{"id":234886,"date":"2016-12-01T14:08:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T21:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=234886"},"modified":"2016-12-01T14:10:21","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T21:10:21","slug":"is-ciudad-juarez-on-the-brink-of-a-new-gang-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/12\/is-ciudad-juarez-on-the-brink-of-a-new-gang-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez on the brink of a new gang war?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_114577\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ivangm\/8569585702\/in\/photolist-e4gngC-4PHKxs-fSNgoV-eUPiz-4QbSjo-4nCMJn-4nH3fW-qBz9wJ-nxwdA-rvvoND-qVhv7k-4PHHGG-5hBVkQ-qz72fT-Aad1eD-bZo8D-Ak1FM1-5jnUK1-tQyD6L-4YchjH-4Yc9Hx-5hBRME-s7ainq-4bKyaz-pkCWXF-qzmPVW-4nCy6X-4nD4wB-4nH8W3-opJtA5-83YtHS-p56nbj-4nCAQH-4nCWSz-4Yd6FB-5jiLGH-pEDkMy-7xKtZQ-4S4NY4-iKXasM-dazxs3-5hFAWg-pkCWEr-4PDuc8-7xKtV5-5hFBqP-5hKYno-q5YhqX-4Ycuhk-4YjpCj\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-114577 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mexican-flag-771x490.jpg\" alt=\"Mexican flag\" width=\"771\" height=\"490\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mexican-flag-771x490.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mexican-flag-336x214.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mexican-flag-768x488.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mexican-flag-1170x744.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Mexican-flag.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">iivangm \/ flickr<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">October was the deadliest month in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez in nearly three years. Locals are anxious \u2014 and hopeful they&#8217;re not witnessing a resurgence of the brutal drug war that plagued this Mexican border city from 2008 to 2011. (<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\">photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>CIUDAD JU\u00c1REZ, Mexico \u2014 It\u2019s hard to predict which direction the violence here is headed.<\/p>\n<p>The more than 100 people murdered just south of the Rio Grande in October\u00a0are a tiny fraction of the killings the city witnessed from 2008 to 2011, when a years-long war between law enforcement and rival drug\u00a0cartels claimed more than 10,000 lives.<\/p>\n<p>But the October death toll, which includes 96 homicides in the city and seven more on its outskirts, marks the most violent month for Ju\u00e1rez in three years, according to government and media <a href=\"http:\/\/diario.mx\/Local\/2016-10-31_fc2eb478\/es-octubre-el-mas-violento-en-3-anos\/\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a>.\u00a0As of August, the number of murders in 2016 had already exceeded 2015&#8217;s total.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/11\/29\/spike-murders-has-people-edge-ciudad-juarez\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>This year&#8217;s violence \u2014 up to 455 murders as of October\u00a0\u2014\u00a0has some in this sprawling, industrial city on edge yet again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously now that the [homicides] have increased again, we\u2019re very worried about the situation,\u201d said Jose Ubaldo Solis, a local\u00a0city council member.<\/p>\n<p>Theories on the uptick in violence aren\u2019t hard to come by.<\/p>\n<p>The local police and the state attorney general blame small-ball heroin and meth peddlers looking to rid themselves of their competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t think we are, by any means, at risk of returning to the way Ju\u00e1rez was before,\u201d said Adrian Sanchez Contreras, the spokesman for the municipal police. \u201c&#8230; There have been [more] homicides this month, but it&#8217;s because of these [retail drug markets] and the disputes between these groups and distribution of these drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Others attribute it to a shift in political\u00a0power: In June, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, lost the Ju\u00e1rez\u00a0mayor\u2019s office to Hector Cabada, a former television personality who ran as an independent. In the state capital of Chihuahua, the rival National Action Party won the governorship that same month;\u00a0the PRI had\u00a0held power since 1998.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government-criminal relationships that have been in existence over the past six years \u2014 whether illicit collusion between the two sides or more benign patterns of interaction and mutual understanding \u2014 have been upset,\u201d Patrick Corcoran, an analyst for<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>InSight Crime, a think tank that analyzes crime and policy in Latin America, wrote last week. \u201c&#8230; The recent spasms of violence are evidence of different groups jockeying for position under a new political order.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Solis, the council member who ran as an independent and was sworn in Oct.\u00a010, said the city\u2019s new leaders are working to \u201ccorrect\u201d the previous administration\u2019s errors, though he didn\u2019t offer specifics on what those were. He also said the mayor and the new police chief are developing a security plan to ensure homicide levels don\u2019t approach what\u00a0the city has\u00a0witnessed in the past. As of late last month, those details hadn\u2019t been made public.<\/p>\n<p>But Solis downplayed the idea that a change in power had\u00a0played a significant role in the recent bloodshed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s possible, but I doubt it,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we took office &#8230; the homicides had already increased,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Yet another theory is that the violence is linked to a new resident in the city&#8217;s federal prison: Joaquin \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel. Guzman was at the helm of that crime group\u00a0when it\u00a0fought the hometown Ju\u00e1rez cartel several years ago for control of the lucrative drug routes that extend from the city&#8217;s borders. After a brazen 2014 escape from a Mexico City prison, Guzman was recaptured in January and\u00a0transferred to the Ju\u00e1rez federal prison. The United States hopes he will be extradited.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe famous capo&#8217;s arrest and expectations of his extradition has created a vacuum his rivals and heirs are eager to fill,\u201d Corcoran wrote. But the analyst also noted that sustained battles<em>\u00a0<\/em>between cartels are rare and that the violence isn\u2019t likely to reach previous levels.<\/p>\n<p>If Guzman\u2019s incarceration is a factor in the recent violence, it would be a new development; it didn&#8217;t play a significant role in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez after the kingpin was captured in 2014, though the Valley of Ju\u00e1rez, a remote stretch of small towns and farmland about 30 miles east of the city limits, remained extremely dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>A January report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimated that Guzman still\u00a0controlled about half of Mexico\u2019s drug trade. Some crime experts have suggested that if Guzman\u2019s capture was going to shake up the Mexican crime landscape, it would have happened twice already \u2014 once following his 2014 arrest and again with his recapture in January.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the reason for the latest violence, people who live and work in the city say they know how to stay safe. Juan Mejia, who lives in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez but travels to Texas to care for his mother in El Paso, said it&#8217;s as easy as staying out of trouble.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople just need to be calm. Things are getting ugly, but just stay away from using or selling drugs,\u201d he said. \u201cYou get hooked or can\u2019t pay \u2014 that\u2019s when they get you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>October was the deadliest month in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez in nearly three years. Locals are anxious \u2014 and hopeful they&#8217;re not witnessing a resurgence of the brutal drug war that plagued this Mexican border city from 2008 to 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[142,236,195],"class_list":["post-234886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crime","tag-mexico","tag-mexicos-drug-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}