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FNS Special Report: “Operation Chihuahua Plus”: A Textbook Case of Drug
War Failure? The Life and Death of Dr. Manuel Arroyo Galvan The “Colombianization” of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua A major Colombian product, cocaine, has played a tremendous role in
shaping the history of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua during the last 30
years. Coming at a time of economic depression and an immediate budget deficit of
nearly $7 million for Ciudad Juarez alone, the costs of the Colombia trip
were questioned by local reporters and some members of the public. Like Ciudad Juarez, shop owners in Ascension are putting up their
businesses for sale or trying to rent out storefronts. Residents are
reportedly fleeing to the United States and other parts of Chihuahua.
Following the Ascension protest, the Mexican army and Chihuahua state
police increased patrols in the zone. Reclaiming the Legacy of Cesar Chavez The spirit of legendary farm labor leader Cesar Chavez was alive on the streets of El Paso, Texas, this past weekend. Led by a tight contingent of Mexica dancers, a couple hundred marchers filed by the struggling businesses, open air markets and old apartment buildings of downtown El Paso and the historic Segundo Barrio neighborhood. Former farmworkers, immigrant rights advocates, environmental activists and others turned out for the April 25 event that honored the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, who passed away in April 1993. El Paso mayoral candidate Carlos Rivera also showed up to throw in his support for the cause. Garnering ample public attention, and a blessing of holy water from the priest in front of the Sacred Heart Church, marchers sang “La Guadalupana” and demanded justice. “Viva Cesar Chavez” and “Listen, Obama, We Continue in Struggle,” were two of the most popular chants that broke the balmy day. Although Cesar Chavez celebrations have become common-and even
institutionalized-in parts of the United States in recent years, the 2009
El Paso event had particular political significance, said Carlos Marentes,
march co-organizer and long-time leader of the El Paso-based Sin Fronteras “(Chavez) dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of working people, especially agricultural workers,” Marentes said. In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Marentes said the life of Cesar Chavez was an important “reference” point during a time when violence, poverty, unemployment, climate change, and food and energy crises define the landscape. In Ciudad Juarez just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, tens of
thousands of people have lost their jobs in the export assembly industry
since last year. More than two thousand people have been killed in a
bloody narco war, and Mexican soldiers patrol the boulevards, search homes Analyzing the current political-economic juncture, Marentes took issue
with the new administration of President Barack Obama on several fronts,
including the expansion of the Afghan war, support for the North American
Free Trade Agreement, fudging on the torture/human rights issue, and "If there is going to be change in this country, the change has to be from the people,” Marentes insisted. “That’s the significance of us marching.” Present for the Cesar Chavez commemoration, El Paso resident Rudy Valdez was another man seeking changes from President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Employed as a Mexican contract farmworker in the old Bracero Program, the 73-year-old Valdez worked on farms in Texas, New Mexico and Colorado during the late 1950s. Valdez demanded compensation for paycheck withholdings that were made decades ago but never paid back to the Mexican workers after the Bracero Program was terminated in 1964. After years of mass protests in Mexico and the US, the Mexican government agreed to make modest payments to ex-braceros, but Valdez said many elderly, ex-farmworkers originally from the state of Chihuahua have yet to receive a cent. Valdez said he’d written President Obama twice during the last couple months to force action on the issue. “I’m asking Mr. Obama, please, please, send us money,” Valdez pleaded. In a post-parade talk at the Border Agricultural Workers Center near the Rio Grande, Marentes urged the people gathered to attend another event, the May 1 grand opening of Centro Mayapan in south-central El Paso. Scheduled for International Workers Day, the event is planned as the
official inauguration of a grassroots economic development project
launched by La Mujer Obrera, an organization of women garment workers who
lost their jobs in the waves of trade liberalization that all but “Giving more money, more resources to the thieves of Wall Street and the
greedy CEOs of the corporations responsible in the first place for the
economic crisis will not solve the problem,” Marentes later told Frontera
NorteSur. “So Mujer Obrera, by opening Mercado Mayapan, is showing us, the
border community and the people, it's up to us to build another economic Located in a sprawling, refurbished warehouse, Centro Mayapan will accommodate fair trade projects and small locally-owned businesses, as well as offer space for myriad community events and a museum. As the April 25 El Paso march wound down with music and chow at the farmworker center, a crowd heard El Paso author Toni Beatriz Fuentes read poems about two pillars of Mexicano-Chicano culture: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Cesar Chavez. In an interview following the reading, Fuentes described growing up in El
Paso’s rural Lower Valley, a place where cotton fields, watermelon patches
and wildflowers dominated the scenery instead of the subdivisions and
trailer homes of today. For Fuentes, Cesar Chavez represented a “I love El Paso, I love my country. This is a side of us that few people
know about,” Fuentes reflected. “Like Cesar Chavez, we love that part of
us that belongs to the humble people, to the Mexican-American, to the
Chicano, to the Mexicano, to the American. Yes, we’re all that put -Kent Paterson Focus on Teen Pregnancy, Healthy Lifestyles Health promoters and educators are ratcheting up campaigns to prevent teen pregnancy and other at-risk behaviors in Ciudad Juarez and other parts of the state of Chihuahua. Brenda Ibarra, Ciudad Juarez coordinator for the Chihuahua state health department, said an upcoming education campaign will build more awareness among the teen population. “The goal is to prevent,” Ibarra said, “and teach middle school and high school students that they should protect their health in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies or some kind of addition.” Mothers below 18 years of age account for 41 percent of the estimated
25-28,000 babies born each year in Ciudad Juarez alone, said Guadalupe
Medina, reproductive health coordinator for the Chihuahua state
government. A recent study by Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) According to the study, only 18.85 percent of adolescents reported learning about sex from their parents. Most respondents, or 40.85 percent, heard about sex from friends, while 36 percent learned about it from teachers. No further details of the study were reported. Ciudad Juarez health authorities warn that premature sexual activity
increases the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, and enhances the
possibility for physical complications in adolescent mothers and their
babies. Unidentified IMSS doctors urged more systematic sex education in
public schools, an issue which is a touchy subject in Mexico. The Chihuahua Secretariat of Education and Culture and state Integral
Family Development (DIF) agency jointly sponsor a “virtual baby” program
in some schools. Like similar initiatives in the United States, the
Chihuahua program consists of giving adolescent females dolls to lug
around school every day. Containing electronic chips, the “babies”
periodically cry and demand attention in a simulation of the real
situation mothers face. Sources: Norte, April 14, 2009. Article by Pablo Hernandez Batista. El Diario de Juarez, April 13, 2009. Pedro Sanchez Briones. Singing the Border Business Blues Shine manager Ana Gonzalez leaned behind the counter of a virtually deserted store in a virtually abandoned shopping mall. A five-year veteran of the women’s apparel establishment and other stores at El Paso’s Sunland Park Mall, Gonzalez said sales were abysmal. “This is the worst I’ve seen it,” Gonzalez lamented. Even weekends, when the cash register rings up much more action, is “not like it used to be,” Gonzalez said, with a hint of nostalgia. On a recent weekday inside the mall, signs offering cut-rate deals spruced more than a few storefronts, while a dentistry business advertised a teeth-whitening special for $69. Gazing down at the quiet walkways, the Mervyn’s outlet stood vanquished as yet another casualty of a national and international crisis. Recession or no recession, looks still count big: the busiest action unfolded at a beauty store where several women were getting their nails polished up. Like Gonzalez, Dippin’ Dots branch manager Lizha Quezada has watched business slow to a crawl since last fall. Interviewed by Frontera NorteSur during the usually busy lunch hour, Quezada said she had helped only five customers at the yoghurt-ice cream stand in a one-hour period, a business pace far weaker than the normal flow of 15-20 customers who typically show up for a sweet fix. A roving company employee, Quezada blamed the business downturn on a shortage of US-resident customers at the Sunland Park Mall as well as huge loss of Mexican customers at the Bassett and Cielo Vista malls where the young manager also puts in time. Many El Paso merchants have long been dependent on sales to visitors from Ciudad Juarez and other parts of the state of Chihuahua. Enjoying 10 years in the El Paso retail business, Quezada estimated there were 35 percent less customers coming from Ciudad Juarez today than just several months ago. Normally enjoying a 20 percent annual increase in sales, Quezada said the numbers this year were tumbling into the negative side of the ledger so far. Border crossing statistics recently reported in the maquiladora trade industry journal Juarez-El Paso Now showed a major drop in northbound traffic beginning in 2008. According to the publication, semi-trailer crossings dropped from 782,369 in 2007 to 758,856 in 2008, while other vehicular traffic plummeted from 5,837,570 vehicles two years ago to 5,344,828 in 2008. For better or worse, the twin cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez are bound together by an economic umbilical cord. Spreading from Wall Street, the economic meltdown has scalded Ciudad Juarez’s export assembly industry that supplies all manner of goodies and gadgets to the United States and other foreign nations. Citing Mexican government statistics, Juarez-El Paso Now reported at least 48,800 Juarenses lost their jobs in 2008. The Texas city’s official unemployment rate, meanwhile, shot up from 5.7 percent in February 2008 to 8.2 percent in February 2009, a jobless percentage which was nevertheless below the national average of 8.9 percent for the same month. Altogether, an estimated 24,600 El Pasoans went without work last month. Complicating the current business scene is the latest Mexican peso devaluation. For those Juarenses still lucky enough to have income to spend in El Paso, prices are 40-50 percent higher than they were before last October. Local businesses are responding in different ways to the crisis. Situated just across the New Mexico state line from El Paso, the Western Playland entertainment center is advertising one-dollar rides to attract fun-loving families. Red Lobster and other eateries are offering two-for-one dinner specials to lure diners. Also located a stone’s throw from El Paso, the Sunland Park Racetrack and Casino in New Mexico has implemented an obvious cost-savings measure. Perhaps to the consternation of gluttons, the casino’s all-you-can eat buffet has replaced its generously wide dishes with little blue ones that resemble hospital cafeteria plates. Not everyone is singing the blues in this borderland. In the area surrounding the University of Texas at El Paso, where building improvements are underway, a new bank along with a smattering of new restaurants and bars have opened their doors for business. A turnout of 27,000 screaming fans to the university’s famed Sunbowl for a March 25 match between two professional Mexican soccer clubs bode well for future events of a similar caliber. In July, El Paso will benefit from the opening of a new medical school. Additionally, anywhere from $ 3.7 to $4.4 billion will be directly pumped into the local economy from the expansion of Fort Bliss to a post hosting 37,000 soldiers by 2012. Paradoxically, Fort Bliss’s expansion could touch off other economic troubles. Slashing spending, the Department of Defense reduced from 7,000 to 4,000 the number of new houses slated for construction on the base The move triggered predictions by some observers in the real estate and construction industries of a housing shortage of 4,800 units and an accompanying inflationary rental market unleashed by the summer of 2010. A mismatch exists between El Paso’s low incomes and the desires of housing developers to make a profit. “Our median incomes here are just so low,” Tropicana Building Corporation President Booby Bowling, Jr. told a local publication. “And it is too much of a shock at once. The market needs time to react.” Currently, El Paso’s municipal economic development department is working on a proposal to encourage more rental construction. Hauled by truck down a crowded street on a recent day, the old sign for the Warren Apartments that advertised $382 monthly rents and that was headed for whereabouts unknown could have been an omen for things to come in the rental market. Some detect opportunities amidst the economic crisis. Emerging from her office at the Sunland Park Mall, Adriana Provencio took time to explain the nature of her new business. Provencio represents Ciudad Juarez’s Medical Specialties Center (CME), an organization of 150 doctors in Ciudad Juarez that operates a hospital conveniently located near an international bridge connecting to El Paso. Formally opened last December, the CME office in Sunland Park Mall is the physicians organization’s first concerted attempt at promoting medical tourism. “I hope medical tourism gets really big,” Provencio said. ”It is in now. People are going to India and Thailand.” Depending on the procedure or treatment, physicians’ fees in Ciudad Juarez vary, but Provencio calculated US patients generally pay about one-third the price in Mexico than for the comparable service in the US. Ranging the field from family doctors to specialists, Ciudad Juarez’s physicians are highly qualified to address the broad spectrum of health maladies and heal a variety of ailments, Provencio said. “The only one we don’t have is psychiatry,” the sales representative added. Provencio said the CME is especially interested in recruiting new patients from the large pool of uninsured people in the 18 to 64-year-old age bracket. Offering same-day service, the organization plans to provide transportation from the Sunland Park Mall to Ciudad Juarez soon, Provencio stressed. Provencio acknowledged that recent outbreaks of narco-violence have scared off potential patients from the US, but she insisted the CME hospital was in a secure location. “Violence doesn’t impact us, because it’s mainly bars and restaurants getting hit,” Provencio said. If the narco-violence continues on the downward spiral it has entered since the large-scale deployment of army troops on Ciudad Juarez’s streets last month, Provencio and the CME will be ready to tap into a ripe market. A recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showcased New Mexico and Texas as Numero Uno and Numero Dos, respectively, of states with the largest number of workers with no health insurance. What’s worse, the report covered the years 2006-07- long before thousands of new pink slips greeted the eyes of many borderland workers. Additional sources: El Diario de El Paso, March 25, 26 and 27, 2009. Articles by Nancy Gonzalez, Ivan Alejandro Rodriguez and the Associated Press. KDBC (El Paso), March 26, 2009. El Paso, Inc. March 22-28, 2009. Article by Robert Gray. Prospector (UTEP), March 26, 2009. Article by Herman Rojas. Juarez-El Paso Now, March 2009. Articles by Sergio Ornelas and Ramon Salcido. Office of state Senator Eliot Shapleigh, March 12, 2009. Press release. Ciudad Juarez Militarized Unlike in 2008, the Mexican military will be given authority over the
local police department, the municipal commerce department and the
troubled state prison on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, where 21
prisoners were killed by fellow inmates in a premeditated March 4 murder
spree that likely happened with the collusion of prison authorities. But prominent social activists are criticizing the militarization as an
elite exercise in attempting to resolve a crisis at the point of a gun
while marginalizing broader, popular input and missing an opportunity to
tackle varied facets of complex social problems. In 2008, for instance, the Mexico City daily Reforma’s news agency
reported the army and Federal Police initiated legal actions against 752
police officers suspected of involvement with the narco underworld in 16
states. The state of Mexico, which has served as a recruiting ground for Recent reports from both the official National Human Rights Commission
(CNDH) and the non-governmental Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights
Center (PRODH) have documented alleged human rights violations committed
by the armed forces during the course of the drug war in Ciudad Juarez and
elsewhere in Mexico. The PRODH’s study discovered that initial legal actions were taken in
about one third of the referred cases, resulting in a grand total of 11
prosecutions. The Mexico City-based PRODH, for example, said the military deployments in
Ciudad Juarez and other regions of Mexico carry far-reaching political
ramifications. During the Calderon administration, “civilian controls over
military power have disappeared,” the group charged. In an era when Latin
American military governments are a relic of the past, “military
involvement in (Mexican) civil life blocks the road to democratization,”
the human rights organization warned. Femicides on the Big Screen Again Directed by Carlos Carrera (“The Crime of Padre Amaro”) and written by Sabina Berman, the Mexican-produced film “Backyard” is the latest fictionalized story of the Ciudad Juarez femicides to hit the big screen. Distributed by Paramount Pictures and first showing February 20 in the major Cinepolis chain of theaters scattered across Mexico, the movie begins in the Ciudad Juarez colonia of Lomas de Poleo where the bodies of at least 8 women were discovered during the 1990s. A haunting scene in which police recover the remains of yet another brutally murdered woman sets the tone and pace of the gritty imagery that follows. Filmed in Ciudad Juarez and neighboring El Paso, Texas, “Backyard” is set
in the 1990s during the governorship of Francisco Barrio, who is Mexico’s
new ambassador to Canada. Barrio’s response to the femicides, which first
became public during his administration thanks to the efforts of activists “Backyard” establishes the femicides within the bigger context of the global assembly line, migration from southern Mexico to the northern borderlands, deep-rooted gender violence and a dangerous proximity to a consumer wonderland that harkens back to dictator Porfirio Diaz’s oft-quoted lament of a Mexico “so far from God and so close to the USA.” According to script-writer and co-producer Berman, the English name of the Spanish-language film derives from Ciudad Juarez’s “pocho” culture in addition to its socio-economic function as a dumping ground for junk cars, second-hand clothes and sex perverts from the US. Viewers are visually swallowed by a scene displaying the giant used tire pile on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez which, if set afire, would blaze environmental catastrophe across the borderlands. In its theme, message and plot, “Backyard” bears many similarities with
the ill-fated, 2005 Hollywood production “Bordertown”
starring Jennifer
Lopez and Antonio Banderas. In both films, an outsider arrives in Ciudad
Juarez to investigate the women’s murders only to stumble across Masterfully played by Mexican actress Ana de la Reguera, “Backyard’s
heroine is a state policewoman, Blanca Bravo, who sets about fearlessly
hunting down the multiple killers of women. In Spanish, “bravo” means
brave or aggressive. Prodding along the conscience of Blanca Bravo is a Unfortunately, no Blanca Bravo existed in the real-life saga of the Ciudad Juarez femicides. In “Backyard,” Bravo gets a rude wake-up call when she realizes evidence is being fabricated to frame “The Egyptian” for a string of murders. “The Egyptian” was, of course, Abdul Latif Sharif Sharif, who rotted to death in a Chihuahua prison after being incarcerated for crimes he vowed he did not commit. A major sub-plot revolves around Juanita, an indigenous young migrant from
southern Mexico who arrives wide-eyed to Ciudad Juarez only to experience
something far different than she could have possibly ever imagined.
Portrayed handsomely by actress Asur Zagada, Juanita is like thousands of Although maquiladora workers have accounted for a minority of Ciudad
Juarez’s femicide victims, “Backyard” mimics “Bordertown” by zeroing
in
on the industry. In a chillingly cold scene, foreign businessmen calculate
how much a woman’s life is worth in dollars and cents in Mexico, China, Like “Bordertown,” the makers of “Backyard” reportedly suffered threats while filming in Ciudad Juarez and even suspended production until security was guaranteed. Unlike “Bordertown,” however, the producers of “Backyard,” enjoyed high-level support in Mexico. Backing for the movie came from the non-profit Mexican Institute of
Cinematography, Carlos Slim’s Grupo Inbursa and the Coppel department
store chain. Interestingly, the film credits mention the city and state
governments of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, including the state attorney Never genuinely prosecuted, the Ciudad Juarez femicides became
institutionalized in the border city and soon extended across Mexico.
Amid a backdrop of impunity, a final and sure-to-be controversial scene in “Backyard” depicts a solution to the murders an increasing number of Flashing a gallery of images and places where women’s killings have tarnished the earth, Backyard” reminds its viewers that femicide is a global problem. The same week “Backyard” opened in Mexico, police were digging up the
remains of at least 11 people in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Law enforcement
authorities have so far identified two of the victims as women who were on
a
list of at least two dozen women quietly reported missing in recent Unearthed by a random hiker rather than by systematic police
investigation, the discoveries on Albuquerque’s West Mesa plant another
flag of femicide on El Camino Real, the old Royal Highway of Spanish
conquistadors. Today’s El Camino Real is marked by the killings of women As in Ciudad Juarez, no major investigation was initially launched into
the disappearance of women in Albuquerque. And as in Ciudad Juarez, Duke
City authorities were seemingly too busy wooing outside investors,
gentrifying low-income neighborhoods, beautifying medians, building plush Ultimately, “Backyard” is about ethics, said script-writer Berman in a recent interview aired on Mexican television. “When people leave the theater, their sense of right or wrong will be strengthened,” Berman assured the interviewer. Whatever impact “Backyard” eventually will have is hard to say, but
movie-goers at a recent showing in Mexico left the theater speechless. Additional sources: Toronto Sun, February 26, 2009. Koat.com, February 25,
2009. Associated Press, February 24, 2009. Article by Maggie Shepard.
Milenio TV, February 22, 2009. La Cronica de Hoy, February 20, 2009.
Cimacnoticias.com, Feburary 19, 2009. Filmweb.net, October 21, 2008.
Revistaletrasymas.blogspot.com, July 10, 2008. Allbiz.com/Hollywood The Kidnap Data Base Scandal In the United States, identity theft can lead to nightmares with credit card companies and other institutions. In the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, it could mean disappearance and worse. At least that’s the implication of the arrest of two men by the Mexican army in Ciudad Juarez late last week. According to the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office (PGJE), the two
suspects, Leopoldo Sanchez and Rico were picked up by Mexican soldiers after an alleged kidnap victim escaped and alerted an army patrol to the whereabouts of a safe house where the two men were detained. In addition to the CD data base, Sanchez and Rico Gonzalez were allegedly busted with drugs, weapons and ammunition. According to one media account, one of the arrested men might be a US citizen. El Diario de Juarez newspaper reported that Leopoldo Sanchez claimed he is the brother of former Chihuahua state policeman Ramon Alberto Sanchez Medina, who was arrested in connection with the notorious “House of Death” case in 2004. Together with 12 other state cops, Sanchez was charged with crimes after the bodies of a dozen men, tortured and killed by drug lords with the complicity of an Immigration Customs and Enforcement agent, were discovered buried in graves in the backyard of a home in the middle-class Ciudad Juarez neighborhood of Las Acequias. Exonerated of legal charges in 2008, Ramon Sanchez denies any involvement in the murders and proclaims his innocence. The former officer reportedly now works for a customs brokerage firm. It’s not yet clear how far and wide the information on the CD confiscated from Leopoldo Sanchez and Rico Gonzalez could have traveled. Pirate CDs, DVDs, computer programs and copied contraband galore are easily available south of the US border. Many Juarez residents, ranging from low-ranking teachers to veteran medical professionals, have reported being the target of extortion threats and/or actual kidnappings in recent months. Short of use in a violent extortion, the information contained on the confiscated CD might be useful in preparing false documents and even voter identify cards, an especially valuable piece of fake identification as Mexico prepares for congressional elections in 2009. The PGJE demanded the federal Office of the Attorney General (PGR)
thoroughly investigate the compact disc taken from Leopoldo Sanchez and
Rico Gonzalez, but unidentified sources within the PGR later told Ciudad
Juarez media no obvious crime was linked to the simple existence of the Sources: Lapolaka.com, February 4, 2009. El Diario de Juarez, February 4,
2009. Articles by Gabriela Minjares and editorial staff. La Jornada,
Feburary 4, 2009. Article by Miroslava Breach Border Land Battle Sizzles Health Professionals Stage Work Stoppage A brief work stoppage called by Ciudad Juarez health care professionals came to an end on Saturday, December 13. The one-day strike was not over wages or regular working conditions, but focused on the fears and frustrations of doctors and other professionals over their city’s rapidly deteriorating public safety situation. As part of the action, hundreds of members of the medical profession, their faces covered with surgical masks, held a protest rally December 12, Virgin of Guadalupe Day, at the giant Mexican flag readily visible across the Rio Grande River in neighboring El Paso, Texas. Similar actions over similar issues also have been staged this year by health care providers in Tijuana, Baja California. Fearing for their security, anonymous speakers denounced numerous kidnappings, extortions, robberies, and threats against health care professionals. According to one demonstrator, at least 12 doctors or family members have been kidnapped and extorted in 2008. In some cases, armed groups have reportedly showed up at private businesses to demand protection payments. Nearly two-dozen private health clinics and offices have reportedly closed because of the crime wave, and an undetermined number of professionals enticed to depart Ciudad Juarez. Protestors demanded that Chihuahua state law enforcement authorities use laws on the books against criminals, establish more random police checkpoints on public streets, activate surveillance cameras at intersections (frequently the scenes of narco-executions), improve monitoring of police corruption, and ban tainted windows in vehicles. Some participants seconded a call by other members of Ciudad Juarez’s business establishment to protest vehicle registration fees and property and business taxes until the public safety situation improves. “ I came to exercise my right to demonstrate because I am against impunity,” said a female physician. The Ciudad Juarez demonstration attracted support from other sectors of the public. Demonstrators heard from friends and colleagues of Lidia Ramos Mancha, a 17-year-old Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez student who disappeared December 1 on her way to the school campus. Family members and friends fanned out across the city December 12 to hang posters of the missing young women in public places and seek any information of her whereabouts. At the doctor-organized rally, an argument ensued over the participation of the left-leaning National Front against Repression. Identified with Senator Rosario Ibarra, a prominent supporter of opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Front is very critical of the Mexican army’s human rights record in anti-organized crime operations in Ciudad Juarez and elsewhere in Mexico. Murder and other crimes have soared since the introduction of military anti-drug units to Ciudad Juarez last spring. In the most recent episode involving Mexican troops, a pregnant woman, Gabriela Arzate, was shot to death by soldiers at a military installation near Chihuahua City on December 11. The victim was a passenger in a truck that was reportedly fleeing assassins and could have been confused by soldiers for a hostile vehicle attempting to penetrate the army base; military authorities said they were investigating the slaying. The Ciudad Juarez work stoppage drew the support of health care professionals from both the private and public sectors, including doctors, nurses, nutritionists, psychologists and others. Organizers said at least 30 telephone threats warning against participation in the action were tallied in the last hours before the protest. During the mass demonstration, several follow-up tasks agreed to by the Citizens and Physicians Committee against Public Insecurity in Ciudad Juarez were read to the crowd. Meanwhile, the public safety crisis that sparked the doctors’ action in the first place kept getting deeper even as demonstrators gathered. On December 12, at least six people were reported dead from recent criminal acts. The victims included a four-year-old boy, Kevin Sanchez, who died from wounds suffered during an attack several days earlier that authorities said was directed against the young boy’s father. Nearly 1,500 people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez this year so far, and at least 16 men and 16 women remain missing. Sources: Norte, December 13, 2008. Articles by Salvador Castro, Nohemi Barraza and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, December 10 and 13, 2008. Articles by Ramon Chaparro, Pedro Sanchez Briones and editorial staff. La Jornada, December 13, 2008. Articles by Ruben Villalpando and editorial staff. Lapolaka.com, December 12, 2008. Juarez Crime Reporter Murdered, Attacks against Press Intensify El Diario de Juarez journalist Armando Rodriguez Carreon was well-known for countless stories about gangland killings in his hometown of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. For years, the 40-year-old police beat reporter tirelessly published pieces about the latest executions in a violence-torn city. Rodriguez launched his journalistic career as a technician and photographer for the Ciudad Juarez Channel 44 television station before moving into print during the early 1990s. His newspaper career closely paralleled the violent rise of the Juarez drug cartel and the women’s slayings that became known worldwide as femicides. Popularly known as “El Choco,” Rodriguez was among the first reporters to write about the discoveries of raped and slain women on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. Rodriguez’s stories, which relied a lot on police sources and often did not implicate any particular suspects, were characterized by an almost matter-of-fact quality that kept to the narrative even as violence kept escalating. On Thursday morning, November 13, Rodriguez became a victim himself when he was shot outside his home by a gunman who reportedly fled in a waiting car. No possible motive for the homicide was publicly disclosed, but it was reported that Rodriguez received a text threat on his cell-phone earlier this year. His killing occurred one week to the day that a severed human head was discovered at a monument to journalists in Ciudad Juarez. Local media, government officials and Mexican and international journalist organizations quickly condemned Rodriguez’s killing, which carried the trademark of organized crime. Numerous public commentaries about the murder were posted on news websites in Ciudad Juarez and neighboring El Paso, Texas. The Rodriguez slaying was covered on the November 13 prime-time newscast of the US-based Spanish language television network Univision, which reaches millions of viewers. A Mexico City-based press freedom advocacy group, the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET), said crimes against journalists like Rodriguez “represent attacks against society because they damage the right to be informed.” The non-governmental organization urged authorities to conduct “an exhaustive investigation, clarify the facts and punish those responsible so impunity does not feed other crimes.” Rodriguez’s murder topped a spectacularly violent week in Ciudad Juarez and the state capital of Chihuahua City four hours down the highway to the south. Incidents included the gunning down of victims in public thoroughfares during peak business hours, the firebombing of businesses and the dumping of murdered bodies with intimidating messages in public places. The Rodriguez murder also came amid a new wave of threats and pressures against the Ciudad Juarez press. For instance, CEPET reported that the Ciudad Juarez daily El Mexicano was the target of intimidation by individuals purporting to be agents of the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office last week. According to CEPET, a state police officer identified as “Perez” and accompanied by other men in official vehicles strolled into the newspaper’s office November 4 and demanded to interrogate columnist Mario Hector Silva about sources the writer used in a story. When informed that Silva was not on the premises, the officers allegedly grew angry, threatened other employees and threw a photographer’s camera in the trash. With the Rodriguez killing, at least 6 journalists have been murdered in Mexico this year so far. Other victims include Oaxaca radio announcers Teresa Bautista Merino and Felicitas Martinez Sanchez, Tabasco radio man Alejandro Zenon Fonseca Estrada, Michoacan newspaper director Miguel Villagomez Valle, and Chihuahua writer David Garcia Monroy. An international observer mission spearheaded by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Article 19, Open Society Institute and other press advocacy organizations traveled to Mexico this year to investigate conditions confronting journalists. Despite legal reforms, the mission concluded that Mexican journalists are in dire circumstances due to violence, impunity and governmental indifference. Most of the 2008 journalist murders, as well as earlier cases like the 2006 murder of US journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, remain unsolved and unpunished. In a statement issued on November 11, Will’s family and lawyer took strong issue with the contention of the Office of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) that the documentarian’s killers are in custody. Criticizing the arrests of anti-government activists for the murder, the Will family said the PGR ignored forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts that point to pro-government paramilitaries and public officials as the probable killers. In its statement, the Will family called on Mexican and US civil society, as well as human rights, to “speak out about the impunity that is blocking this case from advancing and in defense of the rights to freedom of expression.” Only hours after Armando Rodriguez was murdered, the PGR informed the Mexican media that the same special unit assigned to investigate the Will homicide was looking into the killing of the Ciudad Juarez journalist. Additional sources: El Diario de Juarez, November 13, 2008. Newspapertree.com, November 13, 2008. Article by Sito Negron. Frontenet.com, November 13, 2008. Article by Sergio Valdez. Univision, November 13, 2008. CEPET, November 6 and November 13, 2008. Press statements. Lapolaka.com, October 14, 2008 and November 13, 2008. El Universal, November 13, 2008. Article by Maria de la Luz Gonzalez. La Jornada, October 11, 2008. Article by Ernesto Martinez and La Jornada Michoacan. Cimacnoticias, August 14, 2008. Article by Lourdes Godinez Leal. Uprising in Creel Tourists traveling the picturesque Copper Canyon circuit in Mexico’s northern Chihuahua state got a far different look at the country this weekend from the one promoted in glossy brochures. Taking to the streets for more than three hours on September 13, hundreds of angry residents of Creel and neighboring communities prevented the Chihuahua-Pacific train from passing through Creel. Protesting impunity in the murders of 13 people- including an infant-in Creel on August 16, demonstrators demanded the resignation of Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez, Mayor Ernesto Estrada and other officials. Most of the murder victims reportedly belonged to the family of Eliseo Loya Ochoa, Creel’s sectional president. Greeting train passengers was a large bilingual Spanish-English banner that welcomed visitors to a place where “justice is (sic) not exist.” Protestors charged that the assassins were indentified and holed up in the town of Panalachi, but that state police were afraid to detain the culprits. One news report suggested the mass slayings which shattered the peace in the mountain town had to do with illegal horse racing, a favored pastime of drug traffickers. There was no immediate comment from the Chihuahua state attorney generals’s office or Governor Jose Reyes Baeza Terrazas on the Creel uprising. Mestizos as well as indigenous Raramuri participated in the mass action. Edgar Peinado, a reporter for Ciudad Juarez’s Lapolaka Internet news service, was reportedly roughed up by Chihuahua members of the Cipol state police force during the protest. Protests continued on Sunday, September 14, as demonstrators temporarily blockaded the highway into Creel before allowing traffic to resume. The citizen movement was expected to call a truce for Monday, September 15, but plans were in the works for another demonstration on September 16, Mexico’s day of national independence. Creel residents have announced they will parade through the streets with coffins to symbolize the lives cut short almost one month ago. The conflict is the latest example of how Mexico’s public security crisis is now a political one. Meanwhile, a new mass killing was registered in the Chihuahua mountains on September 11, when four passengers of a truck, including two teenage males and one teenage female, were shot to death in the municipality of Guazapares. Eighteen-year-old Armando Corona Maldonado, the son of a former National Action Party city council member from Cuauhtemoc, Marcela Maldonado Ochoa, was reported among the victims. Sources: Lapolaka.com, September 13 and 14, 2008. El Heraldo de Chihuahua, September 14, 2008. Articles by Aurora Molina and editorial staff. Norte, September 14, 2008. Article by Angel Zubia Garcia. Frontenet.com, September 13, 2008. Activists Intensify Fight against Border Wall US work crews might be busy constructing a new wall along the border with Mexico, but opponents are not giving up their fight to halt the Bush administration’s project. At a press conference held in El Paso late last week, activists from the US and Mexico unveiled plans for a long march against the wall set to kick-off in Fort Hancock, Texas, on Wednesday, August 27. Thirteen organizations and individuals from the US and Mexico are organizing the march, including the Border Agricultural Workers Center, Democratic Campesino Front of Chihuahua, Southwest Workers Union, Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, Border Ambassadors, and others. In a statement delivered by local human rights activist Blanca Torres, protest sponsors charged the barrier will divide a region and people that share a common history, language and culture as well as a similar socio-economic predicament. Construction of the wall, Torres charged, will only aggravate divisions arising from economic distress, environmental degradation, violence and intolerance. “As natives and residents of the border, we cannot allow this division to continue without acting to end it,” Torres affirmed. “We have a moral responsibility to oppose the construction of the wall.” Supported by the US Congress, the Bush administration contends the wall is necessary to protect the US against terrorists, drug traffickers and immigrant smugglers. Opponents insist the wall will disrupt interdependent border communities, disturb wildlife habitats and corridors, defile sacred Native American sites, and damage relationships with a neighboring country with which the US is at peace. “Many people are worried about this wall in Mexico,” said Veronica Leya, Ciudad Juarez representative for the Mexico Solidarity Network. “Decisions that are taken here impact the Mexican side.” After an August 27 evening event in Fort Hancock, anti-wall activists plan to embark on a four-day march through a series of small communities south of El Paso that are near the route of the planned wall. Javier Perez, a staff member of El Paso’s Border Agricultural Workers Center, said the march will make stops and hold community meetings in Tornillo, Fabens and other towns to dialogue with local residents about the wall. As scheduled, the march will conclude Sunday, August 31, with a binational event convened for the border line between Sunland Park, New Mexico, and Anapra, Mexico. Organizers intend to hold a simultaneous action to symbolically connect people across a divided border. Dozens of organizations and individuals from the US, Mexico and Central America have endorsed next week’s march. Prominent names and groups lending their support include Chicano history scholar Dr. Rudy Acuna, El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez, immigrant rights activist Maria Jimenez, the Colonias Development Council and the International Indian Treaty Council, among many others. -Kent Paterson Diesel Smuggling Network Alleged In a series of articles this month, Ciudad Juarez’s Norte daily contended a large-scale, diesel smuggling network was thriving in the border region. According to reporter Antonio Rebolledo, at least five Mexican and three US companies are involved in the lucrative enterprise. Driving the business is global energy economics: diesel fuel costs about half the price in Mexico than in the US and could be sold for a respectable profit on this side of the border. While a surge in the number of individual US drivers crossing the Mexican border to fill up their tanks was readily evident earlier this year, Norte was the first media outlet to thoroughly document what is now big business. Wrote Rebolledo, “In less than three months, small-scale diesel contraband has been converted into an organized, mechanized network of trafficking and transporting Mexican diesel to the US." Capping a lengthy investigation, Norte alleged that diesel is transferred from Mexico’s national Pemex oil company to trucks with large, modified fuel tanks and then driven across the border for distribution at five sites in neighboring El Paso, Texas. Reportedly, a video documenting one such operation has been posted on You Tube. Frontera NorteSur received reports of similar diesel exporting operations in Baja California earlier this year. Most recently, Pemex official Arnulfo Trevino Ramos declared that as much as 5,000 gallons of diesel were detected as being sold in a single transaction during multiple times in Baja California this year. In Mexico’s southern border region, complaints have also surfaced of Mexican diesel diverted to Guatemala. The trucks allegedly participating in the Ciudad Juarez diesel trafficking scheme belong to companies that service the local maquiladora export industry. Jorge Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for one of the five Mexican companies allegedly involved, OTI, denied his firm was involved in smuggling. Rebolledo, however, contended that OTI’s fleet alone could be responsible for exporting more than 35,000 gallons of Pemex fuel to the US every week. Sources cited by Norte said they had been aware of the business for at least two months. According to the newspaper, truck drivers could be making multiple trips across the border every day, using different ports of entry in order to not raise suspicions of customs inspectors. With Pemex diesel purportedly fetching profits between 59 cents and 94 cents per gallon in the US, Rebolledo calculated that each truck could rake in $13,801 each month. Since an estimated 4,000 trucks cross the Ciudad Juarez-El Paso corridor daily, ample opportunities exist for shipping large amounts of diesel and making money. Under Mexican and US laws, the business is not specifically illegal. In a phone interview with Frontera NorteSur before the Norte series was published, US Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rick Lopez said companies and individuals involved in commercial diesel and gasoline exporting must submit the appropriate paperwork and comply with all applicable state and federal laws, including environmental regulations. Lopez said US customs officials in El Paso had encountered several instances in which individuals were found with 100-gallon fuel containers and then ordered to pay duties. In Ciudad Juarez, federal and local authorities have announced that drivers who carry excessive amounts of fuel in containers outside their vehicles’ tanks will be sanctioned. On August 14, Ciudad Juarez’s department of ecology and civil protection kicked off inspections of several businesses allegedly tied to diesel exporting rings. Norte’s reports, however, indicate the diesel traffickers are evading US taxes and possibly violating environmental laws by transferring fuel at makeshift sites in El Paso. For background, Norte noted two recent court cases in Texas and New Mexico in which several individuals were charged with failing to declare taxes on US diesel shipments made from 1998 to 2004. US federal and state authorities are reportedly looking into Norte’s recent stories. The sensitivity of the issue was demonstrated August 4 when several Norte reporters were allegedly pursued by unidentified individuals in a high-speed chase through the streets of El Paso after observing a suspected fuel transfer at the Westex Warehouse Inc. property in the Texas border city’s Lower Valley. The reporters’ car was nearly rammed in the pursuit, Norte charged. In recent months, cross-border diesel diversions have been widely blamed for causing fuel shortages and sowing economic havoc, especially in the states of Baja California and Chihuahua. Farmers in the Juarez Valley have complained of a lack of fuel for their machinery, while maquildora plants have suffered possible multi-million dollar losses stemming from transport delays. “We’ve detected trucks with full double tanks that cross over to El Paso and discharge their diesel while they are being delivered a second shipment of cargo,” said Walter Centeno Lopez, customs director for the Ciudad Juarez-based Maquiladora Association. “For this reason, (trucks) are delayed as they market the fuel.” On the other hand, cheaper diesel has encouraged a price-bidding war between border transportation companies in the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez area, with some outfits lowering their daily rates from $80 or $70 to $50 or $60. In a larger sense, Pemex diesel diversions are politically embarrassing for the Mexican government at a moment when a controversial reform of the state-owned company is under consideration by the Mexican Congress. Claiming declining oil reserves, the administration of President Felipe Calderon is urging lawmakers to approve measures that will ease the way for private sector participation in drilling for deep-water oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Undoubtedly, much of the new oil would end up consumed in the United States. Currently, Mexico is the fourth largest supplier of crude oil to the United States, supplying 205.2 million barrels valued at approximately $18.4 billion during the first six months of 2008. Some find the entire notion of diesel smuggling absurd. Since the Mexican government guarantees a “preferential price” for diesel and gasoline, shipping diesel fuel to the US represents in effect a foreign subsidy for the US trucking industry. Moreover, Mexico actually imports in the neighborhood of 40 percent of its gasoline and more than 14 percent of its diesel, according to federal Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel. “We sell cheap, buy expensive, sell cheap again, and the damage to the country is very high,” said Tirso Martinez, outgoing president of the National Chamber of Freight Transportation. “The authorities have to do something to stop the sale of fuel that is benefiting foreigners as in the cases of Guatemala and the United States,” Martinez said, “because they are taking away a product that costs the country a lot at a lower price than they sell to us. This is ridiculous.” Jesus Felipe Gonzalez, another official of Martinez’s organization, recently proposed that the Mexican government decree a lower fuel price for its citizens and a higher one for foreigners. Chihuahua state representative Gerardo Fierro said Norte’s series was “all the evidence” needed to raise the diesel trafficking issue in both the Chihuahua state legislature and the Mexican Congress. Fierro pledged to introduce a resolution soon in the Chihuahua legisaltive body that will demand Pemex disclose its wholesale dealings with diesel distributors. “It is not just for the Mexican people to subsidize diesel for the big rich people of the country and now the US,” he said. Apart from any stronger governmental controls in both Mexico and the US, it remains to be seen if the cross-border diesel trade will remain profitable in the days and weeks ahead. Currently, fuel prices are dipping on the US side while going up slightly on the Mexican side. Sources: Norte, August 10, 11,12, 13, 14, 15, 2008. Articles by Antonio Rebolledo and Herika Martinez Prado. La Jornada, August 14, 2008. Article by Miriam Posada Garcia. El Diario de Juarez/EFE, August 13, 2008. Frontera, August 12, 2008. Lapolaka.com, August 5, 2008. Frontenet.com, August 3, 2008. Felipe Calderon and the Super-Maquiladora For a few hours on July 22, Mexican President Felipe Calderon toured turbulent Ciudad Juarez. Declaring that his government was “putting the house in order,” Calderon touched ground in a place that is far from orderly these days. In recent days, and with half the year barely over, gangland-style executions that even continued during the president’s visit pushed the 2008 homicide toll to nearly 600 murders. Immediately preceding Calderon’s trip, another shake-up in federal law enforcement occurred in Ciudad Juarez. Rolando Alvarado, Chihuahua delegate for the Office of the Federal Attorney General, was replaced by Hector Garcia, who previously held the post in the early part of the decade. President Calderon, however, emphasized what he considered upbeat economic news. On his visit, the Mexican president inaugurated a new Electrolux appliance plant and a Flextronics factory. “Our strategic geographic position allows us to bring inputs from the east, give them added value, manufacture them in Mexico and export them to the west coast or east coast or center of the United States or to Europe,” Calderon said. “Mexico can be and is called on being the economic link between the European Union, the American one and Asian markets, not to mention the emerging markets of Latin America.” Calderon went on to laud Ciudad Juarez, calling it a “strategic point that has the enormous advantage of being able to produce at very competitive prices and at the same time have the biggest client of the world practically at its door-step.” Soaring fuel expenses and rising labor costs in places like China are encouraging a shift of the global assembly line back to Mexico, which lost some production to the Far East in recent years. Separately, Jabil Circuit and Sanmina SCI have announced they will rely more on Mexican production. Last week, ground was broken for a massive Foxconn plant on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez that will employ anywhere from 9,000 to 40,000 workers, depending on the source. Owned by Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision, the electronics company produces components for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and other industry giants. In a Ciudad Juarez speech, Calderon stressed Mexico’s growing importance in the global electronics industry. He noted, for example, how Mexico’s electronics exports reached $62 billion in 2007. Electronics now constitute a 27 percent share of the country’s manufactured export product sector. As was expected, Calderon was accompanied by Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz. Praising Electrolux’s workers, Governor Reyes called Ciudad Juarez a city of “opportunities” and “generosity” that is going through trying times. Despite the all the problems, Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua are experiencing economic expansion, he added, citing Electrolux, Foxconn and other companies. Representatives of local non-governmental organizations were far less enthusiastic about Cipirana Jurado, director of the Worker Research and Solidarity Center, said 2006 presidential candidate Calderon vowed to punish the killers of women and curb femicides in Ciudad Juarez. “He made promises to the community when he was a candidate for the presidency and one of those was to address the femicides, but nothing has happened” Jurado said. The former maquiladora worker, who was arrested by federal police earlier this year and then released on charges related to a 2005 demonstration, added that Calderon’s special federal prosecutor, Guadalupe Morfin, has yet to visit Ciudad Juarez in her new capacity. Formerly the head of President Fox’s femicide commission in Ciudad Juarez, Morfin was appointed as federal prosecutor for crimes against women and human trafficking last winter. Calderon did not publicly mention the femicides in any of his Ciudad Juarez presentations. Urging Calderon to broaden his agenda, Jurado contended the president is leaving ordinary citizens out in the cold. “As president of the Mexicans, Calderon should act as such, not only as the president of businessmen.” The Mexican president commented briefly on the broader security issue, noting the deployment of 4,000 soldiers and federal police in Ciudad Juarez to counter organized crime. However, he avoided other thorny issues .There was no mention of the Bush administration’s border wall, for instance, or of the growing imprisonment and deportation of undocumented Mexican immigrants in the United States. Calderon also failed to mention the mothballed Asarco smelter across the river in El Paso, a hot environmental issue in Ciudad Juarez. Critics of the president expressed their opposition during Calderon’s stop-over. Blocked by an estimated 200 police transported on maquiladora industry buses, a small group of demonstrators slammed the military presence in Ciudad Juarez and blasted the president for promoting the privatization of Pemex. Supported by the center-left Democratic Party of the Revolution and allied groups, anti-privatization forces will conduct a non-binding citizen referendum on the Calderon administration’s proposal to reform Pemex beginning July 27. Local reporters charged they were forcibly excluded by the presidential guard from adequately covering Calderon, who was accompanied by privileged “chilango” journalists from Mexico City, according to one account. The Mexican president did not offer a news conference during his Ciudad Juarez day-trip. Sources: Lapolaka.com, July 21 and 22, 2008. El Diario de Juarez, July 21 and 22, 2008. Articles by Sandra Rodriguez, Javier Arroyo and the Reforma news agency. El Paso Times, July 22, 2008. Article by Diana Washington Valdez. Norte, July 21, 22 and 23, 2008. Articles by Felix A. Gonzalez and editorial staff. Presidencia.gob.mx, July 22, 2008. Press releases. El Universal/Notimex, July 22, 2008. Chihuahua’s Highway of Doom? Chihuahua state authorities say it could take up to a month to officially identify the victims of a fiery truck-bus crash that claimed 14 lives north of Chihuahua City early on the morning of June 29. The collision happened when a tractor trailer slammed into a bus that was pulled alongside the Pan American Highway. Belonging to the Omnibus de la Comarca Lagunera line, the Ciudad Juarez-destined bus had stopped to help another bus from the same company that was stranded with a flat tire. Suddenly, a tractor-trailer transporting tons of glass rammed into the Good Samaritan bus, spreading diesel fuel that caught fire and engulfed trapped passengers in flames. In addition to the 14 dead, most of whom were burned beyond recognition, 46 people were reported injured, 9 of them seriously. Among the dead was the driver of the truck. The two buses were carrying 86 people at the time of the accident, and the death toll would likely have been higher if many people had not left the buses to walk around while the flat was being repaired. Sadly, the June 29 tragedy was but the latest in a series of fatal bus accidents that have haunted the stretch of the Pan American Highway between Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City in recent years. On April 14, 2007, another early morning bus-truck collision killed 25 people and injured 21 others. Similar to this year’s accident, a 15-ton tractor trailer rear-ended a bus, spilling diesel fuel that rapidly ignited and burned victims to death. An April 2006 bus accident outside Ciudad Juarez killed 9 people and injured 21 others. In late 2004, a so-called "pirate" bus, or one that did not have official authorization, crashed on the highway outside Ciudad Juarez, resulting in the deaths of 12 passengers. As in the wake of previous tragedies, questions were immediately raised about bus company practices as well as the government’s record of enforcing transportation and safety laws. The company involved in the June 29 accident, Omnibus de la Comarca Lagunera, is among numerous outfits that offer low-cost bus fares from Ciudad Juarez to various cities in the Mexican interior. Most of the economy bus lines are licensed as tourist enterprises, which raises questions about their constant inter-city runs. Break-downs and flat tires often accompany the long-distance journeys between the border and interior destinations. Mexican law permits the companies to operate buses as old as 15 years, but some media reports allege vehicles manufactured as far back as 1970 are being used. Situated in downtown Ciudad Juarez and other departure points in the border city, the low-fare bus lines are popular with maquiladora workers and others who find that the bigger national companies which operate from the city’s main bus terminal are too expensive. Under current law, inter-city bus lines that use national highways mainly come under the regulatory authority of the federal Secretariat of Communications and Transportation and the Federal Police, Chihuahua state government spokespersons said. Still, state and federal authorities plan to carry out joint inspections and reviews of the operation of bus companies, said Sergio Granados Pineda, Chihuahua state government secretary. “It’s not a matter of seeing who is responsible for this thing or that, but cooperating to make sure that the service being offered is good,” Granados said. Rodrigo Macias, Ciudad Juarez manager for Omnibus de la Comarca Lagunera, rejected the suggestion that his company was a “pirate” line. The bus line has proper documentation, issues tickets and counts on an insurance policy, Macias said. The company will pay all necessary costs accrued by victims’ relatives and survivors, he added.As public schools dismiss for summer vacation, bus travel is expected to increase significantly in the coming days. Father Ignacio Villanueva, parish priest for Ciudad Juarez’s downtown cathedral, lamented the June 29 tragedy, and urged the government to crack down on bus companies that jeopardize lives. The people already know the risks they run when using these kinds of buses, Father Villanueva said, “but they continue using them to save a few pesos in spite of the risks.” Sources: Norte June 30, 2008; July 1 and 2, 2008. Articles by Angel Zubia Garcia, Ricardo Espinoza and Felix A. Gonzalez. La Jornada, July 1, 2008. Article by M.Breach and Ruben Villalpando. El Diario de Juarez, June 29, 2008. Article by David Alvidrez and Orlando Chavez. Lapolaka.com, June 29 and 30, 2008. Mexican Army Human Rights Abuses Charged Nearly three months after the Mexican army kicked off Operation Chihuahua Together against drug trafficking organizations in Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua, multiple accusations of human rights violations committed by soldiers are surfacing in the press . A hot point of contention is in the Juarez Valley just outside the border city of the same name. Long the stomping ground of drug traffickers and other criminal bands, the rural area bordering the Rio Grande has been the target of repeated army raids in recent weeks. Josefina Reyes, a resident of the town of Guadalupe Bravo, charged that soldiers recently raided her home and destroyed property before making off with a cell phone and other goods. “On that day, there were around 25 more searches in which they made off with various people,” Reyes said. As of mid-June, 50 legal complaints against the army had been filed with the PGR’s Ciudad Juarez office. The complaints accuse the army of committing abuses of authority, carrying out illegal detentions, forcibly disappearing citizens, conducting improper searches, and inflicting bodily injuries and damages. In one of the worst incidents, three men were shot to death by soldiers June 8 at an army checkpoint near Cuahtemoc in the central part of Chihuahua. The full story of the incident is still not thoroughly known, and it isn’t certain whether the killings were the result of an intentional attempt by the victims to run the roadblock or due to an accident related to possible drunken driving and/or the failing brakes of the victims’ car. Reportedly, the soldiers began shooting after the suspect vehicle struck and severely injured a soldier. A reporter on the scene, El Diario’s Hugo Reyes, was forced to lie on the ground by soldiers. A member of the Chihuahua State Congress’ human rights commission, legislator Victor Quintana, showed up at the site of the incident but said he was denied access by the military. Meanwhile, Chihuahua’s official State Human Rights Commission (CEDH) received 28 complaints about the army in May and an additional 32, mainly from the border town of Ojinaga, during the first 11 days of June. Jose Luis Armendariz Gonzalez, CEDH president, said complaints have also come from the municipalities of Chihuahua, Manuel Benavides, Madera, Guachochi, Delicias, Cuahtemoc, Namiquipa, Bachiniva, and Casas Grandes. According to Armendariz, human rights cases involving the army are turned over to the National Human Rights Commission in Mexico City for further action. CEDH investigator Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson contended that human rights violations shared a “dangerous pattern.” Many of the purported victims, he said, were small-time drug dealers and addicts who were beaten and tortured. According to the official, detainees have been allegedly subjected to electric shocks, simulated suffocations with plastic bags and razor cuts at army installations. De la Rosa compared the reports with the rampages of the 1970s Dirty War, a period of time when torture and disappearance were widely employed by the Mexican government against dissidents and suspected guerrillas. There was no immediate comment from the Mexican military on either the PGR or CEDH complaints. At the state level, elected officials have begun showing some concern about the army’s alleged abuses. Earlier this month, the Chihuahua State Congress exhorted the Defense Ministry to punish any soldier involved in abuses. State Congress President Jorge Alberto Gutierrez Casas later urged military officials to come clean about the Cuahtemoc checkpoint shooting. “We are going to demand from the legislative branch that human rights not be violated in a struggle that is focused on organized crime, because what happened at the checkpoint doesn’t justify the response of the army members.” Gutierrez said. “The army is one of the institutions which has more prestige and credibility in the eyes of the citizenry, and because of this we must not permit isolated situations to end up discrediting the confidence that society has in them.” Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz struck a similar tone about the army’s reputation. Reports of human rights complaints in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua come at an especially sensitive time for both the federal Mexican and US governments. The Mexican army is expected to be the primary beneficiary of the Bush Administration’s proposed anti-drug assistance package to Mexico known as the Merida Initiative. A version of the billion dollar-plus aid plan passed the US House of Representatives last week, but it is still waiting action in the US Senate where lawmakers have attached human rights and justice system reform conditions. Both the Bush and Calderon administrations have criticized conditioning the Merida assistance as an affront to Mexico’s national sovereignty. On June 16, President Bush appealed to US lawmakers to approve Merida “without many conditions.” Human rights advocates in Mexico and abroad have long contended that the use of the Mexican military in the drug war is a violation of the nation’s Constitution which precludes the army from acting domestically in times of peace. Pressured by the escalating narco-violence, many Mexican lawmakers, business and civic leaders have agreed that the army is the only force capable of taking on the highly-organized and well-armed private armies of the various drug syndicates. Officially launched to bring organized crime under control, Operation Chihuahua Together has had decidedly mixed results even by its own objectives. Mexican soldiers and federal police have detained scores of suspects, confiscated some weapons and seized several large drug loads, but none of the leaders of the warring cartels have been arrested so far. Perhaps most importantly, the deployment has not halted the violence. Indeed, an analysis of homicide rates in Ciudad Juarez before and after the beginning of In a startling declaration, Mayor Reyes told the El Paso Times that local authorities knew that a major, violent confro |