Book Review – Slavery Inc. The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking

Lydia Cacho, the Mexican writer and women’s rights activist, has endured intimidation, abduction and imprisonment because of her investigative journalism. Following the publication of Los demonios del Edén (The demons of Eden), an exposé of a Mexican child pornography ring in Cancún in 2005, she was tortured, judicially harassed and suffered numerous death threats.

This has not deterred her from continuing to write about the complicity of business men and other powerful people in criminal activities. Her latest book focuses on global sex trafficking. Such are the dangers of investigating this appalling trade in human beings that Cacho was forced undercover. She carried fake ID and dressed as a prostitute in order to infiltrate various nightclubs; on one occasion, she adopted a nun’s habit to enter La Merced, one of Mexico City’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.

Cacho’s research took her to Burma, Cambodia, Japan, Thailand and Turkey as well as Latin America. She concludes that it is the “inequality of cultures, economies and legal systems” that has helped this modern slavery to thrive. Cacho argues that the exploitation of women and children occurs because of their vulnerability – whether because of poverty or their subservient role in a male-dominated society – and because of weak sanctions against their mistreatment. Victims are often “enslaved by the cultural values of violence against women” or conditioned to believe that they have no alternatives.

Importantly, Cacho focuses on the clients who not only fuel demand but also contribute towards the normalisation of sexual slavery. Time and again she is told by men that they like Latin American women because they are “docile” and “obedient.” It is the clients who create the markets, Cacho argues, and men’s increasing willingness to pay for sex with trafficked victims is part of the backlash against women’s liberation. Even more devastating is the burgeoning trade in children and virgins. Cacho sees this as a means for men to exert control emotionally and mentally as well as physically; the younger the victim, the more compliant he or she is likely to be.

Cacho says that those who defend prostitution as “part of a liberal philosophy” ignore “the connection between trafficking and prostitution”, and that those who are enslaved, either through poverty or coercion, are not willing participants.

This courageous book comes with an introduction by Roberto Saviano who wrote a best-selling exposé of the Camorra Mafia in Naples. Both writers have faced terrible consequences for daring to point the finger at powerful men. Cacho has named names and further death threats have caused her to flee Mexico. She’s risked her life in order to report the truth.

Originally published in The Tablet.

 

Impunity in Mexico – Lydia Cacho

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a journalist – since 2006, 67 journalists have been killed and 14 have disappeared in the country.

Lydia Cacho, an author and women’s rights activist, has faced intimidation, abduction and imprisonment because of her investigative journalism. In 2005, she published Los demonios del Eden: El poder que protege a la pornografía infantil (‘The demons of Eden: the power that protects child pornography’), exposing a Mexican child pornography ring in the popular resort of Cancún. A businessman, José Kamel Nacif Borge, known as the King of Denim, because of his jeans factories in Puebla, accused Cacho of libel. He is cited in the book as having ties with Jean Succar Kuri, the owner of a hotel in Cancún who, at the time, had already been detained and charged with heading the child pornography and prostitution network. Kamel Nacif did not deny that he knew him but denied any involvementand claimed that his reputation had suffered as a result of Cacho’s book.

On 16 December 2005, Cacho was arrested at gunpoint by Puebla state officials. She endured a twenty-hour car journey from her home in Cancún to Puebla, where she was physically threatened. Upon arrival she was charged with defamation and faced up to four years in prison if found guilty.

In February 2006, taped telephone conversations between Kamel Nacif and the governor of Puebal, Mario Marín, were released to the local media. They revealed the extent to which Marín had been involved in Cacho’s arrest and detention. Kamel Nacif offered “two beautiful bottles of cognac” as a token of appreciation for the governor’s part in the arrest of Cacho. Following a year-long battle, during which she suffered repeated death threats, the defamation charges were dismissed. However, her acquittal was only the result of her case being transferred to another state where defamation is no longer considered a criminal offence.

After the tapes came to light, Cacho filed a countersuit for corruption and violation of her human rights. Disappointingly, the court in Cacho’s home state of Quintana Roo ruled that although there was evidence of arbitrary detention and torture it could not accept her case for jurisdictional reasons (it recommended that she take the case to Puebla) and closed the investigation.

In 2010, Cacho published Esclavas del poder, in which she revealed the names of people in Mexico she alleges are involved in the trafficking of women and girls. The English translation, Slavery Inc. The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking, is published at the beginning of September by Portobello Books.

In June last year, shortly after taking part in an event in Chihuahua, northern Mexico, Cacho received further death threats by phone and email which made direct reference to her journalism. She believes that they were issued in retaliation for her having revealed the names of alleged traffickers.

More worryingly, on 29 July of this year, Cacho received a call on her handheld transceiver, used only for emergencies. An unknown a male voice referred to her by name and said: “We have already warned you, bitch, don’t mess with us. It is clear you didn’t learn with the small trip you were given. What is coming next for you will be in pieces, that is how we will send you home, you idiot.”  Concerned by this breach of her security system, Cacho has since fled Mexico. Article 19 reported that she will remain out of the country while its Protection Programme for Journalists develops a strategy to provide her with adequate protection.

This courageous author will be in conversation with Helen Bamber OBE, who works with victims of trafficking, in London on 29 August

You can also send messages of support c/o: Fundación Lydia Cacho. Email: info@fundacionlydiacacho.org

Originaly published by the Independent online

The Dead Women of Juárez

Since 1993 over four hundred women have been abducted and murdered in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua (both are in in the state of Chihuahua, north Mexico). Many of the women are brutally beaten and raped before being killed and their bodies dumped in the desert or on a secluded street. Others simply disappear without trace.

When the murders first began to be reported, the authorities were openly discriminatory in their public statements. According to Amnesty, sometimes ‘the women themselves were blamed for their own abduction or murder because of the way they dressed or because they worked in bars at night’.

Often, the victims are young women who work in the region’s maquiladoras. For many impoverished women in Mexico working in these sweatshops is their only option. The assembly plants have been in operation since the 1960s but rapidly spread during the 1990s after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into force and created a trading bloc between Canada, the United States and Mexico. Those unfortunate enough to work under sweatshop conditions make clothes for US -based companies such as Levi Strauss and Gap.

Juárez is now the most heavily populated city in Chihuahua State and given its proximity to the US there are also high levels of drug-trafficking and crime. The women have become a lot more visible as they travel to and from work, and their new found independence inevitably breeds resentment amongst local men. Most of the murders remain unsolved and violence against women continues to this day. The city has been dubbed the ‘femicide capital of the world’.

This is the backdrop to Sam Hawken’s assured debut novel The Dead Women of Juárez. Texan boxer, and a recovering drug addict, Kelly Courter works in Juárez as a human punch bag for Ortíz, a shady boxing promoter. Kelly always loses to the up-and-coming native Mexicans. He has few friends, except for his girlfriend, Paloma, who works for the human rights organization, Mujeres Sin Voces (Women without Voices) and her drug-dealing brother Estéban. When Paloma’s horrifically mutilated body is discovered in a stretch of wasteland, Kelly is implicated in her murder and he is brutally tortured to extract a confession by the sinister Captain Garcia.

Rafael Sevilla, a middle-aged narco-cop, has his own reasons for wanting to become involved in the investigation. Joining forces with Enrique, Garcia’s disillusioned assistant, Sevilla sets out to find the real perpetrators of the crime.

Hawken draws a devastating landscape of poverty and corruption. He contrasts the innocence of the victims and their families with the arrogance of those wielding power; the deprivation of the poor with the opulent, gated-accommodation of the rich; the inexorable spread of the drug cartels with the apparent inability of state officials to halt the never ending violence in the region.

Rumours and speculation about who is responsible for the killings run rampant and many believe that the people behind the murders are being protected. As well as the suspicion that drug-traffickers and organised criminals are involved there are also theories that the crimes are the work of wealthy businessmen killing for kicks. Hawken’s taut, brutal thriller intertwines all these suppositions and powerfully demonstrates that violence against women, corruption and lawlessness are all closely linked.

Media attention surrounding the feminicidios has been eclipsed by the violent war between the drug cartels. Hawken’s politically-edged novel draws a welcome focus back to the killings. There are no easy answers but readers can get involved via Amnesty International who continues to lobby the Mexican government. As Hawken points out in his Afterword: “this problem will be solved not with a bullet, but by bringing all those responsible for the abuse and murder of Juárez’s daughters to judgment before the law.”

Originally published by Latineos.com

Mexico – PEN campaign for murdered journalists

Maxine Young inspired by José Guadalupe Posada

Mexico’s El Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), dates back to indigenous times. However, many of the celebrations associated with the festival, which takes place from 31 – 2 November, have evolved over time.

The tradition of printing satirical images of politicians and celebrities, drawn as skeletons, was begun in the 1890s by Jose Guadalupe Posada. An engraver, based in the old heart of Mexico City, behind the National Palace, Posada started his career as a political cartoonist before becoming a commercial illustrator, drawing sensational events for broadsheets as well as depicting the daily horrors, murders, and tragedies of city life. But he is best known for the dancing skeletons and grinning skulls that lampooned the rich and famous during El Día de Muertos. La Catrina, his upper-class, elegantly attired calvera, was to become one of the most popular figures of the Day of the Dead celebrations.

Today, journalists who attempt to investigate or draw attention to corruption in Mexico – whether engineered by state officials or the notorious drug cartels – are more likely to find themselves threatened for their work or even killed.

PEN, the international association of writers, is bringing a more sombre tone to the normally jocular ritual by remembering those journalist and writers who have been murdered in Mexico in recent years.

Since December 2006, when President Calderón began his military campaign against the drug cartels, 35 writers have been murdered (33 print journalists, one author and one poet), while a further eight print journalists have gone missing. Others have been threatened, harassed, driven into exile or otherwise censored. A number of these increasingly gruesome crimes occur in states where organised crime has a strong presence, and particularly affect local journalists.

Mexico is now rated as one of the most dangerous places  in the world to work as a journalist and many see the National Human Rights Commission as inadequate to tackle the escalating violence. Drug-trafficking is blamed for many of Mexico’s ills and while it is true that much of the violence against those journalists who attempt to investigate their crimes comes from these quarters, there is also corruption amongst state officials and powerful businessmen, who have the money to buy complicity or silence. Another inherent failure of Mexico’s justice system is the apparent inability to punish and prosecute those in positions of power who abuse their office.

One of nine print journalists to have been killed between January and September 2011, was Susana Chávez Castillo, a prominent poet and activist who led protests against the unsolved killings of women raped and killed in Ciudad Juárez; her strangled and mutilated corpse was found in that city in early January 2011. Reporters Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros and Rocio González Trápaga were abducted in Mexico City on 31 August 2011; their bodies were found the next day, naked with nooses around their necks and their hands tied behind their backs. Political journalist Angel Castillo Corona was murdered along with his 16-year-old son in Ocuilan, Mexico state, on 3 July 2011.

A recent report commissioned by Canadian PEN and the University of Toronto faculty of law’s international human-rights program, entitled Corruption, Impunity, Silence: The War on Mexico’s Journalists, suggests that Mexico’s journalists have to contend with laws that limit freedom of expression and effectively muzzle their attempts to expose corruption at both local and state levels. It claims that the Mexican government has delayed implementing reforms that could protect reporters, while continuing to prosecute citizen journalists under its complex communications laws.

The eminent Mexican poet José Emilo Pacheco has written some verses especially for PEN’s Day of the Dead campaign.

This atrocious month has finally passed

And left us so many dead

That even the air breathes death

And death is drunk in the water.

I can’t resist the wound of so much death.

Mexico cannot be the plural cemetery,

The enormous common grave

Where our hopes lie exhausted.

We already drown the future

In the abyss that opens each day.

 José Emilio Pacheco, ‘The Altar of the Dead’

Readers might like to send/emails appeals to President Calderón via your nearest Mexican embassy: Protesting the murder of 35 print journalists and writers and the disappearance of eight print journalists since the start of his term in office in December 2006; Calling for a full and impartial investigation into these crimes, focusing on the journalists’ and writers’ work as a possible motive, with the involvement of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression; Calling on President Calderón’s government to fulfil promises to make crimes against journalists a federal offence, by amending the Constitution so that federal authorities have the power to investigate, prosecute and punish such crimes.

Originally published in Latineos.com

Mexican PEN's Day of the Dead altar

Film review – Miss Bala

Dir: Gerardo Naranjo

Running time 113 minutes

The violence of Mexico’s drug cartels is impinging daily on the lives of ordinary people. Since 2006, decapitations, corpses left hanging from bridges and body parts found on the beach are just some of the reported atrocities. President Calderon’s decision to use the army to fight the cartels has made little difference and, if anything, has resulted in more bloodshed.

Gerardo Naranjo’s salient film, Miss Bala, offers a vivid portrait of this darker side of Mexico. But rather than just focus on its criminal underworld, Naranjo, and co-writer Mauricio Katz, have painted a broader canvas that confronts head-on Mexico’s socio-political problems, namely the poverty and corruption that have created a lawless vacuum filled by the criminal gangs.

Set in Tijuana, on the Baja California Peninsula, Stephanie Sigman stars as twenty-three-year old Laura. She lives with her father and young brother and they make clothes for a living. Laura and her best friend Suzu decide to enter a local beauty queen contest. The night before their formal audition they visit a local nightclub. It’s raided by a criminal gang who open fire on the clubbers. Laura manages to escape but concerned for her friend, she begs a local cop to help her find Suzu by radioing to his colleagues – instead the policeman delivers Laura into the hands of the criminal gang.

This is the beginning of Laura’s nightmare. Lino (Noe Hernandez), the leader of ‘La Estrella’, takes a liking to Laura and instead of killing her – which would have been the more likely outcome in another border town, Ciudad Juarez – he enlists her help.  First he makes her park a car full of dead bodies outside a US government building as a warning to the Drug Enforcement Administration. When she tries to return home to her family, Lino and the gang follow her there.

Laura is then sent to across the border to San Diego as a mule, carrying money for weapons. On her return to Mexico she is caught in a shoot-out between the army and Lino’s gang. Saved by Lino, he delivers her to the beauty pageant, which she wins. But even this is rigged, it turns out, so that Laura can be used again as bait to lure a prominent army General into a hotel ambush.

Wisely, Naranjo steers clear of too many violent action scenes and leaves the gorier side to the audience’s imagination. Miss Bala is not just a fantastic thriller – it also illustrates how the drug gangs infiltrate everywhere and are the main architects of the savagery that is infecting every level of Mexican society today.

Naranjo does not shy away from exposing all those who have contributed to the nightmare: It’s the American demand for drugs that finance the cartels; the police are shown to be in the pay of the drug barons; and President Calderon’s deployment of the army is represented as chaotic (and ineffectual); With the character of Laura, Naranjo also captures brilliantly the fear and hopelessness felt by ordinary Mexicans who get caught up in the violence.

The cinematography is impressive with Mátyás Erdély’s carefully composed action shots, perfectly balanced by quieter, suspenseful scenes. Interweaving politics (without preaching) into an essentially mainstream film, Naranjo has forged a compelling drama from Mexico’s violent war.

 

 

Originally published by Latineos.com

Film review – Circo

Circo

Dir: Aaron Schock

74 minutes

DVD £12.99

“The circus is tough and beautiful” says Tino, the ringmaster and central character of Aaron Schock’s documentary, Circo, charting the ups and downs of a Mexican troupe. One could say the same of Schock’s film.

The Ponce clan has worked in the circus for over a hundred years but mounting debts and Mexico’s erratic economy strain both the business and family life.

Schock follows one branch of the family through rural Mexico and charts the breakdown of Tino’s marriage to Ivonne. Despite its name the Gran Circo Mexico is a small outfit, although Tino dreams of one day being successful enough to tour Mexico’s major towns and cities.

The grim reality is that often the villagers cannot afford the luxury of entertainment, so the family are forced to offer tickets for free. While Tino’s children work day and night to make the circus a success, training for hours, unpacking and setting up the tent, feeding the animals, amongst other chores, it is Tino’s father who pockets the meagre proceeds.

Such perceived injustice riles Ivonne to the point of wanting to split up her family. Throughout, she expresses her worries about Tino putting the circus before her and claims that she wants her children, all illiterate, to have an education. Her youngest looks in amazement at some children they pass and comments “all they do is go to school and play”. No such normality for the Ponce offspring. Life in the circus, Schock suggests, is both a blessing and a curse.

Of course their work is exotic – the family travel with caged tigers and a lion, miniature ponies, llamas and a camel – and they are all skilled performers. Tino’s eldest son has no difficulty attracting adoring girlfriends in every village. But as any good performer knows, practice makes perfect, and Schock carefully captures the endless toil that lies behind the children’s acrobatics, the clowning and daring feats of endurance.

There’s no denying that the circus exerts a pull on both performer and spectator. What is remarkable about Circo is how Shock manages, in such a short space of time, to capture both sides of circus life: The glamour and the grime, the thrills and the hard graft.

As well as documentary, Circo is part road movie. Schock shows us the real Mexico, not the picture postcard variety. Here, stunning landscapes are set against rural poverty. The changing scenery gives us an idea of the vast distances covered by the troupe, at the same time as suggesting the monotony of continuous travel. By the end, one realises that life on the road is as constrictive as it is liberating.

The domestic troubles of Tino and Ivonne invest the film with a gritty realism that is reflected in Schock’s cinematography – he gives as much importance to the lines of clothing hanging out to dry between trailers as he does the performers on the tightropes. The message is clear. The Ponce clan are as confined by the circus as the animals that accompany them.

Originally published by Cinevue

The Museum of Death

The old silver-mining town of Guanajuato, in central Mexico, has become famous for what must surely be one of the most popular museums in Mexico. Situated high on a hill overlooking the city, the Museo de las Momias houses one of the best collections of mummies in the world. But the big difference between these mummies and those from Egypt, for example,  is that these bodies belong to ordinary people originally buried in a nearby cemetery; their preservation was accidental and occurred through natural means.

The museum’s history reveals something of the Mexican entrepreneurial spirit and their attitudes towards death today. In 1865, the local cemetery was deemed full and the authorities decided to begin charging a burial fee. Unclaimed bodies were to be exhumed and moved (presumably cremated) in order to make room for those corpses that had relatives willing to pay for a plot. When the first remains were dug up in the same year, to the surprise of the authorities, many of the bodies had been preserved; aided by the rich mineral content of the soil and Guanajuato’s dry climate.

Those realisng that the unclaimed, mummified corpses provided an opportunity for financial gain, began to display them for public consumption. Like a fairground attraction it has lost nothing of its original appeal. As the skin dried out and tightened, jaws had unclenched, teeth had protruded and mouths fallen open to form grotesque expressions of horror adding to the spine tingling horror of the spectacle.  The venture proved hugely popular and remains highly profitable to this day.

Just a few years ago, the mummified corpses were exhibited carelessly, open to the elements; propped up against a wall in the museum. You could sniff them and those daring enough could reach out and touch them. Once again, death was being presented as a fairground attraction.After numerous fingers had poked holes in the parchment-like skin, the mummies were removed and encased in glass – although it seems that this decision was reached in order to keep them financially viable rather than to preserve their dignity.

Children as young as four are taken into the museum, giggling excitedly as they are led through the dimly lit halls.  To them, there is nothing morbid or macabre about the display. I am sure that at the same age, I would have had nightmares for years to come. There does not seem to be any moral issues at stake here. Bodies are considered worthy of display 1) if they are in relatively good condition, 2) remain unclaimed or 3) their relatives were/are unable to pay the burial fees. The fact that the identities of many of the mummies are unknown allows for myth and rumour to grow up around the unclaimed corpses and all manner or yarns are spun as to how they met their end – usually dictated by their grotesque expressions.  The museum claims that one is a German; another is listed as a French doctor – two foreigners who evidently died, alone, in a strange country. A woman from the 1920s is thought to have been buried alive after slipping into catalepsy. The final, frenzied movements of her hands are frozen above her face, apparently in a last ditch struggle to escape this gruesome death. Another body is that of a drowned man – we are asked to note the purplish tinge of his skin. The tiny bodies of babies are also included in the display (the musem boasts the smallest mummy in the world) as well the body of a pregnant woman and a murdered man – the knife wound clerly visible above his ribcage.

The stomachs of the mummies, when exposed, resemble nothing so much as empty sacks of shrivelled leather; vacant shells, devoid of life. It reminds me of one of the most terrifying aspects of death – watching as the blood drain from the body and the colour and texture of the skin slowly changes to resemble cold, pale marble. Suddenly, the departure of the soul is tangible or at least imaginable.  This fine parchment is one step further on, the stage just before the skin begins to turns to dust. 

Inevitably, given our strait-laced views towards death, the Museo de las Momias experience is surreal. It is like stepping onto the set of a Hammer House of Horror film. The detail is extraordinary – in some cases, tufts of hair are still visible. Amazingly, the hunger for images of death, for most of the visitors, remains unabated. The museum has recently opened a separate room (at additional cost), called “the culture of death”. It includes a mummified corpse laid out in a coffin to resemble a vampire, and another punctured by metal stakes, some holograms of insects and fragments of finger nails.  The man in front of me snaps absolutely everything with his digital camera as if in a consumer frenzy.

Mortality is big business in Mexico. There is even a shop selling official teeshirts, jewellery and mugs, and a whole market outside dedicated to this cult of death.

Laughing in the face of death

Altar to the dead at the Sheraton Isabel Maria hotel

As a Brit in Mexico, I am often painfully aware of my ‘difference’ and this is often accompanied by a strong sense of isolation. However, in embracing the clamour and chaos of the City, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that its tumult can actually combat loneliness.

I only have to open the window and there is the man selling water / gas / tamales / balloons / firecrackers and (on Sundays) ice cream outside our front gate. Every day I can enjoy the sight of Mexicans strolling, playing, trading, studying and courting in their numerous public squares which are used as an extension of their homes. In our local plaza, I am greeted by the old woman on the corner weaving baskets; the young girl in the newspaper kiosk is enjoying a brisk business in lottery tickets (she sells stacks of them, never as many papers – they’re old news whilst the national raffle offers tantalising hope for the future); the old men, wailing their wares, are sheltering from the sun under the colourful portales; the organ grinder has taken up his position outside the church, next to the child selling wooden rosaries; the middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and her over-weight daughter are dipping their boiled corn cobs into chilli and lime for a queue of customers. A tiny boy, he can’t be more than six, wends his way round the customers in a café, using his beautiful dark eyes to sell his miniature packs of chiclets.

Except for the cars, I wonder how much has changed in these plazas over the decades. Anything in one hundred years? Two hundred?

The main reason that solitude no longer frightens me is because Mexico City thrusts you into the here and now. The  past feels unimportant, the future no longer tangible. Sometimes I go for days without hearing from anyone back home. At times, I feel as though I live in a bubble, although much of what goes on around me is gradually becoming more comprehensible. Even in November, the sun can be scorching by midday causing the film of time to slow down. Instead of rushing from pillar to post, I linger over meals, stroll rather than stride through the leafy plazas, pausing to admire a pretty pair of earrings, an unusual clay pot or hand-woven shawl. Mexicans are always happy to talk to me; they want to find out where I are from, where I are headed, or just to laugh playfully at my Spanish.

Death: Dolores Olmedo museum

Another powerful weapon against loneliness is an appreciation and understanding of the Mexican response to death. The writer who has come closest to explaining this is Octavio Paz. In his seminal book of essays, The Labyrinth of Solitude, he declared “Ritual death promotes a Rebirth.” To the ancient Mexicans, “Life, death and resurrection were stages of a cosmic process which repeated itself continuously.” Today, an innate love of ritual encourages Mexicans to continue in their celebration of death and, for many, it still “defines” “reflects” and “illuminates” their existence.

Whilst we celebrate Halloween, all over Mexico altars are erected in the name of the dead. Mexicans love the opportunity to dress up or to decorate something, but the preparation of altars for El Día de Muertos is phenomenal. The Day of the Dead actually lasts two days (on the first, the souls of children are honoured). On the nights of 1 and 2 November a family’s loved ones are tempted back to the land of the living.

Day of the Dead altar: UNAM

Like the very best theatre, all the senses are assailed.  A table of ofrendas (offerings) is prepared, aromatic copal is burned, candles are lit, and the vibrant marigold flowers, known here as cempasúchil, decorate and brighten their way.

Altar to Jose Vasconcelos: UNAM CEPE

On the table itself are set various objects, sweets, and drinks that were enjoyed by the departed souls when alive. Their favourite food is lovingly prepared and laid out each night. Religious images are placed alongside tequila and sugared skulls. A poem or hymn may be composed and left for their perusal. Even a particular pan de muerto (sweet bread) is baked to commemorate the departed. It is best described as a sugary bun adorned with a cross, representing skeletal fingers seeking earthly sustenance.

Altar to Edgar Allen Poe: UNAM

Some of the best examples of altars are to be found in the grounds of Mexico City’s National University. This year, the various departments competed with one another to prepare the most imaginative ofrendas to American author Edgar Allan Poe, born two hundred years ago. The field resembled nothing so much as a Victorian fair-ground. As well as ritual and religiosity, there is a sense of fun. Many of the altars are the height of kitsch.

Giant dolls: UNAM

The fact that many of these miniature temples to the dead are works of art is recognised by the Dolores Olmedo museum, in the south of the City, renowned for its annual exhibition celebrating El Día de Muertos. This year it includes a stunning retrospective of ofrendas that have been displayed since it opened its doors in 1994. These include alters dedicated to muralist Diego Rivera, artist Frida Kahlo and engraver Jose Guadalupe Posada.

In Mexico, death is seen merely an extension of life and part of its immutable cycle. The lightheartedness of this annual ritual hits home. Surrounded by all the colour and vitality of the occasion, there is nothing left to fear. Laughing in the face of death proves a valuable lesson. When fear is absent, so too is loneliness.

Gravestones: UNAM

Candles Dolores Olmedo museum

Marimba Dolores Olmedo museum

Paper monsters

This weekend, it was surreal to witness a parade of giant papier mache monsters, looking like a spin-off from the psychedelic 1960s, rolling towards us along one of Mexico City’s busiest streets.  These wonderful sculptures are known as alebrijes and have been made in Mexico since the 1930s.

When I return home I usually have packed some alebrijes as gifts. These are smaller versions of the paper monsters, but are just as imaginative. Brightly coloured animal figurines, carved out of wood, they are most often found in Oaxaca, which has some of the richest folk-art in Mexico. The tiny village of Arrazola produces many of these animals, made from the soft wood of the copal tree; a few years ago we visited the artisans in their homes and bought from them direct.

The term alebrijes originates from the grand papier mache creations of Pedro Linares, a craftsman from Mexico City. Alebrije translates as “imaginary” or “fantasy” and is a fitting description for these bizarre creatures.

The story goes that Linares used to make traditional papier mache figures and carnival masks, for all the local festivals, including piñatas at Christmas, and life-size Judas dolls at Easter. After falling gravely ill, he encountered weird, grotesque animals in his fevered hallucinations. Upon recovery he decided to paint the animals of his dreams, little realising how popular these ugly monsters would become. As a result of the renewed creativity following his near-death experience, Linares and his family passed over the thin line separating craftsman from artists; a local legend was born and a novel form of art was brought into existence.

Renowned muralist, Rivera Diego bought several huge figures for his studio and European and US enthusiasts started collecting the Linares family creations as artistic treasures. What was one man’s terrifying vision of death has become celebrated art.

In the 1960s, inspired by the success of Linares, a Oaxacan woodcarver, Manuel Jiménez, transferred the style to the miniature figurines he carved. Many followed suit and these brightly-painted wooden animals and monsters remain hugely popular and portable examples of this vernacular art.

The Alebrije procession took place in one of Mexico City’s main boulevards, Paseo Reforma. The giant creations then came to rest overnight on the wide pavements. How apt that they should appear the week before the Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico, reminding us of the skill with which Mexicans circumvent horror and terror. They confont, make fun of and celebrate death. In their hands, the stuff of nightmares becomes colourful, hand-painted toys for the delight of adults and children alike.

A church, a dance and two beautiful bottles of Cognac

Santuario de la Virgen de los Remedios

The tourist poster says it all: Ancient pyramid, surmounted by a colourful church, blue skies and a gigantic snow-capped volcano dominating the horizon. This is the picture of Cholula, in central Mexico, that is used to sell the country to British tourists and adorns the cover of the latest Edition of the Eyewitness travel guide.

Near the colonial city of Puebla, and just 2 hours outside Mexico City, this sleepy town claims the largest pyramid in the world in total volume (it’s squat but with a base of 450x450m) and the longest portales (row of arches) in Latin America. Founded in 500 BC, the local guide also claims that it is “the oldest living city in America”.

Astonishingly, the pyramid is not listed as a world heritage site, but this may contribute to the site’s charm and the fact that it is not overrun by tourists – despite the poster! What they don’t tell you in the local guides to Cholula is that a trip to the pyramid involves around fifteen minutes in a narrow tunnel that is only six feet tall and scarcely wide enough for one person; so if you are tall or obese, this is definitely a health and safety hazard. Apparently, since the 1930s around five miles (8 km) of tunnels have been excavated beneath the pyramid by archaeologists in order to ascertain the various stages of building (it’s believed that the pyramid’s construction was undertaken in four stages beginning around 200 BC).

God knows, how many kilometres we traversed – it felt like forever. I couldn’t help but think of those poor unfortunate souls forced to work in the depths of the pyramids. But my compassionate thoughts were soon forgotten when claustrophobia took a firm hold. We were stuck behind a small tour group who stopped every couple of minutes to gaze at a dusty alcove whilst the guide whittered on and the rest of us sweated it out; I resisted the impulse to throw myself writhing to the ground — there probably wasn’t enough space to squirm. When daylight finally greeted us I ran towards the opening. It really was as though we were being met by divine light at the end of the tunnel.

Emerging from night into day, the first sight of the pyramid – through which we had been travelling – comes as a shock. It resembles nothing more than a grassy hillock; its incline carpeted with wild flowers, with a pretty church, basking in sunlight at the top. At this moment, the suggestion that this might be a pre-Columbian sacred site seems preposterous. The domed church, painted sunset orange, is known as the Santuario de la Virgen de los Remedios (Sanctuary of the Virgin of the Remedies) and was built by the Spanish following a swift takeover of the city. Unnerved by the fervour of the Aztec rituals, involving cannibalism, the dismemberment of sacrificial victims, and the proffering of human hearts as tribute to their gods, the Spanish wasted no time in tearing down whatever they could. As quickly as they tore down the sacred sites and temple, they erected churches on top of the remains. The people of Cholula were evidently keen on sacrificial ritual as the town is famous for the sheer number of churches in use today. Apparently it once boasted 350!

Cholula was one of Mexico’s largest cities, but following the terrible massacre by the conquistadores never regained its former splendour. Interestingly, by the time the Spanish arrived, this particular temple had fallen into ruin and was already overgrown.

When we begin the climb, the remains of the final pyramid finally take shape. Steps once covered all four sides allowing the summit to be approached from any direction, but we decided to follow the natural curve rather than attempting an aggressive incline. Unfortunately we don’t get the poster’s stunning view from the top; clouds obscure the legendary El Popocatépetl volcano that separates the valley from Mexico City.

Voladores de la Papantla

On the way down, next to a small crafts market, a strange sight awaits us. Four men in colourful costumes are swinging upside down, round and round a tall pole. It looks like some strange inversion of maypole dancing. But this, Jaime informs me grandly, is Voladores de Papantla. I watch with my mouth agape. What on earth possesses these men to indulge in an apparently nonsensical and uncomfortable ritual. Jaime shrugs, “what’s the point of any sport!” He’s right. It’s not so different from our own Maypole dancing. I think back to my English childhood spent at country fairs watching brightly attired figures with bells on their shoes, holding onto a coloured ribbon, and skipping around a pole.

This rather more daring ritualistic dance from Veracruz, east of Cholula, is believed to be the last vestige of a pre-Hispanic volador ritual common in western Mexico. Later, I read-up and find out that the five dancers (one sits atop the pole) are meant to represent the five elements of the indigenous world. It looks unearthly and proves strangely mesmerising to watch.

Cholula town reminds me of something out of a Spaghetti Western. Maybe it is the impressive row of arches (portales) in the main square (Zocalo) protecting the various cafés and restaurants. I expect saloon doors to swing open at any moment (there were none) and reveal a raucous cantina full of drunken Mexicans in sombreros (I saw none). The cafes are all busy, and after our hike to the church, it is relaxing to sit back and enjoy a coffee before it is time to return to Puebla.

La Puebla de los Angeles (Town of the Angels) also has many claims to fame; its colonial architecture; handpainted tiles and Talavera pottery; the Mole Poblano which is a spicy Mexican sauce cooked with chocolate to give it a bitter-sweet flavour; and the Cinco de Mayo (5 May) festivity commemorating the 1862 defeat of the French army. We stayed near the Zocalo, its historic heart. Browsing the local stores we met Giovanni Rangel, a local silversmith. He showed us the silver smelting process from rock to precious metal.

A real artisan, he fashions silver into stunningly creative designs. He also makes earrings, pendants, cufflinks and necklaces using tiny slivers of Talavera pottery. I bought an exquisite pendant made from fossilised rock which he had polished and set in silver.

I also manage to sample a vegetarian version of the infamous Mole Poblan0 during an unexpected brunch – they substituted scrambled egg for the meat. The sauce is extraordinarily complex; a good Mole will include a variety of chillies, (roasted and then ground with other spices) and is slow cooked – as long as it takes. It is usually served with turkey or chicken and now makes an appearance at most Mexican holidays or weddings. Chicken or Turkey mole is traditionally cooked to tempt the dead to join the living during the long nights of 1 and 2 November. It has the consistency and kick of a Satay sauce with the same spicy sweetness that I love in Malaysian and Thai cooking.

Despite its many pleasures, Puebla has a darker side that I cannot ignore. I have written many times about the writer Lydia Cacho. In 2005 she published a book (Demons of Eden: the power behind pornography), exposing a Mexican child pornography ring in the popular resort of Cancún. A businessman, José Kamel Nacif Borge, known as the King of Denim, because of his jeans factories in Puebla, accused Cacho of libel. He is cited in the book as having ties with Jean Succar Kuri, the owner of a hotel in Cancún. Kuri was already detained at the time, charged with heading the child pornography and prostitution network. Kamel Nacif did not deny knowing him but claimed that his reputation had suffered as a result of Cacho’s book.

On 16 December 2005, Cacho was arrested at gunpoint by Puebla state officials. She endured a twenty-hour car journey from her home in Cancún to Puebla, where she was physically threatened. Upon arrival she was charged with ‘defamation’ and calumny and faced up to four years in prison if found guilty. The governor who ordered her arrest was one Mario Marín.

In February 2006, taped telephone conversations beween Kamel Nacif and the governor de Puebla Mario Marín, were released to the local media. They revealed the extent to which Marín had been involved in Cacho’s arrest and detention. Kamel Nacif’s fawning tone with the governor caused laughter as well as outrage and was later the basis for a rap song and tv skits widely circulated on YouTube.

Far more chilling was the offer of “two beautiful bottles of cognac” as a token of appreciation for the Governor’s part in the arrest of Cacho. After the tapes came to light, Cacho filed a countersuit for corruption and violation of her human rights. Following a year-long battle, during which she suffered repeated death threats, the defamation charges were dismissed. However, her acquittal was only the result of her case being transferred to another state where defamation is no longer considered a criminal offence. Despite the Mexican Supreme Court’s ruling that there had been ‘no serious violation’ of Cacho’s rights when she was arrested on Marín’s orders, last April the special office set up to investigate crimes against journalists in Mexico ordered the arrest of five public employees for the illegal detention of Cacho. These reportedly included the former attorney general, a government minister, a police commander and various criminal justice system officials, who allegedly falsified paperwork in order to facilitate her arrest. Disappointingly, in June the court in Cacho’s home state of Quintana Roo ruled that although there was evidence of arbitrary detention and torture it could not accept her case for jurisdictional reasons and recommended that she take the case to Puebla.

Cacho claims that it is impossible to get justice in Puebla, particularly given the role of the state authorities in her ordeal. She is now forced to submit her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, but continues to receive threats to her life for her writing and her work.

With all the too-ing and fro-ing and legalise surrounding the case, I didn’t think to research what had happened to the Governor. I just presumed that when the tapes came to light Marín would have been stripped of office. Not so. I nearly fell off my chair when Jaime told me – in Puebla. Not only will Marín serve his obligatory 6-year term, today he is as popular as ever.

Mexico! This country that I love to hate and hate to love. The levels of crime and corruption are breathtaking. But the landscape is just phenomenal, its ancient civilisation still exerts a magnetism that is palpable and, despite the poverty, Mexicans exude a warmth and generosity that it’s hard to match anywhere in the world.