By Eric Martin
Visitors who drive down the winding dirt
road to the Mexican village of Nuevo Balsas are met by
fishermen, farmers and teenage boys brandishing rifles.
Most of the time, they’re the only law enforcement to be
seen, according to locals.
A deputy commander of the militia, who identified himself
as David out of concern for his security, said they were forced
to take up arms to defend their families from robberies and rape
by drug cartels. In early February, 13 people were kidnapped
from near Nuevo Balsas. They included two contractors for Torex
Gold Resources Inc. and one direct employee of the company,
which is building a mine in the area. On Friday, four more mine
workers, this time from Goldcorp Inc., went missing nearby in
another apparent kidnapping, according to authorities.
This is rural Guerrero state, where 43 college students
were massacred by heroin traffickers working with local police
and a mayor in September, according to a federal investigation.
The national government arrested 100 suspects over the slaying
and took control of security in the area, making it a test case
for President Enrique Pena Nieto’s goal of reimposing order on a
country riven by drug violence.
“We haven’t seen an improvement in security,” David, who
several militia members deferred to as their leader, said in a
Feb. 9 interview. “We’ve asked the federal government for
permanent help, but the violence here continues. We want the
world to know that the problems in Guerrero are bigger than 43
people.”
Failure to bring the situation under control in Guerrero
could signal challenges for providing the security needed for
economic growth and development of the energy industry in states
like Tamaulipas and Veracruz, other areas where criminal gangs
are active.
Spurring Development
Mexico is seeking to attract foreign investment to reverse
a decade of declining crude output, and analysts surveyed by the
central bank consistently rank public security problems as the
top obstacle to economic growth. Pena Nieto in a December speech
promised to spur development in Guerrero, saying Mexico can’t be
a country where some areas are immersed in globalization while
other regions are mired in poverty and violence.
Nuevo Balsas sits in the mountains of Guerrero about 250
kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Mexico City. About 50
kilometers up the road that eventually leads to the nation’s
capital is Iguala, where the students were kidnapped five months
ago.
Heroin Center
Residents say the city of about 140,000 remains plagued by
violent crime, with 14 people slain in a three-day period at the
end of February, according to Mexico City-based newspaper El
Universal.
Guerrero is a center of heroin and marijuana production and
home to drug cartels including the Guerreros Unidos and Los
Rojos. Like other gangs in Mexico, they are diversifying into
extortion and kidnapping after the government under then-President Felipe Calderon stepped up efforts to combat drug
trafficking starting in 2006 and cracked down on the biggest
cartels, causing splintering and more violence among rival
groups.
Guerrero had Mexico’s highest homicide rate at 63 per
100,000 people in 2013, the most recent year for which the data
is available, according to statistics agency Inegi. The state is
Mexico’s poorest after Chiapas, with gross domestic product per
capita of about 65,000 pesos ($4,200), according to research
last year by Citigroup Inc.’s Banamex unit.
‘Long Neglected’
“This is a state that has long festered, long been
neglected,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution in Washington. “There’s a broad sense
within Mexico that Guerrero is on its own in the wilderness.”
After the student massacre, Pena Nieto pledged to take
steps to make sure that such a crime was never repeated.
A Pena Nieto administration official, speaking on the
condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing security operations,
said the government recognizes that the strategy of sending more
forces hasn’t had much immediate effect. Pena Nieto didn’t
expect decades-old security problems to be solved in a matter of
months, and Guerrero needs stronger state and local institutions
to partner with the federal government, the official said.
The increased federal presence in Guerrero includes members
of the army, federal police, navy and the Center for Research
and National Security, a Mexican intelligence agency controlled
by the Interior Ministry, the official said. He declined to say
how many troops or officers are involved and said making that
information public could help the criminals.
Economic Opportunity
A person familiar with federal police operations, who also
asked not to be named, said 1,200 officers are deployed in
Guerrero. The Defense Ministry didn’t respond to an e-mail
requesting information on how many troops are in the region.
Pena Nieto has said creating economic opportunity in
Guerrero will be an important part of improving security. That
won’t be easy.
Workers building a mine for Toronto-based Torex, one of the
few foreign companies and biggest employers operating in this
part of Guerrero, were victims of the latest mass kidnapping.
About 300 people work directly for Torex at the mine site and
1,600 more work for contractors, according to the company.
After the militia drove the drug gangs out of the area near
the mine in 2013, the gangs returned this year. Hours after the
Feb. 6 kidnapping of the people, some from the road between
Nuevo Balsas and the town of Cocula and others from a nearby
fishing site, one victim was released and sent back to the
village with a message: the narcos were back, and they wanted
their cut from the mine profits, David said.
Victims Freed
Ten more of the victims were freed within two days by
federal police working with the militia and the army. The final
two victims, including the Torex employee, were held hostage for
two weeks and freed only after their families paid ransoms that
the community helped them raise, according to David.
David said he also once worked for a Torex contractor. Now,
like many in the village who don’t work at the mine, he lives
off the community’s fishing and subsistence farming, which
includes raising chickens and pigs and growing corn.
Torex is working with the government and the community on
an agreement to increase the presence of official security
forces in the region, said Fred Stanford, Torex’s chief
executive officer.
‘Particularly Vulnerable’
“All of the people were recovered, but during that process
the community felt particularly vulnerable,” Stanford, who
visited Nuevo Balsas at the end of last month, said in a phone
interview. “What they’re uncertain of moving forward is if
they’ll be left exposed again. If we get a permanent force in
there, it will be better for the community.”
Torex has its own private security force that protects
workers on the grounds of the mining project, Stanford said.
The four missing Goldcorp workers disappeared from the
municipality of Eduardo Neri, which borders Cocula, and
authorities are working to locate them, the Guerrero attorney
general’s office said in a statement on its website on Friday.
They appear to have been kidnapped after finishing their work
for the week and leaving for their homes, according to the
statement. Goldcorp, which owns the Los Filos mine in the area,
declined to comment.
The federal police and army visit Nuevo Balsas during a
crisis, but they don’t maintain the kind of permanent presence
that could prevent attacks, David said.
“To the extent that forces are just parachuted in or out,
they won’t become effective actors, they won’t instill a sense
of security or motivate people to cooperate with them,” Felbab-Brown said. “I don’t think we have signs yet that the
government’s strategy is working.”
Gold Banner
The road from Nuevo Balsas to Cocula, about 35 kilometers
away in the direction of Iguala, stretches along hairpin turns
through the mountains. At one point it reaches a ridge where
locals say kidnappers have hidden in wait for victims. The
journey is considered so dangerous that residents don’t drive it
after sundown, and vehicles leaving for Cocula in the days after
the kidnapping traveled by caravan.
In Cocula’s center, across from the plaza and gazebo that
serve as the focal point of life in the small town, a shining
gold banner hangs against an outside wall of the federal police
station, proclaiming the presence of an elite police unit, the
gendarmerie, launched by Pena Nieto last year. An officer stands
guard at the front as police come and go.
Down the street, a woman who owns a general store that
sells soda and chips, including to Torex workers, said that even
with the officers there she closes up at 5 p.m., instead of 7
p.m. before the Iguala massacre, out of fear for what could
happen once darkness falls. She asked not to be identified by
name out of concern for her safety.
Alleged Corruption
Pena Nieto’s efforts to restore law and order in Guerrero
have succeeded in uncovering alleged corruption in local and
state government.
The mayor of Iguala, the municipality neighboring Cocula
where the students went missing, was arrested along with his
wife in November after a month on the run. The government says
they were working with the Guerreros Unidos gang responsible for
the massacre.
Federal prosecutors last month also arrested the brother of
former Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre, who took a leave of
absence in October after the students disappeared. Carlos
Aguirre and former state officials are accused of
misappropriating 287 million pesos ($18.5 million) from
government agencies.
“In order for the security strategy to work, you need a
partner, and the partner should be the local government,” said
Alejandro Schtulmann, president and head of research at Mexico
City-based political risk consulting firm EMPRA. “In Guerrero,
that’s the main obstacle to progress.”
No Presence
In Iguala, where in early November hotels were filled with
police and investigators during their search for the students,
the presence of federal forces has tumbled, said Taurino
Castrejon Salgado, a local lawyer and activist. A visit on Feb.
9 to the town square once patrolled by soldiers with machine
guns found no obvious security presence.
Castrejon, speaking by phone three blocks from the town
square, abruptly asked to hang up and continue the conversation
later, saying he had stumbled upon a crime scene that included
police standing over a body in a pool of blood.
“The security situation is as bad or worse than it was
before the students disappeared,” Castrejon said. “We don’t
see federal police like in the weeks after the disappearance.
People don’t feel any more safe.”
armed guards escort miners on mining company property |
My family is from a part of guerrero where the local thugs use the town hall for rent which they fail to pay for put on a town dance sell all the alcohol which they fail to pay for to and they keep alll the money.....but the people are to scared to pick up arms
ReplyDeleteWhat pendejo rents the dance hall and supplies the alcohol on a downpayment of promises?
DeleteLet alone investing on a risky dance hall in a risky area...
--remember, promises of marriage at a later time, after you surrender your virtue, are wortless, but what the hell, when you are horny, WHO CARES?
A state that only sponsors state authorized Autodefensas, may allow foreign mining corporations that pay mimum to no taxes and mostly kickbacks to have their own paid Guardias Blancas, (private security).
ReplyDelete--We are supposed to believe the state tolerates that the people rises by themselves to defend the foreign mineras?
--the abarcas murdering style full of piggy shit does not match the Buffalo bill style of corralling buffalo or indians of the mexican army and police that persecuted and corralled the ayotzinapos in iguala...
--emilio chuayffet chemor, the butcher of Acteal/Chenalhó
--enrique pena nieto, the butcher of Atenco
--the butchers of Tlatlaya, the mexican army, butchers of a thousand massacres...
--the butcher of El Charco/Aguas Blancas
--butcher el asesino invisible, ernesto zedillo
They know who did the ayotzinapos wrong, let's not fool ourselves blaming piggy gangsters like la pareja imperial,#fueelgobierno.
The mining company has to pay their taxes to the cartels and Im sure gov officials get a cut [for personal enrichment] rather than pay taxes to the treasury.
DeleteWith so much crime, I keep forgetting how beautiful the mountainous & hilly areas are. Even some of the rural areas too. God does indeed shine his light on the wicked as well as the good.
ReplyDeleteMathew 5:45
When the military has to escort workers to and from the job, I think all out civil war is creeping closer.
ReplyDelete>> Federal prosecutors last month also arrested the brother of former Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre, who took a leave of absence in October after the students disappeared. Carlos Aguirre and former state officials are accused of misappropriating 287 million pesos ($18.5 million) from government agencies.
ReplyDeleteThats 287 M Pesos stolen out of the economy of a poor missmanaged state. How many families could they had put to work with it
What about former governor Angelo Aguirre and cronies. How many
'Volunteer' AutoDefensas are guarding the miners and the company, the army only gets involved to rescue the self kidnapped to get some sympathy from the mexicans they have murdered and victimized for so long, and in true televisa fashion, the army never catches anybody, not red handed, and never catches a friend!!!
ReplyDelete