November 4, 2005
Ciudad Juarez News
The Memories of Murdered Women Transcend Borders
As the fourth anniversary of the discovery of their bodies approaches, justice still eludes the eight women found raped, murdered and mutilated in a Ciudad Juarez cotton field in November 2001. No suspects are in jail for the crimes and the official investigation remains bandied about like a hot potato between Chihuahua state and Mexican federal law enforcement officials. In fact, the identities of 5 of the women are still not certain. But the cotton field victims aren't forgotten.
This week a caravan of women's rights advocates from the Mexican interior arrived in Ciudad Juarez to honor the women and demand justice. About 100 people, including the Aztec dancers of Mexico City 's Guardians of Teotihuacan, held a ceremony at the cotton field on the traditional Latin American Day of the Dead celebration. Attending the event were Ciudad Juarez middle school students from an institution attended by the daughter of 1998 murder victim Perla Patricia Saenz Diaz.
In another part of Ciudad Juarez , students from the Ignacio Allende High School went to the San Rafael cemetery on the Day of the Dead to pay homage to their classmate, Martha Lizbeth Hernandez, who was raped and murdered last year. She was the third student from the private high school to be sexually assaulted and murdered since 2001.
In Washington this week, a United States House of Representatives subcommittee passed a long-stalled resolution that laments the femicides, places the issue of the murders on the US-Mexico bilateral agenda and urges the State of Chihuahua to bring to account officials who botched the Juarez murder cases. The sponsor of the measure, California Representative Hilda Solis (D-Ca.), said some progress has been made in addressing the femicides but more needs to be done.
"Although there have been changes in the local and state governments, and there are some responses, we must continue pressuring the Mexican authorities to investigate the crimes and end the violence," Rep. Solis said. Solis' resolution is concurrently co-sponsored in the US Senate by New Mexico Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman. The Senate has yet to take action on the Juarez resolution. No immediate, public response to the House subcommittee's approval of the resolution was forthcoming from the Mexican government, and the vote wasn't even mentioned on the Internet sites of Ciudad Juarez newspapers.
A multi-state tour in the United States publicizing the cases of murdered women in Mexico and Guatemala and sponsored by the Chicago-based Mexico Solidarity Network also wrapped up during the week. In Guatemala , women's rights advocates held a Day of the Dead event at Guatemala City's General Cemetery in honor of murdered women. Charging that human rights have been shoved aside from the public agenda since the signing of the 1996 Guatemalan peace accords, Andrea Barrios of the Human Rights Legal Action Center Barrios appealed for authorities to begin curbing violence against women. According to the Guatemalan Survivors Association, 540 women have been murdered in Guatemala during 2005.
On their leg of the tour, MSN organizers Jennifer Miller and Veronica Leyva visited Southwestern states where they spoke with the media, students and community members. They urged audiences to keep sending letters to the Mexican government and supporting the US Senate resolution. In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Miller and Leyva criticized the federal Mexican government's response to the Juarez murders, questioned the effectiveness of a program funded by the United States Agency for International Development to train Mexican law enforcement and called for greater oversight of private security and employment firms that play a huge role in Ciudad Juarez 's public life. A scandal erupted in Chihuahua state last September after a trio of private security guards was accused of murdering two women.
It has to do with will, not just training," Leyva said. "All this doesn't function if there isn't a will to clarify matters." A Ciudad Juarez native and former maquiladora industry worker, Leyva said residents of her city had high hopes when former federal special prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina arrived in early 2004. Instead of investigating the women's murders, however, Lopez Urbina named 120 current and former Chihuahua state government officials who were allegedly negligent in the murder investigations. No high-level officials who had ultimate authority over the investigations were fingered. Before being yanked from her post earlier this year, Lopez Urbina turned over the names of the functionaries to the Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office for possible legal action. The cases of two of the former officials are now tied up in the courts, and several of the individuals named by Lopez Urbina have filed defamation suits against the federal lawyer.
"What happened to all those functionaries who were amiss and negligent? Nothing." questioned Leyva. "(Government) is playing around. They're creating special prosecutors, commissions...only to say they are doing something. There isn't a serious attempt to do anything."
Lopez Urbina's successor, Mirelli Rocatti, served three months at the post before abruptly resigning and not delivering a long-awaited report on the suspected serial murder cases that constitute about one-fourth of the known Juarez women's homicides since 1993. As the former head of the National Human Rights Commission, Rocatti oversaw the 1998 recommendation that scored officials of then-Governor Francisco Barrio's administration for negligence and gross irregularities in handling the cases of some murdered women from the 1990s. Activists criticized Barrio for generally ignoring the recommendations which, he argued, were politically-tainted.
No successor to Rocatti has been named, and it is expected the Federal Attorney General's Office will dissolve the Ciudad Juarez special prosecutor's office- even though the cotton field and numerous other suspected serial cases remain unsolved. Despite the incessant demands of non- government organizations, the special prosecutor never examined the cases of murdered women in Chihuahua City whose cases fit the pattern of the Juarez rape-murders. In the bigger picture, Leyva and Miller said braking violence against women means overturning a vicious circle of poverty, drug-trafficking and abuse, corruption and impunity. In response to a high-profile public relations blitz to improve Ciudad Juarez 's image, “Ciudad Juarez Is Better.”
Leyva questioned the premises of the campaign. "Which (city) are they talking about? The one for the businessmen or the one for the workers and the majority of the people who live in it?" she asked. "I don't know how you can say that things are improving when bodies of women keep appearing." At least 30 women have been murdered, or their body parts found, in Ciudad Juarez so far this year- the highest number since 2002, when 35 victims were counted. Like previous years, a variety of documented and possible causes for the 2005 murders included sexual assaults, domestic violence, robberies, stray bullets, and narco-purges. The MSN activists also urged freedom for David Meza, a former California resident and immigrant rights' activist, who has been jailed in Chihuahua City for almost 16 months accused of the murder of his cousin, Neyra Azucena Cervantes. Meza contends he was tortured into making a false confession after demanding that the since-dissolved Chihuahua State Judicial Police undertake a serious investigation of his cousin's disappearance. Meza currently awaits sentencing.
Additional sources: cimacnoticas.com/Cerigua, November 3, 2005. Articles by Miriam Ruiz and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, November 1, 2 and 3, 2005. Articles by Armando Rodriguez, Cecilia Guerrero and editorial staff. Washington Office on Latin America press release, November 2, 2005.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces , New Mexico