Here’s an attempt to summarize the last few days in terms of the violence
in Juarez. According to these articles, as of Sunday, a total of 38 people
had been victims of homicide in the month of March. Monday there were 5
murders, so by the best count I have is 43 in March and a total of 242
people killed so far this year–or an average of 3.3 people per day. That
is less than the daily averages in 2008-2011, however, the death toll as of
March 12 is higher than it was at this time in 2008. Seven of the March
victims are female, including the 10 yr old girl stabbed to death in her
home on March 3. ALSO, posted below is a statement by Fiscal Jorge Gonzalez
Nicolas, more or less saying that yes, the beheadings, killings of police,
and other recent “high impact” crimes, are attempts by one of the rival
forces to show their enemies and society in general that they are still
here and still fighting. But they really aren’t–they are just carrying out
these killings to make people think they are… Well, that is not exactly
what it says, but read the original and the google translation and decide
for yourself. molly
Murders per day:
2007 – 0.86
2008 – 4.4
2009 – 7.5
2010 – 9.9
2011 – 5.7
killings in Juarez…as someone who looks at the news stories almost every
day, there is really no anomaly to try to explain. What is an anomaly are
the boasting pronouncements of politicians and policy analysts about how
everything is getting better. We should recall that in mid-2008, several
politicians including the governor of Chihuahua and the mayor of Juarez
made statements to the press saying that the conflict was over and that
tranquility and normalcy would return. Instead, the violence continued to
grow to unforeseen levels. The killings are down in number this year so
far. But, they are still higher than they were at the beginning of 2008
when no one could imagine what was to come next. The only way to look at
the current killings as a great improvement is to consider the horrifying
statistics of 2010. But the killings in Juarez so far this year are more
than triple what they were in 2007 and every year before that. molly*
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