Who’s Murdering the Women of Juarez?
Earlier this year, Venetians became
aware of the mass murders on women in Juarez through a shocking exhibit held at
SPARC (Social and Public Art Resources Center) on Venice Blvd. Here is an
exclusive on-the-scene update from local journalist Javier
Rodriguez.
By Javier Rodriguez
H.
In the first of its kind, on October
11 to 13 a Congressional delegation headed by Representative Hilda Solis of the
32nd District, landed in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico for a three day investigation of
the massive murders of young Mexican women. Accompanied by Chicago’s
Congressman Luis Gutierrez and Texas Congressmen Silvestre Reyes and Ciro
Rodriguez , the four US legislators met with mothers of the victims.
non-governmental organizations(NGOs), popular organizations, Mexican officials
and journalists.
The fact finding
mission arrived on the heels of an Amnesty International Human Rights report
titled “Intolerable Killings.” Additionally a week before their
arrival, the Vicente Fox administration assigned 700 more federales to protect
the city against crime.
The event was
sponsored and organized by the Washington office on Latin America (WOLA), Latin
America Working Group (LAWG) and the Mexico Solidarity Network, three
progressive lobbying national organizations, all based in the US Capital. The
delegation also included documentary producer Lourdes Portillo and UC Regent and
labor leader Dolores Huerta.
The
international encounter labored with a packed agenda primarily composed of
closed meetings and visits to dramatic and spectacular sites where dead bodies
have been unearthed. Also a sobering tour to Colonia Anapra, a hilly and
extremely poor neighborhood at the edge of the city, next to the area where many
of the bodies have been found. There, the delegates learned first hand of the
sub human social and dangerous living conditions of many of Juarez’s
maquiladora workers. They lack sufficient basic services such as water,
drainage, clinics, schools, absolutely little if any public lighting,
transportation and police protection. The delegates and the throng of local and
international media could not locate any of the federal policemen in Anapra or
any of the poor colonias of
Juarez.
According to Amnesty
International’s recent report of August 2003 and presented there in
Juarez by Amnesty’s Secretary General Irene Khan, since 1993 there’s
been a total of 270 murders as well as 500 hundred disappeared women that are
missing in Juarez and Chihuahua City. The report identifies patterns in the
sexual murders and also an institutional negation for an effective governmental
response on the part of all agencies involved in the defense of the citizenry
including the governor of Chihuahua and unbelievably President Vicente Fox is
quoted in the report denying the patterns and stating the murders are an
isolated phenomena. The report also concludes that the basis of the murders lies
in societal gender based discrimination, a lax investigation of the murders and
disappearances and a lack of inadequate protection and prevention programs. The
official attitude is to blame the victim.
There is also a pattern of brutal
intimidation and violent actions of the Mexican police against the
victim’s families including murdering an attorney. However, it has not
stopped the families. Most experts assert and point to the persistent struggle
of the women and their quest for justice as the inspiration for the
international uproar against the Mexican
government.
The stories told by the
mothers are many. Consuelo Valenzuela sitting with a picture of her young
daughter told me, “my daughter Julieta disappeared as she came out of her
high school. The Chihuahua authorities have not looked for her. They don’t
help at all. We came here to ask for support and for pressure on the
authorities. Our daughters were not frivolous as the governor says. They did not
lead a double life. My daughter was studious. Se la robaron (She was kidnapped).
Another mother, Mrs. Venegas said- why does this happen only to the poor and the
daughters of laborers? There is a lot of wickedness in the powerful. What can
one do against the powerful, the drug
traffickers”?
Then there is the
case of Veronica Rivera Martinez. She was arrested, beaten and tortured and then
left for dead buried under rocks, but survived. She described and named her
assailants. One of them Jorge Garcia A., State Judicial Police Comandante, and
three police assistants known as “madrinas.” They were never
charged. Norma Andrade, a mother who this week will be on Christina’s
national television program asserted that there are many instances of police
involvement confirmed. She stated candidly, “I believe that police are
also used to transport and get rid of the
bodies.”
As far as the killers
and their motives there are several theories. Throughout my stay, I rode with
and talked to Martin Alferes a lot. He is a long time free lance camera man for
the major networks in the region. He told me that he had received delicate
information on an American and a Greek who came to Juarez twice a year and they
were both buyers of snuff videos. That is sexual and entertainment murder shot
on video for the American and European markets.
Additionally he implicated the police
as the abductors. He commented that as a long time correspondent, he and the
rest of the Juarez’s reporters with radio scanners have listened to all
kinds of police calls and complaints but never about a woman’s abduction.
His conclusion seemed to be logical. Who would notice if they thought a
detention was taking place.
Lastly on
this subject, a shoeshine man, who has followed the killings closely, poignantly
stated that when the Juarez police see a car traveling through dark isolated
neighborhoods in the middle of the night their modus operandi is to immediately
stop the vehicle. This is the time when the bodies are allegedly transported to
the outskirts of the city. However, none have ever been
stopped!
At the final Press conference
Laurie Freeman of WOLA declared, “We will continue our focus and return to
this city. This is not just a three day visit and then nothing. We want this
problem to be included as part of the agenda for the next session of the
Bi-national meeting between the two
countries.”
Cong. Hilda Solis,
visibly emotional at times, emphatically stated “we listened to the
affected families. We learned about their suffering and pain. The deaths of the
women of Ciudad Juarez and other cities in Mexico is one of the problems that we
in Mexico and the U.S. share jointly. We will ask that the next binational
convention on Nov. 17 include this topic. We will also ask the Organization of
American States and the U.N. to participate as mediators on the DNA tests. The
families and the women are the true heroes. They have brought us
together.”
Congressman Silvestre
Reyes added, “There is an apparent lack of trust by the parents of the
victims in the police agencies”. That’s putting it mildly. As this
reporter confirmed, in Juarez and El Paso - vox populi - clearly points to the
police.
Posted: Sat
- November 1, 2003 at 05:19 PM