Inseguridad in Mexico

You will have gathered from the earlier bulletins that there is much to admire about Mexico and its people. In the 40 or so years since I lived there as a student, Mexico has changed for the better in many ways. Discrimination (on grounds of race, religion, sex and “for any other reason") has been banned by law and same sex marriage is legal (although not easy to negotiate in some conservative parts of the country). The single party system of the PRI, a sort of managed quasi-democracy/autocracy, has been replaced by a multi-party system that tolerates even independent candidates. Road transportation has improved considerably and cities and the larger towns are linked by modern highways. The economy is much more modern, although much remains to be done to address poverty and lack of opportunities.

However, on our way back to Zamora from a visit to Paricutín we drove through the valley of Nurío, whose wonderful church and huatapera I mentioned in the previous bulletin. As we approached town we were stopped at a retén (a roadblock) manned by the Ronda Comunitaria ("Community Patrol"): men carrying large firearms with a pick-up truck bearing the logo of the patrol. The driver of our mini-van was questioned and we were waved on. The same thing happened as we left town. The patrol had a good reason to check approaching vehicles: four days earlier four armed men in a pick-up truck had entered Nurío. The locals resisted their presence and in the resulting shoot-out four people died.

It is impossible to finish my bulletins without reference to a topic which we discussed with most of the people we met: la inseguridad ("lack of public safety"). Now, Mexico has never been an entirely safe place. In the 1970s I was aware of violence, official and criminal, but never felt threatened, nor did friends frequently mention security concerns. And it is just as well to remember that to Mexico’s north lies the world’s richest country where gun violence is a constant threat. But Mexico in 2018 is very different from the 1970s.

La inseguridad affects peoples’ lives in different ways, but it affects almost everybody. The most severe case we encountered involved a family that lived in a house in the country just outside Zamora. Michoacán had a particularly bad time several years ago when a criminal gang that called itself the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) controlled large parts of the state. One evening the mother of the family was driving home and was kidnapped by the Caballeros Templarios, who mistook her for their intended target. The hostage takers investigated, discovered their mistake, and released their victim. The family promptly moved from Zamora to a gated community in Morelia.

About two weeks after we arrived in Zamora, the police arrested a leader of a local crime gang. There is a standard response to the arrest of gang leaders: the narcobloqueo ("narco-blockade"). This usually involves blocking important roads with burning vehicles. On this occasion, the response was a variation on the theme: pairs of men on motorbikes or scooters fire-bombed some local businesses. One was our mini-supermarket, where the staff extinguished the flames without anybody being harmed. We were blissfully unaware of these events until a friend informed us. However, we frequently encountered our neighbour don Pepe reading the local newspaper: he would often comment “another murder”, in the remote neighbourhoods where the poorest lived. Disputes concerning territory for criminal activities would result in the death of a petty member of one of the organized crime groups.

In a smaller town in the hills near the border with the state of Jalisco, one person we met told us that the main drug cartel had set up a group of enforcers to keep its competitors out of the region. The leader of this group was his nephew. When a dead body is found, the local police chief contacts the nephew to find out whether the deceased is a member of the cartel’s local group. If so, the police do not investigate, but leave the matter to the cartel. If not, then the police investigate.

Other effects of la inseguridad are less dramatic. The Colegio de Michoacán has a prestigious anthropology department whose students carry out fieldwork in Zamora and nearby communities. The department now vets very carefully the communities where students do their fieldwork to minimize risk. Nevertheless, one professor in the department struck me as being exceptionally brave: she researches gender violence in the Tierra Caliente (literally, hot land) of the state of Guerrero, Michoacán’s eastern neighbour. This is an exceptionally lawless region. When the professor started her work, she would simply travel to the communities she studies. Now she contacts friends in the region to check whether there are any serious problems before she leaves. On the other hand, I met another professor in Morelia whose father owns a small farm in the same region of Guerrero. Because of threats, the father has abandoned his farm to live with his son in Michoacán.

At another level, everybody thinks carefully about travel and takes steps to minimize risk. A man in a small village in the hills told us that there has been no trouble in the village, but that the surrounding countryside is not safe and therefore villagers do not leave town after dark. I spoke to a shopkeeper whose son studies in Saltillo in northern Mexico. The family does not visit their son because they consider the journey too dangerous. A young student from Zacatecas told me that she was nervous about driving home to visit her family because the road is risky. An American neighbour sold the car he used to drive home to Houston because flying is much safer. We were advised to travel by day and to use first class buses, which make few stops and use main highways. We also checked with colleagues in the Colegio before making any trips to ensure that we would be safe. In some cases, we were advised to make sure friends knew where we were going and to ensure we had our mobile phones with us in case of trouble. In other cases, we were advised not to go.

In the 1970s I visited a doctor concerning a minor ailment. I mentioned to him that I was researching the Revolution in Guerrero. He called my landlady to insist that she stop me going to the state. There were parts of the state where I dare not go: the guerrillas and the army were both threats to my safety. Nevertheless, I was able to travel to most regions of Guerrero. I would not travel there now. The question is why things in parts of Mexico are so bad.

One explanation is that Ronald Reagan and Oliver North used the planes of Mexican drug barons to carry illegal arms to pro-American terrorist groups in Nicaragua in the 1980s. As part of the deal, the return flights were able to carry drugs to Mexico. Most of the guns used by the cartels are acquired easily in the USA (Mexico has quite strict gun laws) where they can buy guns as easily as chewing gum.