Pubdate: Sat, 18 Jun 2011
Source: Latin American Herald-Tribune (Venezuela)
Copyright: 2011 Latin American Herald-Tribune
Contact: http://www.laht.com/Contacts.asp
Website: http://www.laht.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5047
Author: Alberto Cabezas
Note: Winner of the 2010 Ortega y Gasset Digital Journalism Prize, 
Torrea will receive a 2011 BOBs (Best of the Blogs)-Reporters without 
Borders award in Bonn, Germany, next week before traveling to Malaga, 
Spain, for a meeting of the Cyber Volunteers Foundation from June 28-29. EFE

REPORTER SLAMS AUTHORITIES OVER MEXICAN CITY'S DRUG-GANG VIOLENCE

MEXICO CITY   Spanish journalist Judith Torrea accused Mexican 
authorities of an enormous lack of "vision and analysis" in dealing 
with Ciudad Juarez's rampant drug-related violence, which she said is 
even more horrific than the hundreds of killings of women in that 
border city dating back to the 1990s.

"The death toll is falling, (now standing at) five per day, which is 
still a lot, but it's not 20. They say we're doing very well, but I 
say 'very well in what sense?'" Torrea told Efe Thursday.

The journalist recently presented her latest book in this 
capital   "Juarez en la sombra: Cronicas de una ciudad que se resiste 
a morir" (Juarez in the Shadows: Chronicles of a City that Refuses to 
Die), published in 2011 by Aguilar.

Some 9,000 people have been killed in recent years in Juarez, which 
has been wracked by a brutal turf war pitting the Sinaloa and Juarez 
drug cartels with backing from hit men from local street gangs.

A total of 15,270 people died in drug-related violence nationwide in 
Mexico in 2010, the deadliest in the current government's 
four-and-a-half-year war on the cartels.

The Spanish journalist, who has lived in Juarez for the past two 
years, said her sense is that "structural problems" remain in the 
city, regarded as Mexico's murder capital.

"For the poorest, drug trafficking offers them a chance to work, 
something authorities have either been unable or unwilling to 
provide," Torrea, who also has a blog located online at 
http://juarezenlasombra.blogspot.com, said.

The journalist, who has covered that hardscrabble border city across 
from El Paso, Texas, for 14 years, said all levels of Mexican 
government consider Juarez's problem to be one of perception and 
regard the deaths as "not that important" because the bloodletting is 
among criminal gangs.

"I think it's a lack of vision and analysis, just as happened with 
the 'femicides' (beginning) 18 years ago." she said, referring to the 
killings of female adolescents and young women, many of them factory workers.

Most of the cases remain unsolved.

The horror of all these years of violence against women and the 
impunity surrounding those crimes has been taken to another level 
"with the so-called 'war on drug trafficking,'" the journalist said, 
referring to the deployment of thousands of federal forces to Juarez 
to crack down on the cartels.

Mexican soldiers failed to stem the violence in the border city   a 
coveted drug smuggling corridor   and came under criticism for rights 
abuses before being replaced last year by thousands of Federal Police.

"Before, there was danger for women ... Now it's generalized, it's 
for the entire society. That's the worst thing of all," Torrea added.

"Over the years, the impunity, the creation of ineffective government 
commissions that really haven't helped at all ... created due to 
societal pressure, not out of desire to solve the problem, what they 
did was make the femicides and disappearances skyrocket," she said.

Torrea dismisses those who try to draw conclusions about the 
situation in Juarez based primarily on fluctuations in the daily homicide rate.

"The deaths are falling and they're going to fall because this war 
between the cartels is going to end soon, because a lot of money's 
also being lost," she said.

But "we have to ask ourselves, more than 9,000 deaths in Ciudad 
Juarez (since December 2006, when current President Felipe Calderon 
took office) and what for? ... And we have to wonder about the social 
consequences" and the thousands of victims of the violence.

According to the blogger, violence in its different forms   low 
salaries, corruption, extortion, kidnappings and murders   is 
spreading to other Mexican cities such as Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo, 
although due to its special conditions these problems are "much more 
acute" in Ciudad Juarez.

Referring to the recently concluded peace march to Juarez led by poet 
Javier Sicilia to demand justice for victims and a change in the 
government's strategy against organized crime, she said it could be 
"a fantastic opportunity to unite Mexico."

Sicilia launched his anti-violence movement after his son was 
murdered earlier this year in the central state of Morelos by 
suspected drug-gang members.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom