Dec. 7, 2009 issue
Drug violence enters Mexican colonies
By Mennonite Weekly Review staffPage:
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A gang kidnapped an Old Colony Mennonite man Nov. 14 in the Mexican state of Durango and released him the next day after a ransom payment.
The ransom for Franz Boesens Heinrich, 18, from Rosenort village, was cash, two cars and guns, according to Kurze Nachrichten (Brief News), an Internet newsfeed for Low German-speaking Mennonites.
The kidnapping is one of a growing number of crimes against Mennonites as a small part of the drug-related violence in Mexico, in which thousands have died in the past year.
Kidnappers abducted Heinrich about 650 feet from his parents’ construction business near the city of Nuevo Ideal, Kurze Nachrichten reported.
During several phone calls, the kidnappers negotiated the ransom, eventually lowering their initial demand.
Heinrich was not harmed or denied food, Kurze Nachrichten reported. He told the kidnappers about Jesus, and one was not hostile to his words.
Colony members and Hispanic churches in the area, as well as people in Canada and the United States, prayed for Heinrich’s release, according to Kurze Nachrichten.
The family struggled to get the ransom, as banks were closed Sunday, the day after the kidnapping. However, they collected the payment and a group of people went to meet the kidnappers on Nov. 15 before sunset.
One group of masked, armed kidnappers exchanged Heinrich for the cars while another group of kidnappers about a mile away took the money.
Some of the gang members arrived in a car colony members recognized as one stolen from fellow colony member Abram Klassen a month and a half previously. The colony members spoke with the kidnappers, who searched them and took their cell phones.
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Comments
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It is very sad to hear that successful Mennonite colonies are becoming targets for violence.
I wonder though if this is not reminiscent of the Mennonite experience in Russia and if there are not lessons to be learned.
I believe that Mennonites are still in the process of figuring out how to relate to the world, but I think the Russia experience taught us that social separation and economic integration is a dangerous combination. There will be few good ways for pacifist Mennonite colonies in Mexico to provide security against the growing tides of gang organization and violence amidst a shrinking civil society.
Somehow we must be engaged in our world, promoting justice, and building civil society, or else our pacifism will one day be put to the greatest test as it was in Russia. Pacifism must be active long before the "what would you do" scenarios present themselves.
But I hope the best for Mennonites in Mexico and that they would continue to prosper. And I pray that Mennonites everywhere might find the proper way of being "in the world but not of the world."
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