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August 29, 2002 Also killed was Luis Fernando García Castańeda, the plant's head of human resources. García is considered an innocent victim in the case because he was just pulling up to work in his vehicle while Aguilera was fleeing the building. Aguilera said he shot García because he believed García was trying to apprehend him. García, age 30, lived in El Paso and was the father of two children, ages 2 and 3. Aguilera said he was sent to work beside Cuesta after just a week at Lear. Cuesta harassed him to buy cocaine, Aguilera stated. "He [Cuesta] would throw trash in my face. Tuesday he said that he was going to kill me with an ice pick if I didn't buy his cocaine. Today [Wednesday] he put ice down my shirt and it went down to my underwear. That's when my patience ran out," said Aguilera. Claudia Bańuelos, the Cd. Juárez police spokesperson, told the El Paso Times that this incident was the first of its sort in a city maquiladora. The El Paso Times also reported that Lear is a Fortune 150 company that
has six plants and approximately 6,000 workers in the city. Lear, whose corporate motto is "Advance Relentlessly," is also where Cd. Juárez serial-killing victim Claudia Ivette González was employeed. In 2001, González was abducted, raped and murdered after she was turned away from work for showing up a few minutes late, said her mother Josefina González. "I knew she was dead as soon as she was late getting home," said González. "She never went out after work." Source: El Diario, August 29, 2002. Article by Armando Rodríguez. El Paso Times, August 29, 2002. Article by Laura Cruz. August 23, 2002 The voluntary annual donations that Ciudad Juárez maquiladoras make to the city government are at their lowest level in five years. So far this year, six of the city's nearly 800 maquiladoras have contributed 570,000 pesos (approximately US$58,000) to city coffers. The Contribución para Infraestructura y Equipamento (Infrastructure and Equipment Contribution) began in 1998. According to Norma Gutiérrez de Villar, the city's director of Ingresos (Income), voluntary contributions have been falling since the program's inception. In 1998, maquiladoras contributed 16 million pesos to the city's budget. The 1999 and 2000 figures were 14 million pesos a year. Last year, the city received 11 million (US$1.1 million) from its maquiladoras. The contribution program asks that maquiladoras give US$15 per employee per year to the city. One explanation for the low amount of giving is that the president of the Maquiladora Association, Bernardo Escudero Ortega, announced on April 25, 2002 that maquiladoras would not begin contributing money to the city until the mayoral election was resolved. However, Jesús Delgado of the PAN was sworn in as mayor on July 27. Beginning on Friday, August 23, Gutiérrez said she will begin meeting with maquiladora directors to ask for their financial support. Source: El Diario, August 22, 2002. Articles by Juan Manuel Cruz and
Luis Carlos Cano. Between now and the end of 2002, Ciudad Juárez's water utility, the Junta Municipal de Agua y Saneamiento (JMAS), will install 60,000 water meters for water users. Another 20,000 meters will be installed next year. Sergio Acosta del Val, president of the water utility, said that installation of the water meters will reduce water wastage. Consumers are being billed 500 pesos (approximately US$51) for each meter. Besides improving water management, the water utility is also looking at ways to get people to pay their water bills on time. Instead of threatening to cut water service, the JMAS would like to offer incentives to people to pay promptly. One idea is to raffle off cars to people that pay their bills on time. Currently, the water utility has 600 million pesos (approximately US$62
million) in its past-due account, says Acosta. Of this amount, 500 million
pesos are owed to the JMAS by city, state and federal government. At its next meeting, the JMAS will discuss raising water rates and
whether or not it will begin charging its employees for their water
consumption. Currently, JMAS employees do not pay for water in their
homes. At the time police found Dávalos' body, they were surprised that the murder happened where it did given that only a few hours before they had arrested more than 20 people in the plaza for drug crimes and other offenses. Silva's murder was never linked to the serial-killings in Cd. Juárez that have claimed between 80 and 90 lives. Ramírez told police that he killed Dávalos because she did not want
to continue their relationship. He also confessed that he had escaped Cd.
Juárez after the crime but returned because he felt remorse. Source: El Norte, August 2002. Article by Salvador Castro. The commission is comprised of the Secretaries of the Interior, Foreign Relations, Public Security, Taxation, Environment, Economics, Agriculture, Rural Development, Communications and Tourism. It will be headed by the Secretary of the Comptroller and Administrative Development (known in Mexico as the Secodam). José Mateos Torres, a regional supervisor with the Secodam, said that, with Cicopi in place, it will be much easier to monitor what is happening at the nations ports. Mateos said that Cicopi will evaluate the actions of different branches
of the federal government at ports where people and goods enter and exit
the country. It will guarantee that Mexican citizens have transparent,
simple, fast service at international port. Governmental organizations that work at the border will have to show
improvements, since they are responsible to the Secodam and the Secodam
will have to report and answer directly to President Fox, said Mateos. PAN mayor-elect Jesús Alfredo Delgado will be sworn in as the next mayor of Cd. Juárez on Saturday, July 27, 2002. In its decision, the federal court wrote, "If the PRI's accusations are true, [the PAN's] vote manipulation had to have been done by a magician so that absolutely no one saw it and it left no trace." The federal court also ruled that Cd. Juárez's eighteen city council spots must be filled as dictated by the results of the May 12 election. Of these seats, the center-right PAN won ten, the left PRD party took two and the coalition that included the center-left PRI won six. Delgado was in Mexico City awaiting the federal court's decision. After hearing the court's verdict, Delgado said that it was "time to get to work" and leave behind the election-related disturbances which have taken place in Cd. Juárez. In reaction to the federal court's finding, Chihuahua's PRI governor,
Patricio Martínez, asked that state institutions come together in unity.
He also expressed his support of Delgado and said that the election is now
a thing of the past. Alvarez says that his firm functions like an extension of a company's own human resources and payroll office. His clients still provide transportation and cafeteria food for workers but International Human Capital is the workers' employer and therefore pays all the required benefits and contributions such as health insurance, housing, retirement and more. On Monday, July 22, 2002, Alvarez's firm began recruiting 120 people to work in a television-producing maquiladora. By mid-day more than 200 people were at the agency, spilling out into the parking lot and winding around the strip mall. "It doesn't matter how much the job pays, the only thing we want is work," said Silvia Santillán, one of the people waiting outside the employment agency. Santillán told El Diario that she would take any thing offered her because she is tired walking between maquiladoras and finding nothing. Flor Fonseca, who was also waiting in line at the employment agency,
said that working for an employment agency is no different than working
directly for a company. Either way she says she still gets a weekly
salary, transportation and meals. Source: El Diario, July 23, 2002. Article by Rocío Gallegos. Because of the magnitude and seriousness of the crimes, Crowford said that the FBI is ready to send all the support and resources necessary to cooperate in an investigation with the Chihuahuah State Police. However, the FBI can not intervene until it receives a formal request from Mexico. Speaking to a commission comprised of Mexican federal legislators who are looking into the nearly 80 serial rape-murders, Crowford said that he too has daughters and if one of them was murdered he also would demand an investigation and would demand that the killer be brought to justice. After the meeting with Crowford, Lorenzo Aquino Miranda, the Chihuahua director of the Federal Attorney General's Office, said that for the FBI to investigate the murders in Cd. Juárez, the Chihuahua state government would need to request FBI intervention from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations. The Ministry would then make a formal request for FBI help from the US government. Source: El Norte (Cd. Juárez), July 18, 2002. Article by Rosa Isela
Pérez & Salvador Castro. While more than 43 election grievances were brought to the attention of the Tribunal, the court found reason to look at only 5 of them. The only grievance considered serious by the Tribunal was one that stated that votes were voided in a manner that favored the PAN. A document analysis performed by a state police expert supported the PRI's claim of irregularities in the voiding of votes. The PAN will appeal the annulment to the federal level. The PRI will also go to the same federal body to have its grievances acknowledged there. The PRI also hopes to prosecute the people responsible for election crimes. PAN candidate Jesús Delgado was said to have won the May 12 election by a few thousand votes. He had also won the previously annulled election. If the PAN exhausts all its appeals, the PRI-controlled Chihuahua state congress will vote on another interim mayor for Cd. Juárez. José Reyes Ferriz is currently the interim mayor of the city. Source: El Diario, July 7, 2002. Articles by Olga Aragón and Carlos Coria Rivas. June 24, 2002 According to De la Rosa, employment conditions in Cd. Juárez are not what they were a few years ago and people should not come to the northern border city if they do not have a guaranteed job awaiting them. He especially warned people not to come to the city if they do not have family in Cd. Juárez to help support them upon their arrival. Much of the immigration to the northern Mexican border states is from the poorer, eastern coastal state of Veracruz. People from Veracruz go to northern border states like Chihuahua and Tamaulipas because they believe they can improve their quality of life with a steady paycheck from the low-wage, assembly plants known as maquiladoras. The Fundación, which works in coordination with the governments of Veracruz and Chihuahua, is announcing the Cd. Juárez job shortage on Veracruz's state radio network. Part of its radio programs are comprised of interviews with Cd. Juárez chamber of commerce officials and maquiladora association leaders who talk about the current labor situation in their city. De la Rosa emphasized that the recommendation to would-be immigrants to stay in Veracruz is based solely on Cd. Juárez economic conditions and has nothing to do with issues of public safety and crime. Source: El Diario, June 22, 2002. Article by Gabriela Minjáres. |