Mexico. The Deplorable and Deathly Silence.

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Mexico. Drug Hit Victim

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uploaded by Fripouille

Mexico is dying as I write, and as you read, these words. And the International Community is almost nowhere to be seen. What are the United States and Europe doing about it? Why is the rest of South America pretending it isn’t happening?

Ok, so let’s go over to Mexico and see what’s happening.

Thousands of Mexicans die every year in drug cartel-related violence, and the social fabric of the country is disintegrating. Most estimates put last year’s total at over seven thousand. The dead include cartel members, of course, but also journalists, politicians, judges, police and army personnel, and, of course, many innocent civilians.

Mexico wakes up every day to yet another sad collection of videos and photos showing atrociously tortured and mutilated bodies twisting slowly in the wind, hung by the neck from downtown overpasses. Others are roped to police station windows, to lamp posts, some are lined up neatly in fields, hands tied behind their backs and bullets in their heads. Shop security ctv’s film gunmen killing everyone on the premises before walking out unperturbed with the money from the till. Beheadings, acid baths, disembowelling, no barbaric method of killing goes unused. Because these videos often end up on the net, put up there by the cartels, in order that the population may see what their fate shall be if ever they try to oppose the drug trade.

Drivers don’t stop at red lights any more unless they have to, for fear of being kidnapped. Honking your horn at the guy in front may well cost you your life if the guy is armed and in a bad mood.

Drug addiction amongst the young is reaching terrifying proportions.

So that’s it. Life in modern Mexico for ordinary people.

But the cartel big guns have another target in their sights.

Power.

They are busy infiltrating the police and armed forces, the state administrative tissue, and the government. Political and financial corruption are endemic, and much of it is driven by cartel-related issues. High-level leaks are responsible for the assassination of inconvenient local and national political figures, as well as that of highly-placed members of the anti-cartel effort, be they judicial or military personnel.

The country’s economy is a shambles. Not surprising seeing as the cartels control a large proportion of it. Foreign investment is drying up and the cost of the anti-cartel war is an enormous drain on already scarce financial resources.

The Mexican state’s efforts to run the country are in peril. Mexico is on the brink of collapse. The population lives in a state of terror.

But, despite all that, the world’s reaction is remarkable uniquely and ashamedly for its absence. Where are all those political leaders who can’t, quite rightly of course, say enough about the horrors of terrorism, or Gaza, or Africa, or India, to name but a few, but have no lofty speeches to offer on the subject of Mexico? Where is the press? On holiday? So quick to show us graphic pictures of Israeli bombs or Hamas rockets, but much less enthusiastic about covering the massacres and torture going on every day in Mexico. It’s the same for online crowd-powered-media sites, moreover. And it’s the same for people we all know personally.

Mexico makes some conflicts look like a kids’ tea-party. The casualty rate in this war is higher than that to be found in a substantial number of other current wars.

I just do not understand this. I am at a loss to understand this International Omerta, this self imposed mafia-style silence.

Is it because this war is not being fought for passion-inflaming religious reasons? Or maybe it’s because the geopolitical impact of it is considered to be limited. Could it be that the financial interests of some countries and interests are stifling debate ? Then again it could be because Mexico doesn’t sell for the press.  Why doesn’t anyone seem to care?

Whatever. Because, meanwhile, Mexico is dying alone, and the silence is deafening…….