Juárez mayor says residents feel secure
by Zahira Torres and Aileen B. Flores \ Austin Bureau
Posted: 04/12/2011 06:53:55 AM MDT


AUSTIN -- Six months into his tenure, Juárez Mayor Héctor MurguÃ*a Lardizábal has a surprising public message for outsiders: Juárez residents generally feel safe.

"I cannot speak for everyone," MurguÃ*a told the El Paso Times while in Austin on Monday. But he added, "I feel that as a whole many people feel secure. Of course, with certain precautions."

That message is one that is not often heard, as the Mexican city battles against drug-cartel violence that has left nearly 8,000 dead since 2008. It is a message that seems to mark a shift in the image that Juárez leaders want to portray about El Paso's sister city. Experts say that perhaps it is a message that will be pushed more as leaders try to encourage the economic development they say is desperately needed to keep the city's youth working and out of trouble.

"It's definitely a strategy of image maintenance and in some ways it's a message he has to push," said Richard Piñeda, associate director of UTEP's Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies.

In recent years, Juárez has at times looked desolate and deserted as residents lock themselves indoors or have fled to the United States or other parts of Mexico for safe haven. But MurguÃ*a said the city is now more tranquil and residents have again begun filling public places such as parks and movie theaters.

"Yes, there are deaths just like there are deaths in Monterrey and like there are deaths in Tamaulipas, but we need to start showing the strengths that we have," MurguÃ*a said.

He added that he considers the moniker of being the most dangerous city in the world "a false cross that we were given to bear."

Murders in the first three months of the year went from about 186 in 2008 to about 614 in 2010. During the first three months of this year, 626 people were killed in Juárez, according to figures by the Chihuahua state attorney general's office.

Juárez resident Carolina Martinez, 21, said nothing has changed for people in her city. Martinez said residents continue to live under heavy stress and many no longer go out at night. Those who do, she said, always maintain thoughts in the back of their minds that something bad could happen.

Martinez, a medical student at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez who has to go to class every day despite violence in the streets, has a simple explanation for why things may seem to have improved.

"The truth is, eventually one gets used to living in fear," Martinez said. "We are human beings and human beings get used to their environment."

MurguÃ*a, who visited Austin at the invitation of state Sen. José RodrÃ*guez, D-El Paso, said his goal was to dispel myths about both Juárez and El Paso, as well as to draw more funds to the border region to encourage economic participation.

The Juárez mayor did not speak publicly but met privately with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. RodrÃ*guez also recognized MurguÃ*a on the Senate floor for his fervent advocacy of trade through Juárez and El Paso, which represents 15 percent of the total trade between the United States and Mexico.

"Despite the headlines and the ongoing drug violence that we hear about in the city, Mayor MurguÃ*a continues to work to increase commerce, strengthen small and midsize industrial development and improve border relations," RodrÃ*guez told senators.

Many of Juárez's problems stem from systemic injustices that include a lack of jobs, education and economic stability for residents, MurguÃ*a said. Most residents cope under such circumstances, but desperation pushes some into delinquency, he said.

For MurguÃ*a, those obstacles cannot simply be solved with police and guns. He said any approach by the United States that focuses on militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border or on targeting undocumented immigrants is also not a viable solution to curbing violence and the drug trade.

"They are aspirins for a patient with cancer," MurguÃ*a said.

MurguÃ*a said a solution will come from fostering additional economic and commerce-driven cooperation between the two countries, and from creating an exchange of ideas on social issues such as health care and education that will better the lives of Juarenses.

He also said that more of the funding that Mexico receives from the United States through the Merida Initiative -- a multiyear program that helps the governments of some Latin American countries confront criminal organizations -- should be directed towards Juárez.

Both the United States and Mexico have stakes in Juárez's future, he said. One way the United States can help is by slowing the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico, MurguÃ*a said.

The Mexican government can invest more in building social and physical infrastructure in Juárez, which it had started doing but has neglected for decades, MurguÃ*a said.

Still, collaboration must be at the forefront of any efforts to help Juárez, he said.

"In the worst dream that I could have had, in a nightmare where I ate too much food and the little devils show up at night, I could have never imagined what has happened," he said of the violence that sprouted in Juárez since his last term as mayor from 2004-07.

Zahira Torres may be reached at ztorres@elpasotimes.com,512-479-6606.

Aileen B. Flores may be reached at aflores@elpasotimes.com;546-6362.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_17823555