Massacre in San Fernando
Drug War on the Poor
By LAURA CARLSEN
A wounded
man, blood-covered and frantic, approached a military checkpoint in San
Fernando, Tamaulipas, 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas, with a
horrifying story. Reportedly shot in the neck himself, the Ecuadorian
would-be migrant to the United States led members of the Mexican Naval
Forces to an even more horrendous scene.
Seventy-two migrants from Central America, Brasil
and Ecuador lay piled on each other in a large room, dead from gunshot
wounds.
From the man’s testimony it seems that the 58 men
and 14 women murdered refused to comply with extortion demands from a
drug cartel that President Calderón has identified as most likely being
the Zetas. According to the “plata o plomo” (money or bullets) law of
organized crime, the migrants got the bullets.
The migrants likely did die at the hands of
Mexico’s most brutal drug gang. But they also died as a result of both
U.S. and Mexican policies that foment violence and have led to a
previously unimagined state of lawlessness and brutality south of the
border. U.S. immigration and trade policies and Mexico’s U.S.-supported
drug war and human rights crisis all played a role in their deaths.
The seventy-two migrants’ names will pass to the
growing list of civilians who have become the casualities of a war
entered into without thought to its consequences or a coherent strategy
for success.
That is, if we ever know their names.
Representatives from the countries of origin are
working to identify the rest and have demanded a full investigation,
calling the Mexican government’s information to date “insufficient.”
Preying on the most vulnerable
These latest victims come from the ranks of the
human beings considered superfluous to an economic system that drives
them from their homes and communities to seek work in the United States,
despite the risks. Unprotected by the Mexican government--despite
numerous reports of these kind of extortion kidnappings over the past
few years--and criminalized by a U.S. society that welcomes their labor
and rejects their humanity, they continue to travel north because they
can´t find work in their countries.
Imagine the trajectory of the 72 lives that were snuffed out on August 24.
Each man and woman sold land, used savings or went
into debt to make the trek to the United States. They have no legal
channels to enter the U.S. despite the demand for their labor. The cost
of rossing has skyrocketed and the risks increased because security
measures on the U.S. border have forced them to use human smugglers
where before they crossed with migrant guides. The women are
particularly vulnerable as they face sexual abuse from criminal gangs
and police along the route.
The global crisis is falling on the shoulders of
the poor in developing countries. While the U.S. adopts stimulus and
jobs programs, its free trade policies have led to imports that displace
local production and cut back state subsidies and supports in southern
countries.
But the U.S. immigration debate largely ignores the
dire conditions they faced in their countries and during their journey,
even though alternative policies and actions could help develop
livelihoods at home and protect the basic human rights and safety that
every human being deserves.
The migrant group found dead in Tamaulipas was
reportedly kidnapped arriving in the border region. Typically, organized
criminal gangs not only steal the money migrants carry to pay smugglers
to take them across the border, but also demand that they contact
family in the U.S. to send more money. Neither the Mexican or U.S.
governments have done much to stem this transnational extortion ring,
probably because both the migrant victims and often the families
extorted are undocumented, placing them in a class that has been
illegally stripped of state protection and humane concern.
Mexican authorities charged with the protection of
people within its borders too often form part of the problem rather than
the solution. Crimes against migrants have been rising, as criminals
and corrupt police alike find them easy pickings.
Drug War Violence
Although the economic situation of their countries
force thousands to seek jobs in the north, U.S. aid has been
concentrated in military equipment and security and intelligence
training, such as in the $1.5 billion-dollar aid package to Mexico known
as the Merida Initiative. Throughout the Western Hemisphere, the drug
war has become the latest pretext for militarization in a wide net that
not only targets organized crime but also undocumented workers and
political opposition.
In Mexico, the drug war strategy has set off a
no-holds-barred battle for routes and markets among competing cartels
that has broken through the boundaries of crime-on-crime and now affects
daily life (and death) in border cities and other regions.
To get an idea of how violence begets violence,
take a look at the Zetas? Briefly, they are a group of former Mexican
military elite with U.S. training that crossed over into organized
crime, taking with them their government-sponsored knowledge of
counterinsurgency tactics and brutal repression. They are associated
with the infamous Kaibiles in Guatemala who have a similar history.
After acting as the armed forces for the Gulf Cartel, they split off and
formed their own cartel. Their bid to take over lucrative trafficking
routes is at the root of the drug-war violence in many points on the
border.
Weaker financially and with fewer political
contacts, the Zetas work their one comparative advantage—their
willingness to be absolutely ruthless. The massacre of the migrants
could be a reaction of rage when the migrants refused to pay up, but it
could also be an easy way for the Zetas to flaunt their ability and
disposition to break all previous codes of behavior between the
government and the cartels.
Through the bodies of the migrants, the Zetas are
sending yet another bloody message to the armed forces, and to the other
cartels, which have unified against them in some border cities.
As far as the Calderón administration is concerned,
every act of increasing brutality on the part of the drug cartels is a
sign of victory. Calderón issued a communiqué on the massacre saying,
“The Zetas are resorting to extorsion and kidnapping of migrants as a
mechanism of financing and recruitment due to the fact that they are
facing a very adverse situation in attaining resources and people… This
is the result of the activity of the State against them, which has
significantly weakened the operating capacity of organized crime.”
Incredibly, Calderón publicly admits
responsibility, albeit indirect, for the massacre of the migrants and
further notes that their brutal assassination is a sign of success in
the drug war. He went on to warn that there will be more violence to
come. This is perhaps the one aspect of his campaign that no-one doubts.
The constant spin--where each act of greater
violence is interpreted as an advance in the drug war—has left much of
the Mexican population feeling nauseous. How much more violence can the
nation take? And when will the increasing toll of civilians finally
reach a point where leaders in Mexico and the United States admit that
the drug-war strategy has dragged us into a downward spiral that must be
reversed now before more innocent people die?
Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Policy Program in Mexico City. She
can be reached at: (lcarlsen(a)ciponline.org).
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
