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Dear reader,
The story in this week's column is not a pretty one, and I apologize for that. I know that there is often too much ugliness in your lives already—news of war and torture, families and communities divided against themselves, images of natural disasters compounded by human failings. But ugliness hidden, not spoken about, does not cease to be ugly. It wins. It wins by feeding on apathy and finding a dark place in which to grow.
The investigative reports of Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho and the attempts to silence her are but a glimpse into worlds most of us would rather not know about—international pedophile rings, drug trafficking and its related violence, the brutal exploitation and abuse found in the off-shore assembly plants that make our clothes and our televisions. All form part of the underbelly of globalization where illegal activities have increased on a par with trade in legal goods and services.
The good news is that there are always a few brave souls—like Lydia Cacho, or Martin Barrios, an activist for factory workers' rights in Puebla who has also been threatened, or border journalists attacked by drug-runners who prefer the darkness. These are people unafraid to confront the ugly realities. At the IRC Americas Program we feel an obligation to amplify their voices—to cross the barriers of language and borders, and help build networks of concerned citizens to counter the international trends that threaten our communities.
You can help. There is a list of resources at the end of articles for finding ways to get more involved. You can also support the IRC Americas Program directly. Large institutional funders shy away from this kind of work so more and more we depend on our readers and small groups or donors for our survival. Please support us.
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Last year, a journalist in Cancun—a Mayan word for “nest of serpents”—uncovered and wrote about an international ring of pedophilia. The leader, Jean Succar, was subsequently arrested and is in jail in the state of Arizona, awaiting extradition.
In her book, The Demons of Eden, the courageous journalist, Lydia Cacho, mentions a close friend of Succar's—Kamel Nacif—the owner of a string of textile plants in the central Mexican state of Puebla.
Nacif is a wealthy and powerful man; his connections with political figures from Mexico's former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, go way back and have served him well. Known as the “King of Denim,” his mistreatment of textile factory workers and abuse of power in the region have been denounced repeatedly but without affecting either his influence or his fortune.
A series of taped phone conversations delivered to the Mexican daily La Jornada reveal that Nacif, who is actively supporting Succar's defense, plotted to get revenge on the journalist who cracked the child sex and pornography ring. By pulling strings with friends that included the governor and attorney general of the state of Puebla, the judge, and the owner of business concessions within the state prison, Nacif had Cacho arrested in Cancun for defamation of character and sent to prison in Puebla. According to Cacho and other testimonies, her arrest and transport violated basic human rights. The tapes indicate that to further punish the audacity of the journalist, arrangements had been made to have her raped in jail—a fate she narrowly escaped.
Mexican newspapers and citizen forums have expressed outrage at the apparent cynicism of the complicity between the government and the businessmen to make Cacho a cautionary tale for others whose work touches the central nodes of power, money, and influence.
Cacho's book carefully documents the ring led by Succar on the basis of research and the testimonies of five children. Although careful not to make specific accusations beyond the public case against Succar, in the investigations the names of several major figures of Mexico's governing and business elite surface. The U.S. government has been involved in the investigations that, in addition to connections in the United States, have opened leads in Brazil, Spain, and Hong Kong.
What emerges, and is undoubtedly just a tiny portion of the horrifying reality, are global circuits that prey upon society's most defenseless members—the children. Globalization and new communications technology have served to expand the arena and reach of international crime. Mexico has no corner on these new forms of violence and corruption that thrive on leaping borders.
Nor is it a coincidence that the victims are women and children. The global system has learned to adapt patriarchy in new and perverse ways. The classic authoritarian family where the father rules with impunity, controlling the lives and labor of his wife and children, has extended into the public and global sphere. Sadly, modern society instead of evolving beyond these fundamental inequities has merely developed new forms.
Mexico's new globalized industries—hailed as our hope for the future—use intensive female and child labor. The production of fruits and vegetables for export has come under scrutiny for multiple human rights and labor violations. In many of these fields of the future, most of the labor force is made up of women and children. Why? Because they're cheaper and they can't fight back effectively.
The textile and clothing plants that generated Succar and Nacif's wealth by employing mostly women with little or no protection for labor rights, the rape and sexual abuse of poor children that form part of Cancun's tourist attractions, the vast internet market for child pornography: all provide examples of how the worst aspects of patriarchy have been fortified by the global economic system. Women and children are still, as in the feudal family, on the bottom rung of power.
Because power, not sex, is what the breaking scandal in Mexico is really all about.
As revealed in the groundbreaking feminist work on rape, the driving force behind these crimes and their protective webs is the exercise of power. As the governor of Puebla struggles to save his name—and his job, since he faces Supreme Court and Congressional investigations—and businessmen seek to defend themselves, the close alliance between wealth, power, and victimization of the weak has been exposed. Globalization's tendency in this country and elsewhere to polarize wealth and power can only strengthen that alliance.
That the victims were children has finally mobilized the citizenry and there is a chance for justice in this case. Lydia Cacho is alive and out of jail, which is a major achievement.
But for every case that makes the headlines, thousands more remain in the dark.
Translated for the Americas Policy Program by Eugenio Fernández Vázquez.
Laura Carlsen directs the Americas Program of the International Relations Center, online at www.irc-online.org.
