NEWSWEEK: Children targeted in Mexicos Drug War
October 27, 2008 by pablo
As I wrote about this past spring, there is a startling trend emerging in Mexico’s ongoing war with the drug cartels. Project Libertad is tracking this trend and will continue to blog about these stories in an effort to bring attention to it. This hidden war affects all of us, not just the citizens of Mexico.
Below is the beginning of the article, with a link to the full article here. Please pass on this article and thank you for supporting Project Libertad.
Violence is rising in Mexico’s drug war, and the victims include cartel members—and now children.
Michael Miller
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Nov 3, 2008
Guillermo Arias / AP
Mexico is no stranger to violence. But when men dressed in black tossed grenades into crowds celebrating Mexican Independence Day in Morelia in September, it marked a new stage in a national nightmare. A country long accustomed to bloody feuds between powerful drug cartels, Mexico now faces the prospect of an all-out drug war in which innocents are no longer off-limits. The grenade attack in Morelia killed eight and injured 100, raising the death toll from drug violence this year to more than 3,700—a figure more reminiscent of Iraq or Afghanistan than the United States’ neighbor.
While the vast majority of those killed are affiliated with the drug cartels, dozens if not hundreds of innocents have been killed in the past year. Among them: a little girl in Ciudad Juarez; six people in front of a recreation center, also in Juarez; a 14-year-old girl in Acapulco; two small children in Tijuana. The violence has become so bad that last week U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Puerto Vallarta to meet with her Mexican counterpart, Patricia Espinosa, and told her that tackling drug crime was a “national-security priority” for both countries.
The violence is a reaction to President Felipe Calderón’s aggressive moves against the cartels. When he came to power in 2006, he needed “a signature issue that would make him look strong,” says Shannon O’Neil, a Mexico expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, and announced he would use federal troops to target narcotraffickers. He argued that the offensive would reduce drug-related violence and weaken the influence of drug cartels. But as the body count climbed upward, Calderon’s strategy shifted. The military surge had turned into a war to eradicate the drug trade—something most experts agree is nearly impossible. Bodies have been piling up ever since. In 2006, between 1,500 and 2,000 people were killed; this year the toll is already at 3,725.
For the complete article, please click here.
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Mexico’s Drug War and Its Assault On Children
October 20, 2008 by pablo
As I wrote earlier this summer, the drug war in Mexico is growing and the real victims are the children. As this article details, children there are basically living in a war zone, complete with symptoms of PTSD and other stress related health issues. Please read the article and consider helping the children of Mexico by sponsoring our youth workshop series.
The New York Times
October 20, 2008
Drug Killings Haunt Mexican Schoolchildren
By MARC LACEY
TIJUANA, Mexico — The little boy, his school uniform neatly pressed and his friends gathered around, held up 10 little fingers, each one representing a dead body he said he saw outside his school one recent morning. He was not finished, though. He put down the 10 fingers and then put up 2 more. Twelve bodies in all.
A child in Tijuana.
“I saw the blood,” offered a classmate, enthusiastically.
“They were tied,” piped in another.
Mexico’s explosion of drug-related violence has caught the attention of the country’s children. Experts say the atrocities that young people are hearing about, and all too frequently witnessing, are hardening them, traumatizing them, filling their heads with images that are hard to shake.
“Unfortunately, with this wave of drug violence, there’s been collateral damage among children,” said Jorge Álvarez Martínez, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who specializes in post-traumatic stress. Such exposure to violence can hinder learning, interrupt sleep and linger for years, he said.
Nowhere is the trauma greater than along the border with the United States, where drug cartels are battling one another for a growing domestic market and the lucrative transit routes north. In Tijuana alone, a wave of gangland killings has left at least 99 people dead since Sept. 26, a death toll that rivals, if not exceeds, that in Baghdad, a war-torn city that is four times as large, over the same period.
Across Mexico, the carnage is impossible to hide, with severed heads and decapitated bodies turning up, sometimes nearly a dozen at a time. There have been more than 3,700 killings related to drugs and organized crime this year, up from about 2,700 last year, the Mexican attorney general’s office said early last week, with Chihuahua the most violent state and the killings continuing in the days since.
For the entire story, click here.
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We’re Back!
October 17, 2008 by pablo
Hello all! First, let me apologize for the extended closure of our website. We ran into some difficulties implementing some new technologies but we are happy to be back online again. Also, let me update everyone on the last six months!
First, through the hard work and dedication of so many of you, we managed to raise almost 10k towards the establishment of our youth workshops. It is humbling to know that there are so many people out there willing to support us in such a meaningful way, so thank each and every one of you.
But the battle continues. We are still far short of our workshop and film goals which means that we will back at it shortly, looking for new and innovative ways to raise the rest of the funds. But for now, rest assured that we are back and more excited than ever.
Keep fighting,
Pablo
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Charlotte Observer: First-time filmmaker sets out on new quest
July 13, 2008 by pablo
The Charlotte Observer ran a feature story on Producer Laura Gatewood and Project Libertad today. Below is the beginning of the article, with a link to the entire article online!
If you set Laura Gatewood adrift in a leaky rowboat with nothing but a dozen safety pins and a roll of cellophane tape, she might not reach the shore.
But you shouldn’t bet on it.
She’s been alive for 28 years and already has been a competitive equestrienne, instructed African kids in the art of collage, taught monks in Cambodia to roller-skate – without actual skates, a very Zen concept – and tumbled into jobs in New York and Los Angeles with top art entrepreneurs. Resourcefulness comes as naturally to her as melody to a nightingale.
Ask Carmen Melian, her ex-boss and mentor at Sotheby’s in New York, if there’s anything Gatewood doesn’t do well, and she replies, “Laura’s not good at stomaching injustice. That’s the closest I can get.”
So it should surprise no one that this off-and-on Charlottean is now producing a feature film. “Libertad” is about a Salt Lake City-based detective who travels to his Mexican hometown to exonerate his junkie brother, who has been implicated in a string of murders. There he befriends a homeless boy who’s in danger of joining the border town’s drug culture.
Here’s the cool kicker: The production will shoot in both towns of Nogales, one in Arizona and one in Mexico, using 10 or more at-risk Mexican kids living in an orphanage.
To read the rest of the article, CLICK HERE.
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The Need Isn’t Mexico’s Alone
June 4, 2008 by pablo
While this project is primarily focused on the border of the United States and Mexico, and many of the issues there are somewhat unique, the overall problem of streetkids is worldwide. It astonishes me that, in a society that is innovative, technologically advanced and “civilized”, we often times treat our kids like trash, tossing them aside when they become burdensome or difficult. One of the best films on this subject is a documentary called “Children Of The Underground”. I highly recommend it. It is a good reminder that this is a global issue, and not just a Mexican/Latin American one.
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