"Bitter 2008!" screamed the cover of La Prensa in Mexico City on December 31. "The year ends marked by insecurity, a bloody war against crime, ruthless vendettas by capos, attacks on innocents, tragedies, and as if that wasn't enough, a serious economic crisis."
Watch the Al Jazeera report above; you can hardly call the tabloid's summary sensationalist. President Felipe Calderon's never-ending narco war claimed more than 5,000 lives in 2008 alone, enough to fill the already gory pages of papers like La Prensa with incredibly grisly news for every single day of the year. 2008 was easily the bloodiest and deadliest in the country's modern history. Top it off with the News Divine tragedy, the scandalous Fernando Marti and Silvia Vargas kidnappings, the narco-terror attack in Morelia, and the loss of Juan Camilo Mouriño, Calderon's right-hand man and heir apparent, on November 4 -- a night just about every country in the world except Mexico was united in jubilation.
Mouriño along with Mexico's former anti-drug czar, the respected Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos (see linked Washington Piece piece), and seven others were killed when the Learjet they were traveling in slammed into rush-hour traffic on the swanky west side of town as it approached Mexico City from San Luis Potosi. Seven more people died on the ground. The government rushed to declare the incident an "accident," but suspicions remain that the cartels -- or even more sinister internal forces -- somehow brought the plane down. Days later the book "Accomplices of the President" hit bookstores. In it, journalist Anabel Hernandez lays out her evidence of endemic corruption up and down Calderon's cabinet, including allegations against the now-deceased Mouriño and Genaro Garcia Luna, the public safety secretary. Worse still, many requiems on 2008 in Mexico are ending with the prediction that 2009 is only likely to be nastier. Economic jitters are rampant. The peso has barely hung on against the dollar toward the end of '08.
There has to be a glimmer of a bright side. And there is! Kinda. Here's my best case as of right now: Living here in Mexico in 2009 still constitutes ... living in Mexico. * More later.
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