Violence seemed to reach a peak and the city of Juarez was recording nearly 10 murders a day at the end of 2010. It was the most violent city in the world. But in 2012 two things occurred with the end of the 12 years of PAN control of the Mexican Presidency and the return of the PRI. First, violence abated. Second, public and private reporting was restrained. In some locales, social internet media was the sole means of reporting and warning to citizens.
This year, though, the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where Juarez is it’s largest city, has begun to see increases in violence. Here are two reports:
Ciudad Juárez trembles again
A Mexican security success story faces a new test
Oct 29th 2016 | From the print edition Economist
IN PUERTO DE LA PAZ, a settlement of hardscrabble houses and shacks in the western suburbs of Ciudad Juárez, a new three-storey community centre offers taekwondo, five-a-side football and classes in baking and giving beauty treatments. It is one of 49 such centres in poorer parts of this sprawling industrial city jammed against Mexico’s border with Texas. Intended to offer young people alternatives to organised crime, they are a sign of change in a place that became known as “the world’s most dangerous city”.
There are other changes. Restaurants and bars are full. “There are parts of the city that are heaving with nightlife where a few years ago you wouldn’t have seen a soul,” says Nohemi Almada, a lawyer and activist. The local economy is booming. Factories lining Juárez’s urban highways, making everything from car parts to wind turbines, sport job-vacancy signs.
Between 2008 and 2011 Juárez descended into hell. It felt the knock-on effects of the offensive against drug mobs launched by Mexico’s then-president, Felipe Calderón. “Here the war on drugs was a massacre,” says Ms Almada. “We all grew used to seeing bound corpses in the street.” A city of 1.4m people suffered more than 300 murders a month. Extortion, kidnapping and carjacking became endemic. The nadir came in January 2010, when gunmen slaughtered 15 students at a birthday party. A chastened Mr Calderón went to Juárez and promised help.
Nowadays the city is touted as a success story. Murders fell steeply, to 311 in the whole of 2015. Three things were behind the turnaround. First, the federal government poured money into the city. Some of it went into community centres, parks and sports centres. Another chunk transformed the local police, whose officers are now better educated, trained and paid, says a local official. The Chihuahua state government has set up a task force of detectives and prosecutors.
The second factor was community mobilisation. Representatives of business and professional associations formed a security round-table in 2010, which still meets. They have drawn up security indicators and hold the authorities accountable for meeting targets, pressing them to co-ordinate closely, says Arturo Valenzuela, a surgeon and member of the group.
The third factor has little to do with the government. The violence in Juárez surged when rivals battled the Sinaloa drug mob for control of the city, an important drug export route. Each side made alliances with youth gangs and elements in the security forces. Sinaloa appeared to win, ending the war.
Enrique Peña Nieto, who replaced Mr Calderón in 2012, has continued the effort in Juárez, but has tried only fitfully to reproduce its success elsewhere. Having initially played down security issues, Mr Peña now faces mounting alarm among Mexicans, who worry that half a dozen of the country’s states have become ungovernable because of organised crime, corruption and social conflicts. Such concerns prompted Mr Peña to replace the attorney-general this week.
After falling for the first two-and-a-half years of Mr Peña’s presidency, the national murder rate has risen sharply this year. Businesses complain of the mounting cost of extortion and highway robbery. Because of the weakness of government forces, armed vigilantes now operate in 20 states, according to Eduardo Guerrero, a security consultant. “Everything is very reactive, and there is a lack of foresight regarding the knock-on effects of interventions,” he says of government policy.
There is nervousness in Juárez, too, because of a rise in murders this year. Some blame the uncertainty among the criminal classes prompted by the election of a new state governor and new mayor, and the tensions between them. Others point to the recapture in January of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the head of the Sinaloa mob, who has escaped twice from prison. Awaiting extradition to the United States, he is being held in the turreted bulk of a federal prison in the Chihuahua desert, just outside Juárez. The government is taking no chances: a dozen army vehicles, some with guns mounted, guard the prison entrance.
Mr Guzmán’s arrest appears to have triggered a renewed battle for territory among rival drug gangs that may be behind the resurgence of violence. On average, half of murders are linked to organised crime, reckons Mr Guerrero. That bodes ill for Mexico. Juárez shows that a concerted political effort and community involvement can bring improvements, at least for a time. But across too much of the country, the basics of the rule of law—an effective police force and a capacity to prosecute crimes—are still missing.
Violence erupts in Juárez, Chihuahua City
Daniel Borunda , El Paso Times 9:28 p.m. MDT October 28, 2016
(Photo: Courtesy Juárez city government)
Seven people were shot and killed early Friday evening in Juárez as part of a wave of violence that has left about 20 people dead in Juárez and Chihuahua City since Thursday night, according to news accounts.
Three men were shot and killed in southeast Juárez followed by the fatal shootings of a man on a sidewalk near a supermarket, a man at a tire repair shop and the killing of two people in the Hacienda de Las Torres area, the Norte Digital newspaper website reported.
The shootings occurred within an hour of each other, Norte Digital reported.
In Chihuahua City, seven people were killed by a group of gunmen Thursday night in the Alfer motel on the Chihuahua City-Juárez highway, El Heraldo de Chihuahua reported.
Five people were reportedly killed in Juárez on Thursday.
Juárez has been hit by a rash of deadly street shootings this month that could be linked to a battle for control of crystal methamphetamine sales, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office said last week after five men were gunned down in a barbershop.
October has been the deadliest month in Juárez in the past four years.
— Daniel Borunda