Frontera
NorteSur
April 2001
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Frontera
NorteSur |
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May 4, 2001 In a two-hour meeting with Zacatecas politicians and government officials, Davidow said that these human-trafficking organizations are a Mexican problem and that Mexico should study the situation. Davidow added that the immigrant-smuggling rings are trying to bribe Mexican officials and subvert Mexican law. Zacatecas officials requested from Davidow better treatment of Mexican migrants to the US and they also asked that migrations issues be included in NAFTA. Responding to a question about "migrant hunters" in Arizona, Davidow said that no more than 20 people have participated in these actions. He continued by saying that the individuals involved have not been punished because under US law people have the right to protect their property from trespassers. Davidow ruled out an amnesty program for undocumented workers currently working in the US. He said that a consensus has yet to be reached on the subject. While unions support it other sectors of US society are against because they believe it would increase illegal immigration. Source: El Diario, May 3, 2001. Previously, on January 24, Mexican President Vicente Fox said on television that he saw the attempted murder of Governor Martínez as the work of narcotraffickers. This view was substantiated in following weeks by a letter from the FBI which has been much-discussed in the Cd. Juárez media. The letter said that the FBI had heard from an informant inside the Cd. Juárez drug cartel that there was a plan to assassinate Governor Martínez. González said that he began to believe in a murder conspiracy after mercury capsules were found in Loya's jail cell. González told El Diario that according to the Centro de Investigaciones de Materiales Avanzados (Advanced Materials Investigation Center) the liquid mercury would have caused the rapid death of Loya. Investigators are now trying to determine who may have brought the capsules to Loya. Source: El Diario, May 2, 2001. Article by Olga Aragón. April 24-April 30, 2001 The lack of new jobs has resulted in lower employee turn-over rates for many maquiladoras according to Maurilio Fuentes, president of the Cámara Nacional de la Industria y la Transformación (National Chamber of Industry and Maquiladoras). "They [workers] no longer say that they can change jobs if they are bored, they think about it more because every day it gets harder to find a job opening," Fuentes stated. Leticia Garibay Corona, president of the Junta de Conciliación y Arbitraje (Reconciliation and Arbitration Board), an organism that resolves many types of labor disputes in Mexico, says that companies have been able to become much more selective in their hiring since demand for labor is down. Garibay told El Diario, "Previously companies hired without evaluating employees, now however the slowing of employee turn-over will help heal selection mechanisms." Garibay also indicated that so far this year 30 companies have temporarily shut down. Every day her office receives 20 demands from workers claiming that they have not been properly reimbursed after a lay off at a company or a company closure. Since the beginning of the year, the Junta has attended to more than 1,600 labor-related demands, 40% of which come from the maquiladora industry. Source: El Diario, April 23, 2001. Article by Guadalupe Salcido. April 19, 2001 The Chihuahua State Police (Policía Judicial del Estado,
PJE) told El Diario that between the beginning of the
year and April 16, 2001, 59 cases of rape and 49 cases of sexual
abuse had been reported statewide. Finally, Soto said that the highest percentage of rapes in Cd. Juárez occur in the summer time when more people are outside. Source: El Diario, April 18, 2001. Article by Javier
Saucedo Alcalá. The study highlights the fact that while wages fell considerably in all sectors of the economy, wages were particularly low in the maquiladora industry. Maquiladoras (labor-intensive assembly plants) are concentrated in Mexico along the US-Mexico border. Conapo also determined that the workforce in the border cities has one of the highest rates of medical insurance coverage in Mexico. In 1990, 57.4% of the workforce had medical insurance but by 1998 this number had risen to 63.4%. The level of economic participation in northern Mexican border cities rose from 51.7% in 1990 to 55.1% in 1998. The economic participation of women in the same area went from 31.6% to 36.4% over the same time period. The Conapo study also found that maquiladoras offer the most stable jobs in the country. Large maquiladoras on the northern border of Mexico employed 44.1% of workers in 1990 and 58.2% of workers in 1998. This stands in contrast to states in the center of Mexico where microbusinesses offer the majority of jobs. Ciudad Juárez Has Lost 33,000 Jobs Due to US Economic Slowdown A poll conducted two weeks ago by the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de la Transformación (Canacintra) has found that 33,000 jobs have been lost in Cd. Juárez since the beginning of the economic slowdown in the US. Another 7,000 jobs have also been lost throughout the state of Chihuahua over the same period. Approximately 23,000 jobs were lost when vacancies were left unfilled and another 10,000 jobs were lost in Cd. Juárez when the economy began to stagnate and previously projected, new jobs were not created. Maurilio Fuentes Estrada, president of the Canacintra, said
that the impact of the job losses is lessened in Cd. Juárez
because some of those people that are affected move back to their
place of origin in the Mexican interior and do not return. April 9, 2001 City health officials began a campaign against the substance last week and have prohibited its sale because of the effects it can have on humans. Exposure to the pesticide can result in blurred vision, chills, dizziness and neurological damage. Jesús García, who sells the pesticide from the sidewalk at the Cuauhtémoc market, told El Diario that he sells the substance because there is a demand for it, "we don't force anyone to buy it--people come and ask us for it." "We get by selling this, I work so that my children will not have to do this . . . I work so that my children can study and won't have to do this, " García said. He sells ten to fifteen baggies of the pesticide on a good day and four or seven on a slow day making as much as US$16. To put this in perspective workers in Ciudad Juárez assembly plants known as maquiladoras make US$4 or $5 per day. García believes that local authorities should worry
about other matters, "there's the case of the missing women
or why don't they focus more on schools and not a little group
of vendors . . . On the outskirts of town there are dead dogs,
burning garbage, why don't they give more attention to this?" In addition to seizing the pesticide a number of local, state and federal health and environment offices and departments have joined together in an educational campaign against the use of such pesticides in the home. Government agencies like Profepa (Procuraduría Federal
de Protección al Ambiente, the Mexican equivalent of the
EPA in the US) have stated that exposure to the pesticide can
result in blurred vision, chills, dizziness and neurological
damage. Ciudad Juárez was forced to fall out of synch with El Paso by a decree from the federal government. The federal government believes that Cd. Juárez and other border cities will save more energy by waiting for one month to move their clocks ahead an hour. Cd. Juárez residents and the business sector have all
protested the city's being left behind in time. Many Cd. Juárez
residents cross daily to the US for school or work and the fact
that the cities are now on different time schedules makes their
lives a bit more difficult. Cd. Juárez business groups
have gone further in their criticism and say that the decoupling
of the cities' clocks could cause millions of dollars of economic
damage. According to El Diario the stolen vehicles belong to
State Farm as the insurance company had previously paid policy
holders for the loss of their vehicles. El Norte reports
that the PGJE has said that it will be responsible for any damage
to the vehicles. As part of an agreement with law-enforcement
officials that gives them temporary use of the car, the article
also states that insurers have begun the paperwork necessary
to get their vehicles returned to them. This process can take
as long as a few weeks or a year, said a PGJE spokesperson. In contrast to the previous take on the effectiveness of the PFP presence, El Diario also reports that an internet document sent out yesterday, March 28, by the Federal Secretary of Public Security (SSP) claims that the PFP presence in Cd. Juárez has brought the crime rate to zero for the first time in ten years. No attempt was made to explain this claim. Finally, Suly Ponce Prieto, the Special Investigator into Crimes Against Women, is again being criticized in the Cd. Juárez press because a man brought in for questioning to the state police offices escaped by climbing out a window. The man had been brought to the police station in connection to a case of revenge in which a five-year old girl was abducted and severely beaten so as to send a message to her family not to inform again on alleged drug traffickers. As the man was not a suspect in the case he had not been handcuffed or immobilized in any way. Since his escape the man has been charged with damaging the state police offices and there is a warrant out for his arrest. The police have yet to locate the man. Sources: El Diario, March 24, 28 & 29. Articles by A. Rodríguez, C. Ruiz, L. Sosa & A. Quintero. El Norte, March 27, 2001. Article by S. Castro. |