An ode to Mexico City

CD. DE MÉXICO, video documental from EARRANGOIZ on Vimeo.

Krauze's cop out

On 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, "In Mexico, a War Every Century". 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.
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.

Hillary beat me to the punch: Mexico's Medellin moment

Secretary 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 New Yorker 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....

Only a matter of time?

According to a new article in Proceso, "Explosion de violencia", 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.
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.

GDL'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.
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).
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 not 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.

The "real" Cancun

Last 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.
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.

A grenade is a grenade

This 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.

La nota roja and Venezuela's violence

The NYT is running an article on Venezuela's murder rate, "Venezuela, More Deadly than Iraq, Wonders Why", 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.

Back to the future in Mexico lindo

Mexico 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.
-teenagers making out in an illicit corner of the water treatment plant.
-children selling sweets in the street
-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
-maids scrubbing down the tiled entrances to wealthy homes with bleach
-gardeners manicuring every last leaf and blade of landscaping
-water jug sellers announcing their passing in the streets
-a handicapped man in a hand-pedaled cart begging along a busy avenue
-portly couples heading to the park to work out in matching jerseys
-two elderly women dressed in black watching the world go by from a balcony
-women of all ages tottering around in six inch heels
-middle class men sporting brightly colored polo shirts, usually of Italian origin (the shirts, not the men)

Dangerous DC

By 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 USA Today for this surprisingly positive bit of a reality check--see the article in this past Wednesday's edition (8/4/2010).