Nation Building on the Border?
Even as mass slaughter continues to stain the streets of Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico, plans are underway to rebuild, reshape and redevelop the bloodied
border city. Continuing with its Todos Somos Juarez (We are all Juarez)
program launched after the massacre of 15 young people in the Villas de
Salvarcar neighborhood last winter, Mexico’s federal government has
pledged nearly $300 million to fund different security, social, health and
educational initiatives in Ciudad Juarez.
The city of more than one million people is also emerging as a key proving
ground for the latest US-Mexico border security strategy. Fine-tuning the
Merida Initiative, which emphasized assistance to military and law
enforcement agencies, the “Beyond Merida” approach charted by Washington
and Mexico City combines security assistance with dabs of social spending
and even droplets of nation-building. In part, the bilateral policy is
inspired by experiences in Colombia during the past decade.
In comments prepared for Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes’ annual border
security conference held August 12-13 at the University of Texas at El
Paso, US Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual praised the goals of Todos
Somos Juarez , as well as campaigns spearheaded by the Autonomous
University of Ciudad Juarez and the pro-business Paso del Norte Group,
aimed at opening employment and educational opportunities for youth while
creating conditions for the army and federal police to dominate embattled
Ciudad Juarez.
“Now imagine the military playing a new role, securing the perimeter of
this small five-block by five-block area, and giving the kids inside it a
sense that they are in a safe zone,” Pascual said. “Add to that the
deployment of foot police who engage the neighborhood and build trust. And
then keep expanding the perimeter…”
For Pascual, Washington and Mexico City’s social and economic goals, based
on free-market principles, are increasingly one and the same.
“We also need a border that positions Mexico and the US to compete
together in a global economy,” Pascual stressed. “Integration with
Mexico,” the diplomat contended, has permitted US businesses to lower
costs and stay competitive. “That means more jobs and exports for both the
United States and Mexico,” Pascual insisted.
In a separate presentation, Mexican Ambassador to the US Arturo Sarakhun
also hit on the unity theme, going so far to say that US-Mexico ties
constituted one of three examples of an “intermestic” relationship in
which two nations’ domestic and international policies are merged. The
US-Canada and US-Israel are the other two examples, Sarakhun said.
A moderate tilt in US policy was evident at the El Paso meeting. Besides
traditional talks on border commerce and security technology, the
gathering featured sessions on reducing illegal drug consumption,
cross-border health care, strengthening justice systems and instituting
the rule of law. A good deal of the discussion was not unlike the
discourse frequently heard over US policy in Afghanistan.
“We wanted to expand the conference this year beyond the border security
issue,” Representative Reyes told an audience.
In attendance at the event, a prominent Ciudad Juarez health advocate
spoke to Frontera NorteSur about Todos Somos Juarez’s goal of expanding
coverage to a needy population.
Jose Enrique Suarez, chief executive officer of the FEMAP Foundation, said
Ciudad Juarez currently has a deficit of 1,500 hospital beds and less than
one nurse for every doctor. The ideal nurse-doctor ratio should be three
or three-and-a-half to one, Suarez said.
President Calderon has proposed enrolling 90,000 Ciudad Juarez families in
the federal government’s public health insurance program known as Seguro
Popular, but the city does not have the health care infrastructure to
serve all the new patients, Suarez said.
A private, non-profit foundation that provides health care and social
services to low-income people, FEMAP is pitching in by opening its two
hospitals and a clinic to Seguro Popular's members, he said.
As an alternative of constructing expensive hospitals that might wind up
as “white elephants” without adequate resources, Suarez proposed the
federal government enter into agreements with about 50 underutilized,
private clinics which “could attend patients.” So far, the public-private
health care disconnect persists, he said. “These types of initiatives and
creativity aren’t happening,” the veteran physician said.
Meantime, FEMAP is training 500 new nurses and would like to open a second
school to accommodate 800-900 nursing students, Suarez added.
Prior to the federal government’s Todos Somos Juarez plan, local business
sector and government initiatives were unveiled that proposed face lifts
for Ciudad Juarez, including the Juarez Strategic Plan headed by
businessman Miguel Fernandez.
Promoted by the Juarez municipal government, revitalization of the old
Mariscal red-light district abutting Avenida Juarez in the city’s downtown
was started during the first administration of Mayor Hector “Teto”
Murguia (2004-2007). Many buildings were torn down, leaving the district a
collection of empty lots, piles of rubble and a few surviving houses of
ill-repute.
Pending Murguia’s return to office in October, the redevelopment plan is
on hold, outgoing Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz told Frontera NorteSur. Of
approximately 200 private properties slated for demolishing, money still
needs to be allocated to purchase 30 or 35 properties, Reyes said.
According to Reyes, the master plan envisions the construction of parks,
parking lots and an art school in a neighborhood historically defined by
dive bars, hoarhouses and illegal drug sales outlets. An old building
where Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe once set foot, La Fiesta, will be
rebuilt, Reyes added.
“You’ve seen what the state government did in the city of Chihuahua where
many buildings downtown were razed and a big plaza with an angel was put
there,” Reyes said. “It’s a beautiful plaza right next to the government
building. Here, we intend to do the same.”
At the end of the day, re-making Ciudad Juarez will involve far more than
new construction projects or even expanded social programs. In recent
years, the justice system all but collapsed, the economy crashed and
burned and the social fabric came virtually undone.
“The massacre between the gangs of the cartels, a scenario in which many
innocent people have fallen, and the world economic crisis has been a
double-edged razor that chopped the Juarez economy into many pieces,”
recently wrote Ciudad Juarez human rights activist and essayist Juan
Carlos Martinez.
According to the writer, local government and university researchers
estimate that 58 percent of Juarez residents now live in poverty, while
even members of the professional class have seen their incomes drop by as
much as 50 percent in the last few years, Martinez wrote.
Some question whether reforms can be meaningful as long as the sputtering
but still alive engine of Ciudad Juarez’s legal economy-low factory
wages-remains the motor of business. At last week’s El Paso conference,
University of Texas at El Paso Professor Kathy Staudt challenged factory
owners to raise wages.
Later, in an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Staudt said it was
unthinkable that El Paso-based professionals earn $5,000 or $6,000 a month
commuting to and working in foreign-owned plants while assembly line
workers for the same companies subsist on a couple hundred dollars
monthly.
“No human beings are so valuable or less valuable separated by a border
dividing line,” Staudt said. “Unfortunately, there are all too many
factories that are paying people 30 or 40 US dollars per week. It’s not
enough to live on. Poverty drives violence, low wages drive violence.
People need to start paying decent, living wages.”
For now, the violence only seems to be worsening.
Even by the standards of Ciudad Juarez, the week of August 13-20 was an
especially bloody one, according to numerous press accounts. As of early
Friday, August 20, at least 99 people were reported murdered in nearly
seven days. Young people were slaughtered at parties, in private homes and
on the streets. Other victims included Sergio Natividad, adviser to
Mayor-elect Murguia, and Ruben Reyes, political activist and brother of
the late human rights advocate Josefina Reyes, who was gunned down last
January.
The bullets were so thick that the journalists of El Diario newspaper did
not even have to leave their building for a story. Early on the evening of
August 17, a shoot-out between a pair of presumed delinquents and federal
police lodged at the Hotel Fiesta Inn across the street from El Diario’s
offices forced the publication’s staff to duck and cover. Bullets struck
El Diario’s building and damaged parked cars belonging to employees.
Perhaps by luck, no employees were injured, but three federal officers
were reported wounded.
The mother of slain Juarez Valley activist and baker Ruben Reyes,
76-year-old Sara Salazar, was quoted along with supporters in the local
press announcing a protest march, “The Walk against Death in Ciudad
Juarez.”
-Kent Paterson
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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