Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jan 2001
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Section: Metro Pg B-1, Bulldog Edition
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Author: Julie Watson, Associated Press

MENNONITES BATTLE DRUGS AS CULTURE ERODES

CUAUHTEMOC, MEXICO   Every evening, Mennonite families in the plains of 
northern  Mexico gather around their radios in their stark adobe farmhouses 
and tune into Blanca Peters'  community newscast.

The broadcast, in Low German sprinkled with Spanish, usually gives a 
thorough update of  Mennonite life in the area, detailing everything from 
how tall the corn has grown to who has  fallen sick and who has given birth.

But one weekend this fall, Peters left out one notable item: a police raid 
on two Mennonite  homes that netted crack cocaine and a 9mm pistol, shaking 
the foundations of this conservative  community as it faces an increasing 
culture of drug-dealing and addiction.

Six Mennonites  were arrested in the raid.

"Based on their own community's comments, we're sure there are a lot more 
crack houses than  just those two," says Cuauhtemoc's police chief, Enrique 
Villagran. "Their leaders are very  worried about this, given their 
traditions, customs and highly religious, moral lifestyle."

About 9,000 Mennonites moved from Canada to the desolate plains of 
Chihuahua state in 1922  to preserve a way of life rooted in working the 
land and cherishing family, God and tradition.  Mexico was the last stop on 
a long journey to uphold their beliefs to not fight in wars, which  took 
them from Germany to Russia to Canada.

In Mexico they kept to themselves for decades, living on remote "camps" 
with names like  Manitoba Colony and valuing a simple life, much like the 
Amish. Few speak Spanish. Many  resemble the overall-clad man and primly 
dressed woman of the "American Gothic" painting.

Only two decades ago they lived without electricity or cars, but now 
Mexico's 50,000  Mennonites are battling to keep the vices of modern 
society at bay as stores, pickup trucks and  John Deere tractors have 
seeped into their once-remote camps.

In the last decade, U.S. and Mexican authorities have arrested dozens of 
Mennonites for  drug-dealing and smuggling.

Drug dealers are recruiting members from within the Mennonite churches in 
northern Mexico,  according to the August issue of the Mennonite Brethren 
Herald, a local news bulletin.

"More than 100 Mennonites are in prison for drug-dealing, and that is only 
the tip of the  iceberg," Jacob Funk, a Mennonite minister from Canada who 
visited the area last March, told  the newspaper.

"The most common problems are drugs, alcohol and marital infidelity," Funk 
said. "There's a  real hunger for a message of hope."

A year ago, Mexican police for the first time started patrolling 56 
Mennonite camps at the  request of community leaders worried about crime, 
and plans are underway to open a drug rehabilitation center for the camps.

Local police believe a group of young Mennonites has hooked up with drug 
traffickers who  have long operated in northern Mexico and formed a 
"Mennonite Mafia" not only to sell drugs  in their community, but to 
smuggle them across the U.S. border.

U.S. Customs agents last year arrested three people with Germanic last 
names from  Cuauhtemoc. Each one was caught smuggling more than 100 pounds 
of marijuana into Texas.  All three are believed to be Mennonites, although 
Customs does not ask the religion of those they arrest.

Manuel Caracosa Alvarado, who runs a drug rehabilitation center in 
Cuauhtemoc, says he treats  an average of 100 Mennonites a year, many for 
addictions to hard drugs like powder cocaine,  crack cocaine and heroin.

Francisco Friessen checked himself into the center after he flipped over 
his tractor while drunk,  trapping himself beneath it.

"I know a lot of people in my camp who should be getting help for their 
alcohol or drug  addictions," says the shy man, wearing a shiny maroon silk 
shirt and purple jeans.

It used to be that by the time Mennonite boys could hold a pitchfork, they 
would work  alongside their fathers from dawn to dusk on prosperous farms, 
tending corn crops that  stretched to the starched blue horizon and 
churning out the Chihuahua cheese they developed, which is now a big part 
of the state's economy.

But a 10-year drought has left barely enough work for even the fathers. 
Many youths who do  not have more than a middle-school education and speak 
only the Mennonites' dialect of Low  German pass the time lying in the 
sun-drenched fields smoking cigarettes or sneaking off to  discos in nearby 
Cuauhtemoc. Dancing is still frowned upon by conservatives.

Other have left their protected communities in search of work in nearby 
cities or in the United  States and Canada, leaving them exposed to the 
influences that caused their grandparents to  flee to Mexico.

"Some have lost the faith," says minister Cornelio Peters, a father of 
seven. "We need more  land so the young can work alongside their parents 
and not be running around loose."

"Those who know the Bible know that evil continues to grow," Peters says. 
"These things will  continue growing until they end the world. There is a 
lack of faith in God. They need to stop  thinking about trafficking drugs, 
about taking drugs.

When we were young, there weren't these  influences."

The minister knows it's not easy to keep out change.

He and his wife adhere strictly to  traditional Mennonite dress, but his 
sons have swapped their overalls for Levis and T-shirts.

A year ago, a conservative faction of the community moved to the southern 
Mexican state of  Campeche to return to a life without electricity or cars, 
just as their grandfathers did when they  came to Mexico seven decades ago.

But Margarita Neufeld, 25, says her people can't run forever.

"A lot of Mennonites do not want to see reality," says Neufeld, whose short 
bobbed hair,  makeup and flared pants sharply contrast with her mother's 
cotton frocks and braided hair.

Neufeld, a clerk at a grocery store in the camps, wants to write a 
telenovela, as Mexico's  popular prime-time soap operas are known, about 
Mennonites.

"Maybe it will cause people here to face what's happening," Neufeld says. 
"A lot of young  people like to go out to the discos because there is no 
place to go to have fun in the camps.  There are drug addicts, lots of 
drug-dealing. People are marrying Mexicans, and if their parents  don't 
accept it, they leave."

Neufeld says her older brother is a recovering drug addict who married a 
non-Mennonite  Mexican woman and moved to nearby Cuauhtemoc.

"We are living in Mexico. We want to be Mexicans. A lot of young people 
don't want to live  apart anymore," she says. "We know what's out there, 
and we want to be a part of it."
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