Ark Valley News - Peace of mind

Citizens in the city of Tampico, Mexico, have united in a plea for peace in their community. The sign displayed in this gathering translates to “Peace, please."

Peace of mind
By Matt Heilman
Last Updated: August 14, 2014

Valley Center graduate and wife hope for violence in their city to end

Corruption, violence and fear have taken hold of Tampico, Mexico. The prosperous city in the eastern state of Tamaulipas is where Rico, a Valley Center High School graduate and his family call home.

Tampico is where Rico met his wife, Maria. It's the city where the couple established their careers and started their lives together.

And with hopes for a better future, Tampico is where the couple is raising their preschool-aged son.

The commercially vibrant port community on the Gulf of Mexico has the natural beauty and rich history that used to attract tourists from around the globe. But for the past five or six years, drug cartels have stolen the welcome mat from the city of about 300,000 residents.

With hesitation about publicly expressing how they feel about what's been happening in their city, Rico and Maria requested that their full names not be used in this story.

"For me, obviously, I get nervous about speaking it out loud," Maria said. "It's not a place where you can speak freely and move very easily."

In recent years, Tampico has been unflatteringly compared to Gotham City, where the bad guys hold the upper hand and law enforcement doesn't hold much power. Although some peace has been recently restored in Tampico, the situation remains tense in the city where Rico works as a rancher and a restaurant owner and Maria works in a jewelry store her family has owned for four generations.

Last week, Rico joined his wife and young son on a short vacation to a place where he became proficient at speaking English and put in hours of manual labor on his way toward earning a high school diploma and college degree. In the early 1990s, Rico lived with Stacy Miles on her rural Valley Center property.

He was Miles' fourth international exchange student among a group that now numbers in the upper 20s, going back to 1987.

In all, Rico spent five years living with Miles, graduating from VCHS in 1993 and completing his college degree from Wichita State University. In 1992, he helped Miles open the Wag'en Tail Ranch, a dog kennel and training facility on her property near 69th North and Hoover Road.

During the recent stay with Miles, Maria said she was enjoying the freedom of being able to go out in public and interact with people without having to look over her shoulder. Her son was enjoying the opportunities to run and play outside.

Even 1,200 miles away from home, Maria admitted she wanted to be cautious in talking about the situation in Tampico.

While visiting a former VCHS classmate at the Wag'en Tail Ranch on Aug. 10, Rico tried to explain the depth of the situation in Tampico. The presence of the drug cartels is nothing new, but a division within a strong group called the Gulf Cartel started somewhat of a civil war as the fight for power and control of a large, international drug operation turned the city streets of Tampico into a battlefield.

"There were shootings everywhere," Rico said.

At times, schools have had to shut down and businesses close because of the violence outside. Drug cartel members have been fighting one another, but civilians are victimized, sometimes caught in the crossfire and extorted for money.

"The bad part is extortion," Rico said.

Rico and Maria said the key to working in Tampico is to keep a low profile to avoid being targeted. Rico said he's not a wealthy man, but as a business owner, he has to be cautious with how he presents himself, not wanting to attract unwanted attention.

"I have a really nice truck, but I can't even drive it," he said.

So far, Rico said he hasn't had to pay protection money to anyone affiliated with a cartel, but he knows others who haven't been spared. Maria said cartel members kidnapped her brother-in-law twice and each time, he had to pay a ransom in exchange for his freedom. She said she also has two uncles that have been held for ransom by cartel members.

"One of them had to sell everything because they kept coming back for more," Maria said.

In recent months, Maria's brother-in-law, also a former exchange student who stayed with Miles, has relocated to Canada.

Over the past 27 years, Miles has hosted 15 exchange students from Mexico, many of whom, she said, have been impacted by the cartels in one way or another.

"When I tell others about all that goes on in Mexico, they are shocked and I would guess some can't believe it," she said.

Since May, Rico said some sense of peace has been restored in Tampico, but there hasn't been a solution to the overall issue surrounding the drug trade that has affected cities across Mexico and the United States for several decades.

The recent restoration of order was a byproduct of the Gulf Cartel fighting off its challenger. Recently, Rico said he's felt safer going to work and his family has been able to go out more, although they're still cautious about leaving home at night.

"Now we know things are fine because one group has won over the other one," Rico said.

But he said it's unclear how long the peace will last.

Complicating the matter in cities and states across Mexico is that local governments are connected to the cartels, Rico said. He said it's not uncommon for business owners to pay local authorities in bribes. When this happens, he said the authorities could turn around and provide information on businesses for cartels to target for extortion.

But as was the case with Maria's brother-in-law and uncles, even businessmen and women who maintain their integrality can be targeted, Rico said.

The national government has stepped up with military intervention to thwart some of the Gulf Cartel's operation in recent months, but Rico said there's no sign that the cartel is going to leave, as the response has been minimal.

"Authority has been taken away," Maria said. "There's nothing local police can do. We don't have local police anymore."

She said citizens used to be able to check on each other and warn of imposing threats through social media, but a Facebook page for Tampico residents was recently shut down, presumably by the government.

Despite the circumstances in their city, Rico and Maria say they're determined to continue working hard and trying to provide jobs for citizens in Tampico.

Rico, who built his ranching operation and restaurant from the ground up, said education is the key to combating the cartels. However, he said, it's not easy in a country where poverty is prevalent throughout the inner cities and the countryside.

Similar to street gangs in the United States, Rico said cartels are able to recruit new members by offering children, teens and young adults a seemingly easier way to improve their situations.

They don't take into account that they're likely going to end up either dead or in jail, Rico said.

Rico and Maria are committed to showing children in their region that there's a better way. The cartels aren't likely to disappear, but Maria said she can look beyond Tampico to see that there is hope.

She said the grip of drug cartels has been loosened in the Mexican city of Oaxaca and in the South American nation of Columbia, where drug lords made fortunes from trafficking cocaine in the 1980s.

"We just have to have faith," Maria said. "I want my son to be free and be able to play outside."