I appreciate that the arrests of certain drug lords appear in the paper and that Anderson Cooper likes to take a field trip to every newly discovered tunnel that was used to smuggle drugs from Mexico into the U.S. but there's just so much more going on down there that isn't being discussed.
Violence by the drug cartels isn't new. It's not something that started up last year or even five years ago. But at least back then you knew that if you were smart and steered clear of the violence and the drugs, there was no need to fear for your life. Unfortunately for the Mexican people, that no longer holds true. Now any owner of even the smallest business runs the risk of being approached by a member of a drug cartel demanding payment. You paid or you were killed. It was that simple. Actually, that's not new either but it appears to be happening more often.
Eventually, my grandfather had to stop taking his truck to Mexico because a nice truck like that would surely get taken away. While they felt relatively safe taking my grandmother's car, they made sure to take certain precautions. I noticed that on her rear-view window she had a window decal of a local cafe. It was the very same decal that my uncle had on his car. I didn't find it particularly strange but out of curiosity I asked my mother about it. "They were told to stick them on their cars so that when they go into Rio Bravo the narcos know they're going to the cafe," she said. Outsiders are watched very closely from the moment that they enter into their territory.
With such fear plaguing people who visit Mexico, I can't imagine what the locals must be going through. There are towns in which the people are too scared to even honk their car horns because honking at the wrong person will likely result in your murder. In one case, a woman instinctively honked at a driver in front of her when he refused to move at a green light. She immediately realized her mistake. The man got out of his car and walked towards her window. "I'm in a good mood," he told her, "so I'll let you live."
These men have already taken over entire towns and villages. Placing these guys in jail isn't likely to stop the violence when there are corrupt prison guards who unleash them at night to murder their enemies. With so much corruption and violence I can't blame the Mexican people for wanting to cross into U.S. soil. But that doesn't help either because now the people smuggling them across (aka the coyotes) are members of the drug cartels and once they get those people across, they'll hold them captive. Who knows what they do to them.
But that's the problem isn't it? People not knowing and people not wanting to know. People are decapitated or hung from bridges everyday but no one on this side hears of it unless it happens to a U.S. citizen or an ICE agent. Egypt's uprising was a noteworthy event, to say the least, but why can't our southern neighbors receive half the attention they did? Is fear driving our ignorance? Whatever the reason is, we better start paying attention soon because whether you want to believe it or not, that violence has already reached this side of the river.
For coverage of what's going on in Mexico, visit http://www.blogdelnarco.com/
