The violent flare-up happened in an area south of the US-Mexico border that has been a center of farmer protests.

Miguel Angel Flores Ugalde, CFE superintendent for the Casa Grandes zone, accused a group of farmers led by Armando Villareal Martha of attacking CFE employees who were on their way to Ciudad Juarez to help repair an electrical substation. Vowing to press legal charges against the alleged attackers, Flores called on state and municipal authorities to provide security for his personnel or face a continued shut-down of CFE offices in northern Chihuahua.

Villareal, who is running for a legislative post in this year's Chihuahua state elections, had a different account of the Ascension confrontation. According to the head of the National Agro-Dynamic Organization, farmers were trying to stop a large group of CFE employees from cutting off power to water wells when CFE trucks were deployed in a bid to evict the protestors.

In the confusion, a CFE truck reportedly driven by Ricardo Caraveo ran over and injured 26-year-old Jesus Nazareth Diaz. Enraged farmers then allegedly beat up the CFE official. Villareal, who was jailed during the early period of the Fox administration for leading militant farm protests, blamed CFE employees for burning their own truck in order to justify the intervention of the Mexican army in the conflict.

The CFE’s Flores denied that his employees were trying to cut off power to water wells. He also accused Villareal of assaulting another, unnamed CFE employee about three weeks ago.

In recent days, however, the CFE has pulled the plug on power for water wells in a wide region of northern, central and southern Chihuahua. A commission of the Chihuahua State Legislature is attempting to broker a solution to farmers' debts with the CFE. Chihuahua legislator Jose Antonio Comaduran Amaya attributes the crisis to chronic drought, overexploitation of underground aquifers, energy price hikes and the federal government's abandonment of the rural sector. The CFE estimates that agricultural use accounts for 61 percent of electrical consumption in Chihuahua.

As Chihuahua lawmakers reached out to the CFE, another large group of farmers led by the Barzon organization gathered June 4 outside the federal agency's offices in the central town of Delicias June in an effort to settle debts and get their wells pumping again. Fernando Galindo Arguijo, the CFE superintendent for the zone, later indicated a willingness to accept an initial 10 percent payment, though no final agreement with the growers was announced. According to protest leader Villareal, farmers in the northern section of the state were mounting patrols to ward off additional CFE power cut-offs.

Sources: El Diario de Chihuahua, June 6, 2007. Articles by Manuel Quezada and Erika Gonzalez. La Jornada, June 5, 2007. Article by Ruben Villalpando

Irregularities in Bus Crash Exposed

Survivors of the deadly April 14 bus-truck crash near Ciudad Juarez that killed 25 people and injured 21 are healing their wounds, mourning their loved ones and trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Ten of the victims were children, including 12-year-old Pamela Garcia and 10 year-old Luis Ramon Garcia. "I am getting by more or less," said Luis Garcia Calderon, father of the two dead children. "I am sad, but we are going to endure it with strength-finding strength where there is none,"

Garcia's wife, Ascencion schoolteacher Dora Patricia Carlos Neri, who was accompanying the couple's only two children on the Omnibus de Mexico vehicle, was released from the hospital April 18 after receiving treatment for her injuries.

Official investigations of the tragedy exposed unsafe driving and passenger boarding practices that are rife in Chihuahua state and across Mexico. A probe by the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General (PGJE) discovered that 8 passengers without seats were aboard the doomed Ominbus, a violation of federal highway transport regulations that prohibit more passengers on a bus than can be seated.

Four of the passengers were young children who were carried in the arms of adults, while four others, presumably adults, were supposedly standing in the aisle. The PGJE investigation contended that one of the two bus drivers, both of whom were killed in the accident, allowed additional passengers on the bus in return for $40 dollar payments from each person.

According to an investigation by the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), bus driver Jose Refugio Flores Rodriguez was speeding and tailgating before he crashed into a tractor trailer, sparking explosions and a fire that incinerated many victims. Authorities estimate that it will take from
one to five months to positively identify many victims' remains and deliver them to their loved ones.

It wasn't immediately reported if the truck was traveling at an appropriate highway speed. Slow-moving trucks clog many Mexican roads, prompting many drivers to attempt frequently risky passing maneuvers. Some locals criticize the condition of the highway just south of Ciudad Juarez,
charging that a lack of signs, bad asphalt, reckless drivers and inadequate traffic patrols make for dangerous circumstances.

The April 14 tragedy put new scrutiny on the working conditions of bus drivers. Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza contended that bus drivers arrive to Chihuahua after 15-20 hour stints on the road and then proceed on through the vast state. A common- but not always followed-practice is for two drivers to work long distance trips, one driving while the other rests.

Investigations have determined that the Omnibus originally left Ciudad Juarez on Friday morning of April 13 and arrived in Jimenez, a town in southern Chihuahua state, at approximately 6 pm on the same day. The bus headed back to Ciudad Juarez several hours later at about 10:45 pm, crashing just outside the northern border city at about 5:40 am on April 14.

No official record exists that the two Omnibus drivers underwent medical exams which are normally administered in bus terminals by the Ministry of Communications and Public Transportation (SCT). Since 2004, downsizing by the federal agency in Chihuahua has resulted in personnel cutbacks and
reductions in the hours when exams are given. The SCT check-ups are meant to detect fatigue, alcohol consumption and other health problems that could impair drivers.

Gov. Reyes Baeza urged that "exemplary punishment" be meted out to Ominbus as a preventive measure. However, some confusion arose over the issue of legal liability in the accident. SCT official Francisco Garcia said that anyovercrowding infractions are the fault of individual
drivers and not the company, with sanctions only possible if drivers are caught on the highway with extra passengers.

Unidentified PGJE sources concurred with Garcia's assessment, affirming that legal liability for passenger deaths and injuries would have fallen o