MATAMOROS, Mexico — When the killings of six guards at the nearby maximum-security prison horrified even this bloodied border city, civic leaders came up with an interesting solution to their image problem: change the name of the prison.
Matamoros, where mass kidnappings and assassinations have become common, was rocked by the incident in which six guards were kidnapped after they left work Jan. 20, and found two hours later, hands bound, shot dead and jammed into a van. Authorities say the killings are "message murders" from narco-traffickers that the government should back off on its effort to clean up the prison system.
As the home of the so-called Gulf cartel, one of Mexico's most vicious drug trafficking gangs, Matamoros has witnessed ebbs and flows of violence. But the executions of the guards set a new standard for ruthlessness, and may have been the last straw for the U.S. State Department, which days later issued a travel advisory warning of the dangers in Mexican border towns.
Although U.S. officials later softened their warning, saying it was not meant to discourage visitors to the border region, its effect was swift. Tourism declined sharply, and truck crossings from neighboring Brownsville, Texas, fell 15%. Late last month, a meeting between Texas and Tamaulipas state lawmakers to discuss border issues was moved from Matamoros to Brownsville after the Texas delegation refused to cross into Mexico because of safety concerns.
Alarmed, the City Council and business community are calling for drastic measures. They've asked that the 400 federal police and army troops sent here after the killings remain permanently. And they want the prison, known as the Matamoros Federal Center for Social Re-Adaptation, to be renamed the Saltpeter prison. Or the Mesquite prison. Anything but Matamoros.
Although some observers say the city and region are suffering from much bigger problems than a name change can fix, Mayor Baltazar Hinojosa Ochoa says the town of Matamoros is being unfairly tarred by the grim goings-on at the prison, about 12 miles west of the border crossing.
"It's as if Alcatraz were San Francisco, but Alcatraz is one thing and San Francisco is another, yes or no? Well, it's the same here in that [the prison] is one thing and Matamoros is something else," he said. "The city is calm and not what has been portrayed internationally."
