The town of Jerez, in the battered state of Zacatecas, does not rest. In the same week, the news reported several disappearances, armed assaults on homes, which were set on fire and their inhabitants kidnapped, demonstrations by the population to demand that they search for the disappeared, girls who refused to present themselves for carnival queens in solidarity with those who suffer. It is not surprising that in this scenario of fire and horror, the protagonist in the media is the mayor, Jose Humberto Salazar Contreras, who has refused to suspend the festivities so as not to violate traditions and has begun to sing in public a narcocorrido in honor of one of the bloodiest drug lords in Mexico, El Chapo Guzman.
There appears the municipal president, smiling under the golden hat of a tuba, awkwardly intoning a song to the greater glory of drug trafficking, while the citizens start another street protest to demand that the municipal authorities stop the violence in the town, that in the little As the year has passed, there are already 16 missing persons, according to local media reports. Last Thursday, bursts of firearms were heard in the Centro neighborhood, where a group of armed men riddled a house. And just a few days before, 11 people suddenly disappeared as they left a bar.
A woman, Sofia Ceballos, has named the protest. She is the mother of one of the young women who disappeared, a mother herself, of whom there is no news and who is desperately sought because her health conditions are delicate. Nothing is known of other young men and women either. Such is the situation, that the aspiring beauty queens on these holidays have carried out a gesture worth repeating: they have given up participating in the pageant as a protest and in solidarity with a youth attacked without anyone stopping it. Diana Pereyra tells it on her Facebook: “I retire to show empathy and respect for what is happening, which hurts many families [] A beauty pageant is not only going to give a pretty face, but to demonstrate what it is to be a complete queen, full of values, [] I am gladly leaving the contest, I am here to raise my voice for all those who are missing”.
The Carnival parade, in which 23 organizations were to participate, was also cancelled, reports Sol de Zacatecas, and has been replaced by a march for peace this Sunday. The musical band La Autentica joined the protest and announced that it would not participate in La Jerezada, an activity related to bullfighting. They do it out of “solidarity and empathy due to the events that have happened in our Jerez”. So, the only one who seems to enjoy these festivities, for now, is the mayor and some of his friends. The municipal president came to power under the acronyms of PT, Los Verdes, Morena and Panal.
The violence that plagues Mexico has some of its greatest manifestations in the towns. Experts always mention the recurring collusion of interests between the municipal presidents themselves and organized crime groups, when it is not members of the latter who rise directly to power, in collusion, moreover, with the police forces, in many cases . In circumstances like this, the fight against crime becomes complicated.
Jerez de Garcia Salinas is just one more of the towns in Zacatecas that every day encounter the cruelest face of violence. The State reports some of the most gruesome episodes with which the narco covers the country with blood. Corpses strewn in the streets, murdered young people who wake up hanging from bridges in full view, jumbles of human flesh discovered in a warehouse, a whole catalog of horrors that have made the entity one of the most dangerous in Mexico. Jerez has been declared a magical town, the seal with which the country distinguishes the most beautiful and traditional towns, a first-class tourist attraction. This year, whoever wants to take a look at the Jerez festivities will find that the town has become a veritable carnival of violence that scares its citizens while the mayor moves to the rhythm of the narcocorridos.
