New State Department report shows border city is now Mexico's bloodshed leader
The U.S. State Department recently updated its “Death of U.S. Citizens Abroad by Non-Natural Causes” report to include homicide figures for all of 2009.
The new figures change the picture for U.S. citizen homicides in Juarez, Mexico, as portrayed in a prior report by this writer.
That earlier report, “Tijuana: Gringo, this bullet is for you,” relied on State Department data current through the end of June 2009 (the most recent available at the time) — which showed the homicide count for U.S. citizens to be higher in Tijuana, Mexico, by most measures.
However, the second half of 2009 proved to be far more violent for U.S. citizens in Juarez than in Tijuana — a fact that might be of some interest given the recent murders of three individuals associated with the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, two of whom were U.S. citizens.
Media reports indicate that FBI investigators are leaning toward a theory that the slayings were a case of mistaken identity, and that's surely possible. But even assuming the individuals murdered were innocent victims, that doesn’t preclude the possiblity that they were mistaken for other U.S. consulate employees who are mixed up in the narco-business somehow (or whose family members are) and have become targets as a result. Narco News’ Bogotá Connection series shows such a scenario is not beyond the pale.
The fact that there was a surge in U.S. citizen murders in Juarez in the latter half of 2009, however, indicates only that the city (which notched 2,600 murder victims last year and more than 500 so far this year) is becoming an increasingly dangerous place for human beings in general — particularly those caught up in the narco-paramilitary war being waged there, or standing too close to it.
Over the final six months of last year, 16 U.S. citizens were murdered in Juarez, compared with seven over the first half of 2009. In Tijuana, that pattern was reversed, with six U.S. citizens murdered in the final six months of last year, compared with 12 over the course of the first six months of the year.
Between 2004 and the end of 2009, a total of 302 U.S. citizens were murdered in Mexico, the State Department figures show. A total of 136, or 45 percent, of those homicides occurred in 2008 and 2009 — the height of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s military build-up in the drug war.
Of the 302 homicides in Mexico involving U.S. citizens since 2004, according to the State Department data, a total of 103, or some 34 percent, occurred in Mexico’s Baja region — and 64 of those homicides took place in Tijuana.
By comparison, in Juarez, now the most violent city on the planet, over the same period, 50 U.S. citizens were murdered.
But Juarez, over the past two years — due, in large part, to a spike in U.S. citizen murders over the final six months of 2009 — has jumped ahead of Tijuana in the bloodshed count.
For the two-year period ended December 2009, a total of 39 U.S. citizens were slain in Juarez, according to the State Department report. Meanwhile, Tijuana notched 30 murders of U.S. citizens over the same period.
For the Baja as a whole over that period, the State Department figures show, 43 U.S. citizens were murdered, while in Chihuahua (which is the state where Juarez is located) the murder tally came in at 42.
It appears the scales are now tipping toward Juarez — and not the scales of justice.
Stay tuned ….
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The drug war has already metastasized
Submitted March 18, 2010 - 10:24 pm by Bill ConroyI feel a need to weigh in on the mainstream media's coverage of the murder of the U.S. Consulate worker and her husband in Juarez this past weekend — and the meme urging us to fear that the drug war might now spread across the border.
From a recent editorial in the Dallas Morning News:
So this is what we need to get our attention? Does it really take the shooting deaths of two Americans in Ciudad Juárez to jar President Barack Obama and official Washington into an urgent condemnation of a nation's violence?
... Perhaps the deaths of consulate employee Lesley Enriquez and her husband, Arthur Redfels, will drive home the news: This awful situation is just across a U.S. border, not an ocean away. It could spill over into Texas at any moment.
My personal opinion on media coverage, mainstream that is, probably is predictable. It's not that I think the murder of the consulate worker doesn't merit coverage; it does. For me, though, it's a matter of context and perspective, which is so often missing from mainstream coverage — due to various constraints that confine even the best reporters.
Every year, hundreds, if not thousands, of people are murdered within the U.S., including law enforcers and other government workers, as a consequence of the drug war. Just check the homicide stats in any major city for evidence of that.
So why is the murder of one U.S. official in Mexico due to the drug war that much more important?
The big media script, jumped on by politicians, is that the drug war might "spill over" or spread across the border into the U.S. People who talk like that are either purposely misleading us or have their heads so deep in the sand that they should not be in a position to lead anything.
Does it really matter on which side of the border the trigger was pulled, given that the drug war, by any measure, is international in scope, has been consuming lives in U.S. inner cities for years, and has never respected borders — Plan Colombia, Plan Merida, Kiki Camarena, the House of Death and Dark Alliance [Gary Webb]?
The death of the U.S. consulate employee in Mexico is tragic, but no less tragic than the next cop, or government worker, or high-school kid who pays the ultimate price inside the U.S. as a consequence of our lack of resolve in honestly addressing this great pretense we call the drug war.
But my two cents and a $5 bill will barely buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. (At least caffeine is legal, though, so you aren't likely to get capped while feeding the addiction.)