Despite Some Improvements, Violence Continues In Mexico

By Mónica Ortiz Uribe
November 04, 2013

Monday's news from across the South Texas border is bad. The Associated Press and others report 13 people are dead as a result of three separate gun battles in the Mexican border city of Matamoros.

Authorities in the northern state of Tamaulipas issued a statement that said the confrontations occurred between "armed civilians" and Mexican Marines on Sunday afternoon throughout the city of Matamoros. Two rival drug trafficking organizations, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, are fighting for control of this northern region of Mexico.

This time last week, in the central state of Michoacan, nearly half a million people were without electricity after gunmen blew up 18 power plants. The Los Angeles Times reported that violent outbreak in Michoacan resulted in at least five casualties. Michoacan is also the site of turf war between two rival drug cartels. These cartels produce methamphetamine that is transported and sold in the United States.

Earlier this year, the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego released a report based largely off major Mexican news publications that found overall violence across Mexico was down. The 2012 version of a similar report found that the share of drug related killings in border cities had decreased from 30 percent in 2010 to 17 percent in 2011.

While some Mexican border cities, like Ciudad Juárez, have experienced tangible improvements in overall security, spurts of violence continue. In October, 35 people were murdered in Ciudad Juárez, according to the Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office.

Among those murders was a 16-year-old high school student that gunned down in a public plaza near downtown. Also in October, a Juárez police officer was found murdered inside a home and a dismembered body was left in the alley of a neighborhood that continues to be a high crime area.

Fronteras Desk reported last week on an effort by private citizens to avert further violence by working with young people in a troubled neighborhood. Federal money for social programs has dwindled since the last presidential administration.

In 2010, under a program called Amor por Juárez, the city of Juárez received $250 million to invest in job creation, healthcare and the construction of new schools and recreation centers among others. This year Júarez will receive $6 million under a federal government initiative aimed to reduce violent crime.