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Friday, August 8, 2008
A telenovela star helped me with my veggies
During the meal, one of the dishes was huauzontle, a Mexican plant that is covered with cheese, battered with flour and egg and served in a delicious tomato sauce. Apparently you eat it by running the herb across your mouth, scraping off the yummy buds with your teeth. I, of course, had no idea how to go about eating it and made quite a fool of myself trying to figure it out. The familiar-looking woman finally ran out of patience, came over to my seat and gave me a quick huauzontle-eating lesson.
It wasn’t until I returned to Mexico City and turned on the TV that I realized who the mystery woman was: Mexican soap opera star Michelle Vieth, whose big hits include “Amigas y Rivales” and “Clase 406.” Not only can she carry a TV show, but Vieth cuts a mean huauzontle.
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Gruesome kidnapping leads to calls for Mexican death penalty
In the last week, Mexico, and Mexico City in particular, has fallen into the grip of a familiar bogeyman: fear of kidnappings. Authorities say that a current wave of kidnappings - they’re up 35 percent between 2006 and 2007 - recalls the grim days of the late 1990’s, when rampant kidnappings terrorized the city, inspired Hollywood films like Man on Fire and culminated in massive citizen protest. Then for a couple years, kidnappings appeared to diminish somewhat in the public glare.
That respite has been shattered with the kidnapping and slaying of Fernando Marti, the 14-year-old son of a prominent sporting goods mogul. Despite receiving $5 million in ransom from the family, the kidnappers killed the boy and abandoned his body in a car in the Coyoacan neighborhood. Among the suspects detained so far are federal police officers stationed at the Mexico City airport. The authorities’ working theory is that the kidnapping gang is made up of former and current police who may have inside information into the investigation against them.
The story has played into a collective paranoia about street crime that is never far from the surface. In the wake of Marti’s killing, 71 percent of Mexico City residents now say they want the death penalty for kidnappers (Mexico’s Constiution prohibits the death penalty). So consumed has Mexico been with the case that the execution of Mexican inmate Jose Medellin by the State of Texas Tuesday night hardly caused a ripple.
As longtime AP Mexico correspondent Mark Stevenson reported, “With the nation riveted on its own kidnap and killing of a 14-year-old boy, the normally anti-death penalty country expressed far less outrage at the death of Jose Medellin, a Mexican national convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two Texas girls.”
Marti’s case sounds like the script to yet another movie about Mexico City crime. On his way to high school early on a June morning, the armored BMW carrying Marti, his driver and his bodyguard, was stopped by what appeared to be a police checkpoint on Insurgentes Avenue, Mexico’s longest (and perhaps busiest) street. The kidnappers forced the three victims into a van and sped away in front of a gaggle of onlookers.
That afternoon, kidnappers demanded a $3 million ransom. The next day, Marti’s father said he could only raise $1.9 million on such short notice. The family says the kidnappers grew furious and threatened violence. That night, the driver was found in an abandoned car, dead with a chrysanthemum on his face. In the trunk Marti’s bodyguard lay prone, sprinkled with flower petals (the gang came to be known “The Flower”). But the bodyguard was not dead as the kidnappers believed and he regained consciousness shortly after he was found. Authorities kept the resuscitation a secret, telling the world the bodyguard was dead and checking him into a hospital under a different name. They now hope he can help lead them to the kidnappers.
As time went on, the desperate family offered the kidnappers $5 million - $2 million more than the original asking price. Yet authorities believe that on the day they received the money, the kidnappers killed Marti. His decomposing body was found a month later, during which time the family pleaded with the kidnappers through newspaper ads to give them their son back.
So what does the current wave of kidnappings mean for Mexico? Political analyst Sergio Sarmiento put it in stark terms in the Reforma newspaper this week: “In the mid- to late ‘90’s, when there was another wave of kidnappings, maybe as strong as the current one, the result was not just the loss of lives and an atmosphere of insecurity, but a very considerable flight of capital and the departure of entire families from the country. Without a doubt there has been a very large economic cost and thousands of productive jobs haven’t been created as a consequence of the fear generated by the kidnappers.”
On Thursday, President Felipe Calderon called for life sentences for violent kidnappers (the current max in Mexican law is 50 years). But as Sarmiento writes, even the death penalty won’t dissuade kidnappers who believe they will never be caught, since the vast majority of kidnappings never result in an arrest.
