GROUND ZERO IN SINALOA

Culiacan, Mexico - FOUR years ago Mexico invented a civil war: the
government decided to confront the seven major drug cartels. The army
was sent into the streets, mountains and country paths. Even the navy
was on alert.

Here in Sinaloa, the western state where the modern drug trade began,
poorly armed and ill-outfitted federal and state police were the
first to fall. Around 50 of them, killed by the cartels. Those who
survived took to the streets in protest, demanding better weapons and
bulletproof vests. In Culiacan, the state capital, students are
always staging protest marches; it was strange to see the police do
the same. You could smell the fear and uncertainty in the air.

At first people believed that it would soon blow over. But weeks went
by and the gunfire continued to claim victims. Across Mexico in 2009,
an average of 23 people died in drug-related violence every day, and
on many of those days Sinaloa was the prime contributor to that
statistic. Military patrols and federal policemen prowled the cities
looking to uncover troves of weapons. They went door to door in
Culiacan. It took them five minutes to inspect my house. "It's full
of books," the sergeant remarked, a bewildered look on his face.

I don't know if they did the same in the neighborhoods where the drug
lords actually live. The soldiers didn't look that tough, nor did the
police. But still, it was unsettling to see them close up and with
such troubled looks on their faces. Ever since the student uprisings
of 1968 and the resulting repression of the 1970s, soldiers are seen
as threats, even in Sinaloa, where they are trying to protect us.

The Mexican drug industry was established in the 1940s by a group of
Sinaloans and Americans trafficking in heroin. It is part of our
culture: we know all the legends, folk songs and movies about the
drug world, including its patron saint, Jesus Malverde, a Robin
Hood-like bandit who was hanged in 1909.

There are days when we feel deeply ashamed that the trade is at the
heart of Sinaloa's identity, and wish our history were different. Our
ancestors were fearless and proud people, and it is their memory that
gives us the will to try to control our own fear and the sobs of the
widows and mothers who have lost loved ones.

It was reported that not long ago, a group of high-ranking government
officials from Mexico City paid a visit to Ciudad Juarez, a city in
Chihuahua State on the Texas border where people are too scared to go
out at night. A troop of Ninos Exploradores, akin to Boy Scouts, was
trotted out to greet the dignitaries. Warm smiles abounded among the
government representatives. The boys' faces were dead serious.

When the boys were asked to perform their salute, their commander
shouted, "How do the children play in Ciudad Juarez?" The boys hit
the ground. When asked, "How do the children play in Tijuana?" again
the scouts hit the ground. When asked about the children of the
border city of Matamoros, yet again, they were on the ground. The
visitors looked eager to disappear.

In Sinaloa, at least things haven't gotten that bad. People live well
and our children play other games. At night we go out for dinner, we
go for evening strolls down our beaches and our roads as if to say:
this is our land, we will not let go of it. But it doesn't always work.

Sinaloa is a place with a strong work ethic: people tell me, for
example, that I write like a farmer, from dawn. Our greatest worry is
that, in our fear, we will lose our grip on the code of work and
responsibility that guided our forefathers and helped them convert
our unpromising salt flats and desert into agricultural bounty.