On Saturday, June 1, Journalist Salvador Camarena wrote in 'El País' about the crisis facing Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera given the case of eleven 'disappeared' from the Zona Rosa [Mexico City area famous for its night life]. Camarena reports that it's a case in which "everything is mystery and contradictions" and "the only hijacking proved up to now is the tranquility of los chilangos [slightly pejorative slang for residents of Mexico City]." Since it appeared, the article has been widely shared on social networks.
The following is excerpted from the article: “Tepito: la hora del alcalde Mancera” [Tepito: Mayor Mancera's Moment of Truth] filed by Salvador Camarena in El País, June 1, 2013.
"This month marks the fifth anniversary of the tragedy that marked the government of Marcelo Ebrard, mayor of Mexico City from 2006-2012. On June 20, 2008 nine teens (and three policemen) died in a dark police operation that was nonsense from beginning to end. Unable to explain the motivation for an illegal raid that detained and killed adolescents from the lower-class, Ebrard saved his skin by removing the head of the police and appointing a new public prosecutor. In this way Miguel Ángel Mancera arrived in the position from which he would grow his profile until last December he became Mayor of Mexico City. So today it seems an ironic twist of fate that at the point of completing his first six months as mayor, Mancera faces a security crisis for the disappearance of eleven youths, who were lost track of last Sunday after going to a nightclub in the center of the city (...)
"Mancera wasted the long transition between the election and his swearing in on December 5, in part because those five months were Ebrard's intense farewell. Until the last minute, Ebrard was intent on nailing down the imprint of his government, which gave the city one more Metro line, a bike rental program, toll roads for cars that was [a program] as ambitious as it was controversial but, above all, [Ebrard left] a Chilango pride, a sense of belonging that made the term by which inhabitants of Mexico City are known--Chilango--cease being dismissive and instead become a label that means living in a city with enjoyment of rights and a social agenda that contrasted with the narrow-minded view of the PAN governments in the presidency of the Republic (2000-2012).
"When Mancera finally took power, nobody understood what kind of mayor he intended to be. From the first, the new executive distanced himself from what was expected of him. Since 1997 the mayors [from the 'leftist' Party of the Democratic Revolution, PRD] of this city have, more or less, been the voices, in turn, confronting presidential power. It's not for nothing that two former mayors of Mexico City were presidential candidates, and there are many who think that Ebrard might even have given a major battle to Enrique Peña Nieto, but [the PRD candidacy] went to former Mayor López Obrador--Mexico City Mayor from 2000-2005. From the first day on the job Mancera refused to be Peña Nieto's alter ego. He did not assume to be the dissenting voice, and he has even been criticized for what some consider too much closeness with the PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution] President.
"Today it can be said that his government start-up went astray in at least three processes.
1) From the first minute on December 1, Mancera had to deal with a scandal over the repression of innocents detained without cause amid a violent demonstration protesting the return of the PRI to power. In his last hours in office, Ebrard was overtaken by a protest where hooligans were not content to cause damages, while Mexico City's riot police mounted an attack against a hundred people who were almost exclusively scapegoats. Mancera's performance in this case was dull, defensive, ignoring the evidence that circulated on social networks, where videos of the abuses were devastating.
2) Enveloped in the controversy over that operation that he did not cause but was slow in stopping, Mancera took office with a speech that no one has yet succeeded in deciphering: what exactly is proposed to advance the city he inherited. The contrast with Ebrard's personality, so strong that on occasion he made statements that bordered on the contemptuous, could not be greater.
3) Nor could there be a greater contrast between a government start-up as that of Peña Nieto, who demonstrated a political operation by presenting the Pact for Mexico, compared with an inexperienced leader, who had never held an elective office, who had not mastered the subtleties of the ceremonies of power and, last but not least, had given up on having an alternative to the federal plan (...)"Today Mancera faces a serious case that could define his government. Last Sunday eleven young people from the popular neighborhood of Tepito disappeared. All is mystery and contradictions. These days Mexico City residents have missed precisely what made Mancera famous [as a public prosecutor]: his diligent actions and timeliness in reporting. This morning Camacho, a cartoonist for the newspaper Reforma, memorably drew him: his cartoon, entitled "Another Two Disappeared", showed the empty chairs of the public prosecutor and the head of government [mayor].
"Whatever happens to be the case of the disappeared from Tepito, there is only one message: someone has taken criminal advantage of the idea that the new government is not doing much. That someone has had Mexico City on tenterhooks for a week. The only kidnapping demonstrated so far is the tranquility of the chilangos.
"The worst thing that could happen to Mancera is that the citizenry might miss the public prosecutor they used to have while they affirm that they did not get a head of government to live up to the idea that they had formed of themselves, the chilangos, whether self-deceived or not: the notion that the capital was different from the rest of the country, which is plagued by violence and prudery. Mancera's moment of truth has arrived."
Original article in El País
Original article in El País