tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57137472141913836142024-03-13T22:51:41.283-07:00The Embassy Crowdanother foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-59419701386644559952011-07-28T12:45:00.000-07:002011-07-28T12:45:22.841-07:00Sense from SecturSectur, Mexico's tourism ministry, has finally selected Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit (aka Nuevo Vallarta plus a few beaches just north of there) as the seat of the annual Tianguis Turistico in 2012. The event has traditionally been held in Acapulco but given that resort's problems with violence in recent years and the reality that Acapulco may not best represent all that Mexico has to offer in terms of attracting international travelers these days, it was a long overdue decision. The municipality of Acapulco contested the loss but was finally overruled by the Supreme Court with a decision favoring Sectur's move to make the tianguis an itinerant event. The choice of PV and Riviera Nayarit just makes good sense. The area has also undergone tremendous renovation in PV and new development north of the city in Nayarit, making it one of the few sites in the nation that can handle the event properly. They have also been relatively insulated from narco-related crime, although there's also a fair amount of denial about the amount of activity in the region. What PV and Nayarit can legitimately claim is that the violence has not affected tourists. Cancun could make the same claims, but unfortunately, the international press has picked up on a number of gruesome stories involving locals and several of its former governors have been at least implicated, if not prosecuted, in drug trafficking and money laundering activities, which suggests that Quintana Roo is up to its ears in illicit business. Puebla will host the 2013 event and then, one suspects, Sectur is banking on Quintana Roo having cleaned up its act enough to handle things in 2014.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-5957556332610011442011-06-03T13:26:00.000-07:002011-06-03T13:26:23.735-07:00The Global Commission on Drug Policy: "Break the taboo on debate and reform"The <a href="http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/">Global Commission on Drug Policy</a>, a kind of who's who think tank of Latin American politicos, intellectuals and other folks from around the world thrown in for global street cred (see the roster <a href="http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Commission">here</a> and note the presence of three former LA presidents and two of the region's most famous living writers), has issued a <a href="http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report">report</a> condemning the drug policies currently embraced and pursued by most nations on the planet. In short, they recommend decriminalization with respect to users and those at the lowest level of the trade and the provision of education and treatment services to those at risk or already using. They are not incorrect to point out that the victims of the international drug economy, whether one means the addicts or those coerced into participating in the production, transportation, and commercialization of such products by the dearth of viable alternatives for economic sustenance, have paid the greatest price over the course of the so-called war on drugs. The cost has been no less than their personal freedom, security, and health, with their respective societies footing the bill for prisons and expanding penal systems, to little or no avail in terms of overall drug use. And the authors are also sadly right to point out that there's a pretty strong historical record suggesting that a strictly law enforcement approach to the problem generates more rather than less violence. Interestingly enough, Mexico, the most obvious contemporary example of that tendency, is not mentioned until nearly the end of the report (p.15), but in a rather sweeping condemnation worth quoting at length: <br />
"...[P]oorly designed drug law enforcement practices can actually increase the level of violence, intimidation and corruption associated with drug markets. Law enforcement agencies and drug trafficking organizations can become embroiled in a kind of 'arms race', in which greater enforcement efforts lead to a similar increase in the strength and violence of the traffickers. In this scenario, the conditions are created in which the most ruthless and violent trafficking organizations thrive. Unfortunately, this seems to be what we are currently witnessing in Mexico and many other parts of the world."<br />
Predictably, the Mexican left is having a field day with this one. <i>La Jornada</i> picked up the story late yesterday and pushed it again today (check it out <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/06/02/politica/002n1pol">here</a>), as it serves their continued attack on President Calderon's policies. I hate to take the cliche copout of an historian on this one, but only time will tell if his choice, to pursue the narcos rather than let them be, a la the so-called <i>pax narco</i> of the PRI era, was the right one or not. The death toll of Mexico's drug war, running in the tens of thousands, is damning, but so would have been allowing the narcos to operate at will, as they did before the rise of the PAN. And who is to say that the cartels would not have splintered anyway, or faced the challenge of new rivals not unlike the Zetas, who are the most notoriously violent upstarts?<br />
What the report does call attention to in the case of Mexico, is the lopsidedness of the current policy, which is almost exclusively dedicated to law enforcement. And sadly, what Mexico will, I predict, find itself regretting ten years from now, is the failure to address the question of addiction among its own citizens. In Guadalajara, we are witnessing the creation of a domestic market for meth at the same time that the city becomes a point of production and transportation for that drug and others. Pass by any of the busier intersections where the window washers and street vendors work, and the numbers among their ranks who show the wasted bodies, crumbling mouths and hollow eyes of a meth user grows daily. The cheapness of a fix will make it (although it's likely already a fait accompli) the drug of choice among the un- and under-employed in the ZMG's colonias populares and all over Mexico, with devastating effects for all involved. And, given what a disaster Mexico and many other countries are facing in terms of the drug problem, it wouldn't hurt to start talking about alternatives to just putting more patrols on the streets.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-70114328045044149662011-05-18T08:32:00.000-07:002011-05-18T12:31:59.459-07:00Postdata on the "Plan for Human Reordering"Municipal authorities are taking some heat for the alleged discussions of social cleansing in preparation for the Panamerican Games at a recent meeting. The so-called "Plan de Reordenamiento Humano," which sounds like something out of a twisted communist regime or dystopian science fiction novel, has given the opposition parties all the necessary fodder for an absolute field day in the press. Criticism of municipal authorities has run the predictable gamut from outrage at the injustice of such a plan, discussions of its pragmatic absurdity (as it would be pretty tough to actually accomplish such a feat in the historic center without really getting into some human rights hot water), and even a crudely drawn parallel with the Nazis. Ouch. Not a good PR day for the city's current administration.<br />
Meanwhile, the incident has drawn attention to the plight of the city's most vulnerable citizens (and keep in mind that this is only about the city center of Guadalajara proper, and tells us nothing about the conditions that so many of the poorest citizens of the greater metropolitan zone experience in the colonias that surround GDL). Jalisco's DIF office, Mexico's main social services agency, claims that it has recently removed 300 families from the city center (one hopes, to some sort of shelter or subsidized housing) but that 350 remain on the streets. Given that those are families, that's a lot of homeless people for a city this size. And for those of us living in the city, although it's merely anecdotal, the increase in window washers and street venders at many major intersections has been palpable in recent months as Mexico's economy continues to struggle. Ironically, the games themselves must be generating a fair amount of local employment, as the city is absolutely torn to pieces with beautifcation and repaving projects in preparation for the event. Even under the best of circumstances, it would be hard to hide the fact that Mexico's index of inequality continues to be a scandal in the hemisphere--and Jalisco and its capital are no exception. (See <a href="http://www.milenio.com/node/721379">"No se escondera a nadie: alcalde"</a> and <a href="http://www.informador.com.mx/jalisco/2011/293382/6/niegan-limpia-social-para-mejorar-imagen-durante-los-juegos.htm">"Niegan "limpia social" para mejorar imagen durante los Juegos"</a>)<br />
Oh, and by the way, a national survey on discrimination just found that in a society that is in general intolerant of such things, Guadalajara is the least tolerant city in the nation with respect to adoption by gay couples. (see details on the survey <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/rv/modHome/detalleExclusiva/91382">here</a>)another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-23418185004394432042011-05-18T07:45:00.000-07:002011-05-18T07:47:34.471-07:00A little pre-Panamerican Games social cleansing and homophobiaWhile US culture has experienced a rather extended phase of political correctness that now approaches the comedic at its most extreme, Mexico could still use a course in the basics. It should come as no surprise that municipal authorities in GDL might very well be discussing a little social cleansing in preparation for the upcoming Panamerican Games. Sex workers, the window washers who swarm the cars at major intersections, and the homeless were allegedly topics of discussion, which should not surprise anyone, as you would no doubt find that similar conversations have taken place amongst those in charge of hosting such events in virtually any city in the world. It's a sad reality, but a reality nonetheless, that a city might seek to conceal these particular members of its citizenry from the gaze of outsiders, as they call attention to the uglier side of Mexico's socioeconomic contours. One additional group was the topic of much concern as well: Guadalajara's gay population. Apparently, preventing any public displays of affection among gay men and women is a matter of public import, in yet another striking example of this city's conservatism. While Aristoteles Sandoval, the mayor of GDL, denied any and all of the above and argued that GDL is a tolerant city, officials interviewed by Milenio journalists suggested otherwise. "Mi política y mi filosofía es de respeto, es de tolerancia, sí es de un orden, pero el orden no es con represión, [...] siempre he sido muy respetuoso de las preferencias sexuales. No será [...] Guadalajara quien reprenda o reprima, sí el que ordene," responded Sandoval. He'll go far if he keeps that kind of politicaly artistry up when faced with tricky questions from the press. (see the article here: <a href="http://www.milenio.com/node/720416">"Denuncian plan de "limpieza social" del Centro para Juegos"</a>)<br />
In an unrelated but nonetheless relevant incident, if only because it again illustrates the climate in the region toward gay people, the head of Colima's Human Right's Commission (CDHEC), Roberto Chapula de la Mora, declared that the Colimense government is full of closeted gays. It was actually said in a much more colorful way that defies translation without offending both myself and my readers, but you can take a stab at it on your own: "hay mucho puto tapado en el gobierno, que se toman dos, tres cervezas y piden hombre; empiezan de compadres y terminan de comadres." This tidbit was offered in an interview with a local paper just days before the celebration yesterday (or non-celebration, I would imagine, in this town), May 17th, of the International Day Against Homophobia and the story was picked up by the latest edition of Proceso (<a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/rv/modHome/detalleExclusiva/91323">""Hay mucho puto tapado en el gobierno", declara Ombudsman de Colima"</a>). How comfortable would one feel reporting an incident of homophobia to this agency after hearing that from its director?another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-48919294971441641042011-03-03T10:39:00.000-08:002011-03-04T09:43:09.320-08:00Foot in mouth diseaseThe governor of Jalisco, Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, has long suffered from the tendency to shoot off at the mouth without much thought for the consequences. Take, for example, his homophobic condemnation of gay marriage, which resulted in a still pending inquiry into his behavior by the state's human rights commission (the infamous "asquito" comment). Now he has stuck his foot in it, by not just implying, but rather accusing the PRI of complicity with the narcos. They (the PRI, as he is PAN), he claimed, do not cooperate in approving legislative initiatives because they "still feel a taste, memory, or nostalgia for negotiating with the narcos." His party, of course, does not engage in such activities, he then argued, although the retorts to that assertion have been heated. It's an interesting use of the <i>pax narco</i> thesis, this idea that under the PRI, a sort of peace prevailed because the PRI had been willing to accommodate the narcos. According to the theory's proponents, the election of the PAN and their subsequent pursuit of the narcos upset the balance that the PRI had delicately maintained (at the price of their own integrity, of course). Not surprisingly, the Priistas are up in arms, with the mayor of Guadalajara, Aristoteles Sandoval, at the head of the pack. What gets their hackles up is not just the accusation, but the ambition of the governor, who is said to be considering a presidential run. Que asquito, one might say, about the whole brouhaha.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-53453010868265169962011-03-01T09:43:00.000-08:002011-03-01T09:43:50.563-08:00The good news/bad news debate and Mexico's tourism industryAs the federal government, specifically the ministry of Tourism, SECTUR and state governments signed an accord to promote the tourism sector, or in more realistic terms, salvage the industry in the wake of the recession, the swine flu epidemic, Oaxaca's teacher strikes and most significantly, the narco news, the governor of Nayarit, Ney Gonzalez, pleaded with the press to make more of an effort to cover positive news of Mexico rather than emphasizing the "nota roja," or crime news. This plea, which has been made by many in the industry as well as politicians and government officials hoping for the industry's recovery, sometimes sounds strangely akin to the entreaties made by the right for "good news" from Iraq and Afghanistan, but there's also a great deal of reason to their arguments (the tourism folks, not the US right-wingers). As the American press, or more specifically, the cable news networks, has seized upon the story of narco-violence, increasing numbers of potential tourists have dropped their plans for a stay at one of Mexico's many beach resorts, although in many cases it would be like dropping one's plans to visit Miami because a gang shooting had occurred in New York City. But the dilemma is also the perennial problem of dealing with American tourists, notoriously skittish for reasons of their geographic ignorance, fearful of all that is remotely distinct from their own culture, and simply not the seasoned travelers that their European counterparts have long been. (As an aside, would be interesting to know if European tourism numbers are down by the same percentages as American ones--will have to dig around for an answer to that one--and Canadian figures would likewise make for an interesting comparison)<br />
Mass tourism has been the third most important earner of export dollars since the 1980s, right behind manufacturing and oil, and many coastal states, with few alternatives for development, have come increasingly to depend upon the industry, both in terms of real revenues and imagined futures. Quintana Roo, the home of Cancun and now the Riviera Maya, was not so long ago ranked dead last, along with Chiapas, in terms of poverty, and now consistently ranks as one of the wealthiest states in the nation. Cancun, still the crown jewel, however tarnished, of Mexico's tourist sector, and the neighboring coast have long been the site of narco-related homicides but such stories rarely register with the tourists themselves, even as they make front page news in local papers. One would think that Acapulco is largely done for due to the ugly stories of beheadings and disappearances but its numbers, recently put at about 75% occupancy as we near spring break season, could be worse. Cabo rarely appears in narco-related news, perhaps because the narco-trafficking moves northeastward along the mainland coast, compromising Mazatlan more than destinations in Baja California. Nayarit's coast, starting just north of Puerto Vallarta, has grown tremendously in the last few decades and saved a state that otherwise depended heavily upon a flagging agricultural sector for the majority of its earnings. The Riviera Nayarit, along with Puerto Vallarta, remain relatively untouched by the stories of narco-related horrors, although the grenade thrown at employees of Jalisco's attorney general's office lunching in Puerto Vallarta, even if the site was at a remove from the tourism zone and led only to the death of one of the perpetrators (the grenade did not go off, and the agents gave pursuit) is cause for concern. There's certainly evidence that several cartels are active around PV/NV but so far, they've kept their heads down and stayed away from the tourist zone (well, in terms of conducting their dirty business--there's surely plenty of money laundering going on in both PV and NV). Ultimately, most of the major beach resorts are still safe and enjoy very low crime rates compared to many similar destinations around the world (as well as in comparison to many US and European cities, as those within the industry and those supporting the industry have frequently pointed out in recent months). But all it will take is a particularly gruesome incident, publicized by the news outlets up north, to sow more fear among Mexico's primary clientele.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-20326667668710126042011-02-21T13:27:00.000-08:002011-02-21T13:30:02.189-08:00Monterreyesque?In the last few weeks, Guadalajara has experienced its fist narcoblockades, a grenade attack in a bar on one of the city's main thoroughfares that killed six, a shooting last night in a hotel just down the street from that same bar that killed three, and in addition to the usual murders among low-level gang members, the killing of two lawyers. The first lawyer, the brother of the Secretary General of the municipality of Guadalajara, was carrying a briefcase with approximately US$4,000 when he was executed, while the other was the son of the head of the department of transparency in the municipality of Tonala. There appears to have been some relation between the two, but the press has so far not been able to shed much light on the case. Add the videos, really press releases, sent to <a href="http://www.blogdelnarco.com/search/?q=CJNG">El Blog del Narco</a> (this site is not for the faint-hearted and the ads are likewise offensive, so visitors beware) sent by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion and countered with another clip issued by their rivals, La Resistencia MFG (Milenio Familia Golfo) in which public figures are named and threatened for their complicity with one or the other of said groups, it's been a rough couple of weeks here in Guadalajara. While life goes on as before for most residents, there is a nervousness in the city about what these events signal for its future. All we are lacking is a rash of kidnappings (which will focus on local business people, politicians, government officials, and/or their relatives) and GDL will start to look very much like Monterrey a year or so ago.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-19544745950267624762011-02-19T19:07:00.000-08:002011-02-19T19:12:27.049-08:00Five tons of pot confiscated without a single arrest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>You might think, when first reading the headline that the Mexican army confiscated approximately five tons of marijuana in a small town in northern Jalisco without making a single arrest, that this incident is just another example of the impunity that characterizes this nation's judicial system. But read further, and you will discover that much of the pot was handed over voluntarily by the town's 200 residents. The general in charge of the operation was forced to admit that he could not arrest virtually the entire pueblo, and that given the limited economic opportunities in this region, the practice of growing the drug crop was widespread. These farmers ultimately are making the same kind of rational economic decisions that their counterparts in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia (and many other parts of the world) have made, growing the commercial crop, be it pot, poppy, or coca, that holds the best promise of allowing their families to overcome the vicious poverty of subsistence agriculture. Are they criminals? That's a tough call, given their choices.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-5412111661403762422011-02-03T09:39:00.000-08:002011-02-03T09:39:15.741-08:00Flat-footed in GDLGuadalajara awoke Wednesday morning to the nightmarish news that perhaps seven narcobloqueos and grenade and molotov cocktail attacks had occurred during the previous night. Speculation about the provocations of such actions on the part of the gang known as La Resistencia run the gamut from the extradition of Lobo Valencia to anger at a recent drug bust at the airport or the detention of nearly a dozen members of said gang to the nasty but possibly credible accusation, made by Resistencia gang members themselves, that the government has pursued them while protecting members of a rival cartel. The hastily called meeting of municipal and state leaders on Wednesday morning revealed the extent to which the metropolitan and Jalisciense leadership has been snoozing, on the take, or perhaps just in denial. Yet anyone who can read a newspaper, and certainly those living in the neighborhoods, largely to the south of GDL proper, where the majority of the spiraling number of narco-murders have occurred, could have predicted that such events would come the city's way at any moment. The most revealing moment of the press conference entailed a speaker backtracking on his comment that the various levels of government and neighboring municipalities would now begin to cooperate on a greater level in matters of security. Of course, they had already been coordinating efforts, he quickly corrected himself, although the press and the public might well draw their own conclusions from the degree to which the attacks took the multiple police forces in the ZMG by surprise the other night. And as far as the shock and dismay of the citizens themselves, well, again, one must surmise that they have been snoozing, on the take, or in denial as well. The notable presence of narco-money here in the restaurant and construction businesses amongst others, the widely-held belief that GDL has long been a haven for the families of the narcos themselves, and then the death or capture of various narco-capos within the last year who were known to have maintained the peace in the city would all suggest that GDL could easily follow in Monterrey's footsteps. City and state officials, while easy to blame, cannot reasonably confront such a threat with such paltry resources at their disposal. They must either hope that Resistencia is on the run and weaker than one might think in spite of their Michoacanesque show of force the other night or swallow their pride and call in the feds, which will not be pretty either.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-80026287785093004012011-01-10T18:32:00.000-08:002011-01-10T18:36:27.699-08:00Cashing in on Playa del CarmenThe city council of Solidaridad, known to tourists/gringos as Playa del Carmen, is currently preparing a new urban development program (what we might call zoning ordinances) that anticipates the growth of the town from about 150,000 inhabitants to a million by 2050, with 80,000 hotel rooms providing the means for supporting those residents (see the article in La Jornada today, <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/01/10/index.php?section=estados&article=027n1est">"Crecimiento urbano y turistico sin orden amenaza a Playa del Carmen"</a>). In short, Playa's councilmen and women are hoping to replicate the kind of growth that Cancun experienced in the 1970s up through the mid 1990s. Of course, many are scandalized by the lack of sustainability of this plan, which disrespects the environment and the carrying capacity of the tourist industry to a degree that if not so tragic would be laughable. But the end result of a construction boom--the negative impact on the fragile ecosystem, the area's underground rivers and cenotes, the inevitable overbuilding of the area which will ruin the city's current charm (although for some it already passed the mark of being overbuilt some years ago), the cheapening of Playa's cachet among international tourists, as well as the price of its rooms--is not really the point. What the Solidaridad city council knows is that the money is in the construction, the outcome be damned. And it will be damned, as Solidaridad will not be able to count on the steady flow of federal subsidies for infrastructure that made Cancun what it is today. Keep in mind that Cancun, for all its flaws, is still the top earner of tourist dollars in the country. It was able to build the kind of infrastructure for the hotel zone that at least hid the worst of the environmental consequences during the phases of major construction, while in Playa, five years ago, one could already see the sewage seeping into the water table mere meters from Mamita's, a popular beach club just north of the city proper. And without federal monies for urban infrastructure for the city's residents, migrants to Solidaridad will find themselves waiting even longer than Cancun's residents for basic services, especially in recessionary times with a near civil war between the feds and the narcos siphoning off the funding that was once allocated to such social projects. Nor will new jobs materialize for them once the construction work is completed, because much of it will be condos and time shares and most don't even have the skills to make the transition to working in the hotel industry anyway. So it will be a disaster, no doubt, but it will be a profitable one for some. It's a train that is nearly impossible to stop because the money that the construction industry brings into the region creates jobs and provides an easy way to launder money and is highly profitable for all involved at least in the short term, from the developers and their narco financiers to the politicians revising in this case or looking the other way about zoning violations (for a price of course) to the poor Mexicans who so desperately need the work. And as the article correctly noted, with an affirmation from Playa's mayor, there's no choice but to draw up a new plan as this train has already left the station (in my estimation, starting in the 1990s, so it's surprising it's taken the city council this long to formalize the process and cash in while they can).another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-9561398772555461282010-12-23T13:43:00.000-08:002010-12-23T13:43:48.222-08:00The politics of placasLicense plates, in combination with make and model, have become very telling here in Narcolandia Lite, aka Guadalajara. Newspaper articles chronicling the weekend's homicides habitually list the plates and details of the cars spotted near the killings. Apparently the sicarios tend to drive often older sedans with out of state plates, which makes sense given that they are usually narcochavos seeking to prove themselves and move up the narcoladder. In general, the more pesado (heavyweight) narcos tend to favor Suburbans and Ford Lobos, to the point that Lobo sales have actually fallen recently because the model is so clearly associated with the narcos. Things get more complicated in a wealthy town with a strong agricultural sector surrounding it, as one must also consider that these models have also been popular with suburban (with a small s) moms and ranchers, albeit for different reasons. Around the fancy malls and in the wealthy neighborhoods of the ZMG (the greater metropolitan area of GDL, but doesn't it have a nice ring not unlike DMZ?), the combo of plate, make, and model makes for a diverting anthropological game. The Volvo with Sinaloa plates is probably someone here on business, visiting family, or perhaps a refugee fleeing threats of kidnapping or extortion, but the Escalade SUV with the same plates merits at least a raised eyebrow. The Hummers appear to be old money, hijo de papi vehicles of choice, and most sport local plates. But enormous and enormously expensive tricked out SUVs from states like Sinaloa, Michoacan, and even Colima require wide berth and not too much curiosity, even if the windows are too darkened to afford more than a shadowy glimpse of what rides alongside.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-83158223710905810542010-12-21T19:42:00.000-08:002010-12-21T19:42:59.156-08:00Not feeling the cheer: Mexico's minimum wageAmong the more ambitious clauses of the Mexican constitution is Article 123, which mandates the provision of a living wage for Mexican workers. After a predictably nasty legislative battle in the Mexican congress, the government has raised the minimum wage to just under 60 pesos a day. That translates to less than $5 dollars a day (about US$4.80 at current exchange rates, to be more specific, with slight variations by region). Consider that figure, in a country where perhaps half of its citizens work in the informal economy and the narcos can recruit at will from among the so-called ni-ni (those that neither work nor study) and one finds the snow machines at the malls and the Hummers with reindeer ears and the garish decorations of the wealthy neighbors rivaling those in that horrible Tim Allen movie some years ago to make one feel slightly sick to one's eggnog.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-89768421951155408332010-11-26T20:31:00.000-08:002010-11-26T20:33:54.618-08:00Boo to boots on the groundEdward Schumacher-Matos said the unsayable when he recommended that it was time for Mexican elites and the military to call in the U.S. Marines. Mexican editorialists will be up late tonight, drafting heated replies, and Schumacher-Matos is not wrong to fault them for clinging to a nationalism forged during the nineteenth century in the wake of the U.S.'s devastating show of force, although it's really more a cultural tick, much like our need to compulsively talk about bringing democracy to the world. But Schumacher-Matos is off the mark when he defends Secretary of State Clinton's remark conflating the narcos and a growing (and by the way--nonexistent) insurgency. That's what stuck in the craw of the Mexican intelligentsia, as it is fairly obvious that no one out there in the campo is offering any sort of political alternative a la the guerrilla in Colombia several decades ago, and while the leading narcos occasionally engage in the some populist hospital-building or vigilante justice, neither has anyone been fooled into thinking that the cartels themselves are offering a political alternative. They don't need to, as they are part and parcel of the existing political system, even if Calderon had the poor grace to go and rock the boat by actually aspiring to bring them to justice. It's easy from the comfortable perspective of the U.S. to stand in judgment of the precarious position in which the Mexican state now finds itself. The study Schumacher-Matos cites, on the growing threat that the cartels pose to states within the hemisphere, appears to build on a concept, that of the "captive state," that has been a fashionable alternative to the highly inaccurate notion of the failed one for some time here in Mexico. The corruption issue, the other side of the coin of some (imagined?) debate Schumacher-Matos suggests is occurring in the U.S. on what to do about its southern neighbor, might better be understood as complicity, both willing and coerced, as the influence of the narcos has penetrated virtually every aspect of Mexican life, even if there is still much more than narco-trafficking to Mexico today, a point easily forgotten if one relies upon the U.S. media for one's perspective. But retaining one's honesty and integrity as a public servant, or even as a private citizen today in Mexico is far more complicated than what most gringos can imagine, and in many cases, might well be suicidal if one has been approached by the narcos. Perhaps only someone who takes it at face value that Plan Colombia has indeed succeeded, regardless of the costs (which were not merely financial) or the rather obvious fact that the Colombian cartels still exist, still produce most of the cocaine consumed on the planet through their control of poppy production throughout the Andean countries, and still exert tremendous influence, whether financial or otherwise, within Colombia, can suggest that a few boots on the ground will make the difference here in Mexico.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-34288096349524238632010-10-25T10:41:00.000-07:002010-10-25T10:41:45.994-07:00Modern day "obedezco pero no cumplo"The phrase "I obey but I do not comply" surfaces in virtually every undergraduate class on colonial Latin America as a means of describing the attitude of colonial officials toward the Spanish crown across the Atlantic who, while loyal to their king, found it sometimes impractical to carry out royal mandates in the colonies. Mexico today suffers from a modern day version of the trope in the sense that this is a nation obsessed with the law at a moment of complete and utter lawlessness. If one attempts to follow the law, or to even use the law to pursue justice in some matter, one will inevitably find oneself bogged down in what most opine is still one of the most inefficient and complicated bureaucracies in Latin America (and that's saying something). Take the Law of Transparency, for example. This law exists to make public institutions accountable, for their spending, for their activities, for their practices, yet using the law in most cases allows the institution in question to appear to comply with the law, by virtue of having followed the procedure dictated by the law, without typically providing any substantive data to the public in the end. Mexicans themselves appear to be suffering from an extreme case of "obedezco pero no cumplo" these days as well, as virtually any citizen will publicly decry the climate of lawlessness that exists in much of the country (with perhaps half of it under the control of the narcos, according to a <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/rv/modHome/detalleExclusiva/84705">recent study</a>) but then turn around and contribute to the the general atmosphere of lawlessness by flaunting their disregard for the most quotidian of laws. One could perhaps argue that running red lights or lying about one's taxable income have become the gateway drugs for more serious infractions, like money laundering and the wanton killing of one's fellow citizens.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-196975783035497492010-09-28T07:58:00.000-07:002010-09-28T07:58:21.368-07:00An ode to Mexico City<iframe frameborder="0" height="225" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/15068747" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/15068747">CD. DE MÉXICO, video documental</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/earrangoiz">EARRANGOIZ</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-18490320662548643032010-09-15T18:48:00.000-07:002010-09-15T19:16:57.523-07:00Krauze's cop outOn the eve of Mexico's bicentennial celebration, Enrique Krauze came out with a predictable editorial in the NYT about Mexico's tendency to explode every hundred years, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/opinion/15krauze.html?_r=1">"In Mexico, a War Every Century"</a>. The piece summarizes the social tensions leading to the explosions of violence that morphed first into Mexico's war of independence two centuries ago and then the revolution of the early 20th century with all the ease one would expect of an accomplished historian and writer like Krauze. However, when it comes time to explain Mexico's current descent into violence, Krauze takes the easy way out, blaming Mexico's problems on the U.S. and our insatiable demand for drugs as well as our gun-happy culture, which has clearly facilitated the acquisition of weapons for the narcochavos. These are valid points, but also easily exaggerated ones, especially the former. Historians have long struggled to explain the rise of consumption patterns of items like coffee and tea, sugar, and tobacco, without much success in disentangling the question of supply versus demand as the principal explanation for why mass markets for these products emerged. The drug economy is no easier to explain. Furthermore, the notion that local, state, and federal authorities in the U.S., as well as other elements of society, have stood idly by with respect to the flow of drugs into our country belies common sense for anyone familiar with the huge sums of money, public and private, devoted to counter drug use and addiction.<br />
Krauze also argues that the so-called transition to democracy, another favorite albatross upon which Mexican intellectuals blame a multitude of problems, led to a kind of decentralization that gave rise to a variety of forces within Mexican society, among them the narcos. The transition itself merits a discussion too complex to delve into here, but what is most striking about Krauze's facile explanation of Mexico's current state of narco-terror is the absence of any mention of the frustrated social forces now contending for space, both political and economic, within this country. In the past two decades, Mexico has undergone a remarkable transition, which one could argue owes more to NAFTA than to the fall of the PRI, or perhaps in recent years, to the narco-stimulus provided by money laundering and the move from illegitimate to legitimate businesses on the part of the narco capos. As a result, the middle class has indeed expanded, while at the same time, nearly 45% of the population, according to President Calderon's recent state of the union address, remains in poverty. That contradiction suggests, as has been quite the norm in Mexican history, that this tremendous country has once again managed to achieve growth, but growth with a price. The price lies in the frustrated aspirations of the poor, who in the face of barriers to upward mobility still thrown up on a daily basis by this country's elite, have turned to the narco-economy. Mexico's upper classes still persist in perpetuating the same prejudices of caste, color, name, and education that frustrated the aspirations of the popular classes in the late colonial period and in the late 19th century. And to make matters worse, amidst their cries for greater governmental control, for a culture of legality and transparency, it is those same elites who flaunt their impunity in the face of the law, by continuing to set a poor example in their business practices, their cronyism in politics, and in their lack of common courtesy for people less fortunate than themselves. The social tensions that made possible the rise of the narcos are markedly absent from Krauze's analysis, as is any sense of accountability on the part of those Mexicans most empowered to change it for the better.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-51827305614804173022010-09-08T09:35:00.000-07:002010-09-08T09:41:24.749-07:00Hillary beat me to the punch: Mexico's Medellin momentSecretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested today in a speech given to the Council on Foreign Relations that Mexico appears more and more like Colombia a couple of decades ago. This is a fairly obvious comparison, so the fact that I have been batting this idea around for a couple of weeks but had not yet gotten anything down in writing says less about my own analytical prowess and more about the zeitgeist of the drug war here and analysis of it back in DC. I should credit a <i>New Yorker</i> article by William Finnegan ("Silver or Lead" May 31 2010) for having triggered the thought on my part. His article described the activities of La Familia, a cartel active in Michoacan, whose ability to mete out justice in the stead of a weakened state made me think of a place I used to go to in Colombia, a tiny and beautiful town called San Agustin, in the early 1990s, where the locals described the guerrillas' (the FARC, if memory serves me right) role in very similar terms. In the absence of a fully functioning legal system, sometimes your best bet for dealing with an abusive husband or a petty thief was then and there, the FARC, and here and now, the narcos. Clinton's comparison is a difficult one, however, as the U.S. conflated the guerrilla and narcotraffickers in Colombia long before the guerrilla did indeed cross over into that line of business, for the obvious reasons of seeking a steady source of funding. Twenty, thirty years ago, the guerrilla were a far more respected element within Colombian society and very much at odds with the narcos. The most accurate comparison of Mexico today would be a more local one in Colombia, that of Medellin in the 1980s and 1990s, when the drug lords were duking it out and the common folk paid the price in bodies strewn along the roads on the outskirts of the city every morning (that description comes from a conversation with a taxi driver on such a road in that very same city, circa 1995). The guerrilla in Colombia then operated in different zones than the narcos rather than overlapping ones, although they have since taken the low road of kidnapping and narco-trafficking, and as a result, their politics have become murkier but their links to the narcos clearer. Perhaps one of the most interesting developments here, and by here I mean around Guadalajara, is the emergence of a narco-gang promoting some sort of political agenda, moving in apparently the opposite direction of the guerrilla in Colombia, from criminal activities to social activism. More on this to come....another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-68849023017054684902010-09-05T11:59:00.000-07:002010-09-05T11:59:59.608-07:00Only a matter of time?According to a new article in <i>Proceso</i>, <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/rv/hemeroteca/detalleHemeroteca/152153">"Explosion de violencia"</a>, the rate of narco-executions in the greater metropolitan area of Guadalajara has risen to 60 in the last month, in comparison to a total of 84 for all of 2009. The spike appears to be related to the death of Nacho Coronel, of the Sinaloa cartel, here in the city at the end of July. The ensuing power struggle has been accompanied by a slew of problems with and for the local police, who are both victims and accomplices of such violence.<br />
Guadalajara has long been sheltered from the narco-violence shattering other regions of the country, but at the same time, that does not mean that this is untainted ground. Rather, Guadalajara was a kind of safe zone, where the Sinaloan cartel held the peace, and narco-families, at least the wives and children and perhaps a few other relatives, could enjoy the good schools and relative calm of the city. As I noted in the previous post, there are plenty of signs that the narcos are happily disposed to spend money here too. Since Nacho's death a month or so ago, all the speculation has been about whether or not GDL would go the way of Monterrey, once one of Mexico's premier cities in terms of industry, medicine, and overall development. So far, the violence in GDL has not appeared to make much of a mark in the city's more prosperous neighborhoods, as it has for some time in Monterrey (imagine sitting at a posh restaurant at your neighborhood mall and seeing a lawyer shot at a nearby table while you were eating lunch). But unfortunately for Guadalajara, it may be a matter of when rather than whether or not that slide into "la inseguridad" begins.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-14614611471276478152010-09-02T08:00:00.000-07:002010-09-02T08:00:07.080-07:00GDL's construction boom: legit or lavado de dinero?Mexico was hit particularly hard by the recent/ongoing recession in the U.S. because of its symbiotic relationship with our economy. We drive a good part of the Mexican economy through our consumption of agricultural products and manufactures. Gringos also make up the majority of the international tourist market here in Mexico lindo, and when American families cut back on vacations, Mexico really feels the pinch. The recession was additionally hard for our neighbor to the south because of its dependence upon remittances, the money that immigrants send back home to families in Mexico. As their jobs disappeared, Mexican families on both sides of the border have suffered.<br />
So, in the midst of economic crisis, how does one explain Guadalajara's apparently booming construction industry? One sees high-rise office buildings and apartments, condos, exclusive gated communities, upscale restaurants and commerical plazas in the works all over the city. Where has all this investment come from during such hard economic times? There are likely a number of sources of capital for these projects, some legitimate, others not. Guadalajara is one of Mexico's strongest industrial centers and the state of Jalisco is very productive agriculturally. There's a great deal of money in this town accumulated through perfectly legal means and apparently the numbers for the manufacturing sector are nothing shabby at the moment. That capital needs an outlet and well-to-do Guadalajarans are not exactly shy about conspicuous consumption. U.S. and European businesses have also taken note of that tendency and are making inroads here (our local mall boasts a P.F. Chang's, a Stuart Weitzman boutique, and tons of very cool, modern furniture imported from Europe, to give just a few examples of international capital's interest in the city).<br />
However, the sheer quantity of construction projects raises many eyebrows, as does the fact that many recently completed projects are unoccupied. A local journalist and numerous taxi drivers have confirmed that many here think that there's too much building in the city in the midst of a recession for it to <i>not</i> involve a great deal of money-laundering. What is perhaps the most ironic is that as the narcos diversify their holdings and wash their profits at the same time, the result is actually pretty positive for Mexico in terms of creating jobs and generating momentum for the the increasingly large middle class in this country. NAFTA and the narcos have brought Mexico out of the lost decade of the 1980s and helped it survive the current crisis, but with sad, sad consequences for the overall level of civility and security.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-21026575910718456382010-08-31T18:42:00.000-07:002010-08-31T18:42:56.842-07:00The "real" CancunLast night, several molotov cocktails were pitched into a strip club in the heart of Puerto Juarez, killing six women and two men at last count. The local and national press have suggested that those to blame belong to Las Zetas, the very same narcogang presumably behind the terrible massacre recently discovered in Tamaulipas. There may also be some link to the capture, two days ago, of a capo, Edgar Valdez Villareal, aka La Barbie, whose activities extended to Quintana Roo. The story has apparently been picked up by the media in the U.S. and Europe, provoking further concern among those in the tourism industry here in Mexico lindo.<br />
A couple of clarifications are merited here. First, this did not occur in what gringos think of as Cancun. Rather, it occurred in a part of the city that virtually no gringos ever venture into, although some think they have (they have typically ventured as far as the city center, Cancun viejo, if you can call anything built after 1970 old in a country full of colonial architecture. The city center is still very tame but a tad decrepit and third worldish looking in comparison to the hotel zone but nonetheless sends many Americans into a kind of panic). Puerto Juarez, where this incident occurred, is another world altogether. This part of the city started as a shantytown in the 1970s in the shadow of the planned city created by economists from the Banco de Mexico. It is now very much part of the city proper but still the hood in terms of criminal activity, which is very unfortunate for the many honest and hard-working Mexicans who live there. Second, while this is a particularly grisly incident, especially because it involved women working in the bar who had in all likelihood been victimized quite enough, narcocrimes are not new to Cancun or the Yucatan peninsula in general. Drugs have been moving through the peninsula in large quantities (think tons) since the 1970s, when drug busts by mostly local police occurred every couple of months at least, and the laundering of money is clearly one of the major factors driving the Riviera Maya's rapid development in the past couple of decades. As a consequence, the narcochavitos have been killing each other and the occasional police officer for years, with bodies found quite regularly in the ditches and sidestreets of Puerto Juarez and Solidaridad, the equivalent of Puerto Juarez for Playa del Carmen, in similar neighborhoods in Merida on the Yucatan side of the peninsula, and even occasionally in Chetumal, Quintana Roo's sleepy capital, which sits right on the border of Belize. Quintana Roo's murder rate is still very, very low compared to most states in the federation. Is it only a matter of time before such incidents occur in the hotel zone or on Playa del Carmen's strip of restaurants and nightclubs? That's anyone's guess. Until now, a level of civility has prevailed with regard to the tourist economy, perhaps because the narcotraffickers recognize that the industry provides a convenient shelter for them, in terms of covering up both the transport of their products and for washing their profits in region's many hotels and restaurants and commercial plazas, etc.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-77076563778370095442010-08-28T09:13:00.000-07:002010-08-28T09:14:31.514-07:00A grenade is a grenadeThis past Wednesday night a grenade exploded at a bar (Pinkcheladas--check out its FB site for a load of interesting comments about this venue's past notoriety, from fires to fights and a great deal of delincuencia in between) in Puerto Vallarta, killing one so far as of this morning and causing serious injuries to a number of others present. The U.S. consulate immediately issued a security warning about possible sites of retaliation for the incident, which was presumed to be the result of some sort of narcobronca. The guy fingered for possession of the grenade is allegedly linked to the Sinaloan cartel. State and local authorities, included the governor, Jalisco's AG, and others responded defensively to the consulate's warning, arguing that the incident had been an accident rather than an actual attack, and that therefore, the consulate's position was overkill. Their position is quite predictable in light of the fact that the state of Jalisco is heavily invested in the tourism industry and that such reports have very real economic repercussions. Nonetheless, one must ask the obvious question--does it really matter if it was an accident or a purposeful attack? Regardless, some drugged up and/or drunk guy working for a cartel was walking around with a grenade, presumable with the intention of using it at some point. I don't think anyone should cancel their vacation yet, but one might stick to the more gringo-esque bars if venturing out at night.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-71602125427171451962010-08-24T13:13:00.000-07:002010-08-24T13:13:41.877-07:00La nota roja and Venezuela's violenceThe NYT is running an article on Venezuela's murder rate, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23venez.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=venezuela&st=cse">"Venezuela, More Deadly than Iraq, Wonders Why"</a>, which apparently exceeds that of Iraq at the moment. While some grim events have occurred in recent days in Mexico lindo, one does still hold out hope that the narcochavitos stick to murdering each other rather than everyone else. In Venezuela, the causes are many but its remarkable inequality (perhaps the greatest condemnation for Chavez--that his Bolivarian revolution has accomplished so little on that front) combined with a gun culture have combined to create a deadly culture.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-67920319203115094662010-08-14T19:41:00.000-07:002010-08-14T19:41:25.717-07:00Back to the future in Mexico lindoMexico has changed so much in recent years, between NAFTA, the narcos, its recent and still fledgling democratization, etc., but some things remain constant here. Here are a few of the sights, sounds and smells from the first few bittersweet days back in Mexico lindo.<br />
-teenagers making out in an illicit corner of the water treatment plant.<br />
-children selling sweets in the street<br />
-a young woman, lacquered in makeup, and a much older and more prosperous man, perhaps in his fifties, conversing intimately in a car parked on the street<br />
-maids scrubbing down the tiled entrances to wealthy homes with bleach<br />
-gardeners manicuring every last leaf and blade of landscaping<br />
-water jug sellers announcing their passing in the streets <br />
-a handicapped man in a hand-pedaled cart begging along a busy avenue<br />
-portly couples heading to the park to work out in matching jerseys<br />
-two elderly women dressed in black watching the world go by from a balcony<br />
-women of all ages tottering around in six inch heels<br />
-middle class men sporting brightly colored polo shirts, usually of Italian origin (the shirts, not the men)another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-25033506025012964862010-08-06T06:53:00.000-07:002010-08-06T06:54:54.305-07:00Dangerous DCBy the way, did you know that DC's murder rate is four times that of the DF (that's Mexico City to you gringos, aka el defecal to more cynical locals)? And a think tank in Mexico, which I have not had a chance to check out yet, claims that Mexico's murder rate is still lower today than it was a decade ago when the PRI, who many assume looked the other way while the narcos built the foundations of Mexico's current drug economy, was about to lose their first presidential election (well, by official counts anyway) in seven decades. Brazil and a number of Caribbean and Central American countries look quite nasty in comparison to Mexico lindo too. Thanks to <i>USA Today</i> for this surprisingly positive bit of a reality check--see the article in this past Wednesday's edition (8/4/2010).another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5713747214191383614.post-13233707161380678642010-08-02T19:37:00.000-07:002010-08-04T05:03:02.029-07:00Narcos in the neighborhoodAbout a week ago, <i>La Jornada</i>, Mexico's main left-leaning paper (think <i>The Nation</i>, but a daily and quite a bit more credible in terms of investigative journalism and with a much larger and more varied readership) published an editorial that again raised the whole "failed state" debate I mentioned previously. The recent massacre of seventeen people in Torreon, Durango, apparently committed by inmates from a local prison who were permitted under the cover of darkness to leave the facility and use state-owned vehicles and the weapons of their own prison guards to carry out the killings raises serious questions about Mexico's penal system and its penetration by the narcos (apparently this kind of thing goes on all the time). In true <i>La Jornada </i>style, the editorial pointed out, quite rightly, that the prison system also suffers from serious problems with human rights abuses, so that the overall perception of the penal system is one that the paper characterized as "extreme weakness." A few days later, the headlines in all of the major papers trumpeted the news of the killing of two major figures in the Sinaloa cartel in neighborhoods uncomfortable close to our soon-to-be home. So while the Mexican state may indeed be on the ropes, it is by no means a complete failure, but as public opinion increasingly leans toward the consensus that the war is futile and endless, I'm just hoping that the gunfire will have abated by the time we hit town.another foreign service spousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04875812748159557543noreply@blogger.com0