Frontera
NorteSur
February 2001
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Frontera
NorteSur |
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February 27, 2001 The Chihuahua state police have interviewed over 40 people in their attempts to resolve the case. They also have in their possession video tape of all the people that left Ojinaga to go into the US on the day of the killing and the following day. El Diario reports that Ojinaga journalists and Ortega's relatives believe that the writer was killed because of a February 15 article in the Semanario that indicated where drugs were hidden in Aldama, Chihuahua (near Chihuahua City in the center of the state). Police in Chihuahua are still investigating the year 2000
murder of a Ciudad Juárez journalist. That murder may
also be linked to drug cartels as well. The state attorney general's office, the PGJE, which is in
charge of the murder investigations has in the past linked many
of the women's murders to Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, an Egyptian
national that was working in Cd. Juárez for a US corporation.
According to the PGJE, the ritualistic-type rapes and murders
of women continued after Sharif was taken into custody because
he was allegedly paying gang members to rape and murder women
in his style so that it would look like someone still at large
had committed the barbaric crimes. Allegedly, Sharif paid US$1,500
for each rape-murder and demanded that the slain women's underwear
be brought to him along with a newspaper story reporting the
women's death. The fact that on March 31, 2000 Judge Mauro Carrasco García reversed a thirty-year sentence against Sharif for lack of evidence does not help build Cd. Juárez's confidence in the PGJE investigation either. Five of the ten Los Rebeldes gang members arrested in 1996 have been freed as well since that time. Members of both Los Rebeldes and Los Choferes (a group of bus drivers accused in some of the murders) say that they were tortured into confessions. Torture charges by suspects against police are often viewed with skepticism by the Cd. Juárez public but an incident in July, 2000 that involved an investigation into a missing woman would seem to add some credence to such claims. In July, a bus driver not related to Los Choferes, told Suly Ponce Prieto, the Special Investigator into the Murders of Women, that he had beaten by officers after being taken to the grounds of the Police Academy for questioning. Seeing signs of abuse on the driver's face, Ponce had the man taken for medical treatment. Three officers were then put under investigation for the abuse of the driver and the Cd. Juárez press looked at why suspects were being taken to "a quiet place" like the Police Academy for interrogation. A DWI charge in Dallas was dropped against Juárez and
INS officials took the man into custody to begin the process
of returning him to Mexico. "My daughter was very good," was all Lilia's mother could say between tears. Sources: El Norte, February 23, 2001. Articles by Salvador
Castro and Karen Chávez. El Paso Times, February
23, 2001. Article by Diana Washington Valdez. The bridge would connect Avenida Cuatro Siglos in Ciudad Juárez with Yarbrough Avenue in El Paso. El Paso officials have also begun the process of getting approval for the new bridge. According to bridge-crossing data from the US Customs Service, approximately 4.5 million people cross into El Paso from Cd. Juárez on three bridges every month. Juárez Citizens Fight Tax Increase The lower, border IVA rate has existed until this time because it was seen as a way to make Mexican goods more competitive with goods obtainable across the border in the US. Store owners across Cd. Juárez want the IVA to remain unchanged at 10% because they fear that an increase will drive their buyers to shop more in El Paso. Cd. Juárez consumers say they can barely survive on their current budgets and that an increase in taxes would severely harm them. To protest the increase Cd. Juárez citizens have begun
protests that include a bumper-sticker campaign and traffic stoppages.
Last Wednesday, February 14, truck drivers in the city blocked
traffic for more than three hours. Díaz Pérez is accused of corruption for allegedly offering a US$500,000 bribe to his superior in Chihuahua, PJF director Norberto Jesús Suárez Gómez. It is alleged that the money was to be used to buy Díaz Pérez a more lucrative position as PJF director in the state of Tamaulipas. Suárez Gómez, who is also under arrest in the same safe house, did not escape. Díaz Pérez evidently slipped through his eleven guards comprised of five Policía Federal Military (Federal Military Police, PFM) and five PJF agents and one Ministerio Público Federal agent that work for the Unidad Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada (Unit Specializing in Organized Crime, UEDO). The escape occurred between 11:30 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. Details of the escape are not yet available except for the fact that it took place without violence. The agents that were on duty at the time are said to be busy giving testimony on the day's events. The Procuraduría General de la República (equivalent
to the US Attorney General's Office, PGR) said that there were
eleven people involved in the escape of Díaz Pérez.
It is not known if this is in reference to the eleven agents
that were guarding Díaz Pérez. The PGR has also
implicated the Juárez/Carrillo Fuentes cartel in the escape
as the US$500,000 bribe is assumed to be drug money from the
cartel. February 14, 2001 In the North American Common Market goods, services and labor would flow freely between the three nations. However, the plan does have two necessary conditions attached to it. These conditions are the creation of a North American minimum wage at US and Canadian levels and a job guarantee for people that are unemployed during the creation of the Common Market. The minimum wage would make sure that wages rise in Mexico relative to wages in the US and Canada. The job guarantee would help people displaced by economic adjustments that could take place in each country as the Common Market was implemented. The guarantor of employment, or the Employer of Last Resort (ELR) as Peach called it, would be the government. Peach stated that an ELR makes sense from an economic standpoint because economics views the unemployed as wasted resources. These jobs would create their own benefits, he said. Peach previously pitched the North American Common Market plan to a group of 20 maquiladora managers that, after overcoming initial questions about the project, believed that they could deal with changes caused by the Common Market without too many problems. Peach said that the alternative to a Common Market is not something he would like to imagine. If income in Mexico does not grow at a much higher rate than in the US, Peach said that there will always be a large income gap between the two nations and Mexicans will continue to want to come to the US to work. It should be remembered that while still President-elect of Mexico, Vicente Fox raised the idea of a North American Common Market with then US President Clinton and the two presidential candidates, Al Gore and George W. Bush. While all three US politicians did not quickly take to the idea, it certainly appears that the North American Common Market will be discussed more frequently and seriously in the future. Peach spoke at a Works in Progress Speakers Series at the
Center for Latin American Studies at NMSU. FNS is an outreach
service of the Center for Latin American Studies at NMSU. Deforestation in the state is most critical in the areas of Ocampo, Temósachi, Bocoyna, El Vergel, San Juanito and Tomóchi, according to the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca (Semarnap, Department of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries) and the Dirección de Desarrollo Forestal del Estado. Quezada said that during this year a satellite inventory of forests and deforestation will be carried out to better understand which parts of the state are being affected by deforestation. The El Diario article states that the primary causes
of deforestation in Chihuahua are forest fires, over-grazing,
agricultural and illegal cutting. The state currently has 25.5
million hectares of forest and of this land 2.5 million hectares
are exploited for wood products. Source: El Diario, February 10, 2001. Article by Juan
Gómez Franco. The findings are significant from a human health and environmental standpoint and should also help allay Ciudad Juárez fears that nearby Valle de Juárez agricultural fields contain unsafe levels of heavy metals brought to the area by untreated waste water used for irrigation. Frequent Cd. Juárez newspaper articles allege that the area's irrigation water and soil is too high in heavy metals. The study of irrigated and non-irrigated land along the Valle de Juárez found that levels of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cobalt, chromium and arsenic are much below EPA specified concentrations. Whereas the EPA tolerates lead levels of 400 parts per million (ppm) on children's playgrounds, the irrigated Valle de Juárez fields had levels of 40 ppm. Lozano's study also found that heavy metal levels decreased as the distance from Cd. Juárez increased. However, Lozano did note that heavy metal levels are higher in irrigated soil than in non-irrigated soil. This led him to conclude that the heavy-metal levels of irrigation water do impact soil quality. Lozano also stated that heavy-metal levels in Valle de Juárez irrigation water are at about levels that would be considered safe for drinking water by US standards. In the future Lozano would like to study soil samples from junk yards near Cd. Juárez to check heavy-metal concentrations in those possibly contaminated areas. Lozano spoke at NMSU's Center for Latin American Studies on
February 7. FNS is a product of NMSU's Center for Latin American
Studies. As a consequence for not appearing at the JLCyA meeting, the Board has ruled for the preliminary seizure of the plant's equipment and other assets so that their sale can be used to reimburse the workers. El Diario writes that it is not known why the plant closed but said that Isophen may be added to the list of "maquilas golondrinas," or "swallow plants," so named after the birds because they disappear overnight without having paid their workers. As is typical in these cases, plant workers remain outside
the facility around the clock to make sure that the plant is
not dismantled by anyone other than those appointed by the JLCyA. 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. |