29 Homicides in Juárez this Past Weekend:  166 in July So Far

(From La Opcion Cd. Juárez:  click here:  Twenty nine new homicides this weekend brings the total this month to 166, just 13 shy of the June totals, with two days to go in July. 

June brought 179 homicides to Juárez. the highest monthy body count so far this year.  Mexico as a whole is undergoing a surge in drug-related violence this year, which is on schedule as breaking the record for homicides.  In the past decade, Chihuahua state has been the most violent state in Mexico.  Diario de Juarez simply ignores many drug-related homicides, reporting only sporadically on specific cases.

Coming Up:  Why is Drug-related Homicide in Mexico so High?   What is happening?

More Homicides in Juárez

**Assassins killed two men, severed their heads, placed them in black garbage bags, wrapped the remaining parts of the bodies in gray blankets, and left them in the middle of a street in Barrio Alto.  the body parts were found when a woman left home for work and saw the bodies.  A narco-message suggesting betrayal was left at the scene.

**A man was executed in front of his store near the old racetrack, on Florida, just around the corner from Vicente Guerrero.  He was getting out of his Ford F150 when two gunmen approached and shot him in the head.

**Two men seeking to cross illegally from Valle de Juárez to the US side found the body of a man, apparently strangled to death, wrapped in two blankets.  They alerted police and then, presumably, crossed to the US side.

**A woman driving to her gym smelled something rotting as she passed by a gray Nissan Altima in Southeast Juarez.  She alerted police, who found a man "encajuelado" ("trunked"--stuffed into the trunk of a car, a fairly common form of body disposal in the narco world of Mexico)

Trump Sends President-elect Lopez Obrador a Letter

President Trump responded to a letter sent two weeks ago by President-elect AMLO, asking the president-elect for a rapid renegotiation of the NAFTA treaties, and mutual work on immigration issues.

Letter reproduced in Diario de Juarez, July 25, 2018

Juárez Body Count So Far This Year is 663

With 127 homicides in Juárez so far in July (as of Wednesday July 25), the body count this month will be the second highest  June so far is the highest, with 179.  The count in May was 124.

The latest victim appeared to be a man about 30 years old who suffered two gunshot wounds to the head.  His body was left on the shoulder of the highway to Chihuahua this morning. 

So far seven of the victims were decapitated and dismembered, their bodies quartered into pieces and placed into black plastic garbage bags.  Five children between the ages of 5 and 12 were among the victims.

On Saturday two human heads were left in Revolution Park, in Altavista.  On Monday the dismembered body of was left on the sidewalk, stuffed into black plastic garbage bags.  So far this year Juarez has experienced 663 homicides.  The US State Department has issued a traveler's advisory warning, and forbidden US government employees from venturing into certain parts of the city without prior authorization.

Sunday July 22, 2018,  Juárez Body Count Now 108, With 645 for the Year

 

Compiled from information in Diario de Juarez (click here, here and here):

 Four days ago on July 18, as reported here the body count for all of July stood at 83.  Today it stands at 108, with 646 so far this year.  The latest victim was Eduardo Sotelo Guerra, 28, a former municipal police officer gunned down yesterday by assassins on motorcycles.  They approached the Jeep Cherokee he was in and shot at him repeatedly.  The Cherokee was parked at the time, and the driver attempted to escape.  A woman with him was unharmed but he died from a gunshot wound to the head. 

There is some suggestion the murder may have been related to an incident that occurred three years ago in which Mr. Sotelo, then 25, was involved in a late-night shooting which left a 17-year old adolescent,  Mario Alejandro Pérez Rivera, dead, after police shot at three youths.  The surviving youths said they had been surprised by the bright lights of a patrol car and began to run. They were shot at and Pérez was hit.  His mother said two of his friends, with him at the time of his death, told her the police inspected the body and verified that he was dead, but left the scene and did not report it.  Sotelo testified he had returned to the scene but could find no evidence anyone had been injured.  Forensic evidence showed the bullet wound that killed Perez had come from Sotelo's gun.  The other two officers were punished for failure to report the incident.  It is not clear from newspaper reports whether Sotelo was suspended from the police force.

Dropped Dead

From La Polaka:  (click here) On Friday an assassin who was badly wounded in an execution against a couple in the Arroyo de las Viboras, was abandoned by his accomplices after he died on the way to the hospital.  He was dropped dead on the street corner of 16 de Septiembre and Lerdo, near downtown Juarez.  Three other executions took place that night, two on Nueva Guinea Street, near the airport, and another in Col Independencia.

Will the US House Flip in November?  Probably Not

Why Republicans in Congress Refuse to Do What Americans Want About Trump, Health Care, Stagnant Wages, and Gun Control, And Why TV Networks Pull Their Punches

 Most American voters are appalled by the gross betrayal of political values we used to take for granted: a willingness to compromise; humane, dignified treatment of the powerless; official respect for, and meaningful action on behalf of, the broad "will of the people;" a sincere search for a bipartisan foreign policy; and relatively certain and quick corrective action when these values were betrayed.  A few decades ago President Nixon, in spite of strong political support, was forced out of office, by bipartisan intervention.  He had betrayed American values by his active coverup of nasty campaign mischief he himself had engineered.  Does anyone today seriously believe these American, democratic, values, in the face of blatant official betrayal of them in Congress and the White House are still guiding our political system?  Here is how this sad state of affairs came about.

The impact of Gerrymandering on the Rule of the Majority 

 If you already understand the impact of gerrymandering, ideological polarization, and congressional dysfunction in our system, you can skip the next few paragraphs and pick up with "Why The US House is Unlikely to Flip in November."  If not, you should read on.

If you seek a single explanation of why our political system no longer functions to protect these time-honored,  basic American values, you need to understand congressional electoral districting practice, a subject deeply important, but rarely well understood.

Gerrymandering (altering district lines to favor a partisan outcome) has gotten much more sophisticated in recent decades, and both political parties collude to draw districts that are safe for the incumbent.  One result is that the extremists in each political party have become much more influential in the selection of candidates for Congress.

Imagine, for example, a district that usually votes about 54% Republican.  Imagine also that among all voters, about 60% would be considered moderate; that is, if you add moderate Democrats and Moderate Republicans together, you get about 60%.  The most democratic solution in a contest for someone to represent the views of the broad majority of this district would be for a moderate Republican to win.  But what if 56% of the Republicans are conservative extremists?  They only represent about 26% of the total electorate (.56x .46=25.8%, assuming there are no conservative extremists in the Democratic Party), but if they run an extremist candidate for Congress, they are likely to win not only in the primary but also in the general election, because the Republican Party label is likely once again produce about a 54% majority.   All the extremist has to do is appeal in the to the more moderate Republican party label during the general election, disguising the extremism, in order to be likely to win.  Thus, a person representing only about a quarter of the voters, in opposition to the other 75%, can have a successful career in Congress, leaving three quarters of the voters relatively disenfranchised.  Multiply this scenario, for members of both parties, by nearly all of the 435 Congressional seats, and you get an idea of what has been happening to our political system.  Increasingly the extremists in both parties have prevailed, since gerrymandering has made most seats in Congress safe for the incumbent.

The results of this distortion of democratic representation has polarized Congress as never before, and has played havoc with the norms of civility our political system used to have.  On major net result is that legislation has tended to be less and less representative of what most Americans want.  The influence of money in campaigns has also had the effect of privileging the wealthiest lobby groups rather than the will of the majority.  What does this have to do with flipping the House this November?  Read on, but by now you should understand why the famous Trump base, even while a minority of the electorate, is in such control of policy making in Congress and the White House, and why even moderate Republicans are too frightened to do anything but go along, often in silence.

Why the US House is Unlikely to Flip in November

If you take the logic of this argument, study each Congressional district, and put numbers to each, you can get a pretty powerful picture of what is likely to happen in November.  An organization called FairVote.org has done this, (click here) and the results are in.  This is an amazing web site and you can play with some of the parameters to create your own model of the 2018 Congressional elections, district by district, with just a few keystrokes.

Results:  If voters favor Democrats this November as strongly as they did in 2006, a very good year for Democrats--54% to the Republicans' 46% (roughly where we are in the polls today)--FairVote projects that Republicans will retain control of the House--just barely--by 3 votes.  In 2006 the 54-46 vote distribution delivered 256 seats to Democrats.This year, due to the power of incumbency and the Republican control of gerrymandering after 2010, the model predicts that 54% will get you only 216 seats out of 435  Republicans will still have 219 votes.  In order to control the House Democrats will need to get about 54.5% of the vote distribution.

Fifty four and a half percent, even with the drag on the party created by the President;s behavior, is a high bar. You can bet that Republican strategists, aided or not aided by Russian hacking, have created their own internal modeling and are busy trying to figure out what needs to be done, district by district, in the way of voter suppression, favorable legislation and funding grants for the right people in the right congressional districts, Potemkin-style promises for a wonderful future right around the corner, etc.

The bar in fact is so high, most Republicans in Congress are betting they are better off sticking with Trump on most issues in Congress while expressing hand-wringing dismay in private over some of Trumps more disastrous deeds.  And while on the subject of hand-wringing, many Democrats in Congress have been pulling their punches about Trump with little more than expressions of outrage rather than calls to action.  don't worry, though, they will all ask you for money between now and November.

And while on the subject of pulling punches, do you ever get frustrated that the talking heads on TV, especially the big cable hosts, seem to be arguing politely against a Trump monstrosity, as though hoping he will listen to their pleas, when everyone knows his political choices are not going to be altered by reason, but by sheer power?  They, too, are afraid, just as are our elected representatives in Congress.  Going out too far might just get the cable or network or talking head in trouble later on, should the 54.5% not materialize.  Normalize, play the game, cringe a little, and hedge your bets.

I am predicting, here in the doldrums of summer 2018, that the House will remain Republican.  So far I see very few signs of a sea change, in spite of in-your-face, blatant evidence of evil-doing both in Congress and in the White House.  To this day every twitter is covered breathlessly on TV; every obvious ploy in the White House to distract attention from the disasters we face in our failing democracy, is covered as though it was written from a sincere point of view and deserves our full attention.  This won't change until the polls improve for Democrats:  only then will the fear that grips our politicians and purveyors of information (I hesitate to use the word "news") act as though they believed the will of the American public should be satisfied.

But I could be wrong in my prediction.  Voter by voter, family by family, community by community, congressional district by congressional district, the democratic instincts of our forbears, which were very real, might just surface in us again, and we the people might just pull an upset.  It's worth a try.  Sign me up.

Juárez Body Count for July at 83 and Counting:  More Decapitation and Torture
State Department Issues Warnings for Chihuahua and Juárez

On Friday, from reports in Diario de Juárez, (click here) a dead body was found in Col. Fronteriza Alta, with a wire wound around his neck like a tourniquet.  The previous Saturday in Col Sauzal an unidentified man was found strangled to death in similar fashion, toruniquet-style (did the killer see the movie The Counselor?).  On Sunday a decapitated body, feet tied with white rope, with multiple contusions, was found in a trash container in downtown Juárez.

On Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. passersby on Jaime Bermudez Ave. spotted the amputated head of a man.  The severed body was nearby in a black plastic garbage bag.  Two hour later, not far away, on Zaragoza Blvd and Hiedra a couple was found shot to death in front of their home.  One of the victims, a woman, was identified as Nohemí Zamora Duarte.  Witnesses said the killer was an adolescent, and the couple were known to sell drugs to neighborhood addicts.  On Tuesday morning a decapitated body was found in Col. Solidaridad.  A few blocks away, two hours later, a woman was found shot to death.

On Tuesday afternoon a man was found shot to death in Col. Juanita Luna de Arrieta.  He sold newspapers.  He was between 55-60 years old.  He was wearing blue jeans, a striped shirt, an orange vest, and a hat.

On Wednesday morning at 2 a.m., July 18, the body count went up to 83 when police found a dead man in an empty lot in Southeast Juárez.  His head had been badly beaten and there were other signs of torture.  The victim appeared to be around 30 years of age, wearing blue jeans, and a brown polo shirt.

The US State Department has issued a Level 3 rating for Chihuahua state, suggesting readers should "reconsider travel" to the area.  A Level 4 rating flatly states:  do not travel.  The rating for Chihuahua reads:  "Reconsider travel due to crime. Violent crime and gang activity are widespread."

The State Department Mexico Travel Advisory reads:  Travel for U.S. government employees is limited to the following areas with the noted restrictions:

• Ciudad Juarez: Due to an increase in homicides throughout Ciudad Juarez, U.S. government employees are prohibited from traveling to downtown Ciudad Juarez and the area west of Avenida de Las Americas without advance permission. U.S. government employees are prohibited from travel after dark west of Eje Juan Gabriel and south of Boulevard Zaragoza. U.S. government employees are prohibited from travel to the areas southeast of Boulevard Independencia and the Valle de Juarez region.
• Within the city of Chihuahua: U.S. government employees are prohibited from travel to the Morelos, Villa, and Zapata districts.
• Ojinaga: U.S. government employees must travel via U.S. Highway 67 through the Presidio, Texas port-of-entry.
• Palomas and the Nuevo Casas Grandes/Paquime region: U.S. government employees must use U.S. Highway 11 through the Columbus, New Mexico port-of- entry.
• Nuevo Casas Grandes: U.S. government employees are prohibited from travel outside city limits after dark.

How Much Does a Sicario in Juárez Earn?

Juárez Body Count Up to 60 for July 2018

About twenty years ago when I began following violent death in Juárez I was told by a reliable source, corroborated occasionally in news stories, that the price of an ordinary assassination (drug-related or simple revenge) was $500 (US).  Today's Diario de Juárez has a story (click here) about the arrest of four professional assassins yesterday who claim they were earning $2500 per week for their sicario services to the La Linea (Juárez Cartel) drug trafficking organization.  Given the information they provided about their recent work, this does not appear to be a significant rise in the per-unit price of assassination since 1998 on an inflation-adjusted basis.  Read on, this story is interesting.

First, let's meet these hardworking sicarios.  (Since they have not been convicted their surnames are not given in the news story)  Mario Cesar L. R., alias “El Diablito,” (The Little Devil"), age 27.  He and the others were arrested after a 911 call from an eyewitness to a double murder on the corner of Juan Álvarez y Valentín Gómez Farías (a busy intersection), saying the killers had escaped in a red Mustang.  Moments later this car was located, and stopped by police.  "The Little Devil" was carrying a 9-mm firearm loaded with 5 rounds and 7 tins of marijuana.

Edgar Francisco R. D. alias “El Jipers" (jeepers) or "El Chore,” age 23, was carrying several tins of marijuana, as was Juan Antonio C. M., alias “El Toño,” age 35.

Juan de Dios P. B., 19, alias  was carrying a 9-mm pistol loaded with 13 rounds and 5 tins of marijuana.

The police interrogation of these suspects was apparently fruitful, and it would probably be best not to inquire too deeply into the interrogation techniques used.  But as in the US, torture is not officially condoned.  

They confessed to the killing and dismembering of a man on July 5, placing his body parts in black plastic garbage bags in the Colonia Obrera.  They confessed to killing a man in Anapra on July 6.

They confessed to killing four persons outside a hamburger stand on the corner of Altamirano and Juan José Méndez in Col Mariano Escobedo on June 26.  

They confessed to killing a man they left "encobijado" (wrapped in a blanket) in an arroyo of sewer water on June 23 in the Col. Sara Lugo.

They confessed to killing two men on July 11 at the corner of Juan Álvarez and Valentín Gómez Farías, an act which led to their capture a few minutes later.  

They also confessed to other murders, the details of which were not reported in Diario.

By my count this is 9 units of confessed assassination in 18 days;  at $500 per dead body this would amount to $4500.  At $2500 per week, pro-rated per day, this would amount to about $5714, or $635 per assassination.  Adjusted for inflation this would be about the same price per hit, in purchasing power..  Of course, just three more bodies in the past couple of weeks would bring the per-unit price per body down below the inflation-adjusted rate.  But on the other hand, at a weekly salary you get paid even if you have a very slow week and there are probably all kinds of seasonal adjustments to the demand curve for sicario services that would have to be factored in to a solid comparative analysis of sicario compensation in Juárez in the past twenty years.  But this preliminary take suggests the wage rate for sicarios has not gone up in twenty years.  Collective bargaining, anyone?

One More Down:  Recent Violence in Juárez in Perspective

Juárez has seen a major jump in homicides this year.  During the first five months of 2018 there were 361 homicides, an average of 72 per month.  This compares with a monthly average of 64 per month during all of 2017, a monthly average of 46 in 2016, and 27 in 2015.  To put it into perspective, however, it is much lower than the monthly death toll of 174 in 2011 and 260 in 2010, when Juárez became the deadliest city in the world.

June of this year, however, was exceptionally deadly, with 179 homicides, surpassing the monthly average during 2011, and as of this afternoon (July 11) 49 persons have been murdered so far in July, for a total of 589 for the year so far.  While Juárez is no longer the most deadly city in Mexico (Acapulco and Cabo are much higher), the recent death toll should serve as a sobering incentive for the average hardworking drug operative in Juárez to put his or her affairs in order or, if possible, to leave the business altogether.  The vast number of homicides in Juárez can be traced back to close associations with the drug trafficking business.

A man was killed by gunfire late Tuesday night in a residential home in the Constitucion neighborhood near downtown Juarez, as reported in Diario de Juárez.  The name of the victim has not yet been established.  The man was shot in the patio of the home on Carlos Amaya and Manuel Goytia.  He is the 50th victim so far this month.

Fifty One Homicides in Juarez so Far in July; 589 So Far This Year

Murder Scene Shortly Before Midnight July 10.  Photo La Polaka

With the midnight assassination of a man last night in Juarez (covered in La Polaka) the body count so far this month is 51.  The bullet-ridden body was lying on the street between two cars in the Del Carmen neighborhood.

On Monday afternoon, Diario de Juarez reports that Adrián Flores Gutiérrez was killed by eight bullet wounds while waiting for his wife and two children to enter his car in front of the mall known as El Pueblito, on Ave. Lincoln, near the Bridge of the Americas.  Preliminary reports suggest the man was an active member of the "Old School" faction of the Azteca gang.  Photographs show he was driving an expensive late-model Audi, so he was presumably a high-ranking member of the gang.  The assassination was filmed by a security camera, and police say they have identified the killers.

Diario also reports the discovery yesterday of the body of a dismembered man, found in several plastic garbage bags near the Electrolux maquila in Southeast Juarez.  The bags were left in an empty lot on Acacias street in the Las Haciendas neighborhood.  A sign near the torso of the man read "La Empresa 300."  This, according to authorities, would suggest the murder was committed by a faction within the Azteca gang--La Empresa-- headed by René Gerardo Garza Santana, a.k.a "El 300."  The Azteca gang recently split into two factions ("La Empresa" and the "Azteca Old School,").  Garza is the leader of La Empresa.  Adrian Flores Gutierrez, killed Monday at El Pueblito (see above), on the other hand, was a member of the Old School.

Not far away from the torso, in another garbage bag, investigators found the head and hands of the man.

Diario reports that Garza was jailed on 15 September of last year for possession of drugs and for carrying an illegal firearm.  He was released after posting a bond of 5000 pesos (about $250 U.S.)

Another dismembered body was found in a 50-gallon garbage container in the Chaveña neighborhood, at Paso del Norte and Eje Juan Gabriel next to the National Railroad building in downtown Juarez.

The body of a man arrested last Sunday selling meth in downtown Juarez was found dead after witnesses heard gunfire yesterday at noon in Barrio Alto at the corner of Oro and Manuel Acuña.  He had been released from jail after posting bond only hours before he was gunned down.

At 9:30 A.M. yesterday the body of a man was found "encobijado" (wrapped in a blanket) in an empty lot in the Southeast section of Juarez.

With these killings the homicide toll so far this year is 589

Mexican Elections:  The Politics of Hope in Mexico:
Will AMLO Go The Way of Obama?  Let's Hope Not

As expected, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) won the Presidency yesterday in a massive landslide, with a probable final showing of 53% of the total, gaining more than twice the votes of his two nearest rivals put together.  More, his political party, MORENA, is poised to have the most number of seats in both chambers of parliament, giving him exceptional powers to enact legislation, not just to manage the executive branch.

The massive vote for MORENA can be interpreted only as a strong repudiation of the current corrupt two-party system governing Mexico since 2000.  Both traditional parties, the PRI and the PAN, were mired in corruption during the entire period of two-party rule since 2000.  Both traditional parties submitted meekly to demands by the US to allow US military intervention in the drug war in Mexico.  Both parties remained silent in the face of increasingly hostile official treatment of Mexican migrants attracted to the US by readily available jobs encouraged by corporate America in roofing, domestic service, meat packing, and other economic sectors.  Both parties were mute when U.S. extremists encouraged anti-Mexican sentiment and whose voices gained prominence  in the White House.

What did Mexico gain from this subservience?  Certainly not a successful campaign against Mexican drug trafficking.  Drug-related homicide rates have made Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world and in 2010, just across the river from a massive high tech anti-drug complex housed in Ft. Bliss, Juarez became the most dangerous city in the world.  Nor was the effort effective.  The flow of drugs into the US has never subsided.  And in return for official silence as migration controls became increasingly draconian during the Clinton-Bush-Obama periods, Mexicans observed with consternation as Mexico-bashing became one of the major signatures of the candidate who was ultimately declared the winner.  Mexican President Peña Nieto stood frozen, humiliated before the world, unable to speak, as Trump lectured him, in Mexico City, about having to pay for The Wall.  More recently, Mexicans have seen their government leaders wring their hands impotently as children were torn from their parents' arms for the sin of seeking asylum in the US. If my experience is any indication, he rage of Mexicans in Juarez is not so much against US policy--although that is certainly there--as it is against the complicity of the Mexican government with these humiliations.

Was there a positive side?  A lot of dollars have been flowing into Mexico as a result of NAFTA and the War on Drugs.  Economically, Mexico has grown.  The billionaire class in Mexico, politically well connected, prospered immensely as they acquired US know-how, financing, trade partners, and franchises.  And, yes, there was some trickle down, but much of this was slurped up by the greedy political class as corruption reached unprecedented levels in recent years. Cesar Duarte, for example, governor of Chihuahua from 2010-2016, was flagrant about dipping into official funds during his first three years in office, as was President Peña Nieto, who became a super-rich overnight at the expense of everyone else.  The positive inflow of dollars carried other costs as well.  Thousands of Central Mexican corn growers, largely small peasant farmers, were wiped out by the dumping of cheaper US corn into Mexico, a Mexican version of rust belt dis-employment. Franchise fees in the McDonalds hamburgerization of Mexico shifted some profits to the US., and small business owners have had to compete with increasingly monopolistic practices that have driven them out of business.

AMLO promises to make headway against corruption.  It will be a tough struggle, and the outcome does not depend on the amount of money invested against corruption.  It depends on the support of the population against entrenched interests.  He also promises a more dignified foreign policy, a brake on the privatization of the oil-rich energy sector, doubling the pitifully small pension for senior citizens, free education for all and, in general, a return to the New Deal-style social policies of the traditional PRI, which ruled Mexico from the 1930s until the early 1980s, but which switched to US-style neo-liberalism after that.  As in the US, Mexican government policy has been outspokenly neo-liberal in nature, with massive privatization, redistribution of income and wealth to the rich, and appalling levels of corruption.  The public apparently has had enough of being told by both parties that these changes were the natural consequences of the new globalized economic order.

A caveat:  Obama came to the presidency in 2008 promising similar types of reform, and he was rewarded for this with a strong mandate by the public at a moment of deep crisis as the US economy, propelled by corruption, was on the verge of collapse.  He had a virtual blank check from the US public.  But within the first 100 days he had caved in to Wall Street, increased funding for the no-accountability wars abroad, and in general signaled a continuation of a status quo people had voted against.  The disillusionment was so profound it paved the way for the election of Donald Trump eight years later, as a significant portion of his voters abandoned their allegiance to the Democratic Party.  Only demographic changes, such as the increase in Hispanic and younger voters, and the appearance of well-centered leaders such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have been able to save the Democrats from total defeat.  Should the same thing happen to AMLO, Mexico might well elect its own version of Donald Trump six years from now.