Frontera
NorteSur
December 2000-January 2001
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Frontera
NorteSur |
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January 31, 2001 State Police (PJE) and the consulting company, Laboratorios y Consultoría S.A. de C.V., have been searching for the missing piece of equipment which if opened could jeopardize human health. The consulting company is offering a 10,000 peso (approximately US$1,000) reward for the return of the device and experts from a Mexican national security commission (Comisión de Salvaguarda y Seguridad Nacional) are arriving to Chihuahua City today to help in the search for the stolen material. Chihuahua City was also in the news for problems with nuclear material in late November, 2000 when El Diario reported that a former uranium mine 18 miles from Chihuahua City, in Aldama, was being used as a disposal site for waste from a Mexican nuclear research center. State officials said they knew nothing about the site and all of the waste contained there along with incoming shipments was sent back to the Mexico City research institute. Further coverage of this story can be found in the FNS archives at www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/nov00/today.html Source: El Diario, January 31, 2001. Article by Daniel
García. Cd. Juárez Chief of Police, Jorge Ostos told El Diario that the number of gang-related conflicts has gone down in the city. "The number of conflicts is much less than before and they are less frequent although equally violent," he told the press. He also mentioned that not all gang confrontations involve firearms. The number of active gangs in Ciudad Juárez remains disputed. A state police (PJE) report said that there are more than 300 gangs in the city. In contrast, a 1999 study by Trabajo Social de la Dirección General de Seguridad Pública y Protección Ciudadana, found 108 gangs comprised of 3,793 minors. Source: El Paso Times, January 28, 2001. El Diario,
January 29, 2001. The articles states that, in the past, journalists have been given bribes to provide favorable coverage of customs operations and to stay away from stories that might damage the reputation of the agency. Journalists had hoped that this practice would have ended with the arrival of the Fox administration but it appears that it has not. The El Diario story alleges that customs said journalists should ask for economic support in February. Before then was not possible customs said because the Paisano program had just ended. It is also alleged that customs offered to help reporters get foreign goods into the country. [FNS note: The Paisano program comes into effect during the holiday season to protect the million or more Mexican citizens that return to Mexico from the US. The program, staffed mainly by volunteers, monitors police and customs stops to make sure that no one can ask for bribes.] Source: El Diario, January 25, 2001. Article by Rosario
Reyes. State Attorney General (Procurador de Justicia del Estado) Arturo González Rascón has said that the State Police (Policía Judicial del Estado, PJE) are not investigating any sort of plot in the non-fatal shooting of Chihuahua Governor Patricio Martínez García. This contrasts with statements made by President Fox in a January 24 television interview. When asked by Joaquín López if he believed that the shooting was a reply by narcotraffickers to a government crackdown against the drug trade, Fox replied, "Yes, that's how we see it, that's how we have analyzed it." Fox continued by saying that the reaction of drug dealers to the moves against them proves that the government has taken the right path. In a separate story a state official said that from 1993 to 1995 state police agents were hired quickly and without proper screening due to a lack of officers. The governor's alleged attacker, Cruz Victoria Loya Montejano was a member of this generation of state police. Rather than receive the normal six months of training these agents received just two months. The police classes that graduated during these years are also being examined in the Cd. Juárez press for their high suicide rates and the PJE at that time is being described in the press as a "nest of unstable agents." Sources: El Diario, January 25, 2001. Articles by Dora Villalobos and Jaime Alvarez. January 23, 2001 A newly formed state police group will investigate murders
linked to drug-trafficking. Comprised of ten police agents from
the PJE (Policía Judicial del Estado) and one agent from
the Ministerio Público, the group has already taken over
30 murder investigations and will investigate all drug-related
killings that take place in the coming year. An El Diario article on the new organization seems to show uncertainty as to who commands the group. Ricardo Vázquez Santiesteban, assistant director of the state police, said that the person responsible for the group is the lawyer and Ministerio Público agent Jesús Torres. Torres was previously with the Fiscalía Especial para la Investigación de Homicidios. Other sources indicated that the new group's commander is
Steve Slater, a US citizen that has been employed by Chihuahua
law enforcement. El Diario tried to interview Slater but
did not find him in his office. However, some police officers
told the newspaper that Slater does not have the position necessary
to head the investigations. Source: El Diario, January 23, 2001. Article by Armando
Rodríguez. Martínez, commonly referred to in the Ciudad Juárez press as Patricio, is out of medical danger according to his doctors. Fired upon at point-blank range the bullet entered the front top of the governor's ear and exited from his neck. Martínez was given anesthesia for surgery to clean up his wound and a few hours later, from his hospital bed, he had resumed his duties as governor. In case of emergency a Lear Jet air ambulance had been brought in to take the governor to El Paso, Houston or Mexico City, according to El Diario. At this time it appears that Loya acted alone, according to El Diario. However, Loya was asked in front of journalists if someone had sent her to kill the governor and she said, "I don't know." Interviewed minutes after elite PJE agents had raided his
house for evidence in the attempted-murder investigation, Loya's
father, Jesús Loya, said that his daughter was normal
growing up but that she had fallen apart after she entered the
PJE. The women's father said that he had no idea that his daughter
was going to do such a thing and said that the shooting was wrong. January 17, 2001 Cd. Juárez's El Diario reports that the ex-assistant director of the Procuraduría General de la República (Federal Attorney General's Office, PGR) in the state of Chihuahua, José Manuel Díaz Pérez, who was arrested for allegedly trying to buy a higher government position for US$500,000, has been investigated in Mexico City since 1998 for allegedly ordering a triple homicide and cocaine trafficking. An arrest warrant for the crimes has now been issued and may soon be executed by the PGR. Díaz is currently under house arrest in Mexico City. The article does not address how Díaz could have been permitted to work in the PGR with such investigations taking place against him. In a separate story, El Norte reports that the Procurador General de la República (Federal Attorney General) Rafael Macedo de la Concha believes that the wave of narcokillings in Cd. Juárez can be attributed to a turf battle between three of the country's strongest drug cartels: the Juárez (Carrillo Fuentes) cartel, the Gulf cartel and the Tijuana (Arellano Felix) cartel. The Procurador explained that the Gulf and Tijuana cartels are trying to take over Juárez cartel territory. Macedo made his comments at a border law-enforcement conference. So far this year there have been twelve homicides in Cd. Juárez
and three of them are believed to be drug-related executions.
Last year there were 242 homicides in Cd. Juárez, 51 of
them were considered to be narco-related slayings. January 12, 2001 Delphi and Lear corporations have both reduced employment in their border plants by not replacing workers that leave their jobs, according to a recent article in Ciudad Juárez's El Diario newspaper. Xóchitl Díaz, a Delphi Automotive Systems spokesperson, said that Delphi stopped contracting new employees in June, 2000 which has reduced the number of workers at the company from 80,000 to 75,000. Most of the job loss is in Cd. Juárez and Matamoros, she said. Antonio Durán, a human resources assistant at Lear Electrical Systems de México S. de R.L. de C.V., said that Lear has stopped replacing departed workers as well. In addition to this measure, Lear signed an agreement with its workers so that on January 19, 2001 it can close some of its production lines and move those workers to other facilities. The companies' employment-reduction measures are a reaction
to the slow down of the US economy and auto sales there. Delphi,
formerly part of GM, still sells 68% of its product to GM. Lear
has a close tie to Ford. January 10, 2001 El Norte's first article critical of Casa Amiga, published November 27, 2000, based solely on a letter written by former Casa volunteers who did not want their names revealed in the press, leveled charges of misuse of money at Casa Amiga and director Chávez. The article was basically an unresearched, summary of the letter and would have been liable or nearly liable had it been printed in the US press. Later, El Norte began running articles against Casa Amiga and Chávez that raised some valid issues. A December 19, 2000 article detailed Soledad Aguilar Peralta's inability to get legal aid from the lawyer that Casa Amiga got for her. A December 20, 2000 article questioned whether it was appropriate for Casa Amiga to have held a two-day, volunteer training course in Ruidoso, NM where they stayed at the A-1 Room cabins. Mountainous Ruidoso is considered by many in Cd. Juárez to be an up-scale place to take a cool summer vacation or go skiing in winter. Another El Norte article had the unfunded, missing women's group Voces sin Eco leveling charges that Casa Amiga had used the death of women to raise funds for its self without actually providing any services for the families of the missing and dead. Voces spokesperson Guillermina González also stated her belief that Chávez can no longer be an effective activist because Casa Amiga is tied to politics now that it receives money from city government. It should be noted that last September, when FNS was doing research for its stories on women's issues in Juárez, it was Chávez that put FNS in touch with Voces sin Eco. Later, in an interview with Chávez, the Casa Amiga director spoke very highly of Voces and González. Also at that time Chávez said that she had long noted difficulty in drawing the family members of the disappeared into counseling services. Many of them were hesitant to see a therapist, she said, because they saw themselves as only grieving, not insane and in need of a psychologist. To see the FNS articles about women's groups in Cd. Juárez go to http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/oct00/main.html Later, in response to questions from FNS about misuse of funding, Chávez said that Casa Amiga has a public accountant and that there is no misuse of funding at the center. She said that jealousy is one reason she is being attacked and that no one cared what she did before she had money for Casa Amiga. Regarding the attacks in El Norte she said that, "the fire will go out on its own because there's nothing to fuel it." Despite some early problems related to journalistic integrity El Norte did raise good points about problems at Casa Amiga and Chávez did not say or do the right things when El Norte gave her a chance to respond to the accusations. While Chávez has said numerous times that all of Casa's money is well spent she has not made public Casa's funding levels or a list of expenditures. Accusations about continuity of service have not been adequately addressed either. Meanwhile, at El Diario, there has not been one article mentioning problems at Casa Amiga. This is troubling because Chávez writes a regular column for the paper. El Diario articles that do mention Casa Amiga have dealt only with the increased number of people that Casa Amiga is helping on a yearly basis for domestic violence, incest and rape. These articles never mention that Chávez writes for El Diario. In summary, while recent Cd. Juárez newspaper articles
may make some valid points about problems with Casa Amiga's provision
of services and the transparency of funding at the organization,
El Norte and El Diario have certainly shown that
they have ethical problems that need to be resolved. January 8, 2001 Intentional homicides are investigated throughout Mexico by state-level, law enforcement agencies unless there is a drug component to the murder in which case it may be sent to the federal level for investigation by the Procuraduría General de la República (Federal Attorney General's Office, PGR). In Cd. Juárez, men's murders are investigated by the Departamento de Homicidios while almost all women's murders are investigated by the Fiscalía Especial para la Investigación de Homicidios de Mujeres. The Fiscalía Especial investigated the killings of 27 women in the year 2000. Of these cases 12 were classified as crimes of passion, five were drug-related, four were sex crimes, one was the result of a fight, three were revenge killings and two murders were related to robberies. Two women's murders were not sent to the Fiscalía Especial because they were thought to be linked to organized crime. One of these was the case in which a female prison guard was found dead in a field with a male, city police officer. According to the director of the Policía Judicial del Estado, Raúl Lira Gutiérrez, the increase in the number of murders does not mean that the problem "has gotten out of the hands of authorities." Lira also stated that narcomurders, "are not serious for society," as the victims were people involved with organized crime. Regarding his agency's investigations, Lira said, "We
are not passive in regard to these executions, we keep working
on them, and we have lines of investigation for a majority of
the cases. There is no predominate cause for these killings such
as revenge or drug trafficking." January 4, 2001 El Diario interviewed members of the Chihuahua Congress
all of whom were glad to hear of the arrests. PAN Representative
Ortuño Gurza emphasized that the arrest of corrupt police
agents was long over due as previously they had been transferred
rather than punished. Sergio Martínez Garza of the PRI
supported the strong, forceful measures taken against the agents.
Luis Pável Aguilar of the PRD stated, "we hope that
this is the beginning of clean out and complete restructuring
of the PGR and not just an action to quite voces of protest." The customs administrators were let go because during the
year 2000 the flow of contraband into Mexico was carried out
with impunity and often with the support of customs. January 3, 2001 Between January and August, 2000 833 house fires were attributed to the dangerous hook ups when illegal wires heated up or short circuited and came into contact with combustible material. These figures would suggest that about one of every twenty illegally-wired homes catches fire per year. On December 31, 2000 much of the Anapra neighborhood celebrated the New Year in darkness when electricity thieves overloaded the system, according to Juan Duarte, a CFE service executive. Power was not restored until 11:47 on January 1, 2001. Regarding the inability of many to afford electricity, a widow living in the Rancho Anapra neighborhood stated, "They charge us a lot for light, the last time I was billed 1,000 pesos (US$100). How am I going to pay this if we can barely feed ourselves? I prefer that they cut our service and that we hang off of the lines in front like everyone else on our block." The Alderete Gutiérrez family has had electricity for
the past 14 years--all of them thanks to a "diablito"
connection. However, in contrast to people that do not want to
pay for electricity or cannot afford to, the Aldretes live in
the Lomas de Poleo neighborhood where there is no power infrastructure.
December 12, 2000 Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping, a group involved in an on-going law suit to close the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, NM has added new allegations to its suit stating that the Department of Energy (DOE) falsified data so it could obtain the right to use the site. The environmental groups accuses DOE geologists of hiding the presence of karsts which are underwater areas that have running underground water. The threat to the WIPP is that water could approach the salt caverns, causing them to collapse and endanger the containers of radioactive waste that are being stored there. While WIPP lawyers and the DOE are sure they will win this battle as they have in the past, one scientist, Richard Phillips, from Sandia National Laboratories said that DOE officials told him to avoid using the word "karst." Phillips, who has a PhD in geomorphology, is quoted as saying he saw, "a pattern of lies and deceptions designed to disguise the true hydrology of the (area's aquifer) and the WIPP site." Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping want to shut down the WIPP which is expected to receive over 19,300 loads of waste over its 35-year projected life span. Source: El Paso Times, December 3, 2000. December 11, 2000 Other significant details of the story were that investigating officials believed that both US and Mexican victims would turn up in the graves. The FBI was needed on humanitarian grounds, according to Alvaro Cruz, because its experts had the resources to identify the bodies. Jorge Madrazo Cuéllar, Attorney General of México, said that some of his own men from the PGR, that served on the border between 1994 and 1996, may have been responsible for some of the disappearances. The press, and the public, seemed all too ready to believe that Cd. Juárez would be just the place for such horrors to take place. In the end nine bodies were found on three of the narcoranches, six of the bodies have been identified. In the second week of May, 2000, José Trinidad Larrieta Carrasco of the Organized Crime Unit (Unidad Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada, UEDO), said that six of the nine bodies found on the ranches had been clearly identified. At a press conference before Mexican and international media Trinidad identified the known victims: Raúl Alarcón Sánchez, Mexican, a Cd. Juárez resident who disappeared May 3, 1995. He died from knife wounds to the abdomen and neck. Ignacio del Real Fierro, Mexican, an El Paso resident, identified by family members and three pieces of identification found in his clothes. He was a friend of Raúl Alarcón, above, but died from a gunshot wound to the head. Marcelo Javier Aguilar Molina, US citizen, disappeared in April, 1995. Died from knife wounds to neck and abdomen. Guillermo Jesús Rojo, US citizen. Died from knife wounds. Jesús Alonso Provencio, US citizen, identified by his mother, last seen by her April 17, 1995. Died from knife wounds. In the Santa Rosalía ranch two bodies were found and one was identified as the lawyer Antonio Tarazón Navarro, Mexican. Authorities are still investigating if perhaps Tarazón had represented one or two of the other victims. He disappeared in February, 1995, according to his wife and his sister. He was identified via DNA testing. He died of gunshot wounds to the neck and face. At the third site, in the Granjas Santa Elena neighborhood, at an address without a street number at the corner of Abeto and Olivo streets, a ninth and still unidentified body was found. In July, 2000, the second victim from the Santa Rosalía ranch was identified as Castor Alberto Ochoa Soto, Colombian. Tarazón was his lawyer and they had been buried together. Ochoa and Tarazón were disappeared together after crossing the Paso del Norte-Santa Fe bridge into Cd. Juárez. They were kidnapped at the base of the bridge, in the light of day, by Federal Judicial Police (PJF) in blue Suburbans at approximately 11:00 a.m. on February 15, 1995. Four days earlier Ochoa had been freed by an El Paso judge after Ochoa had been accused of importing six tons of cocaine into the US. Ochoa was the nephew of the recently arrested head of the Medellín drug cartel, Fabián Ochoa. Ochoa's body is still unburied in Cd. Juárez waiting to be claimed by family. Source: El Norte, November 27, 2000. Article by Carlos Huerta. December 6, 2000 The Corporación Inmobliaria San Jerónimo S.A. de C.V. presented a study to the Ciudad Juárez Instituto Municipal de Investigación y Planeación that outlines plans for 20,000 hectares of development in San Jerónimo. The initial development would be 3,700 hectares. By the year 2020 this now vacant piece of desert will be home to an estimated 500,000 people. The study included plans for the introduction of services to the area and maps showing the locations of homes, businesses, commercial centers, schools, green areas, streets, avenues and highways. As FNS has previously reported, the growth of San Jerónimo and the building of the San Jerónimo-Samalayuca highway is opposed by many Cd. Juárez residents. Cd. Juárez appears to believe that road construction funds should be used to improve and widen already busy, over-loaded existing highways. Many people also believe that Cd. Juárez will lose funds and power to San Jerónimo. San Jerónimo is also seen as a project controlled and
owned by people in Chihuahua City, the state capitol, and previous
Norte articles have stated that the new highway is being
built across the lands of PRI supporters and supporters of PRI
Governor Patricio Martínez. During the winter months the state of Chihuahua is home to four million waterfowl from Alaska, Canada, the continental United States, and other species of birds from Central and South America. To date it is calculated that 85,000 of these birds are currently found in Ciudad Juárez. José Manuel Ochoa Barraza, of the Mexican Fauna Protection Association (Protección de la Fauna Mexicana, Asociación Civil) estimates that this year 20,000 geese, 15,000 gray cranes and 50,000 ducks of different species, have already arrived. Over the year, especially in winter and summer months, the different species of birds arrive in flocks of 10,000-20,000 looking for a place to reproduce and a place to feed in fields and wetlands. The Secretary of Environment, Natural Resources, and Fishery (Secretaria del Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca, Semarnap) indicated that the birds travel from Alaska, Canada, and the continental United States to Mexico utilizing three migratory routes: DP (from the Pacific), DC (from the Center) and DG (and from the Gulf). Most of the birds used the central route on their way into Mexican territory. In the state of Chihuahua the sites most commonly frequented by the birds, between 20% and 40%, are La Babicora near Madera and Gómez Farias, Namiquipa and Cuauhtémoc. They also visit the San Rafael, Bustillos, and the Fierro Lakes, as well as the Papigochi Dam in the northwest, Ascensión and Santa María in the north, and La Boquilla Dam in the south. The birds chose places where they can find water, food, protection, and the appropriate climate, especially areas near corn, oatmeal, peanut, barley and alfalfa. Semarnap estimates that 560,000 birds come to the state of which 400,000 are ducks, 100,000 are geese, and 60,000 are cranes. Only 1% is of these birds are taken during hunting season in Mexico as opposed to the 25% in the United States. Beside the duck, geese and cranes, other species of birds, in particular sparrows and swallows from Central and South America, also seek Chihuahua as shelter during the winter. The most common birds are white geese, often seen near dams. The white goose known as the "garcita vaquera" because of its smaller body, has already begun to arrive and has been spotted in trees near the Roberto Fierro Lobos Airport and the Zarco neighborhood in Juárez. Some farmers in the state complain that the birds affect their harvests, but have never eliminated their crops. This is the case in Chihuahua according to Barraza who is an ecologist preparing his masters thesis in Animal Production in the Protection of Mexican Fauna. The state of Chihuahua, like the rest of Mexico and the United States, protects the white geese but in actuality there exists an overpopulation of the bird. Between five and six million geese exist causing problems in nesting and feeding. It is thought that when vegetation becomes scarce in their areas of reproduction, the population will decrease. This overpopulation causes problems for other species as well such as the white crane. Among proposals to stabilize the situation are an increase in crop production and the removal of eggs from nests to lower birth rates. The Mexican wildlife census is conducted every three years using funds from the United States Department of Game and Fish, Dumac, Semarnap, the University of Idaho, and the Hornocker Wildlife Institute. The last census was conducted in January of 1999 and found 229,000 geese in the Mexican wetlands. The count was done using aerial photography. It was also found that 62.5% of the 229,000 birds were found in Chihuahua where thirteen sites held 130,480 geese. Source: El Diario, November 12, 2000. Article by Candelaria Garcia. |