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By Root 1432 0

and they stretched out on the floor. We talked a while, and one of them, a brawny St. Louis man who had been a milk-wagon driver, said: “You know, I’ve been reading how the FBI is organizing special squads to take care of us boys when we get home. I got an idea it will be needed, all right. See this pistol? I killed a man this morning, just to get it. Ran into a German officer in a hotel near the edge of town. He surrendered, but he wouldn’t give me his pistol. You know, it kind of scares me. It’s so easy to kill. It solves your problems, and there’s no questions asked. I think I’m getting the habit.”

Esther Chávez Cano died on Christmas morning 2009.

She lived to help heal the wounds of Ciudad Juárez,

she insisted on justice from those in power.

And demanded action from the rest of us.

After That Year

More troops arrive and more corpses arrive. By the summer of 2009, Juárez looks back on the slaughter of 2008 as the quiet time. This book began because I was astounded by the killings of January 2008—48. This would have spelled out to 576 murders a year, almost double the previous record of 301 in 2007. Now a murder rate of 100 a month would feel like the return of peace to the city. July 2009 is the bloodiest month in the history of the city, with 244 murdered. In August, 316 more go down. There are at least 10,000 troops and federal police in the city, with the murders, 1,440 to date, surpassing the 788 for the same date in 2008—an increase of 83 percent. Small businesses fold all over the city as the extortion rates rise. Forty percent of the city’s restaurants close. The city now has an estimated 150,000 addicts. El Pastor believes that 30 to 40 percent of the population depends on drug money for income.

MONTHLY MURDER TALLIES

FOR CIUDAD JUÁREZ, 2008-2009

2008 2009

JANUARY 46 154

FEBRUARY 49 240

MARCH 117 73

APRIL 55 85

MAY 136 127

JUNE 139 221

JULY 146 260

AUGUST 228 316

SEPTEMBER 118 310

OCTOBER 181 324

NOVEMBER 192

DECEMBER 200

TOTAL 1,607*

From various Juárez press sources.

* This total does not include the 45 bodies recovered by federal agents in February and March in clandestine graves in two houses. With these added, the total rises to 1,652.

I am sitting with a Juárez lawyer at a party, and he explains that there has been a failure of analysis. He tells me criminology will not explain what is happening, nor will sociology. He pauses and then says that we must study demonology.

Some blame the violence on a war between cartels, some blame poverty, some blame the army, some blame the army’s fighting the cartels, some blame local street gangs, some blame drugs, some blame slave wages, some blame corrupt government.

But regardless of the blame, no one can figure out who controls the violence, and no one can imagine how the violence can be stopped.

But everyone grows numb. Murders slip off the front page and become part of the ordinary noise of life. By early December, 2,400 have died.

Juárez is rated by some counts to be the most violent city in the world.

ON AUGUST 13, 2008, EIGHT PEOPLE WERE KILLED BY ARMED COMMANDOS AT CIAD #8, A DRUG REHABILITATION CENTER FOR THE POOR IN COLONIA PRIMERO DE SEPTIEMBRE IN CIUDAD JUÁREZ. THEY WERE HOLDING A PRAYER MEETING. THE BOY IN THE COFFIN, LUIS ÁNGEL GONZÁLEZ, “SIGNO,” 19, A MEMBER OF LOCOS 23 GANG, HAD CHECKED IN FOR TREATMENT FOUR DAYS BEFORE HIS MURDER. THE MEXICAN ARMY REMAINED OUTSIDE THE REHAB CENTER WHILE THE SLAUGHTER WENT ON FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES, WITNESSES SAID.

APPENDIX

THE RIVER OF BLOOD

People with brown skin are next door to invisible.

—GEORGE ORWELL, 1939

At first, it is simply a clerical task. Read the papers and put down the names, if given, and the time and cause of death. Then the volume grows, and the reports get sketchy. People disappear, and their fates never get reported. Nor are there any real numbers on the kidnapped since families hardly ever report such events, because they are afraid of being murdered. Then, the killings per day get larger, the reporters more and more threatened.