Reconstructing Ciudad Juarez: Nation Building on the Border?

(LAS CRUCES, NM) - Even as mass slaughter continues to stain the streets of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, plans are underway to rebuild, reshape and redevelop the bloodied border city. Continuing with its Todos Somos Juarez (We are all Juarez) program launched after the massacre of 15 young people in the Villas de Salvarcar neighborhood last winter, Mexico’s federal government has pledged nearly $300 million to fund different security, social, health and educational initiatives in Ciudad Juarez.

The city of more than one million people is also emerging as a key proving ground for the latest US-Mexico border security strategy. Fine-tuning the Merida Initiative, which emphasized assistance to military and law enforcement agencies, the “Beyond Merida” approach charted by Washington and Mexico City combines security assistance with dabs of social spending and even droplets of nation-building. In part, the bilateral policy is inspired by experiences in Colombia during the past decade.

In comments prepared for Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes’ annual border security conference held August 12-13 at the University of Texas at El Paso, US Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual praised the goals of Todos Somos Juarez, as well as campaigns spearheaded by the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez and the pro-business Paso del Norte Group, aimed at opening employment and educational opportunities for youth while creating conditions for the army and federal police to dominate embattled Ciudad Juarez.

“Now imagine the military playing a new role, securing the perimeter of this small five-block by five-block area, and giving the kids inside it a sense that they are in a safe zone,” Pascual said. “Add to that the deployment of foot police who engage the neighborhood and build trust. And then keep expanding the perimeter…”

For Pascual, Washington and Mexico City’s social and economic goals, based on free-market principles, are increasingly one and the same.

“We also need a border that positions Mexico and the US to compete together in a global economy,” Pascual stressed. “Integration with Mexico,” the diplomat contended, has permitted US businesses to lower costs and stay competitive. “That means more jobs and exports for both the United States and Mexico,” Pascual insisted.

In a separate presentation, Mexican Ambassador to the US Arturo Sarakhun also hit on the unity theme, going so far to say that US-Mexico ties constituted one of three examples of an “intermestic” relationship in which two nations’ domestic and international policies are merged. The US-Canada and US-Israel are the other two examples, Sarakhun said.

A moderate tilt in US policy was evident at the El Paso meeting. Besides traditional talks on border commerce and security technology, the gathering featured sessions on reducing illegal drug consumption, cross-border health care, strengthening justice systems and instituting the rule of law. A good deal of the discussion was not unlike the discourse frequently heard over US policy in Afghanistan.

“We wanted to expand the conference this year beyond the border security issue,” Representative Reyes told an audience.

In attendance at the event, a prominent Ciudad Juarez health advocate spoke to Frontera NorteSur about Todos Somos Juarez’s goal of expanding coverage to a needy population.

Jose Enrique Suarez, chief executive officer of the FEMAP Foundation, said Ciudad Juarez currently has a deficit of 1,500 hospital beds and less than one nurse for every doctor. The ideal nurse-doctor ratio should be three or three-and-a-half to one, Suarez said.

President Calderon has proposed enrolling 90,000 Ciudad Juarez families in the federal government’s public health insurance program known as Seguro Popular, but the city does not have the health care infrastructure to serve all the new patients, Suarez said.

A private, non-profit foundation that provides health care and social services to low-income people, FEMAP is pitching in by opening its two hospitals and a clinic to Seguro Popular's members, he said.

As an alternative of constructing expensive hospitals that might wind up as “white elephants” without adequate resources, Suarez proposed the federal government enter into agreements with about 50 underutilized, private clinics which “could attend patients.” So far, the public-private health care disconnect persists, he said. “These types of initiatives and creativity aren’t happening,” the veteran physician said.

Meantime, FEMAP is training 500 new nurses and would like to open a second school to accommodate 800-900 nursing students, Suarez added.

Prior to the federal government’s Todos Somos Juarez plan, local business sector and government initiatives were unveiled that proposed face lifts for Ciudad Juarez, including the Juarez Strategic Plan headed by businessman Miguel Fernandez.

Promoted by the Juarez municipal government, revitalization of the old Mariscal red-light district abutting Avenida Juarez in the city’s downtown was started during the first administration of Mayor Hector “Teto” Murguia (2004-2007). Many buildings were torn down, leaving the district a collection of empty lots, piles of rubble and a few surviving houses of ill-repute.

Pending Murguia’s return to office in October, the redevelopment plan is on hold, outgoing Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz told Frontera NorteSur. Of approximately 200 private properties slated for demolishing, money still needs to be allocated to purchase 30 or 35 properties, Reyes said.

According to Reyes, the master plan envisions the construction of parks, parking lots and an art school in a neighborhood historically defined by dive bars, whorehouses and illegal drug sales outlets. An old building where Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe once set foot, La Fiesta, will be rebuilt, Reyes added.

“You’ve seen what the state government did in the city of Chihuahua where many buildings downtown were razed and a big plaza with an angel was put there,” Reyes said. “It’s a beautiful plaza right next to the government building. Here, we intend to do the same.”

At the end of the day, re-making Ciudad Juarez will involve far more than new construction projects or even expanded social programs. In recent years, the justice system all but collapsed, the economy crashed and burned and the social fabric came virtually undone.

“The massacre between the gangs of the cartels, a scenario in which many innocent people have fallen, and the world economic crisis has been a double-edged razor that chopped the Juarez economy into many pieces,” recently wrote Ciudad Juarez human rights activist and essayist Juan Carlos Martinez.

According to the writer, local government and university researchers estimate that 58 percent of Juarez residents now live in poverty, while even members of the professional class have seen their incomes drop by as much as 50 percent in the last few years, Martinez wrote.

Some question whether reforms can be meaningful as long as the sputtering but still alive engine of Ciudad Juarez’s legal economy-low factory wages-remains the motor of business. At last week’s El Paso conference, University of Texas at El Paso Professor Kathy Staudt challenged factory owners to raise wages.

Later, in an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Staudt said it was unthinkable that El Paso-based professionals earn $5,000 or $6,000 a month commuting to and working in foreign-owned plants while assembly line workers for the same companies subsist on a couple hundred dollars monthly.

“No human beings are so valuable or less valuable separated by a border dividing line,” Staudt said. “Unfortunately, there are all too many factories that are paying people 30 or 40 US dollars per week. It’s not enough to live on. Poverty drives violence, low wages drive violence. People need to start paying decent, living wages.”

Even by the standards of Ciudad Juarez, the week of August 13-20 was an especially bloody one, according to numerous press accounts. As of early Friday, August 20, at least 99 people were reported murdered in nearly seven days. Young people were slaughtered at parties, in private homes and on the streets. Other victims included Sergio Natividad, adviser to Mayor-elect Murguia, and Ruben Reyes, political activist and brother of the late human rights advocate Josefina Reyes, who was gunned down last January.

The bullets were so thick that the journalists of El Diario newspaper did not even have to leave their building for a story. Early on the evening of August 17, a shoot-out between a pair of presumed delinquents and federal police lodged at the Hotel Fiesta Inn across the street from El Diario’s offices forced the publication’s staff to duck and cover. Bullets struck El Diario’s building and damaged parked cars belonging to employees. Perhaps by luck, no employees were injured, but three federal officers were reported wounded.

The mother of slain Juarez Valley activist and baker Ruben Reyes, 76-year-old Sara Salazar, was quoted along with supporters in the local press announcing a protest march, “The Walk against Death in Ciudad Juarez.”

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Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico