Drug war has Juárez, Mexico, on verge of humanitarian crisis

Few Americans enter this border city anymore.
Crossing south on the right side of the bridges is lonely, with only a smattering of people, mostly Mexicans living in El Paso. The army base has banned soldiers from crossing, and few if any kids come looking for a good time -- most of the bars have closed anyway.

The reason: Juárez is at war. The city is fighting drug cartels, and the cartels are fighting each other.

In 2008, more than 1,600 people were killed in Juárez in drug-related violence, often assassinations carried out in daylight. Some 6,000 people died in drug-related violence across Mexico last year. More than 100 people have been killed so far this year in Juárez, including at least six policemen kidnapped from their police post, their heads showing up a few days later dropped off at the police station.

Last month, the city's police chief was forced to step down after criminal gangs threatened to kill at least one officer every 48 hours unless Chief Roberto Orduña left his post. To prove their point, gunmen left signs on the slain bodies of a police officer and a jail guard. Days later, gunmen in two cars fired high-powered weapons at a convoy carrying Gov. José Reyes Baeza, killing a body guard and injuring two agents.

Amid the spiraling violence, few suspects are detained, as less than 2 percent of the murders are prosecuted. Eyewitnesses rarely come forward, as it is usually a death sentence; even the emergency medical technicians stopped responding to calls, as the drug gangs let it be known that they would be victims if they attempted to aid someone marked for death.

On the surface, the city functions normally: Starbucks continues to serve coffee, McDonald's is crowded at lunch, and shoppers flock to Walmart and Costco -- although Costco had to use the exit door recently after a drug-related assassination blocked the entry door for a few hours. The police and military responded, blocking off the area as shoppers continued to fill their carts while avoiding the reality of a bloody body lying there.

MILITARY ENFORCEMENT

In an effort to stem the violence spinning out of control, the Mexican Army deployed about 2,500 soldiers in Juárez last spring. Another 5,000 soldiers were deployed last month to take charge of the police department.

At first, the soldiers were welcomed and the heavily armed patrols seemed to calm the city, but they didn't necessarily stop the violence. History has shown that soldiers make poor police officers -- military training is based on achieving an objective, while the police are taught to enforce and respect the law.

Recent events in Juárez seem to show that the military, or at least some of the military, is impatient with the lawmaking and judicial systems, which seem to have failed the citizens of Juárez. The evidence appears to show that military-style death squads are picking up where the justice system has failed.

Two incidents earlier this year point to this likelihood.

The first was the disappearance of Jaime Irigoyen, a pitcher for the local semi-pro baseball team the Juárez Indios and a law student at the local university. Jaime, by all accounts, was a hard-working student, a good ballplayer and the kind of kid cities everywhere need. Asleep at home on a Monday, Jaime was dragged from bed by uniformed soldiers after they knocked down the front door. Soldiers blindfolded Jaime and took him away in the middle of the night with his mother and other family members screaming.

The family held a protest outside the military base the following day, demanding to know what had happened to their son. They found out while protesting: The body -- blindfolded and gagged -- showed up dumped on the street, executed.

By all appearances, Jaime seems to have been abducted by mistake, the result of bad information obtained through torturing low-level informants detained by the military. Of course, no one will ever know, as there is little information and the government and military have offered no comment on the incident.

A more startling incident was a daylight execution I witnessed during morning rush hour on Avenida Tecnológico. Driving to a morning interview with a friend, we heard gunshots as we approached an intersection in a busy section of the city. As we entered the intersection, we saw three heavily armed men dressed in unmarked navy-colored combat fatigues deployed in fighting position with a green pickup truck blocking traffic.

The men were firing automatic weapons into a red Honda Civic stopped at the traffic light. The event was precise and over within a few seconds. By the time we stopped the car, the armed men had already fled the scene, leaving behind the sole passenger of the vehicle slumped over the steering wheel.

The victim turned out to be a former policeman known as ''Rambo'' who had become involved with the drug cartels. Within moments, two military vehicles loaded with soldiers drove past while on patrol, at first noticing me with my cameras more than the scene I was photographing. After passing, they suddenly turned around and began unloading into the street as stunned commuters still in their cars sat, as if waiting for the light to change.

Soon, all those who had witnessed the attack drove off before attracting attention and before the police arrived to close the area and conduct what investigation they could, given that all of their eyewitnesses had left the scene.

The attack was precise, quickly executed and efficient. Not a single bullet missed the mark, a wall less than five feet from the shooting showed no scars, and only 12 shell casings were found left behind. That's quite a contrast to the executions of a year ago, in which drug gangs would routinely expend 200 or more rounds to hit their targets. The assassinations are either getting more efficient, or a better brand of assassin is in town.

HOW U.S. IS AFFECTED

America needs to be worried about Juárez.

The drugs destroying the city are destined for the U.S. market to feed our addictions. Imagine if 1,600 people were killed in a drug war on our northern border in a city such as Toronto or Vancouver?

The border crossing from Juárez to El Paso is jammed daily with Mexican citizens trying to flee the violence. The United States had to open a new, expanded consulate this year in Juárez, partly to accommodate the influx of immigration applications. If the situation in Juárez continues to spin out of control, the potential number of refugees entering El Paso -- with a metropolitan population of about 750,000 -- would be overwhelming. It is impossible to secure a border with 1.3 million people trying to flee violence.

Juárez is on the verge of becoming a humanitarian crisis, an undeclared war being fought on our border -- and threatening to spill onto U.S. soil.

Soon after the police chief's resignation, anonymous signs were posted around Ciudad Juárez applauding the move while naming another potential target: Mayor José Reyes Ferriz and his family. Without offering specific information, the signs threatened beheadings, even if it meant crossing the border to reach family members in El Paso if the mayor continued ``helping you know who.''
Miami Herald