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lunes, 2 de junio de 2014
The tragedy of Tampico, Mexico: a city of violence, abandoned to the trees
NOTA DEL BLOG: Del LADO DERECHO ARRIBA hay un traductor robotico Pon lenguaje español l y listo TE dará idea muy cercana de lo que se trata
LA TRAGEDIA DE TAMPICO ,MEXICO: UNA CIUDAD DE VIOLENCIA ABANDONADA A LOS ARBOLES
The tragedy of Tampico, Mexico: a city of violence, abandoned to the trees
Years
of gang warfare has turned the spring-breaker destination into a
Gotham-style nightmare. Now some of its remaining residents are taking
to the streets in a desperate call for peace
After a mass exodus of Tampico's middle
class, some of its most majestic buildings, such as the Edificio Maza,
lie abandoned. Photograph: Kurt Hollander
Thousands of people dressed in white, carrying white
balloons and waving white handkerchiefs, have been parading down the main streets of
Tampico, Mexico, recently. But these people weren’t part of a local carnival, art event or other joyous
celebration. They have taken to the streets in a desperate call for help.
So-called
“ultra-violence” has
converted Tampico – a lush, tropical city on the Gulf of Mexico with a
population of 300,000 and falling – into a Gotham-like nightmare. In the
last
couple of weeks, shoot-outs on crowded streets in
broad daylight have resulted in 25 deaths. A gas truck was set on
fire at the main entrance to the city. A grenade was thrown into a bar
(it
didn’t explode); another bar was sprayed with machine-gun fire. A
much-loved locale
that sold tortas de la barda (a
sandwich made with ham and beans) was burnt to the ground. Fires were lit in a gas
refinery. A sales lot of new cars was torched.
Tampico’s air has long
been blackened by smoke from the city’s three major oil and gas
refineries, but these days the dark smoke hovering over the city testifies to the
presence of an all-out gang war. Tampico is one of Mexico’s most violent cities in one of its most violent states, Tamaulipas.
As a result of the
violence, the local real estate market has bottomed out. Those who flee the
city usually can’t sell their homes and businesses, so more and more buildings, including
some of Tampico’s largest and most impressive ones, lie abandoned. Buildings that could easily survive for another
century are mere empty shells, with huge trees growing through the
roofs and out of the windows. Such levels of abandonment are rarely seen in the centre of a major
city. Tampico’s unsold, abandoned homes are characterised by trees growing through the roofs and windows. Photograph: Kurt Hollander
Of those who remain, the protesters-in-white literally had to avoid
shoot-outs and burning cars during their marches (the most recent, on May 11,
saw an estimated 12,000 people turn out). Made up largely of what’s
left of the city’s middle class, they called on the government not to
abandon them to the city’s criminals. (Naturally, nobody demands
anything of the criminal cartels themselves and lives to talk about it.)
Eduardo
José Cantú, the protest organiser, asked the state congress to force
its governor to stop saying Tampico was a “Disneyland and that things
are fabulous and that everyone
should come and spend Easter vacation here” – and instead admit the
local authorities are unable to contain the violence and crime
that has plagued the city over the last few years.
Tampico had, in
fact, been a
kind of Disneyland for several years, with US and Mexican
spring-breakers transforming
the miles and miles of city beach into 24-hour party people territory.
Now the bars have almost all
closed down, restaurants are hard to find, and the beach remains empty
most of the year. Fear has sent tourists scurrying to other Mexican
beaches; it has also forced thousands of locals to relocate, and made
hundreds of local businesses
close up shop, especially in the centro histórico. The local
economy has collapsed. Tampico used to be the destination for US
springbreakers, but fear has sent tourists scurrying to other Mexican
beaches. Photograph: Kurt Hollander
The city’s informal economy (the illegal activities run
by criminal organisations) has muscled out the formal economy, making it very
difficult to earn a legal living here. Fear has taken the joy out of living in
the city.
Locals keep each other informed about events in the city’s zonas de riesgo
(risky areas) via blogs, twitter and other social media – part of a
war-zone mentality that has inhabitants constantly checking their mobile
phones to see if it’s safe to go out.
“Anyone who looks
suspicious makes me very nervous. I’m afraid to go to the city centre
and lots of other places at night,” says Bebe, an art curator in her
early 30s who doubles as an entrepreneur to makes ends meet. “I try to
avoid driving in empty streets and the big parking lots where cars are
stolen a lot.” (Bebe, like everyone else I interview, asks not to have
her
full name published in this article.)
For almost a hundred years, the oil and gas shipped to the US from Tampico fuelled the
local economy, but today, the trafficking of cocaine, marijuana and
meta-amphetamines to meet the demands of gringo consumers represents the city’s
largest source of income. “Poor Tampico,” goes the saying, “so far from God and so
close to the USA". A city run by gangs 'I try to avoid driving in empty streets,' says art curator and part-time entrepreneur Bebe. Photograph: Kurt Hollander
In 2010, the Zetas, recruited from the Mexican military’s elite
paratroopers and originally working for the Cartel del Golfo as hit-men
and
enforcers, decided they were strong enough to take over drug trafficking
and
other criminal activities within the city. Thus began an all-out turf
war: in April 2010, the Cartel del Golfo ran
a front-page announcement in the local newspaper that there would be a
curfew in the city, that they had orders to defend their territory (they
are from Tamaulipas, unlike the Zetas), and that it wouldn’t be their
fault if stray
bullets killed innocent people. There
were more than 20 bombings against military and police installations in
the city
in October 2010, and since then hundreds of hired guns have been killed
by both
sides.
To call the
cartels “narcos”, as almost all media in the US and Mexico do, is a
misnomer. These cartels control all major criminal activity
in Tampico, from prostitution and table-dancing clubs to arms and drug
trafficking, pirated goods and extortion. The cartels control the
newspapers, publishing
warnings to rival groups and periodically killing reporters and editors
who disrespect
them (the state has one of the highest murder rates of journalists in
Mexico).
The cartels also control
the armoured trucks that deliver cash to the city’s banks. They make bank executives
hand over information about clients, and get notaries to sign away properties at gunpoint. Most of the local
law-enforcement officers were on the cartel’s payroll until the army
recently decommissioned the police; only traffic cops are to be seen on the
streets of the city these days.
Things had already turned ugly in 2007, when almost 12 tons of cocaine were confiscated and the cartel
bosses in Reyonsa, on the US border, told those in Tampico that they had to
cover the losses. This started a wave of kidnappings that ended up with the taking
of Fernando Azcarraga, former mayor and cousin of the owner of the Televisa media
empire, in September 2010.
After that, wealthy citizens began fleeing the city. And when the
wealthy left town, the cartel began targeting doctors and other middle-class
professionals for kidnappings, provoking a further, middle-class exodus from the
city. The historic centre of Tampico has long been
compared to New Orleans, but these days it looks more like the city
post-hurricane Katrina. Photograph: Kurt Hollander
Miguel Angel, in his 50s, teaches
photography at a local university. He relates a typical story – one so common
that he only reluctantly tells it, as he feels it’s “boring” and not very
newsworthy. “The family of a student of mine had a small restaurant that sold carnitas (pork). One day some men came
to visit them and said they wanted money every month. The owner said no, so they
kidnapped his son. The family sold the restaurant, paid the ransom, and moved
out of Tampico.” The New Orleans of Mexico
This
once-beautiful tropical city, traversed by rivers, canals and lakes, has
a long history of exploitation and abandonment.
The city was
founded in 1823 as one of Mexico’s first ports, rerouting African
slaves to New Orleans and shipping silver to Spain. In 1904, the first
commercial, US-owned oil well in Mexico was drilled in Tampico, and soon
after several
more foreign companies entered the city and began extracting oil from
Mexican
soil.
In the early decades of the 20th
century, with Tampico enjoying an economic boom from its port activities
and several (mostly US-owned) gas and oil mega-refineries, a modern
city with tall office
buildings unlike any other city in Mexico was constructed around the
port. By the start of the first world war, Tampico had become the
second most important port in the world for oil exports.
Then, in 1923, Mexico’s largest oil
deposit (located very close to Tampico) dried up. The foreign oil companies soon began
a massive migration from Mexico to Venezuela, oil production plummeted by
75%, the local economy collapsed, and thousands of workers and their families
were forced to flee the city. The centro histórico, built during
the Europeanised reign of Mexico’s great dictator Porfírio Díaz at the
turn of the past century, was largely abandoned. Over the past few years, more than 200 hotels, restaurants, bars and cafes have closed. Photograph: Kurt Hollander
The historic centre has long been compared
to New Orleans for its French-style buildings with ornate steel balconies and
art nouveau details, for its city’s rich musical tradition, and
its draw as a tourist destination. These days it continues to
mirror New Orleans but in its post-Hurricane Katrina phase: empty, abandoned,
economically devastated, rife with crime. Over the past few years, more than 200
hotels, restaurants, bars and cafes, as well as half of all businesses in the centro histórico, have closed down. Hotels tend to remain empty, and most of its streets are deserted after dark.
Yet
the thousands of
citizens dressed in white who have taken to the streets still believe
their city must one day rise again from the ruins. The federal
government responded to these protests by sending in the army to quell
the
cartel violence – unfortunately, bringing more weapons into the city
doesn’t end
crime and violence; it tends to exacerbate it.
José, a local
historian whose grandparents are buried in the city cemetery, has stayed
put because of his love for Tampico. He regards the civic action as positive,
especially when the alternative is the para-militarisation of the residents, as
has happened in other states in Mexico.
“The citizens of Tampico don’t expect much
from the government,” Jose says. “Maybe that’s the most distinctive trait of Tampiqueños; that even with all the
economic and social difficulties they have had to face throughout the city’s
history, they somehow manage to fend for themselves in order to survive.”
Perhaps
that is why José, and plenty more like him, have no plans to join the
exodus from their city. “Fear hasn’t made me or most of
the people I know leave,” he says. “It’s a lot
harder with the economic depression and the violence, but I will still
live my life here.” Kurt Hollander is the author of Several Ways to Die in Mexico City, an autobiography.
• Mexico City’s water torture
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