Friday, February 12, 2010

Sort-of Old Pieces on Juárez

Last week from Jorge Montaño:
Juárez and El Paso created a promising development zone. They were cities of similar size, capable of attracting investment with a regional impact. Their inevitable closeness stimulated a mobility in both directions. The negative part was the serial murder of women, which was marked with impunity. This incompetency generated justifiable reactions that inhibited investment. The vaccuum was occupied by organized crime, with local, national, and international examples.

In the last five years, the tolerance of the state authority consolidated criminal structures that have advanced despite the massive deployment of Federal Police, replaced by the army that was in turn again replaced by Federal Police. This disorder has made Juárez's criminal bands opt for guerrilla tactics, mocking the elite corps. The operational hesitation confirms that the federal government in the creation of trustworthy institutions, which explains the actions of marines in Cuernavaca or constant purges of police commands.
The piece is titled "Mexico is Juárez", but it doesn't really make that argument. But Leo Zuckermann dealt with that question a bit last week:
Ciudad Juárez is Mexico but not all of Mexico is Ciudad Juárez. It's important to make the distinction. The rot in this failed town is not anything close to the reality of the entire country. Nevertheless, it's all of Mexico's job to combat the infected boil on the national body that is Ciudad Juárez. A fetid ulcer, which every days oozes more pus, that should give us shame. The federal, state, and local governments must integrate a Ciudad Juárez Commission that, with the participation of civil society groups, proposes as soon as possible a series of public policies in every sector that immediately solves the unacceptable situation in that locality.

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