Peace and Global Solidarity |
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Trouble on the Border: Reflections on Juarez By Joan, Mumaw IHM The recent snap of cold weather was uncomfortable for those of us in Michigan with our central heating. But for those in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico it was extremely difficult. With no central heating and temperatures below zero, pipes froze and left many without water for weeks. Our four sisters whom I was visiting suffered along with rest of the people. When the water was restored, they filled plastic containers with water and headed up the mountainside to visit Lupe, an eighty plus year old woman and her husband Pedro, who have no access to water and no money to pay the locals who truck water up the mountain. Lupe was delighted to see us and told us her husband was too ill to visit. He was suffering from congestion in the lungs, probably due to the dust and toxic chemicals spewing from the cement factory just below their house. Hospitality radiated from her smiling face which showed the effects of poverty and poor health. She insisted that we sit for coffee. The people of Juarez are plagued with violence, fear, unemployment and poverty. While I was visiting Sr. Carmen, she received a call that three male relatives of her sister-in law had been assassinated in a rural community eight hours away. Since the cause of the killings was unclear and the rest of the family feared for the worst, Carmen s brother and brother-in-law left to rescue the remaining members of the family and bring them to a safe house in Juarez. Thirty-two people, including women and children, have since received asylum in the U.S. Another neighbor s son was assassinated and, following the funeral, her husband and brother-in-law were shot and killed as they approached the bus station. The woman and her daughter-in-law and small child have take refuge with a friend in El Paso, too afraid to live in their own home in Juarez. The stories are numerous. Neighbors spoke of assassinations, murders of innocent women and children, drug shoot outs and kidnappings. People live in fear that someone close to them will be the next victim of the drug cartels. Since police, army and government officials are often complicit in these activities, there is no one to turn to for help. I could barely listen to all of the stories. My heart was breaking, especially for the women and children caught in this nightmare. It made me ask, why is it that people in one metropolitan area with families living north and south of one river, the Rio Grande, experience life in such different ways? The experience is the same in most of the cities along the U.S./Mexico border. How are we on the U.S. side of the border complicit in this tragedy? What can we do to help change this reality? It is our demand for drugs that puts money into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels which vie with one another for U.S. customers. The Mexican government has little incentive to remedy the situation when the economy is boosted by money funneled through the drug trade. Some have suggested that if we legalized drugs and taxed them this would take the money out of the system. The U.S. government is providing military style assistance to the Mexican government to combat drug trafficking. Is this only funneling U.S. money, better used in our own cities, into a dysfunctional system? What about the guns? It was said that there are 800 gun shops lining the U.S. side of the border between Texas and Mexico. Yet a sign at the bridge clearly states that no guns are permitted to be taken into Mexico. Investigations into killings in Juarez have revealed the presence of guns sold in the U.S. How is our penchant for guns fueling the crisis at the border? Unemployment is another issue that underlies much of the desire of young people to become involved in the drug trade. Factories at the border, "maquiladoras", were built so that U.S. corporations could have access to cheap labor. Now many of these factories are closed. Corporations have gone to Asia for even cheaper labor. Many people from the interior of Mexico migrated to the border cities for jobs and are now unemployed. Our desire for cheap goods developed on the backs of the world's poor is driving this labor migration. Finally, the U.S. is concerned about immigration and many of us want immigration reform. There has been much in the press about such legislation. But I have heard little in the news about the situation at the border. Of course, we hear of the killings in Juarez and other border towns and the drug cartels, but there is little analysis about the causes and how the U.S. is contributing to the situation by not dealing with its own issues around drugs and guns. The experience of visiting Juarez has raised my awareness and is making me ask questions that I did not have before. I can no longer pass the blame solely on to the people of Mexico. |
