Mexico is in the grip of the most violent drugs war that the
nation has ever seen. Hardline President Felipe Calderon has taken on both the
country’s notorious drugs cartels and the corrupt local police forces by
sending in the army: the result has been chaos. The army is fighting the
cartels, the cartels are fighting each other, and the honest members of the police
are in short supply. Meanwhile, Mexico’s drug trafficking regions have been
turned into some of the most dangerous places on Earth as the cartels fight to
keep their product moving amidst the carnage. Nowhere has suffered more than
the city of Ciudad Juarez. Under pressure from the thousands of troops that
have poured into town, the two local cartels have taken each other on with
horrific consequences. Up until a couple of years ago, the city that sits just
100 yards from the USA and the city of El Paso was a sleepy tourist trap.
No-one visits any more, though, and the locals are escaping any way they can.
Nearly 1000 people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez so far this year, and
that’s just the bodies that have been found. A day in Ciudad Juarez means danger
round every corner.
24 HOURS IN CIUDAD JUAREZ
6am
As the day begins in Ciudad Juarez, the first sirens are
heard. It can mean only one thing: the first bodies have been found. All over this once proud
city there are horrific sights, as corpses are spotted on roadsides, down
alleys, in public dumps and even proudly perched in public squares. Probably
just as many are hidden and never recovered, but often the message that the
bodies send is important. It’s not enough for a rival cartel member or policeman
to be left without a head, or missing a limb or two: the killers like to leave
a warning note attached to the body. Usually these contain threats against the
other cartel or a suggestion that their leader is a homosexual, but sometimes
they show only the sickness of those behind the killing: the headless body of a
father found beside a highway had a note attached reading, ‘Give my regards to
the kids’.
There is also increasing evidence of torture. Bodies have
been found handcuffed together and bearing the marks of vicious beatings,
severed heads have been dumped in cool boxes and there have even been reports
of torture videos posted on YouTube. A local paper claimed one cartel hired a
musician to play victims their favourite ballads during their executions. Clearly,
the cartels feel untouchable. They have taken to passing lists of names to both
local and El Paso Police, proudly declaring those that they’d be killing in the
weeks to come. The most chilling note of all was left at a monument to fallen
officers in January 2008, listing the names of 22 serving police officers who
had resisted the corrupting efforts of the cartels. There were 22 police
officers named on the list: so far, 18 are dead.
10am
The city’s public figures arrive for work. To hold a public
role, particularly in the security services, is a dangerous job anywhere in
Mexico, but in Ciudad Juarez, it’s terrifying. Death threats and corruption
attempts are practically a daily occurrence, and for those who resist both, it
means a life spent looking over their shoulder. The city hasn’t had a police
chief since May, when the old one resigned in fear after seven of his
commanders had been killed. In
many smaller towns around Ciudad Juarez, the entire police force has resigned
and left the Army to take over. When the government announced the launch of an
anti-kidnapping group, many thought it might help stop the violence. They soon
realised their error when the head of this new unit, Isidro Avila, was promptly
assassinated in front his family as he left his home in Ciudad Juarez. Even the
Red Cross temporarily suspended helping to treat victims of the violence, after
a voice came over their radio frequency threatening that their workers would ‘fall
one by one’.
The bravest man in Mexico has to be Jose Reyes Ferriz, the
mayor of Ciudad Juarez. Previous mayors have been accused of links to the
cartels, but Ferriz has made it clear that he is not for sale, urging President
Calderon to send even more troops into the region and talking about his aim to
replace the entire local police force. Not surprisingly, he relies on the Army
for his protection, and he is one of a small group of local government figures
who arrive at work with the intention of doing their jobs, rather than making
money from the lucrative drugs trade.
1pm
By now the border between Mexico and the United States is at
its busiest – but only on one side. Ciudad and El Paso sit either side of the
Bridge of the Americas, a 100-yard structure over the Rio Grande that splits
the two countries. While the Mexican side of the bridge has long queues of
beeping trucks and people waiting with scarves tied round their faces to stop
the dust, the American side is a different affair. The roads are neater and a
lot quieter - no one wants to go the other way. In between Mexico and the USA
are some of the most high-tech anti-drug measures in the world. Robert Almonte,
recently retired after 25 years as Deputy Chief in the El Paso Police
Department, has dedicated his career to fighting the smuggling of narcotics
over the border.
‘There are just so many ways to transport drugs across the
border’, he says. ‘The only limit is the imagination of the smugglers. In
addition to the hidden compartments in vehicles, they’ll saturate clothing with
liquid cocaine and then convert it back to powder once it reaches its
destination in the USA. Or they use couriers, where it could be taped to their
bodies, hidden in the soles of their shoes, or ingested in condoms and
retrieved later. It’s cat and mouse basically. Some make it, some don’t’.
Those drugs that do sneak over the border are stockpiled in
stash houses in El Paso, where they are then repackaged for distribution to
cities throughout the United States. For Almonte, the last few years of his
career were the worst, as he watched Ciudad Juarez move from a friendly
neighbouring town to a place he sadly advises other Americans against visiting.
‘The cartels are fighting against the government and each
other for the drug routes’, he explains. ‘The violence between the cartels and
security forces is very bad, and the cartel-on-cartel stuff is even worse.
Torture and beheadings, for example. It’ll become worse before it gets better’.
4pm
In the afternoon, Ciudad Juarez sees a new type of visitor –
journalists for foreign newspapers who sneak in for a few hours before
hotfooting it back over the US border as quickly as they can. Diana Valdez of
the El Paso Times has been covering the city’s downfall. ‘It has become
exceedingly dangerous to cover’, she admits. ‘Anything goes in Juarez just now,
and nearly 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico, often for covering
drug-related corruption’.
Valdez and other foreign journalists find the locals are too
scared to speak to them. ‘It’s dangerous for people who are seen talking to the
press’, she says. ‘We have to go to Juarez in very low-profile fashion and get
back to El Paso quickly’. At least Valdez and her colleagues can come to
Juarez, visit the latest murder scene and then escape. For the local papers,
there is only constant pressure from the police and cartel to avoid
investigating the rampant corruption. If they refuse, then the violence will
inevitably turn on them.
Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, a crime journalist for a Ciudad
Juarez newspaper, slipped across the US border with his 15-year-old son and is
now seeking asylum after being followed and subjected to death threats.
Worryingly, he claims that it was the Mexican Army who drove him out after he
reported on crimes committed by soldiers. ‘So you are the son of a whore who
has been disparaging us’, an army major allegedly told Gutiérrez, before the
journalist heard they were planning his execution. In Mexico, the job of
journalist shares a danger level with Iraq, Somalia and Sierra Leone.
Unsurprisingly, other local papers have given into threats or bribes and don’t
even bother reporting the mayhem on the streets outside their offices.
7pm
Before the terror, evenings in Ciudad Juarez used to see
hundreds of Americans arriving for cheap beer or a casual dinner before heading
back over the border. Now, the locals go home from work and lock their doors,
whilst Americans are thin on the ground. The Texas college students that used
to drive down in convoys for margarita parties are long gone, and the only
venues that can still tempt people over the border are the betting joints which
operate without America’s tough gambling laws. There are signs that the
American residents of El Paso are also going to be sucked into the violence,
whether they like it or not: in August it was revealed that the Juarez cartels
have, for the first time, given permission for their vast teams of hit men (or sicarios)
to hit targets over the border. With El Paso full of people connected to the
drugs trade, it has raised the prospect of the violence spreading into the USA
in the next few months.
10pm
When night falls in Ciudad Juarez, the criminals come out. A
lot are wearing police uniforms. ‘Many of these officers do refuse when they
are first approached to work for the cartels’, reasons Robert Almonte.
‘However, they are then given an ultimatum - Plomo o Oro, which means lead or
gold: a bullet or money’.
There are still some locals brave enough to talk about the
corrupt local police. Three young guys who have lived in the city their whole
lives – Rogelio (21), Armando (20) and Servando (20) explained the situation as
they see it. ‘It’s impossible to eliminate it’, says Rogelio. ‘It’s part of our
lifestyle: if you’re underage and drunk driving, you have to give the cop
and you’re free to go as if nothing happened. All the police are the same, if a
cop isn’t corrupt he’ll get fired or receive the worst jobs’.
‘I have heard that some well-intentioned police officers are
forced to co-operate out of fear’, says Servando. ‘A drug dealer will threaten
the policeman’s life or those of his relatives if he doesn’t work with them’.
Some police officers in Ciudad Juarez have done a lot more
than turn a blind eye to the activities of the cartels. In July, a police
sergeant was shot in an ambush and the federal police immediately set off in
pursuit. When they caught the shooters, they found that one of them was
actually another police officer. Even more shocking was the case of a serving
Juarez police officer who was arrested for allegedly leading a hit squad on
behalf of a cartel. Whatever their motivation, it is widely believed that the
majority of the Ciudad Juarez police force are corrupt, and it’s for that
reason that President Calderon decided to send in the army. Now, many question
the decision which has brought yet another group of heavily armed men onto the
city’s streets. ‘It makes us feel like we are in a war’, says Servando.
2am
After visiting those bars and nightclubs that are still open
in the city on a Saturday night, Armando and his friends recently left a club
only to witness a man being killed in front of them. ‘I have lived here my
entire life and this is the worst it has ever been’, he says. ‘I don’t believe
in the police. No one wants to go out, no one visits the city. I never know
when I’m going to see another violent event’.
The nightclubs of Ciudad Juarez offer a lethal cocktail –
alcohol, drugs, and cartel members out to spend their money and, if the
opportunity arises, kill any rivals that they spot. Needless to say, there’s
not many applicants for jobs working the doors of nightclubs in Ciudad Juarez.
There have been countless murders both inside and outside clubs, some featuring
automatic weapons.
Away from the nightclubs, things get even worse as the night drags on. The flooding of the city in money and drugs has created a massively increased local drug problem, with the city’s rougher areas now hosting thousands of shooting galleries or picaderos which every day serve up to 100 ‘customers’ from the boom in new heroin addicts.
For most locals, it means planning their escape or staying
trapped in their homes, but not everyone has given up, and Rogelio is defiant.
‘The way I see it, next weekend will be fun and the next day there will be a
few bodies in the newspaper. We make jokes about wearing bullet-proof vests.
That’s life here’.
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