Frontera NorteSur April 2001

Since García Andrade's body was found three weeks ago the press has followed the murder investigation and city-wide reaction to the crime. The Special Investigator for Crimes Against Women, Suly Ponce Prieto, is once again being criticized by the city's NGO's for not doing enough to investigate murders and stop future crimes against women. Much of the recent press coverage of the issue deals with problems with Ponce's investigations of the murders.

Yesterday, local PAN party members of Congress made an unexpected two-hour stop at Ponce's office to question her about accusations of incompetence made by local NGO's. At the end of the meeting, which the press could not attend, the legislators said that they were convinced by Ponce that she is doing her job well. The legislators concluded that Ponce has a bad public image. Ponce later told journalists that from now on they will have to get information about the Special Investigative Taskforce from a state police spokesperson rather than directly from her.

El Norte published two-page articles on March 6 and March 8 that analyze problems with the cases against the major suspects in the murders. The March 6 article examines the case against Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif and says that the investigation into the crimes allegedly committed by Latif Sharif is filled with irregularities. Latif Sharif stands accused of the rape and murder of Elizabeth Castro García and yet there are uncertainties that the body the state police have as evidence in the case is even that of Castro García. Other evidence from the case against Latif Sharif was accidentally incinerated by the state police that are in charge of the investigation.

In its March 8 article about the investigation of the Los Rebeldes gang and the group of bus drivers accused of the rape and murder of women, El Norte says there are allegations of human rights violations against the accused, accusations of false confessions extracted through torture, the lack of legal representation for the accused at the time of confession and problems with witnesses as well.

In attempts to explain the murders, El Norte has published interviews with a priest and an El Paso anthropologist.

Monseñor René Blanco told El Norte that a hillside triangle delimited by stones located near where two bodies have been found is proof of links to satanism in the women's deaths. He added that the crimes against women are related to drug addiction, satanism and drug trafficking. The priest said law enforcement needs to do a better job and said that the problematic cases against Latif Sharif and the gangs is perhaps indicative of law enforcement's desperation to resolve the crimes.

On March 11, El Norte published an interview with Howard Campbell, a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP). When asked about the case against Latif Sharif and Los Rebeldes, whom Sharif is accused of paying to murder more women while in jail so as to prove his innocence, Campbell stated that the case against the Egyptian national is based on racism and xenophobia and that it is easier for Cd. Juárez to blame outsiders. Campbell said that perhaps Cd. Juárez drug dealers and police, people from El Paso, and angry boyfriends are among the murderers. Campbell was also quoted as saying that part of the cause of the murders is the rapid, chaotic growth of Cd. Juárez that is owed in part to the presence of maquiladoras many of which are owned by US companies that therefore also share in the guilt.

Source: El Norte, March 6,8, 11, and 13.

Matamoros Journalist Murdered

Just five weeks after a journalist was murdered in Ojinaga, Chihuahua for allegedly revealing the location of drug warehouse near Chihuahua City, Saúl Antonio Martínez Gutiérrez, the assistant director of the Matamoros, Tamaulipas newspaper El Imparcial was kidnapped, tortured and killed. Police believe that Martínez was murdered by drug traffickers because of the manner in which he was killed and because of evidence found at the scene of the murder.

Martínez disappeared Friday afternoon March 23 and was found dead in his SUV at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 24. The journalist apparently suffered brutal torture according to a police doctor who said that the head and throat of the victim showed signs of having been beaten with a blunt object. Martínez died from four gun shots to the head from a 9mm pistol.

Matamoros news organizations have demanded via press, radio and television that the Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office quickly resolve the case so that the killers do not remain unpunished. They have also demanded that the state guarantee that they will be able to safely perform their work in the future.

Source: El Diario, March 27, 2001.

Gender Roles Discussed in Nuevo Laredo Press

In reply to a statement by the Mexican Secretary of Work (Secretario de Trabajo), Carlos Abascal, who said that "women should return to the home instead of trying to position themselves at the same level of men," Dr. Martha Marmolejo Salinas, executive coordinator of the Women's Development Council, stated that such changes would not help anyone, especially women.

"We women have given great benefits to humanity, not only at the level of the family but also to culture and work. I feel that little by little women have come to standout in the professional arena as well," said Marmolejo.

Marmolejo also stated that the involvement of women in public and professional life is very important and that comments like those made by Abascal hurt women and take away their desire to move ahead in life. She said that with people like Abascal in government it will be very hard for women to get ahead in the working world.

Marmolejo continued, "Here in Nuevo Laredo we see that the majority of maquiladoras prefer women to men. Being women allows us to be more honest, humane and responsible. As women we have to work harder to get noticed."

Marmolejo also said that it is very challenging to be a professional woman as one must be a worker, mother and homemaker.

Source: El Mañana, March 20, 2001. Article by Ericka M. Morales.

Benefits for Méxicali-Area Farm Laborers

A director of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (Mexican Social Security Institute, IMSS), Aureliano Cruz Monreal, asked local landowners to sign up their workers for IMSS benefits.

Cruz said that farm workers and their families have the right to belong to the IMSS which offers them medical attention, economic support and pension funds.

In Baja California and San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, Cruz says that there are currently 111,000 farm worker members of the IMSS. This year he wants to add 45,000 more farm workers to the IMSS system.

Members, their spouses and children all have access to IMSS clinics when they are affiliated with the organization. In case of a work accident or illness, IMSS members can receive economic support and in the case of death surviving family members can also receive a pension. A retirement pension is also given to workers at age 60.

Source: Frontera (Méxicali), March 21, 2001. Article by Javier Mejía.

Police Bar Poor from Building on Former Juárez Trash Dump

Approximately 100 police officers including an antiriot group faced off for hours on Sunday with hundreds of people that wish to build homes on what had previously been a Ciudad Juárez trash dump. The police arrived in the vacant field at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 25, 2001 in an attempt to stop city residents from staking out land. The families that wanted to build on the former garbage dump arrived at 8:00 a.m.

The tense stand off ended after a two-hour dialogue between a group of settlers and city officials. Police left the scene at 12:20 p.m. after the families agreed to not take over the land.

As part of the agreement between the city and the settlers, representatives of the families that wish to establish themselves in the Pánfilo Natera neighborhood were scheduled to meet with Cd. Juárez mayor Gustavo Elizondo on Monday, March 26, 2001 to discuss other possible locations for the construction of homes. FNS has yet to find out the details of this meeting.

Jesús Vaquera de la Torre, city director of Asentamientos Humanos (Human Settlements), said that no one will be allowed to build on the old dump because, "there are many risks there including illnesses and the possibility of gases leaking out of the ground."

Another problem that prohibits building in the area is that the ground is not yet stable as it consists mainly of garbage. This would make it impossible for the city to bring water, sewage and other services to the new community, says Vaquera.

Vaquera also said that nearby landowners would divide and sell their property to the families if the city would help poor people make monthly payments for their land.

The would-be settlers told El Norte that they do not trust city authorities as they do not pay attention to the needs of the poor. They also said that it is impossible for them to pay Asentamientos Humanos 7,000 pesos (approximately US$730) for land in another part of the city.

Source: El Norte, March 26, 2001. Article by Jorge Cháirez Daniel.