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June 29, 2001 195 students at the Instituto Tecnológico de Ciudad Juarez (ITCJ) received scholarships from the Secretaría de Educación Pública (Secretary of Public Education) on Wednesday, June 25, 2001. The students received checks in the amount of 3,179 pesos (approximately US$ 330). The awards were given to students that demonstrated economic needs and had grade-point averages of 8.5/10 or higher. Students said that they will use their new money to pay tuition, and to buy books and clothes. Yearly tuition at ITCJ is 2,200 pesos (approximately US$230). Although the grants are of great help to students, they do not cover all the costs of starting a new semester, according to some students. Patricia Rivera, an education major, said that the scholarship is not sufficient and that it should be raised. A separate El Diario story states that the Chihuahua government has donated 300 hectares of land to the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ). Eighty hectares will be used to build a new campus in the Nuevo Casas Grandes (located about 100 miles southwest of Cd. Juárez) and 220 hectares to the south of Ciudad Juárez will eventually become the new home of UACJ. Felipe Fornelli Lafón, head of UACJ, said that eventually all four of the university's schools or institutes will relocate to the new campus. However, Fornelli emphasized that new growth will be carefully planned so as not to waste resources. Source: El Diario, June 26, 2001. Articles by Gabriela Minjáres and Guadalupe Félix. June 27, 2001 Recaredo Núñez Alvarez, president of the Asociación de Empresarios y Profesionistas (Business Owners and Professionals Association) located on Avenida Juárez, told the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario that the Viva la Independencia de Estados Unidos (Long Live US Independence) festival will take place in downtown Cd. Juárez along Avenida Juárez. The celebration is sponsored by Núñez's association along with city and state governments. Núñez also announced that Avenida Juárez will also be closed to traffic for 29 hours beginning the night of July 3 until midnight July 4. During that time the street will be filled with food booths, games and amusement-park style rides. There will also be three stages for performers set up along the street as well. To avoid blocking access to the Paso del Norte international bridge, Mariscal and Francisco Villa streets will be used as a detour route. Núñez also stated that the area will be supervised by city police officers and traffic police. So as to attract tourists businesses will begin displaying their products on Tuesday, July 3. Avenida Juárez will be filled with booths from the the Paso del Norte bridge to Avenida 16 de Septiembre. Source: El Diario, June 26, 2001. Article by Rocío Gallegos. June 25, 2001 Loret based his figures on the size of the drug trade on official,
non-official and secret data from the Centro de Investigaciones
y Seguridad Nacional (Cisen). The journalist also concluded that
if the drug trade quickly disappeared in Mexico there would be
an economic crisis worse than that of 1995. Source: El Diario, June 25, 2001. US officials considered the case a kidnapping and activated for the first time the Maria Alert which makes use of the media and law enforcement in both countries to get the public's help in searching quickly for a kidnapped child. The boy, Alfredo Anderson, was found by Mexican law enforcement agents in Cd. Juárez and was given to the Border Patrol to be reunited with his mother. The man who took the child said that they boy had not been kidnapped. He said that he simply went back to the hotel in downtown Cd. Juárez where he and the rest of the group had been staying before they tried to cross to the US. Mexican officials said that they handed the child to the Border Patrol because they did not want the boy to be away from his mother any longer. The exchange took place on the on the Paseo del Norte bridge. Source: El Diario, June 21, 2001. Article by Lorena Figueroa. June 19, 2001 The June 19, 2001 El Diario says that officials are now trying to charge the two PJF agents with two new crimes: auto theft and the cover-up of a crime. Already charged with the May 10, 2001 murder of one man and the wounding of 7 family members, the agents may now be charged with using a stolen vehicle during the crime. The agents may also be prosecuted for trying to cover up their involvement in the shooting death. Business leaders have responded to the above events by calling for a purge of PJF units in Chihuahua. Sergio Holguín Lucero, president of the Consejo Coordinador del Sector Privado (Private Sector Coordinating Council), said that the PJF should become a more transparent operation. To see a previous FNS article on this case go to the following
link and scroll down: http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/may01/today.html Alcides Ramón Magaña (known as "El Metro"), one of the alleged heirs to the Carrillo Fuentes Cartel (also called the Juárez Cartel), was arrested Tuesday night, June 12, 2001 in Villahermosa, Tabasco, according to Mexican Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha. Magaña had been sought for years by the Policía Judicial Federal (Federal Judicial Police, PJF) for his alleged involvement in drug crimes. According to the Federal Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR), Magaña was the alleged head of the Caribbean cell of the Juárez Cartel after the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Magaña has been allegedly associated with the Carrillo Fuentes brothers since the early 1990's when he was the head of the Policía Judicial Federal in Tamaulipas. The Policía Judicial Federal is part of the PGR, the Mexican Federal Attorney General's Office. Magaña was arrested at a telephone booth in Villahermosa by police who approached him with guns drawn. Police said that Magaña drew a pistol on them but dropped it when he realized that he was out gunned. A US official said that the US will seek the extradition of Magaña. In the US, Magaña could face US$8 million in fines and life in prison. Magaña and others are accused in the US of trying to import 200 tons of cocaine and marijuana into the country in the period between 1994 and 1998. Source: El Diario, June 14, 2001. June 13, 2001 By the end of the week the Ciudad Juárez Dirección General de Seguridad Pública y Protección Ciudadana (city police) will impose a new curfew in the Torres del Sur and Infonavit San Lorenzo neighborhoods. The decision to apply a curfew to these two neighborhoods was made after seeing the results that a similar program had in the Moradas del Porvenir neighborhood. The new curfews were requested by neighborhood organizations. Andrés Moreno, the district police director, said that any adolescents found outside after 10:00 pm will be reprimanded and taken before a judge. A month after a curfew was imposed in the Moradas del Porvenir neighborhood the members of the gang "Los Omis 13" asked for a truce and are now working with police and people in the neighborhood to erase gang graffiti. The construction of sports fields and courts has begun and gang members told El Diario that they have quit using drugs. In Infonavit San Lorenzo city police will create a database consisting of the names and crimes of juvenile offenders. The adolescents will be classified according to the type of crime they commit. According to Ciudad Juárez police both neighborhoods face problems such as store robberies, auto theft, gangs, graffiti, and the sale of drugs. District police director Moreno said that both the police and the people in the neighborhood believe that the program will begin to show results within three months. Source: El Diario, June 12, 2001. Article by Luz del
Carmen Sosa. Other people are risking their lives by building their homes under electrical wires and beside gas pipelines. Still other people build their homes on hillsides so steep that fire engines and other rescue services cannot climb up to the homes. Apodaca said that the only thing to do in these cases is to relocate the people that live in dangerous areas. A Cd. Juárez pilot program is currently considering
how to relocate 600 families that live in or on the banks of
the Jarudo stream. Apodaca says that various government agencies
from both the city and state are working on the project. Eventually
Apodaca will want the federal government to get involved also.
A report by the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) states that in the first five months of this year 1,878 undocumented persons were detained in Mexico. During this time the INM estimates that polleros have earned US$6 million. The report indicated that polleros charge a minimum of US$500 up to approximately US$2,500. Of the polleros that have already been sentenced and those awaiting sentencing 90% are men and 10% women. The youngest arrested pollero is 18 years old, the oldest 58 and most of the rest fall into the 25 to 35 year old age group. The polleros come from many Mexican states, Chihuahua cities, El Paso, New Mexico and even Beirut, Lebanon. Source: El Norte, June 4, 2001. Article by Salvador Castro. June 5, 2001 The Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) admission exam was administered Friday, June 1 to 3,850 people interested in attending the university. A university press release said that only 60 percent of the 3,850 test takers will be accepted to UACJ. Beginning at 8:00 a.m. the attendees have two and half hours
to finish the entrance exam. According to Alfredo Chávez
Delgadillo, head of registration for the university, half of
the test takers use the full 150 minutes to work on the test.
The exam has questions in such areas as math, geography, Spanish
and government. On May 31 approximately 27 people attended a test for those interested in UACJ's nursing program. Source: El Diario, June 1, 2001. Article by Guadalupe
Félix. The Unión Ganadera de Chihuahua Inc was created to manage the auction house. So as to receive better support from US cattle buyers the decision was made to locate the facility in the US, according to Manuel Payán Novoa, UGRCh president. Payán also said that the group wants to establish a similar, smaller facility in Presidio, Texas because that city is the second-largest border crossing for Mexican cattle. So as to get the Santa Teresa auction facility off to a quick start the UGRCh will soon seek the approval and assistance of President Vicente Fox and Chihuahua Governor Patricio Martínez. The organization has already set aside money for the project and three builders have already been contracted to begin work on the building. UGRCh cattlemen are currently touring the US to find the best auction technology that they can then incorporate into the Santa Teresa facility. The auction house should be ready by November, 2001. To insure that the calves arrive disease free to the US, they are examined by USDA officials just on the Mexican side of the Unión Ganadera facility. Calves must be TB and Brucellosis free to come to the US. Once they have passed inspection the calves are dipped in a chemical bath to rid them of ticks or any other insects that should not come into the US. Once bathed the calves are crossed to the US and loaded on to multi-level trailers to be hauled to their final destination. Calves from Mexico can always be identified by a letter "M" branded on their right hip. To see a previous FNS article on the Unión Ganadera go to http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/dec00/feat2.html Source: El Diario, May 31, 2001. Article by M. Quezada & R. Lechuga. |