Henceforth, the hope for prosperity for all is dead, foreign investment pirates are here, and the masses are preparing to play victims of their vindictive, threatening ways. While they worry and beg their demons not to resort to vengeance, the average voter feels helpless before the opportunists. They are unable to help themselves. As for hating each-other, it is the same old relationship between Mexicans of divergent groupings and demographics. They finagle anything they can get out of a situation: a house, money, services, anything. The natives, despite themselves, carry a grudge against their own nation for trusting in national unity at the expense of tribal identity, culture and customs. Now it is going to be a bitch getting them to instill patriotic values in their children for the sake of promised stability and prosperity. Sometimes I get the feeling that they are all too willing to sell out to the Gringoes because they harbor naught but contempt for their leaders.
As a matter of fact, some of my reliable contacts, including Corazon, have spoken of promises betrayed. They fear that they themselves, the people, are their own nemeses. They fear they will leave the country to the reviled, yet idolized, Anglo-Americans. I felt this fear even amongst my own relatives. They really believe Mexico now belongs to America. But, the reality of the situation is that Americans are always up, the advantage is in their hands. Mexico seems always to be down, unable to care for itself. The index of stupidity amongst the average folk is the only thing that seems to be up, and their manipulation of self-pity and resentment for the crooks they had chosen and elected is entirely to blame.
That damned provincial contempt of theirs not only morphs into a kind of intra-national hate, but has brought out fear in the people too. Falsehood is taken for truth, and the lies they imbibe from unscrupulous politicians are like drugs that lead them to a self-deceiving complacency. Hence, the uncounted, silent masses are too afraid to act in their own interest. They are afraid to provoke the ghosts of revolution.
It all reminds me of something the scholar Eusebius wrote many centuries ago: “How it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, and for the benefit of those who want to be deceived.”
GUNS AND GANGSTERS ON THE RUN
Before leaving for Tamaulipas again to hunt down Fulgencio San Roman before he departed this world, I just had to swallow my worries, and take on the risk of visiting Michoacan ~ the cradle of Mexico’s narco-terrorism. It is one of the most beautiful and enchanting provinces in all of North America, not just Mexico. Nowadays there are many cultural activities in Michoacan, especially in the major cities like Morelia, Patzcuaro, and Uruapan. Morelia, as the capital, has the highest number of museums, art galleries, film theaters and restaurants. Again, I had been ignoring my journal but this region, I’d hoped, would give me plenty to muse about. Every year in the month of October, Morelia hosts an international film festival, which is rapidly growing to become one of the top festivals in the whole country. It features international film stars such as Gael Garcia Bernal, Salma Hayek, and Martha Higareda. I would be arriving just in time to participate in the proceedings. Fortunately for me, this year around they were holding a tribute and film retrospective for Fulgencio San Roman!
Yearly, between October and April, tourism increases as more than a hundred million monarch butterflies migrate from Canada and the United States to the mountains in Michoacan to spend the winter in Oyamel Forests. It may be good commerce for the locals, but I had a rotten time finding a decent hostel for an indeterminate period. There are also several archaeological sites where tourists get to see ancient petro-glyphs of varied indigenous cultures, some of them still present in towns throughout Michoacan. Personally, I was getting sick of archaeological sites, but I sonambulated through the experience if only to boast that I’d been there. One of the most enchanting of these ancient sites, which was eventually turned into a colonial treasure and bordering Lake Patzcuaro, is Tzintzuntzan, or “Place of the Hummingbirds.” I had to admit, it carried a special charm for some of us who cling to a romantic, if false, notion of a mystical, magical Mexico that never actually existed.
Morelia is often cited as the most beautiful city in Mexico, with its fabulous colonial architecture, the stunning 400-year old cathedral and its museums. I was truly caught up by the power and glory of the baroque-rococo structures if not the devious and sly cunning of the most mistrustful natives. The Museum of Masks, the Museum of Geology and Mineralogy, the Museum of Contemporary Art Alfredo Zalce and The Museum of Colonial Art are the most visited by tourists. Since I had nothing else to do to curb the boredom, I made the most of these cultural distractions.
A couple of days had passed, and just as I had decided that not much would come of this particular trip since the old friends I had hoped to visit, Israel Juarabe and his brothers, Tomas and Alvaro, no longer lived in this state, my hotel was suddenly surrounded by helicopters and armored vehicles. Mexican soldiers proceeded to fight a frightening two-hour battle with heavily armed thugs holed up in an old restaurant next to the hotel in the Morelia commercial zone, killing 12 of the vicious bums as I, along with the locals, cowered in our rooms or otherwise. One hapless soldier was cut-down in a hail of bullets and the wounded included three soldiers and five bystanders. If I had decided to descend to the bar I could have ended up in the hospital with the others. Several Gabacho tourists were evacuated from other hotels near the Alameda separated by the city park. When the soldiers arrived at the hotel on a tip, the vicious desperadoes opened fire and hurled some 50 grenades, according to an Army colonel who wore a ski mask to protect his identity as he led the stumbling reporters on a tour of the scene. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. I certainly had nothing on the man. Most luckily for me, not once during all the tense proceedings did any of the authorities ask me to present my identification or journalistic credentials!
Several of the desperadoes tried to flee, but crashed their cars into military APVs that were blocking the alley. At one point, more armed men with grenades arrived by SUV to reinforce their comrades in the restaurant, but they were cut to pieces in the shooting. Soldiers found four Michoacano state police officers handcuffed inside the kitchen of the restaurant, and one of them accidentally spilled blood on me as they were being led out ~ my fault of course since I just had to join the other vultures in glaring at the crime scene out of shear excitement. The officers, who were still bound and sitting on the floor when their rescuers arrived, said they’d been held captive by the desperadoes, and were too glad to answer reporters’ questions the second they’d been liberated. Soldiers did not know the police were inside when the fiery exchange began late Saturday night, and the colonel said their claims would be considered. “We found them like this, handcuffed, and they say they were kidnapped. So if they were kidnapped, as they insist, then we saved them from a most violent murder,” he boasted.
Residents and tourists cowered like feeble little mice inside their homes and hospices and at several low-cost hotels during the battle. I too got a bit scared with all the rapid-machine-gun fire. I tasted sulfur in my mouth, and felt at that instant that one of those bullets had my name on it. When the shooting suddenly stopped, many frightened bystanders, some of them having soiled themselves from the fear, were evacuated by ambulance, including 15 French tourists from a small hotel, a family of four from another hotel, a pregnant woman with her mother from their home, an elderly man with pronounced varicose veins, and me with my soiled shorts. Two men and a woman were caught in the gunfire and were killed. The gun-fight raged just blocks from classical old residences that once belonged to the cream of Mexico’s aristocrats and nouveau-riche, which included many film celebrities like Fulgencio San Roman. He loved to fish in Lake Patzcuaro and wrote fondly of the stunning vistas of this particularly striking region.
It remained unclear whether the desperadoes belonged to one of the drug cartels that for decades have been fighting for turf in Michoacan, home to the monarch butterflies and birthplace of Jose’ Maria Morelos y Pavon’,
one of the fathers of Mexican Independence. The Beltran Leyva cartel, in particular, has maintained a strong presence in Michoacan. In antecedent months, soldiers had arrested suspected cartel operatives as they stepped off private planes or limousines in between the towns of San Juan Parangaricutiro and Angahuan near the volcano Paricutin’ on their way back from Acapulco. They said they’d met with the head-honcho himself, Arturo Beltran Leyva, at a christening fiesta hosted by this most-wanted cartel leader.
Soldiers confiscated 60 guns, grenades and ammunition at the impressive, gated house, which really stood out amongst more modest dwellings. Several armed hummers were also seized from the property, including a platinum-covered customized Mercedes Benz. President Felipe Calderon’ had deployed more than 45,000 soldiers across Mexico to battle drug violence but they were making little difference in Michoacan. To reiterate, more than 10,800 people have died since the offensive began in December 2006.
Elsewhere near the crime scene, grieving parents buried their children Sunday after a devastating daycare fire killed 40 infants and toddlers as a consequence of the gun-fire, stunning Mexico and prompting the government to promise a thorough investigation. It would all be empty talk, however, everybody knew who and what was involved, and nobody was regarded as the “good-guy.”
Funeral processions drove slowly to churches and cemeteries on the outskirts of Morelia, decorated with balloons and flowers.
The family of a 3-year-old girl dropped white roses on her casket and attached a Dora the Explorer balloon to the cross marking her grave at one of the first funerals held a couple of days later.
“I love you and I don’t want to leave you here!” her mother screamed. Upon witnessing these proceedings first hand I almost lost my composure. It was truly pathetic and heart-rending.
I had the chance to see President Felipe Calderon’ first hand as he arrived in Morelia late that day to console the victims and give a show of proactive presidential diligence. He wished surviving children a speedy recovery and promised families full government assistance and a thorough investigation into the actions of either the soldiers or the desperadoes which led to the accidental fire. In a speech near the town zocalo he declared, “I want to say to the mothers and fathers of the little ones who died that we share their profound sadness.”
And with that, many a tear was shed.
The death toll had risen to 42 on Sunday after two of the children were found to have died from bullet-wounds, according to the attending doctor who had his hands full fending off rapacious reporters. Most of the victims had died of organ collapse caused by smoke inhalation, he said. Worse still, it was admitted that the soldiers had been so busy playing cops’n’robbers that they did nothing to put out the fire they’d helped to start.
The conflagration initially consumed an adjacent automotive warehouse after feral bullets struck highly combustible electrical machinery, which then led to the explosion that caused the fire. It then spread to the roof of the “Pepito” day care and sent flames raining down. All that officials would say was that once those bullets had struck the electrical mechanisms, it would be a foregone conclusion that an uncontrollable fire would result. I came across the grandmother of one of the victims who’d died of burns just three days after his fourth birthday. Did she care where the fire came from? All she could think of was the horror of seeing the roasted torso of her grandson. Everybody by then had watched televised reports about the fire Saturday, and many busy-bodies rushed over to make matters worse.
The old grandmother cried on my shoulders, dissolving into tears outside the morgue where she waited with 30 other victims’ relatives. I commiserated with her and she said, “I thought he wasn’t that burned and that we would find him safe and sound, but he was very burned. They operated on him yesterday, and he held on, but today he couldn’t.”
Firefighters carried injured children out of the day-care’s front door, its only working exit, and through large holes that a civilian knocked into the walls before rescue crews arrived, according to a couple of soldiers who also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the fire, especially since they helped to cause it.
After the initial gun-fire exchange, a reckless would-be hero with a child in the danger-zone, who worked at a nearby auto parts store, had rammed his pickup truck through a wall and helped rescue five toddlers. What was not certain was if the man’s child survived.
The deaths in Morelia again raised questions about building-safety in Mexico as well as the campaign against the narco-terrorists. Officials apologized on television that they would crack down on code violations after a deadly stampede at a Mexico City nightclub last year killed 12 teenagers, and a disco fire killed 21.
After the smoked had cleared up, figuratively as well as literally, it was estimated 142 children, ranging from 6 months to 5 years in age, were in the day care at the time of the gun-fight and subsequent fire, along with six staffers who looked after them. But, there would be no compensation for them, only for the hotel and restaurant owners whose establishments were losing money due to the scuffle.
After I’d asked around with the talking-heads about the significance of the fire that followed the fracas, I discovered that a May 26 inspection the previous year found that the day-care building, a converted warehouse with a few windows high up, had not complied with safety standards and was deemed a fire hazard. It was further conceded that security requirements needed reevaluation before the calamity struck. This is so typical of circumstances in Mexico: nobody does nothing till there’s no turning back, and then nobody is responsible for none of the chaos that they insist never occurred! When I found a free moment to snoop around the smoking ruins, I found that the building’s emergency exit could not be opened even after the disaster, and nobody could answer why. The place was in bad condition, it’s a warehouse, there were no windows in the classrooms, and, suspiciously, the caretaker at the center was the only person not injured in the blaze.
Some of the children had third-degree burns, according to the Morelia fire department official. Thirty-three remained hospitalized, 23 of them in Morelia including 13 who remained in critical condition after I’d left town. Sadly, one of the “survivors” was brain dead. In a short time nine were transferred to Mexican hospitals in Ciudad Obregon in Sonora and to Guadalajara, which has a special burn unit. The official word after a couple of days was that four children were released, along with two of six adults who had been admitted. The adults included five women who had supervised the children at the center and the security guard who had been caught typically sleeping while on duty. Two 3-year-olds were being treated at a pediatric burn center in northern California. One of them, a boy, was flown there with his mother by a Mexican police escort, so said the reporters. He had burns over 70 percent of his tender little body and was expected to require many months of treatment. I later learned that the survival rate in such cases is about 50 percent, and that boy displayed no positive outlook on his tormented expression.
“A lot of it is how deep the burn is and where it’s located and how bad was the smoke inhalation,” a therapist also told me. In fact, the medicos were expecting more victims might be headed to California for treatment.
The arch-bishop of Mexico sent a telegram of sympathy for those killed or injured. The archbishop, always around to bask in the lime-light of another’s misery, was “deeply pained” by the fire and offered his prayers for its victims as well as “heartfelt condolences” to their loved ones. How typical, I thought, for one such as he to take advantage of the free press to make himself look good.
But, that’s Mexico! What are you going to do?
The stay in Morelia turned out to be a big waste. I accomplished nothing but to watch as Mexico tore itself apart just a little bit more, and died just a little bit more.
THE PITY PROBLEM
WITH PROSTITUTES
Before deciding to head for Tamaulipas through Mexico State, I stopped in t
he lovely town of Ziticuaro, a stop en-route to see the arrival of the monarch butterflies on their return flight from Canada to spend the Winter in the forests of Oyamel. The surrounding terrain is mostly the pine-covered mountain-range of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Many of the locals spoke an indigenous language, probably Tarascan. Ziticuaro is an important intermediate point only because it runs from Mexico City to Morelia (following the route of the colonial royal road). It is a tourist destination, and fishing, camping and other activities are permitted. The area is especially popular during Holy Week when the municipal authorities organize various activities. It is also a popular area for football, volleyball, riding and other recreational pursuits. I thought to swim along with other people in the dam water because of its mythical curing powers.
It was past midnight in downtown Ziticuaro, and I had it in mind to get out and get a taste of local nocturnal recreations. Prostitutes paced in front of the “Presa del Bosque” Mercado stores. Evidently, nocturnal commerce was being hit really bad by economic realities even in semi-rural areas. Signs of a slow economy were everywhere ~ a sportswear store offered 40 percent markdowns, and bars advertised discounted drinks. Like so many other businesses, Mexico’s semi-legalized prostitution industry was having to adapt to the economic downturn. Customers were fewer or more frugal, competition had doubled, and more clubs and brothels were offering discounts to drum up business. Even though brothels are technically illegal, street solicitation is legal so long as no pimp is involved. Well, that sure shot my Mexican career prospects to Hell!
Since late 2008, the number of English and American tourists had fallen off and the street dynamic had transformed for the worse, according to one prostitute in her mid-20s I’d flirted with named Aracely, and who requested anonymity because she did not want her family to know where the tacos and beans were coming from. She still had enough customers, she admitted, but they now wanted extras gratis. “We have to be a lot more pushy now,” said the pretty, happy hooker, wearing black jeans and a pink corset, who had worked the area for three years. “The johns used to come straight to you. Now they wait till you come to them.”
A Wetback in Reverse Page 37
