El Dia de
los Muertos, November 2, is different this year in Mexico.
Most
Christians are familiar with All Saints Day, November 1, because of All Hallows
Eve the night before, commercialized as Halloween. In some churches we sing “For all the saints,
who from their labors rest….”
Not all of
us realize that Catholics, Episcopalians, and others also observe All Souls
Day, November 2, to commemorate the departed faithful. http://www.catholic.org/saints/allsaints/
http://www.norcalepiscopal.org/celebrating-all-saints-and-all-souls-day
In Mexico
the Day of the Dead is widely celebrated, but this year it is overshadowed by
the disappearance on Sept. 26 of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, 120 miles
south of Mexico City, and by the deaths of many others who have been bystanders
in Mexico’s war on drugs.
“An
estimated 26,000 people have been reported missing since 2006, when the Mexican
government launched its frontal assault against drug cartels and their
cohorts,” reports Tracy Wilkinson in the Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-day-of-the-dead-20141101-story.html
With fresh
wounds, Mexicans are finding that the traditionally light-hearted approach
toward this holiday has become impossible.
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/media/dia-de-los-muertos/?ar_a=1
Instead,
crosses with the words “43 faltan” (43 missing) have been set up in Iguala,
where the college students were rounded up by police, allegedly on order of the
mayor and his wife, who are said to be part of a drug trafficking group known
as Guerreros Unidos. So far 38 bodies
have been found near Iguala but have not been conclusively tied to the missing
students. http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/10/23/358236149/mexican-prosecutor-says-mayor-wife-ordered-attack-on-students
To make
things worse, four bodies from a family of Americans visiting their father in
Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, were found on October 31. Erica Alvarado Rivera, 26 years old, her two
brothers, and her boyfriend lived near Brownsville, Texas, in a small town
called Progreso, just 37 miles from their father’s home in
Matamoros.
They too
were taken away by an ad hoc police force, this one governed by the mayor of
Matamoros. http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-american-deaths-20141101-story.html
Erica was
the mother of four young children. She
lived with her mother in Progreso and was just traveling a few miles across the
border to visit her father. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Mother-says-her-children-were-beaten-held-in-a-5862462.php
This is the
third major case in 2014 of killing by corrupt police involved with drug
cartels in Mexico, according to Tracy Wilkinson, who is reporting from Mexico
City for the LA Times.
The problems
in Mexico may seem remote from our lives, but in fact the United States is the
other big player in the Mexican drug war.
The market
for these drugs is right here in your city and mine. Buyers here are the reason that drug cartels
are terrorizing Mexico.
What can we
do?
1) Not use illegal drugs.
2) Find these four cities on a map: Brownsville
and Progreso, Texas; Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and Iguala,
Guerrero, Mexico.
3) Recognize that jail time doesn’t stop
addiction or trafficking. Drugs are
available in jail, and cartel leaders continue to manage their troops from
prison. Work for laws that require rehab
for drug possession and dealing.
4) Ask your legislators to look into making more
drugs legal. If the sale of marijuana,
cocaine, and heroin were under US government control, that would take the
profit away from drug cartels.
5) Ask your senators, congressional
representative, and president to work closely with Mexico to end this
disastrous war on drugs that is killing people on both sides of the border.
As I
walked out in the streets of Matamoros,
A stone’s
throw from Brownville in Texas one day,
I spied
three young siblings laid out in cold linen,
Two
brothers and a sister as cold as the clay.
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