Frontera NorteSur February 2002

When Capea believes that a missing person has been abducted it gives the case to the Attorney General's Office's Anti-kidnapping Group. Calderón described the process by saying, "When we are dealing with forced disappearances, we establish the case with testimony from witnesses and then we give the case to the Anti-kidnapping Group."

Calderón said that forced disappearances in Tijuana are carried out by organized crime. "Sometimes, two or three people are disappeared at the same time, and many times they know their abductors because there are no signs of violence . . ." Capea says that it discovers about one case of forced disappearance every month.

Regarding unsolved cases, Calderón stated that many of these are due to people leaving Tijuana to return to the Mexican interior state from which they originated. However, Calderón attributes about 30% of the unresolved cases to forced disappearances.

Other missing people undoubtedly end up in Tijuana's common grave which has received approximately 300 bodies this year, according to Calderón. This means that those cases will not be resolved.

Open missing persons cases from 2001 (Source: Capea, December 6, 2001):

January 6
February 5
March 5
April 3
May 4
June 10
July 15
August 14
September 18
October 26
November 46

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), December 17, 2001. Article by Jorge Morales.

Woman's Body Found, Shot and Burned in Méxicali

On the night of Thursday, January 24, 2002, while looking for a stolen vehicle, Méxicali police officer Guillermo Leyva found a woman's body approximately 300 yards from a police station. The body had been set on fire and shot, according to police.

Due to the position in which the body was found, officials believe that the woman was doused in gasoline and set on fire while still alive. A one-gallon plastic container with gasoline residue still inside was found at the crime site along with two .38 bullet shells. The body has yet to be identified, according to the Méxicali newspaper, La Crónica.

In a separate story, the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada reports that a Oaxaca human rights group has asked the state police to intensify investigations into the rape-murders of sixteen women in that state over the past two years.

Aline Castellanos Jurado, the Oaxaca director of the Liga Mexicana por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights), has called upon the Oaxaca Attorney General, Sergio Santibáñez Franco, to seriously examine these crimes against women. The Liga has also demanded that the Attorney General's Office make public presentations about the progress made in each of the cases.

Sources: La Crónica (Méxicali), January 25, 2002. Article by Juan Galvan & César Valdez.
La Jornada (Mexico City), January 25, 2002. Article by Victor Ruiz Arrazola.

Second Young Agua Prieta Woman Found Tortured & Murdered

In less than three months, two young women have been found murdered in Agua Prieta, Sonora. Both bodies showed signs of torture. Agua Prieta is located across the border from Douglas, Arizona.

The Mexico City newspaper La Jornada reported on Sunday, January 13, 2002, that the body of a young woman, between the ages of 17 and 20, was found by a sanitation worker, presumably on January 11 or 12. The unnamed woman was apparently tortured and died from a beating. As in the previous case, it is not known if the woman was sexually assaulted.

Local authorities worry that there may be more killings in the future, similar to what Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua has faced over the past decade. In that city, more than 300 women have been murdered since 1993. Many of these were young women and maquiladora workers that were raped and tortured before their bodies were disposed of in vacant fields or desert areas.

Irma Villalobos de Terán, the mayor of Agua Prieta, said that these crimes "have begun to provoke a collective psychosis throughout the city, that make people think that there is a tie to the murder of women in Ciudad Juárez."

Source: La Jornada, January 13, 2002.

Two More Women Murdered in Cd. Juárez

Like most of the victims of Ciudad Juárez's serial killer or killers, Lourdes Ivette Lucero Campos worked in a maquiladora, had long brown hair, was attractive and young, age 26.

However, Lucero was also quite different from the hundreds of other women that have been murdered in Cd. Juárez since 1993. Lucero did not work on her maquiladora's production line but was instead employed as a nutritionist in the Motores Eléctricos kitchen.

Unlike most of the women who disappeared either going to or from their bus stop on the way to work or home, Lucero disappeared with her own truck. Also, Lucero was married and lived with her husband while many of the Cd. Juárez rape-murder victims were single and lived with their mothers or parents.

Perhaps because of these differences it was not surprising when after a few days, Lucero's death was linked to an ex-boyfriend, Daniel Magallanes, and not to an anonymous bus driver.

According to a number of articles in the Cd. Juárez newspaper, El Diario, that quote sources within the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office, Lucero was allegedly murdered by her ex-boyfriend after a verbal argument turned violent.

While Lucero's husband was the original suspect in the case, the Attorney General's Office learned about Magallanes through coworkers at the maquiladora. When investigators began interrogating Magallanes they said he gave contradictory testimony and then confessed to the crime. According to El Diario's sources in the Attorney General's Office, Magallanes began hitting Lucero with a metal tube when she would not give him back his hat.

Lucero was murdered on Friday, January 18, 2002 and buried on January 21.

In a separate case, a woman's body was found on January 27, 2002 near the Cerro Bola in Ciudad Juárez, her face destroyed from damage inflicted by heavy rocks. The Cerro Bola is an area where the burned bodies of some the city's rape-murder victims have been previously found. However, just as in the case with Lucero, initial similarities in the cases proved to be false leads.

Later identified as Merced Ramírez Morales, the 35 year old mother of two now orphaned children, Ramírez was not sexually attacked. The Attorney General's Office believes that the concealment of a robbery may have been the motive for the killing and that the murderer may live in the area.

So far this year there have been four women murdered in Ciudad Juárez.

Source: El Diario, January 19-29, 2002.

More Join Hunger Strike at Federal Prison in Matamoros

The Matamoros newspaper El Bravo reports that two men, Eduardo Fox Olvera and Luis Olguín Soto, have joined fellow inmate Oscar Noriega Hoyos in a hunger strike aimed at changing conditions in the federal prison where they are serving sentences.

Irma Aida Fox, sister of Eduardo Fox, and María Esther Morales Arias, wife of Luis Olguín Soto, told El Bravo that other prisoners are on strike as well but they are neither sure of the number of strikers nor when they quit eating. The strike is taking place at the Centro Federal de Readaptación Social Número 3 (Cefereso).

Ms. Fox said that when she went to visit her brother, Eduardo, he told her that despite cold temperatures, prisoners are awakened at 5:00 a.m. and are forced to bathe in cold water. When the inmates complain the guards tell them that their orders come from their superiors.

Ms. Fox also told El Bravo that inmates are not allowed to have blankets and have only thin jackets with which to stay warm. She said the prisoners' clothing is in terrible condition and is also inadequate for the low temperatures. She was not allowed to bring in underwear for her brother and says that prisoners must wash their own clothes. Many of them put the clothes back on while still wet.

According to Ms. Fox, inmates are strip searched and receive cavity searches as well. While the inmates are being searched they are not allowed to look guards in the face. This extends to visitors as well who are not allowed to look at guards, she said.

Ms. Morales, wife of Luis Olguín, said that her husband told her that the Cefereso provides inadequate medical attention to sick inmates.

Source: El Bravo (Matamoros), January 8, 2002. Article by Rosy Pereda Rangel.

The Cocopa People and the Colorado River: Issues of Fishing and Shrimp Farming

Mexican federal and state authorities met with the Cocopa indigenous community to analyze problems surrounding the issue of fishing in the Colorado River delta. Traditionally, the Cocopa (Cucapá in Spanish) have supported themselves by fishing in that region. However, fishing was banned in the territory which forms the heart of the Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve. Other area fishing permits are insufficient to meet the needs of the Cocopa, said Mónica González, a Cocopa representative.

Raúl Ramírez Baena, the head of Baja California's Office of Human Rights, said that the human rights of the Cocopa are being violated. He pointed out that over the years, the Cocopa have lost their ability to make a living due to the loss of their lands and their fishing rights. "Indigenous rights are human rights," said Ramírez, "and in this case the government is violating the Cocopa's rights to develop a legal activity like fishing the Colorado River."

As an alternative to fishing, Ivonne Mena, a representative from the Baja California Fishing Office, said that there is a real possibility for the Cocopa to farm shrimp in the region. Mena also stated that the shrimp farms could be located on Cocopa territory in the Laguna Salada and would not over-exploit the delta's fishing resources.

Source: La Crónica (Méxicali), December 10, 2001. Article by César Angulo.

Tijuana NGO Builds Homes

In 2001, Tijuana's Fundación Esperanza (the Hope Foundation) supported the building of 40 homes for low-income families. The construction of the 40 homes cost just 1,440,000 pesos (approximately US$157,000) or 36,000 pesos (US$3,900) each, according to technical director Apolonio Rodríguez Barba.

Families contributed financially to the construction of their homes by participating in the foundation's savings program. Each week, for an average of eight months, families would set aside between 80 and 120 pesos (US$8.70-$13.04). The foundation then provided up to 80% of the homes' construction costs.

Building expenses were also kept low because foundation volunteers helped families make their own bricks used in the construction of walls.

In early January, 2002, more home construction will be initiated in Tijuana's Salvatierra neighborhood. The Fundación Esperanza plans to build 48 low-income homes in 2002.

Last year, for the first time, the Baja California state government contributed funds to the foundation's building projects. Through its office of social development the state contributed more than 1,000,000 pesos last year.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), January 7, 2002. Articles by Luis Adolfo San.

Juárez Rape Crisis Center Receptionist Murdered at Work, Center Loses Funding

María Luisa Carsoli Berumen, age 33, was murdered on December 21, 2001, in Ciudad Juárez, outside of the Casa Amiga Rape and Abuse Crisis Center where she worked as a receptionist. Carsoli Berumen had four children, ages 2, 3, 6 and 8. Police are still looking for Carsoli Berumen's husband, Ricardo Medina Acosta, the suspect in the case.

The Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario reported that an unnamed cleaning woman that works at Casa Amiga stated that Carsoli Berumen's husband, Ricardo Medina Acosta, approached Carsoli Berumen as she arrived at work. The two began to argue and then Medina Acosta twice stabbed his wife, the woman said. The cleaning woman tried to stop Medina Acosta but could not. She yelled for help but no one came to assist, she said.

After the murder, Carsoli Berumen's four children were picked up by authorities because Medina Acosta allegedly threatened to kill them if police attempted to arrest him. According to Adela Lozoya of Casa Amiga, the children have been living with their maternal grandmother since December 24, 2001.

According to Esther Chávez Cano, the director of the not-for-profit Casa Amiga, Carsoli Berumen first came to Casa Amiga about a year ago because her husband had been beating her often. At the time of the murder, Carsoli Berumen and her husband were living separately.

In a press conference after the killing, Chávez said that in Cd. Juárez, men believe they own women. The killing she said is proof that Casa Amiga, the only rape and abuse crisis center in the city of 1.2 million people, can not attend to the needs of all of the city's women.

Citing a lack of available funds, the interim mayor of Cd. Juárez, José Reyes Ferriz told El Diario that the city had to end its monthly contribution of 30,000 pesos (approximately US$3,200) in October, 2001. However, Reyes said that the city will look into how it can support Casa Amiga in the future.

The previous city administration had supported Casa Amiga for three years until its term ended in October, 2001.

Source: El Diario, December 22, 2001. Article by Armando Rodríguez.

25,000 Candles Lit in Ciudad Juárez for Recent Murder Victims

Shortly after dark on the night of Sunday, December 16, more than 25,000 candles were lit in memory of the eight young women whose bodies were found approximately five weeks ago in a field near central Ciudad Juárez. The candle-lighting ceremony took place in the field where the bodies were found and was accompanied by a Catholic mass.

The event was organized by Cd. Juárez radio announcer Samira Izaguirre who went on a 56 hour fast to gather 10,000 candles. The response to the request for candles was so great that Izaguirre decided to hold out for 20,000 candles. Eventually, 25,286 candles were received.

Miguel Márquez, standing at the bottom of a cross made out of candles, told the Cd. Juárez newspaper, "No, I didn't know any of the young victims, but they were people, human beings just like us and they did not deserve this type of death." Márquez, a nineteen-year old student, was accompanied by his seven-year old sister and his mother. ""Here are my mother and my sister, they are women, just like the victims for whom I came to pray," he said.

In other news, President Fox announced that the Federal Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR) would begin a parallel investigation into the numerous rapes and murders that have ocurred in Ciudad Juárez since 1993. Reaction to this announcement by victims' families and city NGOs was positive as they hope the PGR's investigation will be more thorough than the one done by state officials. They also hope that the PGR will bring in FBI experts--something state officials have not done since the recent discovery of the eight bodies in central Cd. Juárez.

Source: El Diario, Decembew 17, 2001. Article by Luz del Carmen Sosa.