Tuesday in Tijuana: Cartel violence effects economy, volunteers
Originally posted to Blogging on Meds and photos used in The San Diego Voice and Viewpoint
Random violence.
Precautions can be taken, parts of town avoided but ultimately, it’s unpredictable. It’s random.
Growing up on the north side of the border I remember hearing about it flare up; a friend of a friend stabled in the neck outside a night club for example, but this is different. On another scale, and foreigners are being killed.
Along the US-Mexico border this year murders have escalated to all-out war between drug cartels and everyone is suffering.
LA Times has kept up with the war, including this package detailing the conflict.
A hospital was shot up. Bodies tortured and left in a pile next to an elementary school. Decapitations. Corrupt police forces and murdered federal officers. And that’s just Tijuana.
More than 6,500 have been killed in Mexico since 2007 and more than 2,100 people since August according to the University of San Diego Trans-Border Institute.
With all that, I made a trip to Tijuana with my aunt Vira Willaims and four other people Tuesday. Every year for the last 15 she organizes a drive to bring bikes, blankets, beans and rice to Casa de los Pobres in Tijuana.
Casa de los Pobres is run by a group of Franciscan nuns and they serve thousands of people breakfast every month. Lunch was cut off the menu because they ran out of money and food. Their clinic also provides medical care and the sisters even visit their flock at home.
The House of the Poor relies on donations and volunteers. Here, Sister Almera Andrada who runs the house gives a quick tour and explains how the violence has stifled donations and volunteers the House of the Poor relies upon. Too dangerous they say though she says their part of town, not far from downtown, remains calm.
“We just hope and pray that things will change… soon.”
To donate money to Casa de los Pobres write to:
P.O. Box 432256
San Ysidro, CA 92173
Aunt Vira was a travel agent for more than two decades and frequently made trips down south with groups for vacation, tourism and to go see merchants they visited every year. Raúl Mendiola Emporium was one of those stops.
His store on Avenida Revolucion has been in the same place for 50 years. In all that time he says he has never seen things this bad.
“It’s almost like a ghost town, this street,” Mendiola said. “You go a couple blocks from here you see three, four, five places that were functioning that are closed.”
Still, it’s hard to overcome perceptions when you see headlines like the one I found a Dec. 1 Frontera screaming “Decapitan a 9; 42 muertos en tres dias.” Headlines haven’t been as loud here with the full slate of American news today but the word has definitely got out. Most everyone I know has expressed reluctance or downright refusal to go to Mexico.
On the way out of Mendiola’s store, I picked up a postcard ironically calling Tijuana “the most visited city in the world,” a claim that still holds water since the San Ysidro border crossing is considered the busiest in the world. Has border traffic lessened in the past few months? The border is still bustling but economies on both sides are in a tailspin.
A day before we drove down, someone was murdered in the middle of the day driving a truck of the same make and model as my own and California license plates. So random is random but had I decided to drive down in my own car, it could have been my number that was called. There’s nothing random about targeted killings but the war continues with plenty of collateral damage. It makes you think of terrorism under much more traditional terms and much closer to home.
