CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

         

Last Sunday, we returned from a month-long sabbatical up north. We came back to the warm embraces from friends and the perfect weather of San Miguel at this time of the year.

Heartbreakingly, we also returned to grisly reports of a massacre of diabolical proportions. Forty-three students from a rural college which helps impoverished young people become teachers disappeared on September 26. A few days later a mass grave was discovered holding 28 semi-burned bodies, which authorities say are not the remains of any of the missing students. 

This tragedy happened in the town of Iguala, in the nearby state of Guerrero, barely a five-hour drive from San Miguel, and just two from Mexico City. Local politicians and police officers allied with the drug cartels are blamed for the atrocity.

This latest massacre followed the executions of 22 young people in Tlatlaya, in the State of Mexico, in June. Eight army personnel are now under indictment for those crimes.

The monsters who commit such atrocities, tragically, are becoming the public face of Mexico, especially to Americans and Canadians considering vacationing, living, or doing business here, and are now thinking twice about it.  

My words, I understand, will anger many of our neighbors and friends.  

Thousands of foreigners have chosen to make our lives here, and many of us reside here year-round. We like this Spanish colonial city for its weather, culture, scenery, and easy-going ways. We have bought homes or run businesses here. Some of us are raising families.  We run NGOs and U.S.-based philanthropic organizations like Rotary and Lions. Though tireless efforts, many of us want to help make things better for the Mexican people.

So, news of these most recent murders was unwelcome.

A lot of expatriates don’t like to talk about the executions or the kidnappings or the fear that has become a daily reality for millions of Mexicans.  It’s easy to ignore or deny that such ghastly, violent acts may soon threaten our peaceful existence in this picture-postcard city in central Mexico. 

True enough, the violence can seem so far away from sunny, clubby San Miguel. The Mexican natives here are so friendly. The weather is perfect. The air is crystal-clear. The scenery is exquisite. Each week there is a multiplicity of events that celebrate high culture, world arts and music, foods, history, etc. We tell ourselves we’re safe from the drug wars and police corruption in our little pocket of peace and tranquility.

I’ve heard the arguments against making generalizations about how these violent attacks on civilians in other areas of Mexico are likely to affect that peace and tranquility.  

But let’s be honest. One only has to view the map of drug cartel strongholds recently published in The New York Times to start feeling jittery. At first blush, San Miguel and the Central Highlands stand out as an ostensible neutral zone between the pincers of great swaths of territory controlled by major rival drug gangs. These blood-tinged areas crush Mexico City and its environs and extend northward to the U.S.-Mexico border, from Cuidad Juarez to Matamoras. It’s not a pretty picture.  You have to wonder how long before the pincers will start closing down on us.

It may not be too much longer.

Last week, Hector Beltran Leyva, one of the most notorious Mexican drug lords still at large, was captured by soldiers at Mario's Seafood Restaurant in the San Antonio neighborhood of San Miguel, ironically one of the most popular areas for American and Canadian retirees residing here. Beltran Leyva and an associate were carrying military-issue handguns, but fortunately he was arrested without a shot being fired. 

While many local expats believe this is an isolated incident, it’s hard to ignore.

It’s also hard to ignore how the local weekly bilingual newspaper, Atencion, consistently under-reports crime statistics in our city. One brave American man, a multiple crime victim himself, has come under intense (verbal) fire for his outspokenness in questioning the official crime reports which the newspaper blithely runs. One way to look at it is that people are pissed off at him for drawing attention to reality.

When Mexican President Pena Nieto took office two years ago, he pledged to end a wave of violence that has killed about 100,000 people since 2007. To his credit, the national homicide rate has declined, but instances of kidnappings and extortion are up and the involvement of police in violence in such towns as Iguala has showcased the widespread corruption inside Mexico's security forces.

In San Miguel, similar trends have emerged. Instances of certain crimes are rising: Muggings. Burglaries. Robberies. Stabbings. Rapes. Kidnappings and extortion.  In many poorer neighborhoods surrounding San Miguel’s central historical district, it isn’t safe to walk the streets at night. And even in the well-protected so-called Centro Historico, you may be more vulnerable than you think. Last month the kindly lady from Atlanta house sitting for us while we were away was robbed by a taxi driver at 10 p.m., right in front of our house.

This overt criminality was never present before. Those of us who have been visiting for decades never felt such a high level of threat to our personal safety. No one is immune, and the ugly truth is leaking northward.

People involved in NGOs and American- and Canadian-run philanthropic groups are all whispering about how the “rich Texans” who traditionally form the bedrock of tourism and the “snowbird” economy in San Miguel just aren’t coming this year. Housing prices are falling dramatically. A lot of property remains unsold, and yet the developers keep pitching new exclusive housing developments. Who might be buying these new luxury properties, I wonder?

Many residents are still uncomfortable asking such questions or acknowledging the cold reality.

For sure, it’s a complicated matter, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. Some people blame the U.S. and its war on drugs for the appalling increase in human-rights abuses in Mexico. A few local boosters even claim it’s a deliberate plot by the U.S. government and media to discourage Americans from diverting revenues into Mexican tourism, commercial ventures, and real estate. Some say the local crime statistics are overblown and San Miguel is as safe as the mythical small town of Mayberry.  

It’s probably true that not only has the drug war made the already-lucrative drug trade more violent by increasing competition among the cartels. It also has established a network of state-crime alliances that can – and are – being used for political purposes.

The collusion of government and organized crime is so accepted in Mexico that it forms part of the structure and operations of both in many parts of the country. Many of the coastal cities are under near-complete cartel control, albeit underground and out of sight. And the lack of justice for crimes committed by members of this alliance is nothing new. Still, rarely have so-called public servants so openly attacked civilians as in the past couple of years.

The problem with this blatant corruption and violence is that they create a malodourous atmosphere everywhere. Stink of evil tends to spread and taint all life.  The stench weakens the very fabric of decency present in law-abiding societies.  And no one is immune from its effects.

Some people are choosing to take action.

To draw public support against the violence that has touched their lives, the parents of the missing students in Iguala have been holding vigil at a courtyard at the school. Thousands marched through the Mexican capital last Wednesday to demand the government find out what happened to the dozens of missing students. In Guerrero's capital of Chilpancingo, thousands more marched, blocking the highway that leads from Mexico City to the beach resort of Acapulco, another drug cartel stronghold.

A local group, Sanmiguelenses Unidos (Sanmiguelenses United), holds regular peace marches and sponsors neighborhood watches and information sharing to help raise people’s consciousness about the encroaching violence, particularly in the outlying colonias.

They’re making a good point, and hopefully making a difference. The longer we keep denying reality--these egregious crimes against humanity, the Mexican people we purport to love, respect, and support with our sympathies and dollars—the worse the problem will become.

The question is: How much worse can it get?  It’s time for us to stop living on cheerful platitudes and inanely believing that the so-far distant drug wars and police corruption won’t eventually consume us here in San Miguel.

For those of us who love this beautiful city and its people and want to do something to help improve their lives, who adore the Mexican culture and heritage, and who have been visiting this charming city for more 30 years and have witnessed the encroaching danger as one views an approaching tsunami, it truly is the saddest story ever told. 

© 2014 Tony DeCrosta

Contact me at adecrosta@gmail.com