D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
December 2011
Turning a Corner
Less violence and more jobs in Palomas.
When I drove through the Port of Entry to Palomas in mid-November, there seemed to be more people in the streets than usual.
There were clusters of Mexicans with luggage just north of the US Customs inspectors, waiting for rides, and maybe a dozen people outside the Presidencia, or City Hall, a block south of the border on the right.
But it could be that the number of the people in the street was related to the balmy weather. The skies were blue, and temperatures were in the high 60s.
I went to talk to Miguel Angel Chacon, who's been mayor of Palomas for a year. He welcomed me into his small, sparsely decorated office where Estanislao Garcia had been mayor before him, and then Maria Lopez, who took Garcia's place after his assassination in October 2008.
Things appear to have returned to relative normality in the Presidencia. It's not in emergency mode any more, where one was always slightly on edge due to the specter of possible violence.
Chacon is stocky and fairly short, with a habitual kind of wry sobriety to his face. I first asked him how many murders there'd been in Palomas during 2011. I'd heard from a good source that the streets had calmed down, but Chacon said, surprisingly, "One, or maybe two."
He added, "It's more secure now. The army has supported us a lot." He also mentioned a new combined police force in Chihuahua called the Policia Unica.
He then told me the good news that a lot of people in Palomas have been waiting for — the Japanese car parts factory, which employed 300 people before it pulled out a couple of years ago, is returning either in December or January.
Chacon said this meant more Mexicans would be moving to Palomas, whose population is now 6,000. He also claimed there was "an 80% chance" that there'd be two more maquiladoras in Palomas next year. They would build their plants in the area east of town on lots that belong to the state of Chihuahua.
If this is true, it means that the dreams that Palomenses have talked about for well over a decade may finally be materializing.
Another program the town carried out was a temporary work project hiring 80 people to clean the streets. It started in August and ended about the time I visited. The people hanging around the Presidencia were waiting for their last check.
When I left, a photographer from Ascension was snapping a photo of about 30 somewhat ragtag, grinning members of the group lined up with Miguel Chacon.
In regard to the violence, several other people in town and a couple people in Columbus basically confirmed what Chacon said, saying Palomas was almost entirely at peace. People on the street, a man working at Del Rio supermarket, and a teacher in Columbus all agreed.
A smiling Benita, the Palomas librarian, said that young people were going to dances at night again, although she still walked straight home after work — understandable since it's getting dark at that time now.
I should mention that I know of a few cases where people are still fearful of threats.
But I felt relief and a quiet elation as I drove back across the border. Christmas carols playing at the Family Dollar in Columbus swelled, a little crazily, in my heart.
It took me a couple of days, however, to remember conversations I'd had with two men in Palomas in March or April. Both had businesses, and both said they thought the killings in the year so far were worse than ever.
I was surprised to hear that, but they both seemed entirely sincere. It's easy to understand why people would want to minimize the violence, but it's hard to imagine why they'd exaggerate.
If what they said was true, or even nearly true, Chacon was stretching things quite a bit.
What I think happened is that the violence started declining in the summer. Javier Lozano, a judge in Columbus and chief of police in Palomas in the early 1990s, said there have been no killings in Palomas for the "last few months." He believes the violence right now is lower than it's been in two decades.
The violence has plummeted in Palomas at about the same time as it's been declining in Juarez. Some of the same forces may have been at work.
Lending a Hand
You can help the people of Palomas by donating to these organizations:
Casa de Amor Para Ninos (House of Love for Children), The Light at Mission Viejo, c/o Jim Noble, 4601 Mission Bend, Santa Fe, NM 87507, (505) 982-2080, info@casadeamorparaninos.org, www.casadeamorparaninos.org La Luz de La Esperanza, Palomas Outreach, PO Box 38, Columbus, NM 88029, (575) 536-9726, childrenofpalomas@yahoo.com, Palomas_Outreach@yahoo.com Our Lady of Las Palomas Hunger Project, PO Box 622, Columbus, NM 88029, (575) 531-1101, susan1028@aol.com, ourladyoflaspalomas.org |
In Juarez, the Juarez Cartel has been in retreat since April, and some say that the security forces made a deal to protect the Sinaloa Cartel toward the goal of putting a brake on the inter-cartel violence. But Howard Campbell of UTEP doesn't believe such a pact was made. "They're just targeting the weaker cartel," he says.
Tony Payan, also of UTEP, doesn't attribute the downward trend in Juarez to the police. Instead, he says, "People are beginning to hesitate about going into gangs when offered money, because it's like a death sentence."
The second reason he gives is that "the new governor [Cesar Duarte] has made a difference by creating the Policia Unica. They have one mission: Let's get those guys, whom they consider trash, out of the streets."
For whatever reason, the murder rate in Juarez, which was eight per day in 2010, was down to almost five a day in September and was still declining in November, down to nearly three per day.
The violence has been increasing in some parts of Mexico this year, with the most extreme case being Acapulco, but may as a whole be beginning to decline. The murders of Juarez have represented one-third of the total in the country, and the decline there has pushed the overall numbers down.
On the New Mexico border, it seems indisputable that Palomas has turned an important corner. Some elation for the sake of the people there, who have been through so much, would not be a bad idea this Christmas.
For a complete list of humanitarian non-profit organizations serving Palomas, with addresses for donations, see www.desertexposure.com/palomas.