Tamaulipas: Déjà vu

Borderland Beat

Reforma: Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez

Translated by Leila English

In Tamaulipas, it seems, history is indeed condemned to repeat itself. The violent episodes that have shaken the state over the last two months—shoot-outs, narcotic blockades, business places set ablaze—are sadly familiar to Tamaulipas’ residents. Since 2010, months of relative calm alternate with dramatic surges in violence. The novelty is only that this year the crisis attacks a weaker state. The rise in criminal activity, especially the increase in kidnappings, has since 2010 promoted the massive exodus of the corporate community and the closure of many businesses.

A despondent article published recently by The Guardian newspaper describes how the buildings of the Historic Center of Tampico were left vacant as finding new lessees became impossible, and have been slowly overtaken by vegetation. Due to the continuous siege of media communications [by cartels], the reporting of criminal activity is very limited, which reduces the visibility of the state’s crisis, and leaves it at a disadvantage when competing with other regions for support from federal security agencies.

Geography condemns Tamaulipas. The majority of illicit substances that reach the United States from Mexico pass through this state [bordering Texas], or at least that is what the available statistics from confiscated shipments suggest. (For example, of the cocaine confiscated by the Army from 2007 to 2013 in states along the northern border, 56 percent was in Tamaulipas.) For any cartel, then, controlling this lucrative corridor becomes an attractive proposition.

Mier 2010, an entire town was told to get out causing a mass exodus

When it began its conflict with Los Zetas in 2010, the weakened Gulf Cartel withdrew its forces to Matamoros and Reynosa, with the aim of collecting on the transit of drugs through both border cities. Los Zetas, for their part, took control of Nuevo Laredo. The towns of the “Little Border” (like Mier and Miguel Alemán City) became part of a territory of constant conflict between both organizations, and have been the site of some of the bloodiest confrontations.

Nevertheless, the violence was merciless in Reynosa and Tampico in April and May of this year, as they registered 64 and 45 executions respectively, or a total of 109. In Reynosa, the April 1st arrest of the leader of the “Los Metros” faction, “El Simple” Jesús Alejandro Leal, precipitated an incursion of “Los Ciclones,” another faction of the former Gulf Cartel. Traditionally, the most successful businessmen in the state reside in Tampico, and it is there where criminals find the greatest potential for kidnapping and extortion. In this second city the dispute is also between groups who previously formed part of the Gulf Cartel. (Today the two gangs are known as “Sheyla” and “Fresitas”.)

After six years of exacerbated violence, the authorities of our country have not developed the capacity to contain upsurges of violence, including when those upswings are foreseeable. The capture of the principal leaders of Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, which occurred over the last year, promoted the fragmentation of both organizations.
 

This fragmentation, in turn, generated an elevated risk of confrontations in Tamaulipas, as the number of actors disputing control over income generated by narcotrafficking also increased. Additionally, the fighting groups do not act discretely. The frequent movement of convoys of trucks with armed persons occurs in broad daylight. It is very likely that the bloodiest confrontations could have been avoided with opportune reinforcement of the security of roadways and strategic points in the cities principal to the conflicts.

 

[When we arrived in 2010 with these supplies ,at the Mier refugee shelter in SMA,  we met a mother who we had seen in a news report, she was 9 months pregnant when forced to leave with her husband, she had the baby three days before we arrived. We heard the baby had arrived so we bought special gifts for him]

Within this tragic story, Tamaulipas does have one important asset. The criminal groups there do not seem to enjoy an ample social backing, as occurs in regions of Michoacán and Sinaloa, for example (where criminal organizations maintain tight links with local authorities and some communities perceive them as benefactors).

Perhaps because of the tendency of Los Zetas to favor intimidation and brutality as strategies for territorial control, in Tamaulipas the vast majority of the population only feels fear and rancor towards the criminals. For this same reason, it is foreseeable that any authority that demonstrates an authentic disposition and efficacy for facing them will also rapidly promote an ample coalition of citizens’ resistance which has until now been absent from Tamaulipas.