100TH ANNIVERSARY: MEXICAN REVOLUTION NOT EVEN AS DEADLY AS JUAREZ NOW

EL PASO -- Juarez is deadlier now than during the Mexican Revolution, a
border history expert said Thursday.

Oscar Martinez, a history professor at the University of Arizona, gave the
first in a series of lectures at the El Paso Museum of History marking the
100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution.

Martinez said he is often asked about casualties in Juarez during the
revolution compared with the current violence. The conservative estimate
is that about 300 people died in battles in Juarez during the entire
Mexican Revolution of 1910, he said.

"The important thing is the total number is only a fraction of the people
killed in the last three years in Juarez," Martinez told an audience of
more than 70 people at the museum. "It's a catastrophe. And that is no
revolution going on. It is a civil war between cartels."

About 4,000 people have been killed in Juarez since 2008. Law enforcement
officials have said that current violence in Juarez is part of a war
between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels for control of a lucrative
smuggling routes into the United States.

Martinez, an El Paso native, teaches courses on the history of Mexico, the
history of Mexican-Americans and the border. He has written several books.
Martinez's lecture on Thursday was an over view of the revolution.

Sue Taylor, senior education curator at the museum, said more events
linked to the Mexican Revolution would take place at the museum throughout
the year. The lectures are sponsored by a grant from Humanities Texas.

Martinez said cities on the U.S.-Mexico border like El Paso played an
important role during the revolution, which altered Mexico politically,
socially and culturally. And no city was more important than Juarez.

"Ciudad Juarez was always on center stage in that decade. Ciudad Juarez
was the prize city on the border," Martinez said.

The revolution was fueled by several factors, including resentment of the
masses toward a corrupt elite that dominated Mexico. The revolution gave
rise to changes that bore fruit decades later, Martinez said.

The next lecture, on Feb. 18, will focus on the African-American
experience during the Mexican Revolution.