by SONALI KOLHATKAR
Once a city heralded by the promoters of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Juarez, Mexico has now become a global epicenter of the failed so-called “war on drugs.” Just across the border from El Paso, Texas, the northern Mexican metropolis home to 1.3 million people has garnered a grittier reputation in recent years as a place where cartels battle for control, murders are rampant and poverty remains high in the backdrop of hundreds of foreign owned factories offering wages that can’t begin to compete with the allure of drug trafficking. As part of his drug war policy, Mexican President Felipe Calderon dispatched 10,000 soldiers to the city in March 2008, but murders multiplied just the same as many residents in Juarez want the military gone. The facts and figures of the city’s social descent into chaos are staggering.
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