“Massacres, beheadings, YouTube videos
featuring cartel torture sessions and even car bombs are becoming commonplace
in Juarez”

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO – Imagine if you will a day in the city.
You’re out with a friend when you stop at a coffee shop for a drink and
some pastry. As you sip coffee and
nibble on sweets a discussion takes place about the recent events in your home
town. Murder, kidnappings, car bombings.
Fear is widespread. No one can be
trusted. The police are powerless, some
complicit, in the violence and lawlessness.

As you talk a street war breaks out in front of your eyes. Machine guns blare, a car explodes. Unfortunately, this is not a scene from some
over-the-top action movie, but rather it is what now passes for daily life for the residents of
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico just footsteps from El Paso, Texas.

Ciudad Juarez, not Baghdad or some far away village in Afghanistan, is
the most dangerous city in the world. Bill
Weissert of the Associate
Press today has a riveting story about life in the City of Juarez, the
terror, the murder and those fleeing the city in droves.

Weissert writes, “No one
knows how many residents have left the city of 1.4 million since a turf battle
over border drug corridors unleashed an unprecedented wave of cartel murders
and mayhem. Business leaders, citing government tax information, say the exodus
could number 110,000, while a municipal group and local university say its
closer to 230,000 and estimates by social organizations are even higher.

“The tally is especially hard to track because Juarez is by nature
transitory, attracting thousands of workers to high-turnover jobs in
manufacturing, or who use the city across the Rio Grande from El Paso,
Texas, as a waystation before they slip north illegally.”

Juarez has become a very dangerous place to live, and more likely a place to die, for
those who call it home. As Mexico’s drug
war rages, innocent people are caught in the middle, almost daily. Yet little is done. The U.S. attempts to keep the issue at arm’s
length, lest the violence and murder get thrown into the discussion of illegal
immigration, amnesty and trample the sensibilities of political
correctness.

Meanwhile, Mexico burns.

Another excellent AP
article reports on the death of a Mexican citizen who sought justice for
the murder of her daughter.

Relatives of an anti-crime crusader
who was gunned down this week outside a Mexican state governor’s office had
their family business burned down Saturday by unknown arsonists, firefighters
reported.

The blaze that consumed the lumber
operation in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, was
apparently set intentionally, the local fire department said in a statement.

The business belongs to the family of
Jose Monge, the husband of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who waged a two-year battle
to bring her 17-year-old daughter’s killer to justice before she herself was
shot to death.

State prosecutors had not received a formal complaint
about the fire and did not say whether it was believed to be related to
Escobedo’s murder.

Escobedo’s daughter, Rubi Frayre
Escobedo, disappeared in Ciudad Juarez in 2008, and her burned, dismembered
remains were found in a trash bin the following June.

Escobedo launched a campaign pressing
for justice in the case, staging numerous marches including one when she wore
no clothes, wrapped only in a banner with her daughter’s photograph.

The main suspect in the killing,
Sergio Barraza, was ordered released in April for lack of evidence, and this
week Escobedo planted herself in front of the offices of Gov. Cesar Duarte and
vowed not to move until investigators showed progress in the case.

Security video recorded her killing
Thursday night outside the building by masked gunman who pulled up in a car and
shot her in the head.

The killings have become commonplace, but the terror has not. Resident of Juarez can find no relief from
the death and fear. So they leave.

Weissert writes, “Barely a week goes by when Longoria (Laura Longoria,
36-year old resident of Juarez) and her husband don’t watch a neighbor move
away. Then the vandals arrive, carrying off window panes, pipes, even light
fixtures, until there’s nothing but a graffiti-covered shell, surrounded by
yards strewn with rotting food or shredded tires. That could be what’s in store
for Longoria’s three-room home of poured concrete if her husband’s transfer
comes through.

“Long controlled by the Juarez Cartel, the city descended into a horrifying
cycle of violence after Mexico’s most-wanted kingpin, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’
Guzman, and his Sinaloa Cartel tried to shoot their way to power here beginning
in 2008. President Felipe Calderon sent nearly 10,000 troops to restore order.
Now, the Mexican army and federal authorities are going door-to-door,
conducting an emergency census to determine just how many residents have fled.

“Many people, however, refuse to answer their questions for fear authorities
are simply collecting information about neighborhoods so they can begin
extorting residents — just like the drug gangs. ‘Soon,’ Longoria said, ‘there
won’t be many people left to count’.”

Mexico is a nation in crisis, and the spillover of the out-of-control
violence is impacting the United States, even as our leaders turn a blind, or
perhaps uncaring, eye to the growing disaster.

“Massacres, beheadings, YouTube videos featuring cartel torture sessions and
even car bombs are becoming commonplace in Juarez, where more than 3,000 people
have been killed this year, according to the federal government, making it
among the most dangerous places on earth.”

Many of those fleeing Juarez are taking refuge in El Paso, Texas. As the Juarez chamber of commerce reports the
closure of 6,000 businesses this year alone, El Paso officials note a dramatic
rise in those now living in rentals and apartments, and Jose Luis Mauricio,
president of a group of new Mexican business owners says membership has grown from
nine in February to 280.

He told the AP, “Maybe it’s a bit sad for Juarez, but these are
business owners who are moving here because they have no choice.”

AP reports, “One club member is a Mexican-American who owns a factory in
Juarez but moved to El Paso with his family after he was kidnapped last year.
The 50-year-old, who asked that his name not be published to avoid further
repercussions, was held in a Juarez safe house — but managed to untie his hands
and cry for help loud enough that neighbors called the Mexican army to rescue
him.”

The man told the AP of Juarez, “It’s a city
that’s dying,” he said. “It’s out of control.”

Read all of Bill Weissert’s excellent article HERE

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About John G. Winder

John G. Winder has spent 29 years in the broadcasting industry as an on-air report, General Manager and Executive in both radio & television.

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