Juárez Ambivalence

Felipe Calderón spent yesterday in Juárez, an occasion that precipitated the mobilization of 10,000 federal troops and the arrest of a handful of protesters. Admitting that his government hadn't listened to the people of Juárez, he presented a new security program for the city that will strengthen the schools and will provide training programs for 13,000 unemployed locals. He also defended the army against human rights complaints and promised that it will not be taken off the streets.

It appears as though a threshold has been broken and local and federal officials alike are approaching the border city's problems with an open mind and a new sense of purpose. The massacre that sparked the flurry of attention on Juárez was truly awful, so this reaction is logical and, insofar as it reflects the government responding to the citizens' needs, admirable. At the same time, why did it take so long? Juárez has been the most dangerous city in the country for than two years. It has been arguably the most dangerous city in the world for a year. Horrible as it was, the murder of the 16 teenagers two weekends ago was not the only mass killing in Juárez over the past two years.

Likewise, Juárez's educational problems are severe; we should all be scandalized by the fact that, according to Proceso, the West Side of the city, where 40 percent of the city's population (or about 600,000 people) resides, has only two operating high schools. Good for Calderón for including this in his new strategy. However, this is an issue that existed in 2006 when Calderón took office; that would have been a gigantic obstacle for the city even without the recent explosion in violence; and that I imagine is repeated in lots of other border towns, which means that there are several if not dozens of other bubbling social cauldrons that we aren't paying sufficient attention to simply because they have not yet spilled over into anarchy. I don't mean to complain about Calderón and co. finally addressing a longstanding challenge, nor do they deserve more blame than the other leaders who've ignored the deep-seated problem for generations, but one can't help but wonder if there would be 1,500 gangs operating in Juárez today if what is being pronounced with great fanfare today was carried out quietly ten and twenty years ago.

I also worry that if the Juárez strategy, with its conspicuous focus on social issues, doesn't work, it will discourage a socially conscious security approach elsewhere in Mexico.