Massacre in Tijuana Recalls Worst Era

Renewed concerns over drug violence in Mexico

by Randal C. Archibold

New York Times

October 26, 2010

MEXICO CITY — Thirteen people were killed at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Tijuana on Sunday night, a sign that the relative peace there celebrated recently by the president himself might be fracturing. The killings in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, follow the deaths of 14 young people in Ciudad Juárez, next to El Paso, who were gunned down at a party on Friday night.

They also came one week after the authorities in Tijuana seized and destroyed the largest load of marijuana in the country's history, and the police were investigating whether the killings were repercussions from a drug gang's lost haul.

The weekend of bloodshed renewed concerns over drug violence in the country, which has killed nearly 30,000 people in the past four years, mostly along drug trafficking routes on or near the border.

At a two-week conference this month in Tijuana to promote and encourage investment, President Felipe Calderón held the city up as a “clear example that the security challenge has a solution.”

The annual number of murders there came down in 2009 from a high of more than 800 two years ago. But, not counting the latest violence, there have been 639 killings this year, on a pace to match or surpass the 695 of last year. Analysts of the fight against drugs have questioned whether the city had achieved a relative peace or simply reached a lull.

A couple of headless bodies were found hanging from a bridge several miles away from the conference while it was in session.

As Mexico burned the 134 metric tons of marijuana seized last week, local journalists who follow the drug war speculated that the loss of so much marijuana would not go unpunished.

Rommel Moreno, the state prosecutor, said that was one explanation the authorities were considering for the attack.

The police said armed men stormed the drug rehabilitation center. Centers like that one frequently become targets in Mexico because drug gang members often seek treatment or hide in them.

In Ciudad Juárez, such clinics have been attacked repeatedly, and after the killings in Tijuana an unknown voice was heard over police radios saying, “This is a taste of Juárez,” in what the authorities saw as a threat. It appears the victims were lined up face down on the floor and shot with automatic weapons.

Frontera, a local newspaper, said the clinic was not registered with state medical authorities and appeared to be “clandestine.”

Either way, the killings were seen as a setback for a city where bars, restaurants and art galleries were once again attracting crowds, though Americans still largely keep away.

“It is something really troubling, above all since various authorities say we are among states that, in terms of security, have advanced and done it strongly,” Edmundo Guevara Márquez, president of the Business Coordinating Council, told reporters.