Just getting by can be a struggle in Palomas, Mexico, a border town 30 miles south of Deming, New Mexico. The town lives and dies by the dollars spent by US customers in the town’s shops and restaurants, but that commerce has been drying up as US residents flee from the cartel violence in Mexico.
But some gainfully employed Palomas residents have their own government to thank for making their lives more miserable. A New Mexico columnist learned that in December, county officials had not paid city workers for two months.
Policemen, public works employees, and the mayor of Palomas, are paid from the county seat in Ascension, Mexico, since Palomas does not have its own budget. Ascension Mayor Rafael Camarillo simply stopped paying them in October.
About 70 Palomas residents took the matter into their own hands and drove to Ascension, intending to demonstrate in front of Camarillo’s office. As part of their strategy, they selected nine women to stand on the city hall steps to pressure the mayor to talk to them.
The theory was that Ascension police would not use violence against females. The women paid for that misjudgment, however, as the police sandwiched the women between rows of the enforcers and squashed them. “It was very painful,” said one of the women. Another began beating her “like an animal.”
A policeman pulled at the jacket collar of the Palomas mayor’s wife, almost strangling her. When a woman came to her aid, scratching the policeman’s face, he beat her with a pair of handcuffs, ripping her jacket and bruising her.
In spite of the show of force and apparent resistance to the group’s demonstration, Camarillo finally emerged from his office. With the help of two Chihuahua congressmen, the mayor agreed to pay the workers their back pay and future salaries.
Such Third World tactics are not uncommon in Mexico. When asked if Palomas was going to bring a suit against Camarillo or report the abuses to some human rights organization, a woman who was attacked reacted with typical Mexican fatalism. "We came to an agreement," she said. And life in Palomas goes on.
Leave Your Comments