DECADE IN REVIEW: DRUG WAR STAINS MODEST SUCCESSES

Juarez saw continuous growth and improvements in the first eight years of
the millennium.

But it was the way the decade came to a close that may define the city for
years to come.

The last two years of the decade ended with Juarez as a city caught in the
crossfire of a raging drug cartel war that piled high previously unseen
levels of death.

Drug smuggling and its related violence had been part of the fabric of
Juarez for generations.

Then, in the 1990s, the start of unsolved slayings of hundreds of women
stained the city, and it is still feeling the repercussions.

Yet, the past bloodshed paled compared with the carnage of the end of the
decade, when rampant murders, daytime street assassinations and gruesome
mutilations turned what had once been a U.S. playland for tourists,
students and Fort Bliss soldiers into one of the deadliest cities in the
world.

In 2007, there were about 300 homicides in Juarez.

By 2008, the homicides had ratcheted up to 1,600 due in part to a war
between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. The federal government
responded by deploying thousands of army troops. By the end of 2009,
murders had surpassed 2,500.

The news was not all bad.

Juarez officials still tout the city as a player in the global economy.
The city has improved roads, and massive new maquiladoras remain among the
major employers.

And there were the Indios, too.

In 2008, the Juarez Indios soccer team earned promotion to Mexico's top
division, the Primera.

The team became the only major league-level sports franchise in the area.

The team's logo of a soccer ball with a Tarahumara Indian headband became
a common sight, and in a year when tragedy became commonplace, the Indios
at least gave Juarenses a reason to cheer.