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By Diego
Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 (IPS) - Activists in Mexico are upset
over a report by a special prosecutor's office on the killings of hundreds of
women in Ciudad Juárez, which they say buries many of the key facts and
arguments relating to the murders.
"The report is humiliating and disgraceful, because it falsifies
and plays down the facts," Esther Chávez, president of Casa Amiga, a
non-governmental organisation that provides support to the victims' families,
told IPS.
Ciudad Juárez, a city of 1.3
million people which borders El
Paso,
Texas, has been shaken by the hundreds of
murders and disappearances of women which have occurred there since 1993.
According to human rights groups, a large number of the victims
had been raped - some by multiple attackers û and tortured. Theories about the
motives for these crimes range from satanic rituals to pornography rings and
"snuff" films in which someone is actually murdered. Human organ trafficking is
also suspected.
But according to an extensive
report by the Special Prosecutor's Office investigating the Ciudad Juárez
killings, which was released on Thursday, "the exact dimensions of the problem
have been distorted," thus creating myths and unfounded rumours.
"If it was such a minor problem, why didn't
they say so before? Why have they spent so much money investigating it? I think
the government wants to downplay the situation, but even if only one more woman
is killed, we will continue to cry out," Chávez said in a telephone interview
from Ciudad Juárez.
Marimar Monroy, of the
non-governmental Mexican Commission for Defence and Promotion of Human Rights,
said the Special Prosecutor's Office report appears to promote the message "that
violence against women, and ‘femicide', aren't important matters."
"This problem is not about numbers, it's
about a climate of violence that is persistent and unacceptable," Monroy told
IPS.
The prosecutors' inquiry concluded that
there was no pattern of serial killing among the 379 murders of women in Ciudad
Juárez registered in the last 11 years, and that sexual violence was involved in
only 78 of the killings.
Furthermore, it
stated, 125 of the women died in their own homes at the hands of relatives,
friends or acquaintances, and most of the murdered women lived in a highly
"criminal and violent" environment.
The
Special Prosecutor's Office, which comes under the Attorney-General's Office,
reported that the largest number of killings of women in
Mexico occurred in
Toluca, near the capital.
According to statistics on the number of homicides per 100,000
population, the next in rank is Tecate, in the northern state of
Baja
California, followed by the resort city of
Acapulco on the Pacific coast. Ciudad Juárez
ranks fourth.
And with respect to missing women in Ciudad Juárez, activists put
the number at more than 4,000, but the official inquiry mentions only 47
documented cases.
The report admits that the
local authorities in charge of investigating the murders in Ciudad Juárez had
been markedly negligent in the past, which had aggravated the climate of
violence against women.
The facts and
conclusions of the report are dubious, because discredited sources of
information were used and important facts have been ignored, said Chávez, one of
the most active voices in Mexico to denounce the violence against
women in Ciudad Juárez.
In recent years the Mexican government has come under heavy
pressure from local and international human rights groups for the spate of
killings of women in Ciudad Juárez.
In
response to the pressure, President Fox named a Special Prosecutor's Office and
a special commission for the Juárez cases. And now, on Friday, he replaced the
Juárez special prosecution by a new body called the Special Prosecutor's Office
Investigating Crimes Related to Violence against Women in the Country.
But the working methods of these bodies, and
the reports they produce, have been seriously questioned by activists.
Esther Chávez commented that the latest
report on the Ciudad Juárez killings was "hurtful," because "basically it's
making a comparison between the situation in Juárez and other places, which is
no consolation and does nothing to alter the fact that most of the crimes remain
unpunished."
Most of the murdered women were
in the 15-30 age group, and many were from low-income social strata and worked
in maquiladora factories, which operate in tax-free zones and assemble products
for export using imported materials.
These
factories are concentrated in Ciudad Juárez and other Mexican cities along the
U.S. border. Their work force mainly
consists of young women, many of whom are living far away from their families.
In Ciudad Juárez, a number of factors û migration, unemployment,
social exclusion, a large floating population, human trafficking and drug
trafficking, among others - converge to give the city its particular
characteristics. Together with the social dynamic generated by the large number
of national and foreign maquiladoras, they have brought levels of extreme
violence to the city, according to government reports.
(END/2006) |
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On February 25th, Hilda Gabriela Rivas Campos (16 years old) left her home to seek work at a local market.
She was last seen by a friend who worked near the market, who Hilda asked to hold some work documents for her while she went with a man who had offered her money to intervene in a discussion with his wife. She has not been seen since that time.
Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (NHDRC)has been working with the family and have tried different strategies for finding Hilda Gabriela but have had no results to date given some recent changes on how local authorities look for missing persons.
NHDRC tells us during the search for Hilda they found out that within the modifications that the “New Reformation to the Penal Justice System”
promoted by Patricia González, Attorney General of the State of Chihuahua, and that took effect January 1st; what before was the Office for the search of disappeared WOMEN, now is “Office for the search of absent and/or disappeared PEOPLE (now for the search of both women and men). This office only has three agents of the Public Ministry and eight investigating agents for the searches, according to data provided by Edith Acevedo of the same office.
All of which is insufficient to actually find missing people considering that now this office will have to look for all the missing people and not only women who disappear. Though this case is officially considered of high risk, since she disappeared in a zone where many women has been kidnapped, and her characteristics fit within the profile of most of the women who have been kidnapped and victims of serial sexual violence also known as femicides, Hilda Gabriela represents one of more than 40 reports of disappearances of women in 2008 up to this month of March.
For these reasons MSN joins NHDRC in requesting your urgent help in writing to the state Government and the Attorney Generals Office of the State of Chihuahua with the following demands:
A) Creation of a new office for the search of DISAPPEARED WOMEN, in the building with the Public Prosecutor of Crimes Against Women and the office of Attention to Victims, with ample and exclusive resources for its good operation.
 The hiring and accreditation of at least two private investigators, experts in the search of disappeared women of high risk, that will in addition to current cases will investigate non-solved cases of homicides of women with sexual connotations or that do not correspond to domestic violence. These experts should not have previously worked somewhere of the Mexican Republic or in dependencies of the Mexican government.
C) A weekly meeting with the directors of the different police departments, as well as with representatives of the different government institutions that signed the Alba Protocol, with the purpose of accountability and implementation of strategies to find the disappeared minors, and to assure that everyone involved participates in their search.
ACTION: To communicate via telephone or email to the offices of the Attorney General of the State of Chihuahua with the Patricia González, for the purpose of demanding an urgent meeting between her, the Governor of the State of Chihuahua, and Nuestras Hijas de Regreso A Casa.
Contact info:
Attorney General: M.D.P. Patricia González Rodríguez pagonzalez@buzon.chihuahua.gob.mx y pagonzale@buzon.chihuahua.mx
Av. Vicente Guerrero 618, Col. Centro, 31000, Chihuahua, Chih.
Secretary: Lic. Rodolfo Leyva Martínez
r.leyva7@hotmail.com
Tel. For the offices of the State government of Chih. 01152 614 429 3300
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Award-winning producer, writer and director Barbara Martinez Jitner speaks
about her experience working alongside other women in horrible factory
conditions on the U.S.-Mexican border after showing one portion of her video
series March 19 in the University Center Sunnen Lounge.
By: Amber Russell
Posted: 3/27/08Femicide, which is a relatively new term, means the
systematic killing of women. This term is well known in Juarez, Mexico because
of the many brutal murders that occur there every year. In the past 15 years
femicide has become a horrifying trend plaguing the town's young, migrant female
workers and students.
"Women in Mexico are devalued. They are sold into
the sex trade or have their organs harvested for a profit," said Barbara
Martinez Jitner, a Latin American producer, writer and director who came to
speak at Webster University. "They are worth more dead than alive."
Since
1993 over 450 young women, who are predominately factory workers, have been
abducted, raped, assaulted and murdered - many found with their organs harvested
- in Juarez, Mexico, said Martinez Jitner.
No one has been held
accountable for these crimes.
Her lecture, titled "Femicide at Our U.S.
Border: To Be a Woman in Juarez is a Death Sentence" was held March 19 in the
University Center Sunnen Lounge.
"This (lecture) was overwhelming. It's
amazing that this could happen for 15 years and the government and media don't
show it at all to the public," said Lauren Beck, a freshman international
relations major.
The lecture was accompanied by Martinez Jitner's
documentary "La Frontera," which means "The Border" in Spanish. The documentary
portrayed the life and struggle of an indigenous woman of Oaxaca, Mexico. Eva
Canseco migrated from her homeland in Oaxaca to Tijuana, Mexico to work in a
factory. She was fired because she was too old. Canseco was only 30.
"The border factories want women workers because women will accept
whatever they pay us," Canseco said.
Martinez Jitner is on tour during
March for International Women's Month in order to bring awareness to this
growing epidemic. Femicide is spreading throughout Mexico, from the border towns
of Juarez and Chihuahua to as far south as Guatemala. In a substantial number of
cases, the women were very young, about 14 or 15. The factories in question are
Mexican divisionsof U.S. companies that have been established along the United
States-Mexico border. There are 1,000 factories in Juarez alone. Juarez is
located directly across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Ngozi Williams, a
junior international relations and human rights major, said she has not heard
about femicide in Mexico in any of her classes at WU. She said people are
unaware of this problem because some Americans don't consider Mexico an
international country.
"My assumption as to why no one has been
discussing this issue may be because (Mexico) is so close," Williams said. "How
can anything so atrocious be happening right next door to us?"
Martinez
Jitner posed as a factory worker in a border town to uncover the harsh working
conditions and violence associated with the factories. She said female factory
workers put in 10-hour shifts at all hours of the night and day. They are forced
to live in shantytowns on the outskirts of the city because they cannot afford
to pay rent. These struggling young women are abducted along their long walks to
and from the factories. The companies they are employed with provide no security
for the workers. There are no streetlights because there is no electricity, and
no one is around to protect them from being kidnapped by unknown assailants.
Martinez Jitner said these women are considered an "expendable
workforce" by the corporations they are employed with and have, in the process,
become expendable human beings. In Mexico, there is a caste system where the
poor and uneducated are treated as lower life forms and women are considered
inferior to men.
Public awareness is the most effective way both Mexicans
and Americans can combat this violence toward women and bring justice to the
offenders, according to international human rights groups and the families of
the victims. Martinez Jitner suggested signing a petition on the Amnesty
International Web site, www.amnestyusa.org.
"The Mexican government is
providing little or no help investigating the disappearances and the murders of
these young women," said Martinez Jitner.
Martinez Jitner is one of the
first Latina executive producers of a primetime network television series,
"American Family." She is an Emmy award winner, as well as a four-time Golden
Globe nominee. Martinez Jitner has worked in television and film as a writer,
director and producer. She is also a documentary filmmaker. She has worked on
such films as "Selena," "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" and "Bordertown," which is
based upon true events surrounding the violence and murders in
Juarez.
Many families of missing women are conducting their own
investigations. They are seeking help from the American government, the United
Nations and international human rights organizations. The mothers of the missing
women have formed protest groups in an effort to reveal the government's lack of
interest. The groups also condemn the law enforcement officials for their lax
investigative procedures and failure to arrest and prosecute those responsible
for these crimes.
One such organization, Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a
Casa, which means "May Our Daughters Return Home," has a Web site with
information on the abductions and killings as well as a petition to the Mexican
government to find the missing girls. Nuestras Hijas' Web site is
www.mujeresdejuarez.org.
This Web site and countless others, along with
Martinez Jitner's lecture tour, all have one primary purpose: to make the world
aware of the missing and murdered women and to show the inefficacy of their
government to stop and prevent these horrific crimes.
"Their government
along with the U.S. government, do not care about this situation because they
are making money off of this through NAFTA," said Emily Kothe, a junior English
and international human rights major.
NAFTA
The citizens
of Mexico and many international human rights organizations believe there is a
correlation between the abductions, rapes and murders in the border towns of
Mexico and the North American Free
Trade Agreement.
In 1993, NAFTA
brought about free trade between Mexico and the United States. Many American
businesses opened assembly plants along the Mexican border to pay low wages to
migrant Mexican workers. General Electric, DuPont, Panasonic, The Gap and RCA
are some of the factories who have set up shop in Mexico.
During his
time as president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari changed the Mexican
Constitution. He served from 1988 to 1994, and in that time he made changes that
require indigenous peoples (natives of Mexico) to pay taxes on the land they
own. Many of these families moved to border towns to work at the new factories
so they could pay the taxes on their land.
NAFTA requires companies to
pay workers a living wage. The workers make $5 a day. The migration to border
towns was supposed to be temporary for many families - just to make enough money
to pay the taxes they owed on their land. But this Third-World wage of $5 a day
couldn't stand up to the First-World (U.S.) prices for goods and services in the
border towns.
The female workers are treated harshly by their male
superiors in the factories and when they disappear, the government doesn't
consider the case a high priority.
Barbara Martinez Jitner, a Latina
television producer, went undercover in a NAFTA factory in Mexico in order to
investigate the poverty, abuse and abductions connected to the border town
factories.
She said the Mexican government will not recognize these
crimes. The government will try to silence groups who are fighting for justice
for their daughters by offering them a house and a small amount of
money.
Martinez Jitner said these people are displaced with nowhere to
go, and that is a major factor in the increased border security. She said the
Central American Free Trade Agreement will cause many of the Mexico-based
factories to move south to Central America, and the displaced migrant workers
will then come to the United States.
"There is a definite correlation
with the mass femicide in Juarez and the factories, but they don't want to be
held liable," Martinez Jitner said. "That's why the companies want to get out of
the border towns and head to Central America as fast
as
possible."
Martinez Jitner said the U.S. government is aware of the
problem and is anticipating a surge of illegal immigrants from Mexico if the
factories move south and leave many workers without jobs. She also said this is
the main reason for the increased security at the border and the reason for the
border wall.
© Copyright 2008 The Journal |
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PROCURADURÍA GENERAL DE JUSTICIA DEL ESTADO
UNIDAD ESPECIAL DE INVESTIGACIÓN DE
PERSONAS AUSENTES O EXTRAVIADAS
AYÚDANOS A LOCALIZARLA
HILDA GABRIELA RIVAS CAMPOS
16 AÑOS DE EDAD
CARACTERÍSTICAS:
Estatura: |
1.65 metros aprox. |
Complexión : |
Delgada. |
Tez: |
Morena. |
Color de ojos: |
Café Oscuro. |
Cejas: |
Depiladas y arqueadas. |
Tamaño: |
Grandes. |
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Tipo: |
Ovales |
Nariz: |
Mediana y chata. |
Boca: |
Mediana. |
Tipo: |
Recta. |
Labios: |
Gruesos. |
Cabello: |
Teñido color castaño oscuro. |
Tipo de Cabello: |
Ondulado. |
Longitud: |
Debajo de los hombros. |
Señas particulares: |
Ninguna. |
Vestimenta: Se desconoce.
Fecha: |
25 de febrero de 2008. |
Lugar: |
Colonia 16 de Septiembre. |
EN CASO DE CONTAR CON INFORMACIÓN COMUNICARSE A LOS TELÉFONOS:
(656) 629 3300 Ext. 56454 y 56455 en Ciudad Juárez;
(614) 429 3300 Ext. 14363 y 14346 en Ciudad Chihuahua. |
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Discriminatory treatment of the women of Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas in
the Congress of the state of Chihuahua
In the second session of Congress on March 3, 2008, the
mothers of the disappeared and victims of femicide, members of the organization
Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas, with the aim of supporting the proposal
that Deputy Victor Quintana was introducing for the creation of a Special
Commission to Investigate the Femicides.
The action planned by the mothers was to present themselves
at the official area to support this initiative but the security guards for the
Congress tried to block their passage.
The intention was that the deputies (congress men and women)
would see the real existence not only of the mothers of the victims but also of
the problem of the lack of justice of the cases that they were representing with
photos of the assassinated and disappeared women.
Recess was called for the session with the pretext that the
mothers were creating "disorder". This was totally false because those of us
that were there saw that none of the women that intended to enter the congress
ever spoke one word or behaved in a disorderly fashion.
The President of the Congress suspended the session. This was
unequal treatment for women and the problems that they face. For example, the
meeting before was concerning the case of the accounts of the city of Chihuahua.
There was a large contingent of support for Mr. Blanco, with true disorder. In
this case, the meeting was not suspended but the participants were granted their
full rights under the Article 30, section 13 of the Organic Law of Legislative
Power.
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Friday, February 01, 2008
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY —
Mexico
has created a new federal position to prosecute violence against women and
human exploitation, as rights groups urge the government to do more to
investigate the killings of women, especially along the U.S. border.
The position, announced on Thursday, will replace a similar post created in
2006 and will add migrant smuggling, child labor and other human exploitation
to its caseload.
The new prosecutor, Guadalupe Morfin _ who previously served in a similar
post aimed at combatting violence against women in Ciudad Juarez _ will report to Attorney
General Eduardo Medina Mora.
The attorney general told Radio Formula that he welcomes the expanded role
for his office.
Human exploitation "is a serious problem that we see daily, and we
don't have the adequate structure to deal with it," Medina Mora said.
Since 1993, an estimated 423 women have been killed in Ciudad Juarez, across
the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas _ at least 89 between 2004 and 2008, the
National Human Rights Commission reported Tuesday.
In about 100 of the Juarez killings, women
were abducted, often sexually abused and strangled before their bodies were
dumped in the desert. Many were last seen in the city's downtown area or taking
buses, and their bodies often did not resurface for months.
Commission President Jose Luis Soberanes called the investigations into the
deaths "terrible."
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25.02.08 21:31
( dpa ) - The United
Nations launched Monday a campaign to end violence against women around the
world, saying that one in three women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex
or abused in her lifetime. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the annual session of the
Commission on the Status of Women, which is dedicated to establishing gender
equality and involves society, governments and world organizations.
Ban said violence against women ranges from prenatal sex selection to
abortions.
"No country, no culture, no woman young or old is immune to this scourge,"
he said. "Far too often, the crimes go unpunished, the perpetrators walk free."
He called on the UN Security Council to set up a mechanism dedicated to
monitoring violence against women and girls, but he warned that what works in
one country may not in another and urged each government to devise its own
strategy.
The World Health Organization said the most common form of violence is
physical violence inflicted by domestic partners. Women aged 15-44 are more at
risk of rape and beating than from cancer, traffic accidents, war and malaria.
WHO said 40 to 70 per cent of female murders were at the hands of domestic
partners in the United States, Australia, Canada, Israel and South Africa.
In Colombia, one woman is reportedly killed every six days by her partner
or a former one while "hundreds" of women were abducted, raped and murdered in
and around Ciudad Juarez in Mexico over a 10- year period.
The UN said between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the
massacre in Rwanda in 1994 and up to 50,000 were raped during the Bosnian war
from 1992 to 1995.
Several UN taskforces have been created to fight violence against women.
They include the UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict and UN Trust Fund
to End Violence. Resolutions have been adopted for the purpose of raising
awareness on the issues of violence against women. |
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Murders of Women in Juarez Shock the World
In the small Mexican town of Juarez, since 1993
around 400 women were brutally murdered. No one knows why, but the crimes
continue.
Photo:
wikimedia,; AFP
Walking in the desert area of the Mexican town of Juarez, on February 17,
two teenagers searched for details like bottles and cans which they could sells.
Instead of that, they ran into blood stained rocks: three women’s corpses,
barely hidden. After they informed the police, they found a fourth body not far
from the others.
Juarez’s dead women
This is not a singular happening for the town near the Mexican-American
border, which reached world fame and a place in Wikipedia due to many years of
systematical, brutal murders of hundreds  of women with no known reason and without end.
The wave of murders started back in 1993, with “the dead women of Juarez” case,
followed by many international organizations for human rights and sexual
discrimination, by the state attorney’s office, and by the police. Books have
been written and several documentaries and movies have been made on them.
However, the mystery has still not been solved. The authorities have not found
an efficient way to stop the disapperance of hundreds of women. Kidnapping, raping, suffocation
The main question mark in these crimes is the motive. There are no
acceptable theories on why in 15 years, around 400 women were killed, and
hundreds are still missing. Most of the bodies found, show signs of sexual
violence. Witnesses say that it is not a matter of usual raping, but a matter of
releasing wild instincts. Women had traces of biting, thrusting, hitting and
slitting. According to the autopsy report, about 70% of the cases died of
suffocation or due to beating. The motive is even harder to find because these
women have no specific common features.
They are mainly young women between 17 and 22 years of age, but there also
some victims who are younger, between one and four years old. They are hack
workers in a corporations owned by Americans and which use cheap
a Latin-American workforce. For this reason, many think that these crimes are
connected with the American corporations which have branch-offices in the town.
Working in inhuman conditions, the workers are imposed unreachable norms, and
failure is strictly punished. Although a connection between the brutal murders
and the work in factories has never been proved, they think that it can not be a
coincidence that most of the women killed were working in some of these American
factories.
Unique mystery
 In Ciudad Juarez, like in many other Mexican towns,
there is a high rate of criminality, corruption within the authorities, the drug
business is widespread, poverty is high, and many think that in the whole story
the ‘machismo’ element has an important role, that is the lust for male
domination. However, if we take this element in to consideration, we have to
think that every border Mexican town should have a similar rate of rape and
murder of women. The dead women of Juarez are a unique case, which contributes
to the mystery of the town. The first official victim was Alma Chavira Farel, who was found beaten,
raped and suffocated on January 23, 1993 in Ciudad Juarez. They believe that she
was not the first victim of these murders, but only the first one to be found of
about ten women who went missing before her. By the end of the year, the police
officially recognised 16 more similar murders, but it was never confirmed if
they were committed by the same murderer or if there were more. As the murders
continued year by year, criminologists and a state attorney monitored the
horrifying rate of killing, but they never found out whether it was the work of
one person, a gang or whether the murders have no connection with one another.
Some crimes bore the same ‘signature’ and they think that in Juarez there are at
least three serial killers.
Several arrested, murders continue
The first suspect was Abdel Sharif, who supposedly raped and murdered a
women, and whose former girlfriend filed charges against him for attempted
murder. Sharif was condemned to 30 years in prison, but this did not stop the
murders in Juarez.
 Later, a member of the local gang ‘Los Rebeldes’,
Olivares Villalba, confessed he took part in the murder of 18-year-old Rosario
Garcia. According to him, six more members of the gang took part in the crime.
He was condemned, and part of the gang was arrested and then released. The
police even tried to prove that the murders were the result of a conspiracy in
which Abdel Sharif and his gang were involved, but the did not manage to do so,
and the number of murders only grew. The police hoped to solve the case when a girl who survived kidnapping,
raping and beating in 1999, told her horrible experience. They accused a bus
driver who drove the workers from a factory, and the police began to arrest
several of so called ‘Los Choferes’. They filed charges against them for a total
of 20 murders, but they denied the accusations and stated that the Mexican
police mistreated and tortured them. The American FBI joined the
investigations, but after they went to the town, they left with no more answers
than before and the murders continued.
No woman is safe
These murders have come to a level where we must do everything in our power
to solve them, said a Mexican official and cooperator of the FBI for Dallas
Morning News.
There is no precise information on the total number of victims. Different
associations offer differing numbers, because many women are still considered
missing. The most accepted theory is that between more than 300 women were
killed between 1993 and 2005, and about 400 are missing. In the past years, the
rate of murders has grown. Despite the monitoring of the media, of the FBI, of
the public and of the police, there are still no answers. Only the facts are
certain, no woman is safe in Juareze, and there will be other murders. |
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PROTEST(A)
CALDERON'S
(THE ILIGITIMATE MEXICAN PRESIDENT
)
VISIT(A) TO
SACRAMENTO
WENSDAY (MIERCOLES) 0FEBUARY
13,2008
11:30
AM
SHERETON GRAND HOTEL ,
1230 "J' STREET
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
DEATHS
OF 5,000 MIGRANTS AT THE BORDER
OAXACA- 23 TEACHERS AND
SUPPORTERS
70 MINE WORKERS
ACTEAL 47 MEN WOMEN & CHILDREN
NO TO :
NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE
AGREEMENT (NAFTA)
"CALDERON WILL BE HAVING LUNCH WITH THE
GOVERNOR"
We would
encourage you to pass this protest notice to all your lists and take some time
off to say to the POLITICOS HEAR AND IN MEXICO WE WILL NOT ACCEPT THEIR LIES AND
THE DEATHS OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE DIED AT ATTEMPTING TO CROSS THE
BORDER
" EL DERCHO DE NO IMIGRAR !
"
"
THE RIGHT NOT TO MIGRATE
!
"VIVA LOS
OBREROS ! "
"NO AL
TLC !! "
Borothers and Sisters
We are being informed that "Calderon"
(Illegitimate Mexican President) is coming to Sacramento and Los Angeles and
other cities, in his campaign to "Defend the Immigrants",when he and his
"Right-wing Conservative "party the PAN 's policies when they have supported the
NAFTA economic agreements that have devastated both jobs on both sides of the
border, in especially being the cause of the massive migration of close to 12
million workers seeking employment in the U.S.in order to support thier families
,while the U.S.Agricultural Corporations have been responsible for dumping U. S
corn (billions of dollars) into the Mexican economy, that has left Mexican
Farmers unable to compete with the U. S subsidized (Billions of Tax
dollars) Corporate agricultural sector and unable to sell their "Corn",when at
the same time the "Monsanto" Corporation is pushing the use of thier product
line, the genetically modified corn seed in Mexico, meaning that the Monsanto
Corporation will have full control of the seed and the elimination of the
natural corn seed will eventually be controlled by the "Monsanto Corp
(represented by the Rose law Firm "Hillary's Law firm),all this supported by the
North American Free Trade Agreements, agreements that the Bush/Clinton supported
to the tune of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and now we have the
Mrs. Bill Clinton also on the same path,(when the Federal Mexican Minimum wage
is $4.88 (Dollares) per day and the "Walmarts,Costcos, Homedepots, Priceclubs,
Officemarts, (in Mexico) pay the minimum wage we can see very clearly why people
are forced to leave thier families and country.
The other more important
issue is that in Mexico their is rallying cry and that's "El derecho de no
Imigrar !" "The right Not to immigrate !", in Oaxaca last year's Teachers strike
22 Union teachers and APPO (Peoples support committee) and an "Indymedia"
newsreporter "Brad Will were murdered and the State and Federal Government
violated peoples rights by arresting thousands of strikers and supporters and to
this day not "ONE" person has been prosecuted by the Police
authorities, why because the workers chose to fight their government for Jobs,
decent wages, and health benefits and against the privatization of the
educational system and the demand for school blds,books,nutricional programs for
the children, and computers, this situation has occurred in other parts of
Mexico with workers killed when they have protested the governments economic
policies, so Calderon (El Espurio) comes to California on a media campaign "To
look good",he will stand with the Democrats and Republicans and the
Terminator,but he will stand with workers blood in his hands,resposible for the
further devastation on the expansion of the NAFTA agreements in the export of US
Corporate greed and portent to defend the Immigrant
workers.
Estimados Companeros/as
Asegun nos avisan viene
el "Espurio" de Calderon a Sacramento y hace falta darle la buienvenida al
estilo Mexico con una protesta,por venir como el culpable de los Mexiccanos
"Expulsados" y ahora como que viene a defender a los Trabajadores Migrantes en
cuando en Oaxaca Y Lazaro Cardenas,Chiapas, Atenco,Pasta de Conchos (Los Mineros
todavia sepultados),que todos estos lugares de la lucha han muerto mexicanos (no
se digo de los desaparacidos y encarcelados) en contra de el Gobierno de los de
la extreama derecha,es el el "Espurio",Calderon" que viene con sangre en sus
manos y mas el Fraude electoral del 2006,por parte de la Corporaciones
Extranjeras ,no viene con manos limpias.
So hacemos el llamado de que si
es que viene el 13 de Febrero a Sacramento,pienso que viene para reunires con
los legisladores y el Terminador,so pensamos de que de estar a las 11:30 am de
la manana en el HOTEL SHERETON GRAND por la calle "J",en Sacramento sea el lado
de el "Oeste" (Westside).
Y de pasar la palabra
PARA MAS
INFORMACION
Al Rojas.
TEL (916) 712-4251 CEL
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February 7, 2008
Women's/Human Rights News
Cotton
Field Murder Prosecution Falters as Violence Escalates
In a
sharp blow to the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General
(PGJE),
state Judge Catalina Ochoa Contreras declared innocent on February
6 a
suspect charged with killing one of the eight women found murdered in
a
Ciudad Juarez cotton field in 2001. The defense of Edgar Alvarez Cruz
had
long contended that the charges against the young man were based on
lies,
pressured statements and questionable or non-existent
evidence.
Alvarez’s defense also presented proof that their client
was in the United
States at the time of many of the disappearances and
slayings of the
victims found in the cotton field. Another inconsistency was
the single
murder charge against Alvarez, who was formally accused of
killing
17-year-old Mayra Juliana Reyes Solis, but not tried for the murders
of
the other victims who were discovered on the same site and at the
same
time as Reyes.
The PGJE appealed Judge Ochoa’s verdict, but
made no immediate public
comment on the ruling.
"The exoneration
of the innocent man adds to the list of scapegoats
detained by the state
prosecutor as serial killers and then freed for lack
of proof to incriminate
them," editorialized Ciudad Juarez's Lapolaka news
site. Upon hearing news of
the sentence, Alvarez thanked the court for
absolving him of the Reyes
slaying but added, “it should’ve been done
within the first 72
hours.”
Alvarez still faces charges in the 1998 killing of teenager
Silvia Garbiela
Laguna Cruz, a murder he also vehemently denies
committing.
If Alvarez’s legal victory is upheld, it would mark the
third time
Chihuahua state and federal cases against suspected cotton field
killers
have wound up in tatters. Previous investigations unraveled
amid
revelations of tortured suspects, extracted confessions, wild
stories,
mismatched bodies and other irregularities.
Although
questions swirled around Alvarez’s August 2006 detention from the
very
beginning, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez
and
representatives her office repeatedly told the press that
additional
evidence against Alvarez and two other accused men would be
forthcoming.
In the end, however, none materialized.
What
distinguished the Alvarez affair against the prior cotton field cases
was the
key role played by the United States. Alvarez was living as an
undocumented
worker in Denver, Colorado, when he was arrested based on a
confession made
by Jose Francisco Granados de la Paz to the Texas Rangers.
Held on an
unrelated charge, Granados tied Alvarez to the cotton field
killings. Later
revelations seriously questioned Granados' credibility as
a witness, painting
instead a picture of a disturbed, drug-abusing
individual who was prone to
delusions.
Despite the flimsiness of the Alvarez case, as well as the
previous use of
torture in the cotton field investigations, the US government
quickly
deported Alvarez to Mexico to face trial. He has sat in jail ever
since.
At the time of Alvarez's arrest, US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza
hailed
a major breakthrough in solving the Ciudad Juarez
femicides.
While the US-Mexico investigation of the cotton field
killings verges on
collapse, three of the victims' mothers are taking their
quest for justice
to an international legal body. Last December, the Costa
Rica-based
Inter-American Court of Human Rights notified lawyers for the
women that
it has accepted their case for review.
The cases were
originally pursued in the Washington-based Inter-American
Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) by the mothers of victims Esmeralda
Herrera Monreal, Laura
Berenice Ramos Monarrez and Claudia Ivete
Gonzalez. Transfer of the case to
the Inter-American Court means that the
Mexican government did not follow the
IACHR’s recommendations it earlier
issued to ensure justice for victims'
relatives. In a separate report late
last month, Mexico’s official National
Human Rights Commission criticized
all three levels of the Mexican government
for not following its own
justice recommendations related to the Ciudad
Juarez women’s murders.
Karla Michel Salas Ramirez, an attorney for
the three mothers and a member
of Mexico's National Association of Democratic
Lawyers, said the Costa
Rica case could set a legal precedent for other
femicide cases. The
Mothers' lawyers will argue that Mexico is in violation
of the Belen Do
Para Convention, an international agreement which obliges
states to
protect women from gender violence. The plaintiffs also seek
sanctions
against Chihuahua state government officials who were responsible
for
handling the cotton field investigation. Unlike the advisory nature
of
the IACHR’S recommendations, rulings from the Costa Rica court
are
obligatory for member states.
On another international note,
the Ciudad Juarez femicides drew a sharp
comment from United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights Louise
Arbour, who was on an official visit to
Mexico this week.
"In Mexico, the issue of impunity is the greatest
challenge that has to be
confronted and overcome," Arbour said. "The case of
the femicides, in
which the justice system doesn't protect women, is
worrisome."
In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, media outlets, business
groups, human rights
organizations and just plain ordinary citizens are all
alarmed at the
escalating homicide rates for both men and women since the
beginning of
the year. Nine women and girls have been killed for different
reasons
since January 1. Also last month, a woman's skeleton was recovered
from an
area frequently used as a dumping ground for both male and female
murder
victims.
Additionally, a 15-year-old high school student,
Adriana Enriquez
Sarmiento, was reported missing from downtown Ciudad Juarez
on January 18.
The young girl had attended the private Ignacio Allende
Preparatory, the
same institution three previous femicide victims, including
Laura Berenice
Ramos, had also attended,
In a blog entry this
week, El Paso author and longtime femicide researcher
Diana Washington Valdez
reported that a female Allende Prep student was
accosted outside the school
January 31 by a man who exposed himself to the
girl. According to the
journalist, an intervention by prominent Ciudad
Juarez labor rights activist
Cipriana Jurado, who just happened to be in
the vicinity of the school at the
time of the attack, prompted the man to
run away before police could detain
him.
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