 |
|
|
 Editorials | Issues | March 2007 
Kidnapping Fears Holding Many Mexicans Hostage
 Dane Schiller - San Antonio Express-News
| | Dr. Manuel Ramirez Juarez and his wife, Adela Alvarado Valdes, sit next to the portrait of their daughter, Mónica Alejandrina Ramirez Alvarado, in Ecatepec, Mexico. Monica disappeared two years ago and the family has left her room untouched and still hope for information about her. (Sarah Meghan Lee/Express-News) |
Mexico City — Scared, disoriented and without a penny in his pocket, Pedro Fletes staggered slightly as he got out of the car.
His blindfold suddenly yanked off, he struggled to keep his eyes from blinking. For the past two months, he hadn't been allowed to walk or see the sun.
He followed his captor's command: "I am going to let you go, and you walk 100 meters. If you turn around or open your eyes, I will shoot you."
Fletes, the director of a private school, finally was free, his ransom paid. He had no idea where he was — some unfamiliar street in one of the city's sprawling slums — or where he had been.
For the past two months, he was held inside a closet, blindfolded, tethered to a wall by a chain around his ankle, forced to relieve himself in a plastic bucket.
He'd lost 25 pounds. Given a sweatsuit to wear, he hadn't bathed or shaved since he was abducted one morning while on the way to school. His green business suit — his captors, oddly, had had it dry cleaned before returning it — hung loosely on him now.
Still, he was alive and in one piece, unlike many other kidnap victims in Mexico who are disfigured — a finger or ear sent as a warning to family members — or killed.
"I did not suffer much if you listen to what's happened to others," Fletes recalled of his ordeal in 2002.
He talks about it now for the purpose of bringing more attention to the crime, one that some believe generates greater and more widespread fear than the drug cartels that grab headlines and draw politicians' attention.
On Thursday, President Felipe Calderón called for life imprisonment for kidnappers who mutilate or kill their victims. The change was proposed as part of an anti-crime package he'll send to Congress.
Calderón's proposal on kidnapping would do two things: establish that federal penalties could apply to all violent kidnappers, not just those who are part of organized crime, and bolster the maximum penalty, currently 30 years.
"No bad deed harms Mexico like insecurity and crime, and there is no greater harm to society than crime without punishment," Calderón said Friday.
Neither Calderón's administration nor the Mexico City government will provide numbers about kidnappings.
It's a crime few want to report out of fear of retribution from police who might be in cahoots with kidnappers, said Guillermo Zepeda, a crime expert at the University of Guadalajara. Another concern is that police incompetence would turn any rescue attempt into a death sentence.
Still, the perception remains that kidnappings have increased in Mexico City — some observers call it Latin America's reigning kidnap capital — and that it's a crime that no longer plagues only the rich. It alters people's everyday lives
Earlier this month, kidnappers reportedly demanded $25,000 from the family of a 17-year-old high school student from a working-class neighborhood. Somehow, the kidnapping went awry, fatally.
Two candles and a chalk outline now mark the spot where the body of the girl with a ponytail was dumped, her hands and feet bound.
Her death underscored a feeling that anyone, not just people who ride in armored cars and are surrounded by bodyguards, can fall prey.
"It is just part of our lives — like one day it is going to happen if it is your turn," said Stephany Gutiérrez, 33, who heard the gunshots when the girl was killed.
Several miles away, in a Mexico City suburb that's home to many diplomats and executives, resident Adela García, 60, was less fatalistic.
"You live terrorized," said García, who added she won't go out at night without someone to protect her.
Others as fearful as García also have changed their habits to ward off would-be abductors.
Some purposely don't keep regular schedules; others wear inexpensive clothes, shoes or watches, or drive older cars, to avoid attention. They avoid taking taxis.
They hesitate to share personal information or even answer the front door for an unexpected visitor.
"We distrust everything," said Anabell Pagaza, a psychoanalyst who counsels kidnap victims.
"It is generating a very secretive culture when you cannot even share your accomplishments out of fear the information will be used against you," she said.
Children are instructed not to talk about what their parents do for a living or where they live.
Unknown toll
While exact numbers about kidnappings are unavailable, a 2005 U.S. State Department report paints a dire picture.
"Kidnapping, including the kidnapping of non-Mexicans, continues at alarming rates," it notes, pointing to an "unofficial estimate" of 3,000 a year, with some involving corrupt police.
Thomas A. Clayton Consultants, a private international security firm, found 532 kidnappings reported to authorities in 2005, but noted that "conservative estimates put the total number of kidnappings for ransom in Mexico between 1,500 and 2,000" that year.
Not surprisingly, most occurred in Mexico City, but the far smaller number in the vicinity of the border city of Nuevo Laredo has caused the most tension between U.S. and Mexican leaders, because U.S. citizens have been targeted there.
Americans aren't the preferred victims of kidnapping gangs, according to Clayton's latest assessment of Mexico.
Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz, a federal congressman who's president of the security commission, said Calderón must unite political parties to combat kidnapping.
Laws need to change to allow local police to take on kidnappers by monitoring wireless phones and the Internet when they make ransom demands, he said.
Kidnapping gradually has worked its way into Mexican culture. It shows up in movies, novels, songs, TV soap operas and at least one mock kidnapping posted on Youtube, the video-sharing Web site. Everyone remembers the more famous cases: the 2002 kidnapping of pop star Thalía's two sisters and the 1998 abduction of singer Vicente Fernández Jr., who was released minus two fingers.
María Elena Morera, head of the citizen's watchdog group, Mexico United Against Crime, said victim surveys show kidnappings make up just 1 percent of the crimes they report, but generate greater anger than more widespread offenses.
"What is happening is that it is a high-impact crime that provokes a perception of terrible insecurity, not just in the person who is kidnapped but by the entire family and social circle," she said.
But, she added, when it comes to day-to-day life, far more people are worried about being mugged than kidnapped.
Her husband, businessman Pedro Galindo, had four fingers cut off by kidnappers.
He drew attention during last year's presidential race when many sought to show that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexico City mayor turned candidate, had failed to curtail crime there.
Appearing in a TV spot, Galindo noted that when his first finger was sliced off he felt pain; the second, fear. By the time he lost his fourth, he felt full of strength, he said, enough to later take a public stand.
"If (authorities') hands are shaking, I can lend them mine," Galindo said, holding up his mutilated hands, three digits missing from the left and a pinky from the right.
Among those arrested in Galindo's case is a doctor who performed the amputations; his prosecution is pending.
The wave of brutality moved Ricardo Ainslie, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a Mexico City native, to produced the documentary, "Ya Basta" (Enough Already), which will be shown at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin this week.
"All my friends from childhood had kidnap insurance," he said. "Everybody was anxious and paranoid about going out at night."
But some contend fear of kidnapping actually is declining. and that if there's an increase in reported kidnappings, it is because people are more comfortable coming forward.
Emotional trauma
Paulina Cosio, a 37-year-old mother and businesswoman, said she decided six months ago she no longer would live in fear. She stopped using a bodyguard.
"I walk in the park with my girls and my dog and we get ice cream — walk around just like in New York," she said over a meal at an upscale outdoor cafe. "Fear is everywhere. In the United States, people live with the fear of bombs."
What scares people is that kidnappers can strike anytime, anywhere, without warning.
Some abductions are carried out randomly as a crime of opportunity — the victim is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others happen after careful study of the victim's habits, according to experts.
Would-be victims can inadvertently draw attention to themselves, perhaps by bragging about their wealth or giving the impression they've got cash, said Thomas Gottlieb, a Mexico City security consultant.
Someone — "your friend, your brother, your maid," said Gottlieb — might purposely or accidentally share information with a kidnapper looking for a target.
"It is the way you dress, the way you walk, the way you go around your neighborhood," he said. "You have to be aware of where you go and how you go."
Kidnappers often see their victims as merely merchandise, said Anabell Pagaza, a psychoanalyst who counsels victims of kidnapping.
"They try to dehumanize to the maximum," she said.
Captives usually are filthy, blindfolded and tied up or chained. If treated like an animal — tossed pieces of raw meat or forced to lap water off the floor — the more likely it is that the kidnappers are planning to kill them, she said.
If they are eating off plates, however, kidnappers may have compassion and hesitate before mutilating or killing over a stalled ransom.
Survivors of kidnapping often have trouble trusting anyone and are sometimes angry that more wasn't done sooner to secure their release.
Among the biggest questions is, "Why me?" and who among their inner circle may have given kidnappers information about them.
Fletes said the kidnapping changed him, in some ways for the better.
He hugs and kisses his wife and children each day as if it were his last. He wears a $10 watch from a street market instead of his Rolex. A slight gray beard clings to his chin — something he first grew in captivity. It reminds him of what happened, to stay motivated, to stay angry.
Once a person is kidnapped, one of the biggest mistakes family members can make is attempting to negotiate a ransom on their own, Gottlieb said.
To pressure families, kidnappers prepare shocking photos, cassette recordings or videos.
Some mutilations of victims come with gut-wrenching brutality, done with kitchen shears, for example, or with finesse, such as a rogue surgeon administering anesthesia and doing the deed.
Kidnappers like to break the will of victims as well as their families to show they are in control.
A Mexico City woman was prepared to drop off a $200,000 ransom for her husband last year. At the last minute, kidnappers said they wanted her to shave her head bald and put her hair in with the money.
She complied and the drop was made, but it turned out her husband was dead.
Luz García López, a psychoanalyst who studies the crime, has concluded: "Kidnappers end in the morgue or the jail; that is the only way they stop."
Still searching
One man who also says he won't stop is Dr. Manuel Ramírez, who has been searching for his daughter for more than two years, after he received text messages demanding a ransom.
A former friend of his daughter, Mónica, is in prison for the kidnapping but has refused to say what happened to her.
Ramírez said he has traveled from Cancún to Tijuana looking for his daughter, who'd be 23 now.
His mind raced with scenarios, from her being murdered to held in sexual slavery.
Hypertension, diabetes, depression and ulcers have taken their toll on him since her disappearance. He said he no longer believes in God and rarely sleeps.
Mónica's bedroom in their cinder-block house in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood near Mexico City remains as she left it, from her college textbooks and stuffed animals to a hamper with her dirty laundry.
"I fight every day to find my daughter. I can't sleep at night, my brain won't let me rest," he said. "I want her back — dead or alive — that is my fight."
dschiller@express-news.net |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us