Murder City_ Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields - Charles Bowden [76]
The colonel says, “If you don’t come, we’ll come looking for you at home or wherever you are.”
So he puts his then-twelve-year-old son in his truck and goes there. He notices fifty soldiers in the four-block area around the hotel, and two vans full of bodyguards for the officers. He leaves his son in the truck and walks up to the officer. It is a very cold night.
In his mind, he is thinking, “What the fuck are these cabrones up to?” Soldiers swiftly surround him. He is in front of the Hotel Miami, but he is in solitary confinement.
The colonel says to another officer, “Look, General, the son of a whore who has written all kinds of stupidities has arrived.”
Then the general, Garcia Vega, says, “So you are the son of a whore who is lowering our prestige. You son of a fucking whore, you are denigrating us, and my boss, the minister in Mexico, is extremely bothered by your fucking lies, idiot.”
Emilio feels very small, and he cannot think of a way to escape his fate. He tries to form words to excuse himself but he cannot. The general is in charge of all of Chihuahua. He is short, and his uniform is brilliant with gold trim.
Emilio is very frightened, and he says that he only writes what the officials or the victims tell him.
The general says, “No, you have no sources for that information. You made it up. Just how much schooling do you have, asshole?”
Emilio lies and claims two years of communication studies in the university.
The general explains that Emilio lacks an education equal to his own.
To have a general speak to you is not something to be desired. They can hand out death like a party favor.
The general suggests he should write about drug people.
Emilio says he does not know any, and besides they frighten him.
“So, you don’t know them and you fear them,” the general bristles. “You should fear us, for we fuck the fucking drug traffickers, you son of a whore. I feel like putting you in the van and taking you to the mountains so you can see how we fuck over the drug traffickers, asshole.”
The guards now surround him, he can see his son in the truck about fifteen yards away, and the boy looks very frightened and nervous. People walking past the hotel greet Emilio, and he thinks this is what saves him from more curses or a beating.
He grovels, apologizes profusely to the general.
“You’ve written idiocies three times, and there shall be no fourth. You’d better not mention this meeting, or you’ll be sent to hell, asshole.”
The colonel tells him he is under surveillance “and should not fuck up.”
Then, he is dismissed. He gets back in his truck, and his son asks what is going on. He says, they want to kidnap me. He drives aimlessly and finally calls his boss, who tells him, “This is serious. This is a problem.”
He decides his only chance at safety is making the threats known. Because if he remains silent, he senses they will return and kill him.
On February 10, he publishes a third-person account of the incident and files a complaint with the assistant public security minister in Nuevo Casas Grandes and meets with the boss of the ministry, a woman, who warns him, “You better think it over carefully because it is very dangerous getting involved with the militaries.” But he is building a paper record to try and save himself. He files a complaint against General Garcia Vega and Colonel Piedra and the soldiers with the National Commission of Human Rights. Three months later, the state police begin an investigation that goes nowhere. The representative of the Commission of Human Rights proposes a conciliatory act between them and the military. Emilio agrees, but he knows this means nothing because he will “continue to be in the eye of the hurricane as the weakest one.”
He does not write anything unseemly about the army again. He becomes almost a ghost and hears no evil and sees no evil. He hopes they will now leave him alone. On February 12, 2008, he merely notes in the