TRUTH IN POLITICS

A City Holding Its Breath
As I crossed into Juarez yesterday for the second time in a week, I could feel a difference in the air. It was like someone holding their breath waiting for something to happen. The tension in the air on February the 26th was palpable,  almost like and animal waiting in ambush for his prey to come just a little closer. I was beginning to think that maybe this was very foolish of me to be here, trying to run down leads to what the thinking of the drug cartels might be about the proposed Wilderness bill being pushed by Udall and Bingaman.

I had started this on Wednesday the 24th with a visit to very old and trusted friends, trying to get a few answers that would satisfy my curiosity, about what was the causation of the drug killings and how it might tie in to the proposed Wilderness bill SB 1689. For the second time in a week I was litterally putting my life in jeopardy.

The man I was to meet had agreed to talk to me about what was happening in Juarez, as long as I protected his identity. This man crosses the border regularly to work for a few days in the United States, doing odd jobs, and then returns to his family in Juarez and was amazed that I was the author of a blog, which he saw for the first time in my home. Before that he had no idea what a blog was or how far it reached.

The first time we met was in Las Cruces a few weeks ago, when he did some work for me and I asked if he lived nearby. When he told me he lived in Juarez, I felt a little sorry for him, because of all the violence in that city, but he told me he was leaving Juarez and going back to Monterey soon, which he  told me was his real home. He was becoming quite fearful for his wife and little boy because of their exposure to the dangers that were an every day occurrence in Juarez.

As he finished his work and I paid him for it, he left and I thought no more about it until I became interested in a possible correlation between much of the violence in Juarez and what might be a new Wilderness area created if the Uvas, Potrillo, Organ and Robledo Mountains that are in close proximity to Juarez. The first trip on Wednesday was a pleasant trip and one that strted with an idea about why so much voilence in a city that was acually closed off to trafficantes crossing the border. Everything was fine until I was back across the border and heard about the killing of the Deputy Chief of Police while taking his son to school. This shook me up a little, but was quickly filed in the back of my mind under miscelaneous junk.

As I crossed into Mexico today, the memory came back to haunt me, making me a lot more cautious than the previous crossing. At first I thought the tension was just a figment of my imagination, but as I proceeded to my rendezvous, I began to notice that there seemed to be no smiles, no lingering by children or grown people as they moved to their destinations, almost like they couldn’t wait to be off the streets and at thier destinations. I also noticed not as many people were out on the streets, except the venders near the Bridge of the Americas as I entered Juarez.

My appointment with my unnamed informer was at a small café, and he was waiting nervously by the time I arrived. I watched as his eyes continuously darted around him, then at the door and then out the window to the street. This nervousness began to make my skin crawl and I in turn became somewhat nervous about this meeting. I wanted to conclude my visit with the man in and began to think about kicking myself for not waiting to catch him in Las Cruces the next time he was there. We had a bite to eat, but by the time I had wolfed down my hamburger I was ready to ask my few questions and leave quickly.

General Feelings Hit Hard
My rendezvous with my acquaintance was short and to the point, which seemed to suit him just fine and it was perfectly all right with me as well. I asked how he felt about living in a city with so many killings each year and so much other violence, and he told me it was like living next to a live bomb that could explode any moment. His reason for leaving Juarez was the same reason thousands of others had already left. He said, it isn't that it was better for jobs in Monterey, but at least my family would stay alive."

According to the Mexican government more than 30,000 families have escaped the city of Juarez, with more leaving daily. When asked if he thought there was a way to stop the violence, he just shrugged his shoulders. His thoughts came a little after the shrug when he responded that “ the crime and violence is created by desperate people who cannot feed their families, find legitimate jobs, or provide for the needs of their families in any legal way, so they take the easy way and become slaves to the drug cartels. It is more money that most of them have ever seen in thier lives most, so they figure it wont’ have to last long and then they can go back to a normal life.”

“What they don’t realize is that there will never be a normal life for them any more. They will either wind up in prison,__and Mexican prisons are not very nice__for the rest of their lives, or dead on the streets. The Americans think it is because Juarez is so close to the border, but it is because it is the best place tfor the cartels to set up a headquarters along this sector of the border, since the Americans are helping them smuggle their drugs by creating these things they call Wilderness Areas.” If the politicians really wanted to end the war on drugs they would not make it so easy to get the drugs across the border.’

We talked on for about 20 minutes and my skin began to crawl up my spine as I watched him continue nervously glancing out the widow and at the door. When he had answered more of my questions about what he and his family would do in Monterey, he only answered that “I will try to feed my family and keep them safe. It will be harder, but it is the only way. To pay a coyote to carry my family across is very expensive and veery dangerous for us all and there is no way to keep under the detection of the Border Patrol in your country, unless you are experienced at it.”

“If they catch you and send you back into Mexico, you have lost from $2,000 to $4,000 dollars you paid to the coyotes and maybe spend a month in a jail before you get back to your home country. It is a no win situation, for a poor man like me. I have lived most of my life in Juarez, and acquired a legal way to cross the border for work many years back, but even that is becoming more dangerous. I have been approached by the drug dealers twice, to smuggle drugs across the border, but have been able to refuse. I am afraid the next time I will be forced to what they tell me, or possibly get killed.”

He advised me to stop trying to get information about the cartels and what they were up to and go home to the United States. “If you keep asking questions, sooner or later you will be noticed by someone in one of the cartels and you might not get home.” With this warning, I thought about it and realized how foolish I was to be here in this place.

I paid the check and my acquaintance left to go his way and I made a beeline for the border. Luckily it was early enough still that the lines at the border were not too long at the old bridge, so it only took me about 30 minutes to pass the inspection station. That was probably the longest waiting time I ever had, to cross the border.

I kept seeing potential killers sneaking up on me, vendors who might not be vendors, pedestrians who might not be pedestrians, police who may work for the cartels, etc. By the time I was on the American side, the back of my shirt was wet with the sweat of fear and I was shaking all over. All this fear  I had aquired  while talking to my acquaintance.

I had become so paranoid I had even begun to suspect him as well. Maybe he was setting me up by pretending to be my friend. The only saving grace for that meeting was that I had seen the deep-seated fear in his eyes and knew it was real. I lived in that type of fear for a while, many years ago when I was young and bulletproof.

We do not know how much we have in this country, until we are close to or think we may lose it. What is going on in Juarez is creeping across the border, little by little, just as fungus will continue to grow in dark areas. We are not at the point we have to live in the abject fear this man does, but we are only a short ways from it. The final blow will come with the passage of SB 1689, when it will come roaring at us like an out of control freight train.