¡Viva la Vida!

Homemade Guacamole

Jan's been in Nicaragua since last week at a Pastor's Wives Retreat and will return on Friday but, in the meantime, I'm posting an instructional video she made on how to make guacamole.  Enjoy!

A long time ago in a land far, far away...

there was a young man who wasn't particularly athletic but became a part of two teams just the same:

Bottom row, second from left.

Second row, third from right. (my eyes are closed)

Police vs Police

Last week the army started conducting an operation called "Operation Clean Up" which is a systematic, municipality by municipality sweep of police officers involved with the cartels.  The local news stations are covering the sweeps daily with many images of soldiers disarming and arresting police officers.  So yesterday police from several municipalities decided to imitate February's "tapados" - the gang members who for a week blocked several of the main avenues in Monterrey. Read the AP News story here. About fifty police officers blocked a main avenue with their patrol cars and trucks during the afternoon rush hour causing a traffic gridlock nightmare.  Soon the federal police showed up and immediately confronted the municipal police with assault rifles.  It was a scary scene.  Some of the municipal police were also armed with assault rifles and pointed them back toward the federal police.  Talk about a Mexican standoff! (sorry, couldn't resist!)

The standoff grew in intensity with both sides shouting and continuing to point their weapons at each other until more federal police showed up and tipped the balance - outnumbering the local police.  Officers on both sides were clearly angry and at the point of firing.  One accidental shot would've resulted in both sides mowing each other down in a hail of bullets.  Drivers who had been stopped by the blockade got out of their cars and ran for cover. 

After maybe twenty minutes of the tense standoff the federal police began arresting and dispersing the local officers.  Some were cuffed while others simply drove away.  The media is blasting both sides for their unprofessionalism - the local officers for blocking the avenue in the first place, and the federals for their heavy use of force to get them under control.  Fortunately the army stayed away and didn't get involved.  In this case the army's presence probably would've driven the municipal police to fire - as frustrated as they are with the army crackdowns. 

Fortunately the day ended without shots being fired but the situation remains tense and obviously unresolved.  The army and federal police are continuing with Operation Clean Up and the municipal police forces will continue to be combed through by investigators looking for officers with drug cartels links. 

As always, please pray for Mexico.  This is just another battle in the continuing Drug War.

A new turn in counter-narcotics operations: hit them where they're most vulnerable.

Mexico is a nation not composed primarily of institutions but rather of broad, inter-connected family networks.  If one doesn't understand the dynamics of large families, then one will be very inhibited in trying to understand how this country operates.  Family first, then job.  Family first, then country.  Family first, then whatever. 

Most Americans are independent from their "nuclear" families (with on average only 2 or 3 siblings and a handful of uncles, aunts & cousins they hardly ever see) by their late teens or early twenties.  We are bred to be independent and "self-made" whereas the Mexican is never completely severed from their family connections and, in fact, relies much more on these blood connections for their employment and success than their American counterparts.  Here, the old adage still applies:  "It's not what you know but who you know."  Nepotism is rampant and widely accepted.  This could help explain why corruption is so rampant and deeply seated - employees, being committed more to their family than their job or institution, try and extract the maximum benefit out of their job for the overall advancement and well-being of their extended families.  The family advances as one unit, lockstep as each member contributes to the whole.  This is something, I believe, that is very difficult for the average, non-Latino (or non-Asian for that matter) American to grasp.

This brings us to Mexico's Drug War.  When the federal authorities can't find and arrest the cartel bosses and members themselves, increasingly the authorities have been going after the families of the cartels (see this NY Times article, "Drug Gangs' Kin Ensnared in Mexico").  This is understandable because, as Mexico is, in most cases the cartels are nothing more than extended families - in fact, the Michoacan cartel is actually known as "The Family."  It's debatable as to how deep family ties run in the Gulf Cartel (began as a uncle-nephew operation but now controlled by non-family members), the Sinaloa Cartel (more family involvement - the Beltrán-Leyvy brothers) and the Arellano Felix brothers of the Tijuana Cartel (see poster) but now federal authorities are finding out as they round up, interrogate and question the aunts, uncles, cousins - even grandparents - of the cartel operatives.  The feds know that the extended families are the cartels' soft, vulnerable underbellies.  Case in point - a few weeks ago the feds arrested the elderly parents and other family members of one of the bosses of the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel and suddenly the cartels immediately yelled "foul!" by hanging up banners (their preferred manner of communicating with the federal authorities) saying: 

“We are aware of our acts, but we’re in total disagreement that our parents, siblings and other relatives are involved,” said one banner found in Acapulco.

Another banner directly addressed the president. “Felipe Calderón, please don’t mess with the family because it is very sacred,” the message said. “Show respect or face the consequences of our people. They are tired of atrocities.”       

What's telling in this case is the fact that, as illustrated by the rival cartels protesting, these arrests deeply shook cartels other than the Beltrán-Leyva, the one affected.  The feds are hitting them where it hurts.  The down side to this is the government's medieval "guilty until proven innocent" methods of arresting and extracting information of people who may be completely innocent of any involvement.  The government is walking a dangerous line and is opening itself up to taking a beating in the national press and therefore losing vital levels of public support it needs to be successful in this war.   As reports of human rights abuses surface (and they will), the government will find that their gains from arresting cartel families will be lost by their heavy-handed and anti-constitutional methods they are employing.  As the US government is learning in the waterboarding torture cases, the ends do not justify the means.