By Cordelia Rizzo
The recent deaths of two graduate students from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (the “Tec”), caught in a fight between the Mexican armed forces and a drug cartel gang, challenged the traditional view of the human toll of the country’s war against drugs. They showcased a singular feeling of loss that had not been addressed before by popular opinion or the media.
My apartment is less than a kilometer away from the university gate in front of which Javier Arredondo and Jorge Mercado were shot the night of March 19; I saw the way the avenue was blocked by a bus before the fight between the military and the drug cartels led to a shooting in the Tec.
Right after the event the Tec was quick to establish that none of its students had been harmed, according to the information given by Nuevo Leon’s authorities and the military. The university’s rector, Rafael Rangel Sostman, understandably wanted to assure his students and everyone else that the famed institution was safe, its image intact. However, when it became apparent that the two victims were not criminals, as previously alleged, but Tec’s own model students, Rangel had to acknowledge that it had been a mistake to trust the information that was given to him. The admission was a rare gesture for the fast-talking, assertive Rangel.
But it was the response of the victims’ mothers that had a deeper impact on shifting ordinary reactions to the shootings that have become everyday news in Mexico’s northern states. Rosa Elvia Alonso, the mother of Jorge Mercado, said that her son’s wounds indicated that he might have been tortured before being killed, casting doubt on the findings of Nuevo Leon’s Human Rights Commission forensic expert.
President Felipe Calderon reacted by having his wife, Margarita Zavala, attend the students’ funeral ceremony instead of his Minister of the Interior Fernando Gomez Mont. It was the right move given that the victims’ families needed consolation from someone who is herself a mother and not yet other speech about how Calderon’s presidency will strengthen the efforts to win the war against the drug cartels.
When we all heard the mothers speak, the anger turned into desolation, and this emotional outpouring prompted Governor Rodrigo Medina to summon the people of Nuevo Leon for a peace protest. Although the protest was a mistake, because it was clearly politically driven (the people of Monterrey do not usually favor protests as a way to express their disappointment and for the most part are not enthusiastic about demonstrations), I believe that Medina did want to heal a very evident wound.
Weeks after the killings, daily life in the city of Monterrey, once the proud industrial and financial center of Northern Mexico, appears to have lost much of its carefree attitude. This consequence of the “war on drugs” can only be compared to the restlessness that follows the loss of something dear. The fact that the victims’ mothers so publicly expressed their pain and that Nuevo Leon’s society has so deeply empathized with them will have far reaching repercussions on Calderon’s “war on drugs.” The average citizen is coming to terms with the very high costs this war entails and has begun to question whether they and their loved ones will ever again feel safe.
Postscript: The body of Victor Castro, an exchange student at Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL), was found this Wednesday in Monterrey. It is not certain whether his death is related to the “war on drugs”, but it has increased the feeling of uncertainty about the success of military action in restoring security to the state of Nuevo León.
Cordelia Rizzo holds a master’s in philosophy from the University of Leuven and works promoting minority rights at Nuevo León’s Human Rights State Commission.
