Mexico & Nafta - September 2010 (ISSN 1741-444X)

On 25 August the Mexican authorities announced that all of the 72 bodies (58 men and 14 women) found in Tamaulipas on 24 August were those of undocumented migrants. Identifying the bodies is proving slow. By 31 August only 46 had been named and given a nationality.

Initially, the authorities claimed that the only survivor from the massacre was an Ecuadorean. On 31 August, to the embarrassment of the Mexican authorities, Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, announced that this was not the case and he understood from the Ecuadorean survivor, who had been flown home, that a Honduran had also survived.

Correa, like a large number of presidents from across the region, was barely able to articulate his horror at what had happened in Tamaulipas; “What happened in Mexico cannot be classified."

The killings are hugely embarrassing for the Mexican government, which had presented itself as standing up for the rights of all Latin American migrants in the US. Most of the Latino migrants to the US are Mexican. The massacre also embarrasses Mexico before the rest of Latin America because the government has not been able to protect migrants transiting through the country.

The dead migrants came from Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras and, most surprisingly, Brazil. According to the El Salvador government, the Mexican authorities had confirmed that 21 of the dead came from Honduras; 13 were Salvadoreans; five were from Guatemala; six were from Ecuador and one was Brazilian.

What is interesting is the range of ages. The youngest Salvadorean killed was 16, the oldest 55. Most were between 20 and 25. Four of the Salvadoreans killed were women. The youngest was Jeimy Castro, aged 15.

It seems odd that a Brazilian would go to the expense and danger of trying to reach the US when on all statistical comparisons the Brazilian economy appears to be doing much better than the US economy. Certainly the demand for labour in Brazil seems stronger than it is in the US.

Until Correa's comment the only survivor was thought to be Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, from Ecuador. His pregnant girlfriend told an Ecuadorean newspaper, El Comercio, that she had last heard from him a week before the massacre when he phoned her saying that he had reached Guatemala. She said that both of her boyfriend's parents were living in the US, but had lost their jobs and needed their son. They could not come back to Ecuador because they had not paid off their debt to the people traffickers who got them into the US. She said that Freddy had paid people-smugglers US$11,000 to transport him to the US.

A leaked report of Mexican officials' interview with Lala Pomavilla said that he was part of a group of 75 people that was travelling by land up from Guatemala.

In Tamaulipas, the container lorry in which the migrants were travelling was hi-jacked by another group who first demanded money from the migrants and when the migrants said that they had no money, the kidnappers demanded that the migrants join them in their drug trafficking activities and promised to pay them US$2,000 a month. When the migrants refused they started shooting them.

They shot Lala Pomavilla and left him for dead, but he was able to escape to a marine checkpoint on a main road and alert the authorities to what was going on. The marines then raided the ranch where, after a brief shoot-out, the marines found the bodies' dump site. It is not clear whether the migrants were kidnapped from the original people traffickers or whether the contracted traffickers simply turned on them.

Mexico's National Human Rights Committee (CNDH) has launched an investigation. The federal government has sent at least 10 forensic experts to the site as well as refrigerators for the bodies which will be taken to Ciudad Victoria, the state capital. Various embassies in Mexico City are sending teams up to identify bodies. 

No-one is sure how many people travel up from Central and South America through Mexico to try to cross into the US. The general estimate is 200,000 people a year. In 2009, the authorities in Mexico intercepted 70,000 undocumented migrants in Mexico and returned them home to Central and South America.

President Felipe Calderón immediately claimed that the murderers were Los Zetas. These are former Mexican special forces personnel who were hired by the Golfo gang to act as the gang's enforcers. They have now moved into the Golfo gang's business and the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Chihuahua are the battlegrounds for a war between the two gangs. On 30 July, 15 bodies, marked with a “Z", were found in the same municipality of Tamaulipas, San Fernando.

President Calderón claimed that Los Zetas had attacked the migrants because they were so short of money themselves. The attack proved, he said, how desperate Los Zetas have become, thanks to the government's efforts.

Carbombs in Tamaulipas: The authorities said on 5 August that a car bomb had exploded outside a police station in the border state of Tamaulipas. This was the second car bomb to have exploded in two weeks. The attack appears to have been less premeditated than the first explosion in Ciudad Juárez, which killed two policemen, a doctor and a paramedic who were coming to the aid of a wounded police officer. Alarmingly, the 5 August bomb went off inside the parking lot of the police station. The car exploded at 5.20pm, the police said, in Ciudad Victoria, capital of Tamaulipas state. The bomb destroyed two police cars but did not result in injuries.

Petrol-bombs in Cancún: On 31 August eight people were killed in a table-dancing establishment near Cancún after it was attacked with petrol bombs.
Gangsters seem to be targeting the country's tourism industry. On 25 August in Puerto Vallarta, the main resort on the Pacific coast, 20 people were seriously injured when, according to the authorities “a grenade went off accidentally." Now Cancún, Mexico's main Caribbean resort and the site of international summits, has been attacked.
The Castillo del Mar table-dancing bar was attacked about 1am. Three weeks earlier the owner had complained about being asked to pay protection money. Six women and two men were killed in the fire caused by the petrol bombs, thrown by 10 gangsters. Eyewitnesses said the attackers appeared to be northerners because they wore boots and wide hats. The attackers deliberately stopped people getting out of the bar, effectively burning them alive. 
The owner of the bar, Augusto León, said that three weeks ago he had been asked for M$40,000 (US$3,100) in protection money by someone who said he was Juan Piña González, who represented a drug gang.  Piña González  was arrested but released for lack of evidence.