For 13 years, South America was my home, with five of those years spent in Colombia during the tumultuous 1990s. This experience provided me with a unique lens through which to view Ahmed’s book on Mexican drug cartels. While the level of violence I encountered wasn’t as extreme, I witnessed firsthand the profound impact of powerful drug cartels and the resulting lawlessness when criminal organizations rival or surpass the authority of law enforcement.
Living in this environment, I developed what I dubbed “third-world eyes” – a gradual desensitization to the substandard infrastructure and pervasive crime that surrounded me. It’s remarkable how humans can adapt to almost any situation, often at the cost of losing perspective on the severity of their circumstances. Our annual summer visits to family in Michigan served as stark reminders of the contrast between life in South America and the relative safety and stability of the United States. These trips would temporarily lift the veil of normalization, revealing the true extent of the challenges we faced in our adopted home. The decision to ultimately leave South America was influenced, in part, by our children’s growing accustomed to the constant presence of armed guards – a normalization of danger that we found unsettling.
While I paint a somber picture, I must emphasize that my experiences in Barranquilla (Colombia), Anaco (Venezuela), and Santa Cruz (Bolivia) pale in comparison to the harrowing accounts described in Ahmed’s book. Nevertheless, the shadow of violence was ever-present. I knew friends and acquaintances who fell victim to armed robberies, home invasions where families were bound as thieves ransacked their homes, and even kidnappings of family members.
My sole experience in Mexico came during my university years, on a geology field trip to Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico – a border region a few hours upstream from Brownsville on the Rio Grande. While brief, this visit offered a glimpse into the complex dynamics of the U.S.-Mexico border area. I recall sitting in hot springs coming out of the banks of the Rio Grande, and swimming back and forth between Mexico and the USA. That was way back in probably in the spring of 1989, and I am sure the situation has changed.
In reflecting on these experiences, I’m struck by the resilience of those who live under the constant threat of cartel violence, as well as the profound impact such environments can have on one’s perception of normalcy and safety. Ahmed’s book serves as a powerful reminder of the ongoing struggles faced by many in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, where the influence of drug cartels continues to shape daily life in ways that are often incomprehensible to those who haven’t lived it.
The part I liked best about Ahmed’s book, Fear is Just a Word: A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother’s Quest for Vengeance is that he described the historical development of violence in Mexico. I always wondered how societies can get to this point. How can organized crime become so powerful that only a nation’s military can protect its citizens? I also ask why there is so much violence? Why are murder rates so much higher in Latin America than in other parts of the world? He traces the increasing levels of violence that, in retrospect, makes for a logical sequence. In the center of the story is the Gulf Cartel. Juan Nepomuceno Guerra founded the cartel in the 1930s during the Prohibition Era. He was a bootlegger and smuggler in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. The border city in the USA is Brownsville, Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico. After Prohibition, he switched to smuggling many kinds of goods, going both ways. N. Guerra developed the infrastructure to protect his business, with almost everyone on the payroll from customs officials and the police, to ordinary storekeepers, judges, and politicians. With everyone included in the system, people were incentivized to keep it going.
His nephew, Juan García Ábrego took over the business after his death. He upped the ante by switching to smuggling cocaine instead of appliances. This increased the levels of violence as the cartel competed for market share. He eventually was brought to justice when he threatened US officials. He started serving 11 consecutive life sentences in 1995 in federal prison. Osiel Cárdenas Guillén then murdered his way to the top of the Gulf Cartel and hired ex-military, bodyguards, enforcers, etc., and called them the Zetas to support the Gulf Cartel’s operations. They brought even more violence as they were highly trained, highly armed, and ruthless. When they split from the Gulf Cartel and started a war between the two groups in the early 2000s. It is an absolute, medieval bloodbath, with massacres, torture, etc. taking place on a daily basis. It reminded me of ISIS in Iraq/Syria. I noticed that Cardenas Guillen was recently released from prison after serving 21 years. I wonder if he will be sent back to Mexico to face charges there.
Azam Ahmed does in-depth reporting in the small town of San Fernando, near the Mexico/Texas border. It starts with the kidnapping of Miriam Rodriquez’s daughter, Karen in 2012. The family paid the ransom, but Karen was murdered. Miriam takes it upon herself to track down every single one of the Zetas involved in the kidnapping to bring them to justice. She would make a great detective! I was taken aback by the sheer inhumanity of the people in the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. Ahmed’s book gives context to why people would choose to leave Latin America and try to immigrate to the USA. Drug cartel and gang violence can also be found in Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Venezuela, etc. Until they establish rule of law with an organized and well resourced law enforcement and/or military, people will continue to flee violence.
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