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May 30, 2002
Ciudad Juárez Public Universities Do Not Meet Demand
Ciudad Juárez's three public universities, the Universidad
Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ), the Instituto
Tecnológico de Ciudad Juárez (Tec) and the Universidad
Autónoma de Chihuahua (UACh), will only accept 61.59 %
of applicants this year, according to an article in the Cd. Juárez
newspaper, El Diario. Students not admitted to these institutions
will have to wait another year before reapplying or will have
to enroll in a private university.
More than 3,700 students will sit for the UACJ entrance exam
but just 2,242 will be admitted.
The situation is even more desperate at UACh where 700 people
will take the entrance exam but only 200 students will be accepted.
The UACh exam costs 430 pesos (US$46). Students are admitted
on the basis of their scores.
A Tec spokesperson said that few people are turned away from
that institution.
Source: El Diario, May 30, 2002. Article by Guadalupe Félix.
May 23, 2002
Girl Found Dead in Ciudad Juárez
The body of thirteen-year old Zulema Alvarado Torres was
found in the rural, Valle de Juárez area near Cd. Juárez.
A spokesperson for the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office said
that Alvarado died from strangulation, perhaps during a rape
attempt. The spokesperson said that an autopsy revealed that
the girl had not been raped.
Alvarado had been missing for over a week when her body was
found by someone walking in the area. The girl's family had not
filed a missing person's report in her case, according to the
Attorney General's Office.
Police are looking for Alvarado's boyfriend to question him
in the case and believe that he may be in El Paso.
Authorities are also investigating Alvarado's family after
investigators noted that Alvarado's mother, Paulina Torres, had
been arrested for allegedly prostituting some of her daughters,
including Zulema.
Since 1993, the bodies of raped and murdered young women have
been found in the desert in the Valle de Juárez area,
some of them after they had been set on fire.
Convicted US Rapist/Rape Suspect Arrested in Cd. Juárez,
Returned to US
Benjamin Ferguson, age 55, a US citizen wanted for three
rapes in California, was arrested in Cd. Juárez on May
16, 2002 by bicycle police officers. Previously, Cd. Juárez
officials had been alerted that Ferguson might head to their
city to elude US authorities.
Cd. Juárez police believe that Ferguson arrived in Mexico
on May 13. He was arrested on May 16 and handed over to US officials
in the middle of one of the US-Mexico international bridges on
May 17.
Cd. Juárez authorities said that Ferguson is not a suspect
in any of the nearly 80 rape-murders of young women that have
taken place in that city since 1993.
However, Ferguson's arrest did spark worry in Cd. Juárez
that some of the rape-murders may have been committed by US residents
that cross the border to commit their crimes with impunity.
Sources: El Diario, May 21-23, 2002. Articles by Armando Rodríguez.
El Diario, May 17 & 18, 2002. Articles by Alejandro Quintero
& Rubén Terrazas Sáenz.
May 17, 2002
Ciudad Juárez Mayoral Election Looks Like Bush-Gore Florida
Fight
While the PAN claims to have a lead of 2,365 votes in the
Ciudad Juárez mayoral election and does not want to reopen
ballot boxes for a recount, the Alianza Unidos por Juárez
is also claiming victory and wants to recount votes, especially
those that were voided.
The most important member of the Alianza is the PRI, which
has lost the last four mayoral elections in Cd. Juárez.
However, a member of the PRI has been the interim mayor of the
city since the previous election was annulled for PAN irregularities
in October, 2001.
Some Votes to Be Recounted--Could Change Results
On May 16, the Instituto Estatal Electoral (IEE) voted unanimously
to recount ten percent of voting stations. The recount will pay
special attention to voided votes and those stations where political
parties believe there were irregularities. For example, it has
been noted that four voting stations had more voided votes than
they did votes that were counted.
John Hardin Young, a US election expert, was brought to Cd. Juárez
by a local lawyers' organization. Based on his analysis of the
situation, Young recommends that the voided votes be reexamined,
according to an article in the Cd. Juárez newspaper El
Diario. Young also said that he saw a pattern of vote voiding
which clearly harmed the Alianza. According to Young, Alianza
votes made in PAN territory were voided twice as frequently as
PAN votes made in Alianza territory.
If this pattern holds up, and many of the 10,000 voided votes
were counted, then the election could be won by the PAN.
City Voting Administration Employee Missing
In a related story, Lázaro Tonche, age 27, an employ of
the Municipal Voting Assembly, has been missing since Wednesday.
Tonche's car was found with a broken window and what family members
described as blood on the back seat of his car. Tonche disappeared
with two packets full of votes. Later, the packets from Tonche's
station were discovered at his family's house after a car drove
by and they were thrown out of the vehicle's window. Tonche's
family says he has gone missing before after drinking binges
but never for so many days.
Other news
The leftist candidate for mayor, José Luis Rodríguez
Chávez of the PRD, has said that on the morning of May
17 he will go to the official residence of President Fox, Los
Pinos, to begin a hunger strike. Rodríguez is demanding
that the PRI respect the will of the people of Cd. Juárez
and allow the PAN victory to stand.
Finally, the building where votes are being counted has been
surrounded by members of the city's political parties since the
Sunday, May 12 election.
Source: El Diario, May 16 & 17, 2002.
May 13, 2002
PAN Declares Victory in Cd. Juárez Mayoral Elections
Despite a ten point lead in pre-election polls, the PAN's
Ciudad Juárez mayoral candidate, Jesús Alfredo
Delgado, claimed victory in Sunday's election with just a 2,365
vote lead.
Earlier in the day, the State Electoral Institute's preliminary
results program had given the PAN a four point lead in the election
with 66% of the votes counted. This lead diminished through the
evening and there were still 25 voting stations that had not
been counted when Delgado announced his victory.
Roberto Barraza Jordán, a member of the PRI and the Alianza
Unidos por Juárez's mayoral candidate, said Monday morning
that, according to its figures, the Alianza had a 1,000 vote
lead in the election and would ultimately triumph in the election.
Barraza said the Alianza will examine every vote cast in the
election and is particularly worried about the number of votes
which were annulled for irregularities. Barraza said that the
number of annulled votes was higher than the number of votes
received by smaller Cd. Juárez parties like the PRD (Partido
de la Revolución Democrática) and the PAS (Partido
Alianza Social).
In July, 2001, the PAN's Delgado won that party's fourth consecutive
victory in Cd. Juárez. However, on August 21, 2001, the
Tribunal Estatal Electoral (State Election Tribunal, TEE) annulled
the election. Four of the main reasons given for the TEE's decision
were last-minute changes in voting-station personnel, last-minute
changes to the PAN's list of city-council candidates, alleged
campaigning by PAN Cd. Juárez Mayor Gustavo Elizondo and
other city officials and alleged campaigning by Elizondo after
the close of the campaign period in the last few days before
the election.
After the annulment of last year's election, the PRI-controlled,
Chihuahua Congress appointed a PRI interim mayor, José
Reyes Ferriz.
On Sunday, May 12, after having declared victory once again
in Cd. Juárez, Delgado and PAN officials said that they
would hold on to the mayor's office this time.
According to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario, only
36% of registered voters went to the polls on Sunday. Out of
a total of 815,578 possible voters, only 283,739 people voted
in the election.
Source: El Diario, May 3 & 13, 2002. Articles by Pedro
Torres, Miguel A. Chávez, Horacio Carrasco Soto, Juan
Manuel Cruz & Rocío Gallegos.
May 1, 2002
DNA Testing Must Be Redone in Serial Killings Cases
Alejandro Alberto Santos Rubio, the director of evidence
experts for the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office, said that
none of the DNA testing which has been done by the Federal Attorney
General's Office in Mexico City has yielded positive identifications
of the eight bodies discovered in a Ciudad Juárez cotton
field in November, 2001. Also reported in the Cd. Juárez
newspaper, El Diario, was that new DNA samples have been sent
to the Mexico City lab in order to get good test results.
Since January, 2002, the mothers of a number of the victims have
told Frontera NorteSur that they have anxiously been awaiting
the results of the DNA tests. Many family members gave DNA samples
in December and were told that results would be ready in six
weeks. As time passed, the mothers said that the arrival of the
DNA results were constantly being pushed back.
A number of the mothers who have joined together to look for
justice in their daughters' cases and to prevent the murder of
more young women, have been demanding that US labs be allowed
to perform the DNA tests. They prefer a foreign lab to Mexican
labs because they are not sure that they will believe the results
that the Chihuahua Attorney General's Office will give them.
Another Cd. Juárez newspaper, El Norte, also reported
on problems with the DNA evidence. Besides noting problems with
the samples, El Norte also indicated confusion among investigators
as to whether or not the DNA results had even arrived to Chihuahua
from Mexico City.
Source: El Diario, May 1, 2002. El Norte, April 30, 2002.
April 25, 2002
Cd. Juárez Waste Water: Treatment Plants May Lack Chlorine,
Stench Hits El Paso
On April 22, 2002 the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario
printed a full-page article on the lack of chlorine in the city's
sewage treatment process. An investigation by the newspaper claims
that the city's water utility, JMAS, is trying to save money
by not using chlorine in the treatment of waste water. If El
Diario's allegations are true, this would mean that JMAS is in
violation of health safety regulations as put forth in the Norma
Oficial Mexicana.
"We don't have any chlorine at this time . . . only 36 empty
tanks," said Mario Arredondo Calderón, shift supervisor
at the city's northern waste-water treatment plant, on March
10, 2002.
Jorge Jaime Alvarez Gutiérrez, head of JMAS's purchasing
department, said that the only order for chlorine that he is
putting through at this time is for 202 tons of the material.
However, according to El Diario, this chlorine is destined for
treating water from the city's 240 drinking-water wells--not
for waste-water treatment.
The El Diario article went on to say that although local officials
are denying that the city's sewage-treatment process lacks chlorine,
the US side of the International Boundary and Water Commission
(IBWC) has noted problems with waste-water chlorine levels.
Sally Spener, IBWC spokesperson, was quoted as saying that JMAS's
own water-quality data shows that, during certain periods, waste
water from the Cd. Juárez treatment plants is high in
fecal coliform bacteria. This means that the treatment plants
are not working as they should in regards to chlorination.
In the April 25 El Diario, Ignacio Duarte Murillo, president
of the JMAS, responded to the above claims by saying that there
has always been a sufficient amount of chlorine to cover the
city's needs. He suggested that the April 22 El Dario article
was run for political reasons, eluding perhaps to the upcoming
May elections for Cd. Juárez mayor.
Stench from treatment plants
What no one in the region is denying is that Cd. Juárez
sewage plants lack multi-stage treatments that eliminate odors
stemming from the purification process. These odors affect El
Paso when the wind carries them into the US.
A number of Cd. Juárez health and water officials told
the El Paso Times that their city is aware of the odor problem
and is trying to resolve it. The city is hoping to plant odor-absorbing
trees and to use chemicals that would stop the problem at its
source at the treatment facilities. Cd. Juárez is also
looking for grants and loans to add the secondary treatment which
would eliminate odors.
Bonnie Johnson, a 71-year old, El Paso resident that has lived
just yards from the border for 39 years, told the El Paso Times
that "For the past couple months, when I would take my walk,
I would smell a putrid decaying animal or body and I would look
for one. Then I realized that the smell wasn't a decaying animal
but . . . the sewage plant across the river."
Antonio Valenzuela, another El Paso resident affected by the
odor from water treatment facilities in Cd. Juárez, said
"The other day the smell was so bad my grandchildren refused
to eat, and it's getting worse. I can't turn on the air conditioner
because it just sucks the smell in."
Sources: El Diario, April 22 & 25, 2002. Articles
by Pablo Hernández Batista.
El Paso Times, April 25, 2002. Article by Laura Cruz.
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