In search of a peaceful home

[Lucinda F. Boyd]

Porvenir, Chihuahua – It has been 100 years since the Revolution expelled many Mexicans and now thousands flee the narcotraffickers. A house with blue walls, but no roof, welcomes whoever arrives at Porvenir, Chihuahua. Until recently, the house was occupied but now looks like a blacksmith’s shop, only with doors and windows.

This isn’t the only building like this one. In this town in the Juarez Valley, burned homes predominate. Residents left their furniture, clothing and their history. They left out of fear. Those that remain seldom leave their homes. For them, the town has changed to a place of sadness and desolation. One gazes at Porvenir with trembling.

The burned homes form a stark image. They stand silent. The people were displaced by violence–that violence employed by narcotraffickers. It has changed the face of many regions.

People and entire families have been kidnapped and extorted. Confrontations between cartels and protective forces have caught society in a cross-fire in zones controlled by criminals.

In the area of Ciudad Juarez and the entire Juarez Valley, there is talk of more or less 100,000 displaced persons, according to Defender of Human Rights-Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson.

Statistics of the El Paso, Texas, Police Department, indicate that around 30,000 Mexicans have crossed the border into the United States in the last few years because of the violence.

The Juarez Valley, a rural area east of Ciudad Juarez, is one of the areas where displacement due to violence is most evident. In 2007 there were nearly 22,000 residents. Now there are few.

Rodolfo Rubio Salas, Investigator from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, says, “It is very difficult to say. We have found many abandoned homes. In some villages, 40% to 50% of the people have gone.”

Felix Velez Fernandez, of the National Population Council (Conapo), says there has not been a massive displacement caused by narcotraffick. He said, “I don’t believe the number of displaced persons is significant.”

This is not the first time Mexicans have been displaced because of a war. One can imagine what is happening now in the Juarez Valley, also has been seen in many communities across the country; for example, 100 years ago in the Revolution that left empty houses, burned homes and abandoned fields.

But this is not a revolution that expels people. It is criminal organizations that have provoked the exodus.

http://correo-gto.com.mx/notas.asp?id=171213