D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
June 2008
Eye of the Needle
Driving through the Port of Entry to violence-plagued Palomas is like turning night into day.
From my front yard I can see the Tres Hermanas, which can be thought of as the gateway to Mexico (although they're actually a little north of Columbus). The spaces between these volcanic-shaped mountains are the holes through which I thread my needle, stitching the two worlds together.
The drug violence has only gotten worse in Palomas this past week, despite people's hopes for a respite after 200 soldiers were sent there by the Mexican government in March. In the past week, as I write this, nine people were killed by gunfire, including one horrific massacre of five men very early Sunday morning, May 11. A nearby wall was left riddled with bullet holes.
Right after this incident on the main street, I got an emotional e-mail from an American activist friend saying that some people in Palomas were afraid to leave their houses, even to go to work, and were going hungry.
This woman said there had been a note attached to one of the five bodies warning people to stay off the street on Saturday.
On May 17, I received an article online about Palomas that appeared in the London Times. The writer said about the massacre, "So confident were the killers that after the initial strike they drove around the block and returned to finish off two wounded survivors."
When a policeman heard the gunfire, he drove off in the opposite direction. The police department has only three revolvers and two "decrepit rifles," but the 11 assassins were armed to the teeth. The police have no intention of confronting the narcos.
This article claimed that there had been 37 murders in Palomas since the beginning of the year, and 17 kidnappings. That's a total of 54, for those of us who are slow at math.
That Saturday afternoon I wasn't sure if I dared cross the border. I stayed in my house awhile debating whether I should go. I decided to drive down to Columbus and ask people there what they knew. A man in the gas station said the violence goes on in Palomas only early in the morning. Not to worry.
While I gazed down toward the border, I tried to grasp the magnitude of the situation. Percentage-wise, little Palomas has passed through much more carnage than Juarez, which has seen more than 300 killings since January in a city of 1.3 million. But all I saw was a few fleecy white clouds floating over the town.
I still wasn't feeling really safe, so I questioned a Mexican man in the parking lot of the Dollar General right near the border. I asked if he knew of anybody in Palomas who was staying inside out of fear. His flat-footed response — "I'm not hiding in my house" — reassured me even further.
So I went through the Port of Entry, passing through the eye of the needle. I tensely looked around, trying to keep my eyes open to everything.
I went to the business near which the five men had been murdered. The bullet holes had been filled in and painted over so perfectly that you couldn't tell anything had happened.
Inside, I commented on this repair job, and the response was a strained smile. One woman made it clear she was indignant at the press for painting such a stark picture of Palomas. When I asked about the violence, the first response was, I swear, a look of surprise, as if to say, "Oh, really? What violence?"
Their attempt to appear as normal as possible struck me for a moment as being similar to the way British plantation owners in Africa or India would carry on with their customary afternoon tea as a way of upholding civilization. But I also thought this attitude could be interpreted as courage in adversity. The woman said twice, very distinctly, authoritatively, "Please, write about the good things."
These businesses deserve support, not just because they're going through heartbreaking economic adversity, but because they've served as a virtual social service system for New Mexicans and others of limited means. I was surprised to learn that apparently none of the oculists and dentists has closed their doors.
The owner of another, very established business told me he'd lost 90 percent of his business due to the situation, or due to the press's depiction of it. He said he would sell his business if anyone would buy it.
Both these businesspeople made the comparison to the violence of Al Capone and his gang in the US in the 1920s, as if to say, "So there, that kind of thing happens in your country, too." One of them said, "Americans are in Iraq." So there.
I later talked to a small-business owner who, although he recognized the situation as "grave," later in the conversation described the danger as un mito (a myth). A couple of guys who sell sunglasses in the street were sitting side-by-side on some steps and just dismissed the threat. They didn't know anything about it.
After being in Palomas a half-hour or so, it did seem that the violence was not that big a deal, and that it was almost boring being there. Not one person among the 10 or 12 I talked to had heard of anybody who was afraid to come out of their house (although I think some are scared). The consensus was that the violence happens only at night (although within the past week a rancher and his son had been gunned down around noon). No one took that day's threat seriously.
Driving through the Port of Entry had shown me a different perspective — basically turning night to day. Going through the eye of the needle gave me a different slant on things, the way light passing through the eye's iris gets inverted and an upside-down image appears on the retina.
One reason for this is that when you go to Palomas you don't see anything happening. The effects of the shootings last only a few minutes or hours. And they do happen mostly at night.
The other reason is that some business owners have a defensive attitude that turns any focus on the violence into a personal slight — or a national slight. This is an inversion of reality. Journalists are responding to the astonishing level of violence, and visitors should know about it.
There is a war going on in right now in Palomas. But it's what's technically called "low-intensity warfare," I think, where for the most part life goes on as usual.
I wouldn't want to encourage someone to go there if they're afraid. But there probably is less danger than the reader thinks there is.
I know I'll go again, at least.