Pubdate: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2007 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico (Mexico) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon MUSICAL MASSACRE Killings of Mexican Entertainers Loudly Echo the Narco-Violence Throughout the Country. This year should have been a peak for Mexican singer Sergio Gomez. His band K-Paz (pronounced cah-paz) de la Sierra released a monster hit; this December they were nominated for a Grammy. But Gomez never savored his triumph - he was found after a recent concert murdered in classic narco-trafficker style, bound, burned, bludgeoned and strangled. The killing, like those of a dozen other musicians since June 2006, broadcasts more loudly than ever the impunity of Mexico's drug cartels and the price all Mexicans pay for it. No one understands the timing behind the spate of musician deaths; perhaps it is grisly coincidence. Family members say Gomez didn't use drugs or even smoke. But he did play roughly the same genre of music, and died in the same month, as two other narco-victims: one kidnapped and smothered with a plastic bag, the other - a rising star named Zayda Pena - shot in the neck, saved by surgery, then shot again by masked gunmen as she lay in her hospital bed. Drug kingpins, it's known, swarm the music business. They often sponsor young musicians who have no way to buy costly equipment. Concert promotion, where 10,000 extra "ticket sales" can explain away mammoth drug profits, is a prime way to launder money. Many of the musicians killed, moreover, played variations of a genre whose roots entwine with narco-culture. Falling under the category of "ranchera," the sound essentially is Mexican country music, with folk tunes punctuated by traditional German accordion and percussion. Some of the genre's most popular practitioners are known for their "narco-corridos," ballads glorifying the exploits of drug traffickers. (Sergio Gomez, notably, didn't sing such songs). The corridos are a modern incarnation of a musical tradition that predates the Mexican revolution. Ranchera singers share geographic roots with the traffickers, too. According to Elijah Wald, author of a recent book on narco-corridos, these musicians largely come from hardscrabble ranches and mountain pueblos where the only people of wealth are drug traffickers. "Essentially, they are the only rich Mexicans in Mexico who have an interest in this music," Wald said. Even if drug lords aren't sponsoring musicians, they may hire them for parties, or fall in love with their female stars and compete with the male stars. In the drug trade, where crazed violence is a resume requirement, such links can turn deadly. Police speculated that Pena's death may have been such a case. But aside from the spectacle of well-known performers dying gruesomely, Mexicans have other reasons to be appalled. The 13 musician murders might appear to be a new trend, until you count them along with the more than 2,500 other narco-style murders that occurred in Mexico this year. Though federal authorities don't release these figures, the newspaper El Universal reported that this year's total more than doubled the 1,080 narco-killings recorded in 2001. Ranchera singers might run special risks, but they can't be called special targets. Sensational as the coverage has been, it really is only a headline for a bloodier crisis: the impunity with which drug cartels do their work. From the start of his tenure last winter, President Felipe Calderon has tried to bear down on them. He recently extradited a major kingpin to the United States, and sent 10,000 soldiers and federal police to half a dozen states where the traffickers dominate. Yet this month's flamboyant murders make it clear who is winning. "These musicians are wealthy, visible stars in a country that has had a huge rise in violence - and people not put in jail for it," Wald noted. "What distinguishes them from other victims is not that they are musicians, but that we have heard of them." Fame, though, could brighten the spotlight. When entertainers are slain, Mexicans, like Americans, feel someone has robbed them of someone they knew. Perhaps that will heighten the demand for the only reform that will make a difference: at the core of Mexico's chronically corrupt police forces, and in its often-compromised court system and government. Calderon did well to name narco-crime as his top priority. But to end the massacre of his citizens, and the resultant bleeding of Mexico's economy, he will have to fight much harder, and deeper, than any president before him has dared. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake