MAGNITUDE OF JUAREZ BLOODSHED, FEAR SURPRISES MANY

When the drug war in Juarez began earlier this year, everyone thought
it was a fleeting thing, that life would get back to normal after a
couple of months and a few executions. The cartels, officials
predicted six months ago when the number of dead was 400, would simply
go back to their business of smuggling dope into the U.S.

Instead, in the past year, Juarez has become one of the most violent
cities in the world -- certainly in the Americas -- with more than
1,500 homicides, a number that escalated starting in the middle of the
year. "No one could imagine that this was going to happen, much less
to this extent," said Jaime Torres, a Juarez city spokesman. "What we
are seeing on a daily basis is surprising and stunning. No one was
prepared for this, and it has changed this city."

The changes in this city of 1.3 million are evident no matter where
you look:

The streets are now patrolled by armed soldiers riding on top of
pickups.

Some businesses, including pharmacies and doctors' offices, lock their
doors during the day, opening only after a customer is checked out.

Restaurants have but two or three guests during the day. At night,
most restaurants are closed. More than half of the stalls in the
city's major mercados are empty.

And Avenida Juarez, the tourism district known as the Juarez strip, is
void of tourists, even on weekends and weekend nights.

Manuel "El Manny" Gonzalez has a front-row seat on Avenida Juarez
that allows him to see what is happening to his beloved town. For 15
years, he has spent his weekends shining shoes and selling cigarettes
on the strip at the foot of the Paso Del Norte port of entry.

Sandwiched between the Kentucky Club, Tequila Derby and the Caliente
Club, Gonzalez used to be a busy man. At night Dec. 13, the only
people in the area around him were club workers and taxi drivers.
"There are no more Americanos," he said. "No more students, no more
soldiers. Look around; there is no one here. It started in January and
has slowly gotten worse."

Some blame the U.S. economic crisis, others the peso devaluation, and
others the U.S. for forcing U.S. citizens to have passports to
re-enter their homeland. But mostly, Juarez residents say the drug war
has them scared, scared of going out, scared of being targeted.

"With what is going on, no one wants to be in the wrong place at the
wrong time," said Juarez resident Ofelia Gomez Lucero, who was getting
on a bus across the street from City Hall on Monday. "By 6 at night,
the streets are empty. El temor existe (The fear is real.)"

The fear exists because bodies are found every morning. Last week, six
city police officers were killed, and five other men were executed.

In a sense, the drug war between the Juarez cartel and Sinaloa cartel
over the Juarez corridor is more than a fight to see who gets to run
drugs through El Paso and Juarez. It is a propaganda war, experts say.

"This is more like a war on terrorism," University of Texas at El Paso
anthropology Professor Howard Campbell said. "In this war, just like
in the war on terrorism, it is not clear who are the good guys and who
are the bad guys. You have thousands of people being killed, and you
don't know who is involved."

In this war, Campbell said, gaining control of the Juarez corridor is
not the only goal.

"The cartels feel that it is not only important to win physically by
wiping out their enemies, but they also want to win the battle of
ideas," Campbell said. "This to me is really staggering and
interesting to think about."

And Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza has said the
worst of this drug war is yet to come.

In the meantime, Juarez officials and U.S. officials keep monitoring
the violence that now has been taken by the cartels to the police stations.

"The attacks on the city police were an attempt to get us to lessen
our patrols," said Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz. "We will not do
that. Citizens can be assured that we will intensify our patrols and
we will continue to work with state and federal officials to protect
everyone."

Dr. Rodrigo Guerrero, who was the mayor of Cali, Colombia, in 1993
when a drug war involving the Pablo Escobar Cartel was raging, said
that all of what Juarez is seeing today Cali saw several years ago.

"The violence becomes a social problem," said Guerrero, who is in
Juarez helping city leaders solve the violence problem. "The drug
cartel violence evolves into other types of violence. This is what
Juarez needs to address because there is fear out there. Every citizen
must help monitor and report the violence."

In conjunction with Guerrero's visit, Juarez officials announced that
the city is partnering with the university in Juarez to research the
causes of the violence and the effects it is having on the community.

Once the violence is pinpointed, the city will be in a better position
to combat it, officials said. "We are not going to worry about what
happened in the past," said Maria Isabel Gutierrez, a Cali official
who will help Juarez analyze the violence. "We are looking to see what
we can do about the future. To make Juarez better."