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 Entertainment | April 2007 
Film Follows the Kidnappings that Hold Mexico's Future Hostage
 Arnold Garcia Jr. - Austin American-Statesman
Mexico City - Despite the headlines about its violence and its kidnappings, life has to go on here. People go to work and to school and come home again, so you can't readily sense the insecurity in all the comings and goings in this behemoth of a city.
But take a second look at all the gates. Condominium and apartment projects jammed into this city of 25 million scream security. There are gates and guards everywhere. The gated community concept is not unique to Mexico City, but the federal district of the republic is where gates are about security and not just status.
In Acapulco some have started to call it Narcapulco it's the execution-style killings that have people on edge. In the capital, you're never far from a reference of the kidnappings that includes all the gates.
Kidnappings have become such a part of life in the Mexican capital that it's surprising to find a resident of Mexico City who hasn't been touched by this crime.
In June 2004, the level of disgust with the continued kidnappings and the government's inability to deliver security, caused from three-quarters of a million or more to take to the streets to protest. The marchers shouted "‘Ya basta!" as they paraded down Avenida de la Reforma, Mexico City's main thoroughfare. Enough.
After so much time and media attention, there hasn't been a letup. To the contrary, Ricardo Ainslie, a University of Texas professor who was born in Mexico City, sees an escalation and has produced a documentary to show the effects of kidnapping on victims and their families.
"‘Ya Basta!" ("Enough") starts out with that protest march through Mexico City. In the film, it's quite a sight: citizens demonstrating for control of their streets and demanding that government institutions curb the kidnappings. So far, government has failed miserably to deliver.
Ainslie thinks he knows why. When the Party of the Institutional Revolution lost the presidential election in 2000, it not only lost its grip on power, but the frail faηade of order.
"In the transition to democracy, corrupt cops don't have to answer to anyone any more" because suddenly everyone and no one was in charge, Ainslie speculated. On top of that, Mexico's economy deteriorated, conditions that created an almost perfect hot house for crime.
The crime wave unsheathed class hatreds that were always Mexico's dagger in a scabbard. Suddenly, a Mercedes was more target than status symbol.
In conversation, Ainslie cites the case of a kidnapper nicknamed "Mocha orejas" his signature was cutting off ears who didn't spend the ransom money. That fact led Ainslie to hypothesize that the kidnapper was more interested in tormenting his victims than spending their money.
Mexico's most affluent have the means to buy more protection, and they have. As the most lucrative targets have hardened, kidnappers settle for what they can get out of those who can't afford elaborate security or bodyguards.
An author as well as a documentarian, Ainslie said he was drawn to Mexico City kidnappings to educate not criticize. "Something has to happen," he said, and putting the kidnappings on screen may prompt action.
Ainslie holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and loves to work at the intersection of psychology and culture, he said. Some of the interviews he conducted are hard to watch, particularly when victims hold up hands with missing fingers. The fingers were sent to families to underscore ransom demands. In some ways, though, the mutilated are lucky that they are alive.
There is some good news in the film. Mexico set up an elite police unit modeled on American FBI that specializes in tracking down kidnappers and rescuing their victims. These cops consider themselves untouchable by corruption and are better paid and better trained than other Mexican law enforcement. The Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (Federal Investigation Agency) gets hero treatment in Ainslie's documentary and so is a drop of hope in a criminally cruel sea.
The kidnappings, too, are part of much larger mosaic of problems plaguing Mexican society. People who can afford tighter security do so. Those in the upper middle class are increasingly seizing opportunities in the United States, or so anecdotal evidence would suggest. This is the higher end of the immigration phenomenon coming to Texas and the nation. These are not desperate campesinos, however. These are the highly educated, entrepreneurial citizens Mexico needs to build a future.
Ainslie's documentary, in the last stages of production, is to be released soon. It's an important work on a topic that has implications far beyond those Mexico City gates.
To watch the documentary's trailer, go to www.yabastathemovie.com/trailer.html. |
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