By Mathieu von Rohr
In Ciudad Juárez's prison, Mauro Adrián Villegas, known as Blacky, leans against the wall of his cell and says that something is wrong in the city. "Deaths, deaths and more deaths," he says. It's not good, he adds.
Blacky is one of the leaders of a gang called Los Aztecas which smuggles and sells drugs and carries out killings for the Juárez cartel. It is said to have 5,000 members. Blacky, 23, is muscular and has a brutal-looking face. He is wearing sunglasses and has Aztec symbols tattooed on his upper arm.
In his view, the blame for the violence lies with cartels from elsewhere who want to secure Juárez for themselves. And it's not just the Sinaloa cartel, he says; it's also cartels from the Gulf and even the "Familia" from faraway Michoacán. They all want the city so they can gain a toehold in the US. Their partners are local gangs such as the Mexicles and Artistas Asesinos, the Aztecas' rivals, he says.
"The cartels say to them: 'I'll bring a ton of marijuana and cocaine. Let's work together. Kill all the Aztecas and we'll give you cars, weapons and money.'" Blacky says the gangs are full of young boys, just 16, 17 or 18 years old. The only thing they know how to do is to fire an AK-47.
"Recently they went into the Seven & Seven bar," he says. "They didn't even ask who was who. Instead they just went boom, boom, boom. Everyone was dead. We've got a heart. You don't have to say to me, here's 10,000 pesos, go and kill the asshole. If he deserves it, he will die anyway."
Blacky doesn't want to go into too much detail about what his role was before he ended up in prison. He dropped out of school, worked in construction and then found a family in the Aztecas. He did "communications" for them, he says -- he always knew where everyone was and who did what. He never killed anybody, he says, explaining that everyone has their own talent.
Blacky is in prison for kidnapping and robbery because he hijacked a car with two women in it, threatened them with a weapon and forced them to drive through the city with him. He was on the run with five killers chasing him; he didn't even want anything from the women, he says. He then had to give the judges a 250,000-peso bribe so that he would give him six years, not 40, which meant him selling his houses, cars and motorbikes. He explains, "You're only worth as much as you've got."
Family Time
It's Sunday, visiting day in prison. Families are having picnics with their incarcerated fathers. There are baskets full of food and meat is sizzling on the barbecue. A band is playing and there are swings for the children.
But it wasn't always so peaceful in the prison. In March, before the army was deployed, the Aztecas massacred 20 members of the Mexicles and Artistas Asesinos. Since then the gangs have been housed in separate wings.
Blacky officially had nothing to do with the massacre. But in May rival gangs complained in a narcomanta that he is protected by some police officers in prison and that they have provided him with weapons.
Blacky says it's all peaceful here now. In the past, rival gangs had even managed to kidnap people in their wing and demand protection money, but that's all changed now, he says -- now that the prison has a new director. He's someone you can work with, Blacky says. He takes care of your concerns personally, makes sure there is paint for the walls and looks after the workshops.
The director, a cheerful plump man, is only too happy to admit that he grants all the prisoners' wishes. "So that they don't complain to their friends on the outside!" he says with a laugh. His predecessor was murdered. He says he misses his tropical home town of Veracrúz.
'My Word Is Sacred'
It's an open secret that the Aztecas are in charge of the prison. Blacky does nothing to dispel the impression that he might actually be the real prison director. "Do you know why I'm the boss here?" he asks. "My word is sacred. I look out for a lot of people." He thinks he'll soon be released. The only problem is that on the outside there is a price of 10,000 pesos on his head. He grins.
He shows his cell. In contrast to the other prisoners, he doesn't share a cell with five other men. He has his own room with a double bed and red-painted walls with a poster of the Mafia film "Scarface." He also has a laundry service.
He proudly shows off his cell phone and plays the Juárez cartel's song at full volume on his stereo. He has girls in here every night, he boasts. It's no problem getting them in from outside.
"We call it the Cherry Palace." He lies back contentedly on his bed. "Five stars." He says the Aztecas will win the war. "The others will never defeat us. They're killing each other now."
Just a few days later, a group of killers murder 17 people at a drug rehabilitation center in the city. The police are reporting that the victims were Azteca members who'd gone into hiding there. Blacky has nothing to say on the matter.
Out of the Blue
The war, which is now in its third year, goes on and it doesn't look as if President Calderón is winning it. His party has just lost an important parliamentary election and he is under pressure because of the lack of security across the whole country.
Margarita Rosales sits at the kitchen table in her modest house in the south of Ciudad Juárez. She's spread papers out on the table: the official autopsy report for her son Javier.
He disappeared out of the blue in April. Days later, one of his friends got in touch and told her that soldiers had arrested them both when they were out -- the soldiers has assumed they were Aztecas because Javier had a dragon tattoo. The troops had tortured them for two days and then left them in the desert.
Margarita Rosales found her son dead, his teeth smashed in and with bruises on his body. There were traces of electric shocks on his penis. He was wearing clothes she had never seen before.
The national human rights commission is now investigating the case, along with many others. Luz Sosa made the story public. The mayor says he has never heard of it.
Since April, Margarita Rosales has read the autopsy report over and over again and looked at the photographs of her disfigured son. She says she hopes to find some kind of answer in it. But there is none.
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