My Report from an Undeclared War Zone [01/23/2009]

An abandoned ice chest on a village plaza just east of Juárez, Mexico--our sister city--opened to reveal three severed human heads Tuesday. Later that day authorities fished a headless body out of a sewage canal. No identification provided--unlike Sunday's discovery of a chest containing the icy severed head of a police commander from a nearby village. The gore continues unabated in this drug cartel war zone.

Texas Monthly Magazine calls it "Baghdad, Mexico" and, indeed, the bloody deaths just last year in Juárez--immediately beyond our city limits--exceeded the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq in any year of the war as the cartels battle for control of this important smuggling gateway to the U.S..

And while the assassinations are targeting for the most part those related to drug trafficking in some way, they create a climate of lawlessness. Juárez has descended into chaos. Everyone has a story. Listening to it becomes a ministry, a service of being present to pain. And nearly everyone here in El Paso is connected to a loved one in Juarez. We are bound together by grief.

At a church meeting I attended here last night, the stories spilled out: *A middle aged woman's 89 year old father lives alone in Juarez: although penniless, he's receiving repeated terrorizing extortion phone calls. **Church committees charged with charitable works fear crossing the border into Juárez: kidnappings or attempted kidnappings grabbed headlines twice this week. ***Others from here are afraid to cross into Mexico to visit their relatives. ****Yesterday a Juárez mom dropped her kids off for their school day in El Paso; then, she was robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight. She lost everything she had. She later told the grade school that her kids wouldn't be returning to classes for maybe a week, because: "We'll be staying close to home for awhile."

Because I live in another region of the U.S. for much of the year, I know that outside the Border area public awareness of the reality of this war is dim to nonexistent. I am impelled to report this; the world needs to know. The United States especially needs to know what we know on the Border: there's a swelling tide of violence and it is headed directly north.