Frontera NorteSur   2006

FNS Special Report: From Chihuahua to Chiapas : Chronicles of Mexico 's Dirty War

Editor's Note: Late on November 17, at the start of a 3-day holiday weekend, a long-awaited report from Mexico 's Office of the Federal Attorney General was released. Compiled by the staff of Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, special prosecutor for crimes against social and political movements of the past, the report officially reveals the Mexican government's practice of torturing, disappearing and executing guerrilla and other opponents from the 1960s to the early 1980s. According to the report, the Mexican government was responsible for 645 forced disappearances, 99 extrajudicial murders and more than 2,000 incidents of torture. Carrillo lays the blame for Mexico 's Dirty War on three presidents: Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverria and Jose Lopez Portillo.

Interestingly, Carrillo has a personal connection to this history. He is a relative of Denise Prieto Stock, a 19-year-old woman of Mexican-North American parentage who was killed by the Mexican army in 1974. Prieto was a member of the National Liberation Forces (FLN), the predecessor group of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. During a speech in Nuevo Leon on November 17, the Zapatistas' Subcomandante Marcos rendered tribute to Prieto and other fallen FLN militants.

Early in his term, outgoing President Vicente Fox pledged to bring to justice those responsible for going above the law and carrying out political repression. Special Prosecutor Carrillo filed legal charges against Echeverria, the sole surviving president named in his final report, and other high officials, but Mexican courts blocked the prosecutions. One of the allegedly responsible officials, General Francisco Quiroz Hermosillo, was reported to have died suddenly on November 19, only two days after the Dirty War report was released.

No official will have been punished for the Dirty War when Vicente Fox leaves office on December 1. Kate Doyle, a researcher with the Washington-based National Security Archive which has posted the Spanish-language report on its website ( www.nsarchive.org), said it will be up to new President Felipe Calderon to act on the information in the report.

Still, the more than 800 page report authored by Carrillo's office is quite unprecedented for Mexican government disclosures. In certain ways, it is Mexico 's equivalent of the truncated Church Committee CIA investigations of the 1970s and the Iran-Contra probes of the 1980s.

As a November 24 report from the United Nations Committee Against Torture on recent police abuses in Mexico also underscores, Carrillo's report has special relevance today, when the major elements of Mexico 's previous Dirty War -popular revolt, state repression and guerrilla insurgency- are resurfacing in Oaxaca and elsewhere in the country. The following article is based largely on excerpts from the Dirty War report, and is the first in an occasional series.

Kent Paterson, FNS editor

Revolt, Repression and Resistance in Chihuahua : Part One

On May 23, 1962, Mexican soldiers under the command of Captain Jose Martinez kidnapped Ruben Jaramillo and his family from their Morelos home. Carting off the campesino leader and his family, the soldiers filled their prisoners with bullets near the pre-colonial ruins of Xochicalco. As a teenager, Jaramillo had served as an officer in Emiliano Zapata's insurgent army. From the 1920s to the time of his assassination, Jaramillo kept Zapatismo alive in Morelos and much of central and southern Mexico .

Alternating between armed revolt and participation in electoral politics, Jaramillo spearheaded large peasant mobilizations that evoked Zapata's dreams of land, liberty and justice. Eventually, President Adolfo Lopez Mateos ordered the army to get rid of this pesky reminder of the still-born 1910 Revolution. Murdered along with Jaramillo were his pregnant wife and three adopted sons.

The cold-blooded killing of Jaramillo did not end the campesino revolt. Hundreds of miles to the north in the border state of Chihuahua , the old battleground of Pancho Villa, resistance was simmering. In the early 1960s, Chihuahua was fertile ground for renewed campesino risings. Nearly one-third of the state's land base of more than 50 million acres was in the hands of 300 landowners like Luis Terrazas, who alone held more than 2 million acres. Logging and cattle companies also controlled a large chunk of Chihuahua 's real estate. In 1963, 50,000 landless men wandered Chihuahua 's landscape. Discontent with the status quo was boiling over on the small ranches and in the growing cities.

In the countryside, the Ibarra family of Madera other rural strongmen known as caciques were accused of burning out small ranchers and unleashing their pistoleros on protesting campesinos, who were routinely slain with impunity. Local agrarian authorities routinely blocked presidential resolutions favoring land rights petitions, while in the state capital of Chihuahua City , officials turned a deaf ear to the protests. Collaborating with the caciques, the Chihuahua State Judicial Police (PJE) often served as the enforcement agency for the bosses. The northwestern Chihuahuan sierra bordering Sonora state was considered a "lawless land" of misery, desolation, land theft, and abandonment.

Land invasions, student protests and strikes swept Chihuahua during the early 1960s. Involving thousands of people, the protests united campesinos, students, pulp mill workers, and urban dwellers. Armed self-defense groups began forming in response to the violence of rural white guards deployed by caciques like Jose Ibarra. Politically, many of the Chihuahua activist leaders had been influenced by the national General Union of Workers and Campesinos of Mexico (UGOCM), the Mexican Communist Party, the Popular Socialist Party (usually the loyal opposition of the ruling PRI party), and the National Liberation Movement of former President Lazaro Cardenas del Rio.

School teacher Arturo Gamiz and Dr. Pablo Gomez were two of the most important movement leaders to emerge in Chihuahua . Also an educator, Dr. Gomez was the father of former Chihuahua state legislator and prominent women's activist Alma Gomez. In September 1963, the Chihuahua protests reached Mexico City , when the UGOCM conducted a public protest in the capital city. A month later, Gamiz and Dr. Gomez held a meeting with President Diaz Ordaz about their grievances but walked away empty-handed.

In 1964, Gamiz, Dr. Gomez and others took up arms. Launching the Popular Guerrilla Group (GPG), they directed their first actions against the caciques. The new guerrilla group burned down the Ibarra home in Madera , destroyed other properties that belonged to the family, including a radio station in Mineral de Dolores, and executed Florentino Ibarra, who was blamed for killing an indigenous Pima man, Carlos Rios Torres.

In response to the guerrilla offensive, the Mexican army sent soldiers into the northwestern Sierra and began torturing campesinos. Residents-even children- were hanged from trees for hours and dangled from helicopters in a unsuccessful bid to extract information about the insurgent cell.

Counterattacking, the GPG overran a PJE post that was commanded by Rito Caldera, an ex-Ibarra gunman. Once again on the trail of the insurgent group, soldiers and police left behind them a path of destroyed homes, stolen animals, uprooted crops, and more tortured victims. By 1965, the GPG, now counting two rural columns in Chihuahua , was engaging soldiers and white guards in armed clashes; the group's biggest strike was brewing.

Although the GPG grew out of a specific, rural struggle in northern Mexico , the organization did not represent an isolated, armed peasant uprising with localized demands. Influenced by the Cuban Revolution, the group called for a socialist Mexico . While pushing the armed struggle, the GPG still supported electoral politics and mass struggles as vital components of the revolution. A third GPG cell was active in Mexico City , and contacts were made with revolutionary-minded organizations and individuals throughout the country.

In the Mexico City area, the GPG got its military training from a supposed former Mexican officer, Lorenzo Cardenas Barajas. Connected to the PRI and trained at the US Army's School of the Americas , Cardenas Barajas was in fact a spy for the Mexican army. However, Cardenas ' acquaintanceship with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara gave the infiltrator a certain credibility in leftist circles.

By the fall of 1965, the GPG was preparing to launch its biggest action to date: the assault on the Mexican army barracks in Madera , Chihuahua . A force of more than 40 guerrillas was supposed to participate in the raid, but logistical complications and organizational foul-ups left a reduced contingent of 15 men outside the barracks on the morning of September 23, 1965. Underestimating the number of soldiers inside the military installation, the 15 guerrillas unleashed their attack against a reinforced garrison which had been tipped off by spy Cardenas Barajas' intelligence that something big was in the works somewhere.

When the shooting was over, 17 people were dead: 8 guerrillas, 7 soldiers and 2 civilians caught in cross-fire. 8 civilians and 7 soldiers were also wounded. Arturo Gamiz and Dr. Pablo Gomez, two of the three principal Chihuahua leaders of the GPG, died in the combat. In a ghoulish warning to the population, the bodies of Gamiz, Dr. Gomez and the other guerrillas were publicly exhibited in a truck parked in the center of Madera . Seven of the eight fallen insurgents were then hastily buried in a common grave.

In a famous statement, Chihuahua Gov. General Giner Duran said, "They wanted land, so let them eat dirt." Though an official information blockade was erected around Madera , word of the attack still leaked out to the national press.

Madera and the nearby mountains were militarized, and all the homes in the town of about 12,000 people were thoroughly searched; dozens of people were arbitrarily detained and interrogated. Troops were parachuted into the mountains, and at least one civilian, Rodolfo Dominguez Galaviz, was killed by soldiers as he attempted to speak with General Gonzalo Bazan Guzman. More than 100 people were rounded up and transported to the Madera military base, where they were held on the floor of a building hog-tied and naked. The region was under military siege.

On the Day of the Dead 1965, 500 people defied the blanket of repression in Madera and gathered at the grave of the guerrillas to lay wreaths and pay homage. Decades later, hundreds would still periodically gather for a memorial in Madera on the anniversary of the attack. Scattering in the wind, the GPG survivors of the Madera assault regrouped in Mexico City . Plans were already being hatched to move forward with the revolution that for some began in the Chihuahua mountains on September 23, 1965.

Sources: pgr.gob.mx. nsarchive.org. Proceso/Apro, November 21, 2006. El Diario de Juarez, November 24, 2006. La Jornada, November 19, 2006. The Arms of Dawn, Carlos Montemayor. (Joaquin Moritz/Planeta, 2003)

Mayors Mobilize Against Border Walls

Mayors in Texas and the northern Mexican border state of Coahuila are mobilizing their opposition to the new series of border walls planned by the Bush Administration. Supported by Mexican mayors and representatives of non-governmental organizations, a 3-day march against the walls commenced November 7 in the Coahuila border city of Ciudad Acuna . Evaristo Lenin Perez Rivera, the mayor of Ciudad Acuna, said the action was directed against both Washington and Mexico City because of the two national governments' "incapacity to resolve common problems while trying to divide a community of neighbors with a mud wall."

Drawing the support of Coahuila state labor, educational and commercial groups like the Canacintra and Canaco business associations, the march is expected to culminate at a November 10 rally in Piedras Negras, which is also on the Mexico-US border. The Coahuila anti-border wall march moved forward as incoming Mexican President Felipe Calderon flew to Washington this week for meetings with US Latino leaders and President Bush. A critic of the border wall plan, Calderon has called for "bridges for progress and not walls that isolate and divide."

Back on the protest march, meanwhile, Mayor Perez, who was joined by Mayor Francisco Trujillo of Jimenez, Coahuila, said he was uplifted by the results of the November 7 election in the United States that saw President Bush's Republican Party lose control of Congress. Mayor Perez said he was confident the new US Congress would cut the budget for the planned series of walls that will extend 700 miles along Mexico 's northern border.

On the US side of the border, Richard F. Cortez, the mayor of McAllen, Texas, said in a recent interview with the Mexican press that he and other Texas mayors from "El Paso to Brownsville" hope to meet soon in Laredo, Texas, with United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in order to convey their rejection of the fencing plans.

" Washington politicians should understand that for us, the citizens of Texas , crossing the Rio Grande is like crossing the Potomac . We have friends and cousins on the other side.." Cortez said. "The people of the United States are uninformed. They think that immigrants come to carry out crimes."

While criticizing Washington , Mayor Cortez also scored Mexico City for not doing enough to curb emigration. Calling on both countries to seek the "path" of dialogue, Mayor Cortez said that the Texas border economy depends on the dollars spent by Mexican consumers who shop in McAllen and other cities. "Between 35-45 percent of the sales of businesses in McAllen depend on Mexican customers," Mayor Cortez added. "This is a very serious situation," Mayor Cortez said. "As neighboring countries we should not be just cousins," he added. We should get along as brothers."

Sources: Zocalo.com.mx, November 9, 2006. Article by Enrique Gonzalez Correa. El Universal, November 6, 2006. Articles by Juan Cedillo and Hilda Fernandez Valverde. Albuquerque Journal/Associated Press, November 9, 2006. Article by George Gedda.

Fresh Violence Hits the Press

Physical attacks against Mexican journalists and press institutions continue to take their toll. Veteran Chihuahua journalist Enrique Perea became the latest victim when he disappeared on August 7. Perea's tortured and bullet-riddled body was found two days later outside Chihuahua City . A well-known crime reporter who had worked for El Heraldo newspaper of Chihuahua City and other press outlets, Perea had founded a new magazine dedicated to covering organized crime themes. In its last issues, Perea's magazine criticized the Chihuahua state government for the high rates of violent crime in the border state.

Perea was the 25th Mexican journalist murdered since 1995. Three other journalists are missing. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Mexico is now second only to Colombia in the number of journalists murdered in the Western Hemisphere during the last 11 years.

In southern Mexico , two attackers, one of whom was armed with an Israeli-style Uzi submachine gun, assaulted the offices of the Noticias daily in Oaxaca City also on August 9. Six persons were wounded in the shooting, including newspaper vendors Isabel Cruz and Adrian Cervantes. Noticias is Oaxaca state's largest circulation daily and a vocal opponent of the state government run by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The newspaper has had a long-running battle with business and political sectors connected to the PRI. After violent attacks were directed against Noticias in 2004, the IACHR ordered the implementation of protective measures.

Far from isolated incidents, the most recent attacks against the press should be viewed as part and parcel of a landscape of criminal and political violence. Gangland-style executions like the Perea killing are almost a daily occurrence in Chihuahua state. In the same week the well-known journalist was killed, other slayings bearing the hallmarks of organized crime splashed across the headlines. Marcos Arturo Nazar Contreras, the chief of the Chihuahua State Agency for Investigations in Ciudad Juarez , was gunned down by assassins on August 7, while Julio Cesar Vazquez Manjarraz, the owner of the New Paradise bar in Ciudad Juarez , was shot to death in an August 9 incident outside his business establishment.

In Oaxaca , violence arising from political motives is on the upswing. A mass uprising against PRI Governor Ulises Ruiz continues to gain force as opponents organized into the Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People (APPO) seize city halls, set up roadblocks and stage economic boycotts to force Ruiz from office. The protestors are demanding that the federal congress dissolve state powers in Oaxaca . On Wednesday, August 9, the same day as the Oaxaca City attack against the Noticias daily, three members of the Unifying Movement of the Independent Triqui Struggle and the APPO were killed in an ambush in the Mixteca region of the state.

Meanwhile, Mexican journalist Rafael Ortiz Martinez remains missing after he vanished more than one month ago in northern border state of Coahuila. The 32-year-old reporter for the Zocalo newspaper of Moncolva was last reported seen the afternoon of Saturday, July 8. Shortly before his disappearance, Ortiz had published stories about clandestine prostitution in Moncolva.

Unconfirmed versions report that Ortiz also had knowledge about a rape reportedly committed by Mexican soldiers in the municipality of Frontera this summer. In an interview with the Mexico City-based Cimac news service, Frontera Mayor Rogelio Ramos Sanchez denied that Mexican soldiers were involved in a rape in his municipality's red-light zone. Ramos contended that he knew Ortiz "got lost," and strongly suggested that the media "be very careful about what it says."

Ortiz's disappearance attracted the attention of the international journalist community. The Mexico City-based Center for Journalism and Public Ethics sent letters of concern to President Vicente Fox, Coahuila Governor Humberto Moreira and David Vega, a special federal prosecutor for crimes against journalists. Responding on behalf of Gov. Moreira, Coahuila State Attorney General Jesus Torres Charles wrote, "We share the concern that exists for Rafael Ortiz's physical safety, and for the attack against freedom of expression and the press that this incident could imply." Attorney General Torres pledged to devote the state's full resources in an effort to locate Ortiz. Weeks later, however, there is no sign of the disappeared journalist.

Sources: La Jornada, August 10, 2006 . Articles by Hermann Bellinghausen and Octavio Velez. El Diario de Juarez, August 10, 2006 . Article by Mauricio Rodriguez. LaPolaka.com, August 9, 2006 . El Universal, August 8 and August 9, 2006 . Articles by Luis Carlos Cano, Carlos Coria Rivas and Genaro Altamirano. Proceso/Apro, August 8, 2006 . Article by Alejandro Gutierrez. Cimacnoticias.com, July 31, 2006 and August 8,2006. Articles by Soledad Jarquin Edgar and editorial staff. Cepet.org

Drug Cartel Violence Shakes Peru

Violence blamed on Mexican drug traffickers is shaking Peru . In a July 19 attack month widely attributed to organized crime, an unidentified gunman shot to death Peruvian Judge Hernan Saturno Vergara in a Lima restaurant. At the time of his murder, Judge Saturno was presiding over criminal cases involving alleged members of the Tijuana Cartel. The 60-year-old judge reportedly had received threats prior to his slaying.

General Carlos Olivo Valenzuela, the chief of Peru 's anti-narcotics national police, later commented that Mexican drug cartels have established an important foothold in his country. General Olivo said Peruvian law enforcement officials have detected the presence of drug traffickers linked to organizations from the Mexican states of Baja California , Chihuahua , Jalisco, Sinaloa, and Guanajuato.

"We've destroyed part of these organizations and confiscated a great quantity of drugs," said General Olivo. "This speaks of police work, but it certainly indicates an increase in the activity of Mexican cartels."

General Olivo estimated that Peru supplies 30 to 32 percent of the cocaine exported to Mexico , with Colombia and Bolivia providing the remainder of product that's sent to Mexican shores. Largely cultivated in the Huallaga and Apurimac-Ene valleys, Peruvian coca leaves are then converted into paste and transported to laboratories in the coastal region for final processing. In addition to the Mexicans, Peruvian drug producers count Dutch, South African, Middle Eastern, Russian, and Afghan buyers as their principal clients. Argentina and Chile serve as transshipment points for the export of cocaine headed to nations other than Mexico .

Arguing for greater Peruvian military involvement in combating drug trafficking, Chief Olivo estimated that about 20 percent of the cocaine currently produced in Peru is confiscated by law enforcement authorities. Additionally, about 26,000 acres of coca plantings were eliminated in 2005.

Six Mexican nationals, including Miguel Morales Morales, are defendants in a high-profile case stemming from the 2002 seizure of a ton of cocaine in a northern Peruvian port. Morales is reportedly married to the daughter of alleged Peruvian drug trafficker Tito Lopez Paredes, supposedly one of his country's major capos. Judge Saturno's murder has sent shockwaves through the Peruvian justice system. According to reports, other judges investigating major drug cases are now afraid to appear on camera.

Sources: Univision, July 20 and July 25, 2006 . Radio Cooperativa ( Chile )/EFE, July 19, 2006 . El Universal/Notimex, July 23, 2006 . Living in Peru.com/La Republica/Oscar Chumpitz C.

Where Have All the Mexican Soldiers Gone?

Coahuila state Governor Humberto Moreira Valdes expressed concern this week about the sudden, public disappearance of Mexican army units from his state. The border state governor contended that the withdrawal of Mexican army units from checkpoints and posts could encourage a "cockroach effect" by leaving the pantry wide open to organized crime. Moreira had no explanation for the Mexican army's vanishing act, but he speculated that it could be related to the intensifying post-electoral conflict in Mexico City .

"I don't know if this had to do with the election conflict, which perhaps we haven't appreciated in its full dimension here in the northern part of the country," Gov. Moreira said. "Maybe this redeployment of military forces is directly associated with what is happening in the center of the country."

Press dispatches reported that Mexican army outposts in Muzquiz, Saltillo , Cuatrocienegas, Ciudad Acuna, and Piedras Negras appeared practically deserted this week, while soldiers who normally staffed highway checkpoints were nowhere in sight. Military guards were reported to have been withdrawn from an airport in Sabinas and security duties turned over to the Federal Preventive Police and Coahuila state police, whose personnel conducted sporadic visits.

The Mexican Defense Ministry made no immediate public statements in response to Gov. Moreira's comments, but press bulletins posted on the armed forces' web site emphasized continued anti-drug campaigns underway in different regions of Mexico . An investigation by one reporter in the city of Moncolva , Coahuila, discovered a group of 6 soldiers quartered in a private home.

The mystery surrounding the Mexican army's public disappearance from Coahuila closely follows a growing scandal over an alleged mass rape commited by soldiers assigned to the 6th Military Zone in Muzquiz in north-central Coahuila early last July 11. Thirteen dancers and sex workers working in a rural red-light zone outside Muzquiz allege they were raped in two clubs by numerous soldiers after an altercation broke out between a soldier and security guards. One of the women lost a fetus as a result of the violence; another was hospitalized twice since the incident because of injuries sustained. Six municipal police officers were allegedly severely beaten and stripped naked by the soldiers.

Supposedly, the soldiers were guarding ballots from the July 2 election at Federal Electoral Commission installations in Moncolva, but showed up dressed in full uniform in the red-light zone late on the evening of July 10. The mass rape is alleged to have occurred over a four-hour period.

In the aftermath of the incident, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the head of the Office of the Federal Attorney General's anti-organized crime unit, said a line of investigation pointed to Los Zetas, the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel that was founded by army deserters, and whose members are sometimes reputed to don military uniforms. But subsequent probes led to active-duty soldiers as the alleged perpetrators of the July 11 attacks against the 13 women.

Although as many as 30 or more soldiers might have been involved in criminal acts, military authorities have arrested only 6 soldiers on charges of abandoning their duties; at least two other alleged culprits have deserted. Reportedly, the 6 detained soldiers were transferred to the military brig in Mazatlan , Sinaloa, to face the music for violating the military's code of justice. The Mexican Defense Ministry has not released a public statement about the scandal or detentions, and the names of the arrested soldiers have not been publicized.

Much to the criticism of human rights advocates, the soldiers have yet to face civilian charges. Coahuila State Attorney General Jesus Torres Charles vowed to issue state arrest warrants for rape, robbery and battery. "I'm ordering the soldiers arrested and put in jail," Torres said. "I won't accept any kind of arbitrary behavior by these animals." Relatives of the 6 policemen allegedly attacked by the soldiers report receiving anonymous threats on the telephone and in the streets in recent days.

Torres and Rogelio Ramos Sanchez, the mayor of the municipality of Frontera , denied they had knowledge of another rape that was reportedly committed by soldiers in Frontera's red-light zone in June. The Coahuila rape scandal follows other episodes that involved sexual assaults allegedly carried out by Mexican police or soldiers this year.

For instance, 16 policemen from Mexico state face charges of raping or sexually abusing dozens of women detainees arrested after a confrontation between authorities and protestors in the municipality of San Salvador Atenco last May. In Chihuahua, 6 soldiers from the 76th Infantry Battalion were accused in of raping a 16-year-old girl in Parral in April, while in Ciudad Juarez, a municipal policeman was arrested but later ordered released without charges after a 15-year-old accused the officer of raping her late last month.

On August 2, Roman Catholic Bishop Raul Vera Lopez led march of 500 people in the city of Moncolva in support of justice for the 13 Coahuila women. Bishop Vera said that he hopes the Mexican army's sudden absence from Coahuila was not in response to the rape scandal. "(Soldiers) are the ones that should receive punishment and not the citizenry. They must not send a message that they are untouchables,” Bishop Vera said.

After experiencing a spike in narco-linked violence, the Mexican army stepped up its presence in Coahuila, especially in Ciudad Acuna on the Mexico-US border, where a shoot-out reportedly involving Los Zetas claimed the life of a police officer two months ago. By August 4, officers from the Office of the Federal Attorney General and the National Migration Institute were reported in charge of at least one of the highway checkpoints previously staffed by Mexican troops.

Sources: Proceso/Apro/Cimac, June 9, 2006 ; August 1, 2, 3, 4, 2006. Articles by Arturo Rodriguez Garcia, Soledad Jarquin Edgar, Jackie Campbell, and editorial staff. Zocalo.com.mx/Infonor, August 3 and August 4, 2006 . Articles by Camelia Munoz, Juan Ramon Garza, Jose Luis Jimenez, and Alejandro Lopez Garza. Cimacnoticias.com, July 21 and July 31, 2006 ; August 2, 2006 . Articles by Soledad Jarquin Edgar and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, July 31, 2006 . Article by Javier Saucedo. Cronica/Vanguardia, July 13, 2006 . La Jornada, April 26, 2006 and June 8, 2006 . Articles by Ruben Villapando, Miroslava Breach and Victor Ballinas. Sedena.gob.mx

The Death of a Scapegoat

In the end, he was buried in an anonymous grave- just like some of the women he was once accused of killing. Dying in a Chihuahua City hospital on June 1, Egyptian national Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif was an emblematic and controversial figure in the Ciudad Juarez femicides. At the time of his death, Sharif was serving a 30-year sentence in Chihuahua's Aquiles Serdan prison for the alleged murder of Elizabeth Castro, a 17-year-old Ciudad Juarez computer school student and maquiladora worker who was reportedely found raped and slain in 1995. After a still-murky encounter the same year with a young woman who accused Sharif of rape, the Egyptian, as he was popularly tagged, was arrested by Chihuahua state policemen led by the late Francisco Minjarez ( gunned down in a 2003 Chihuahua City gangland-style slaying) and Antonio Navarette.

Shortly afterward, the Office of the Chihuahua State Attorney General ( PJECH) was publicly accusing Sharif of the mass-murder of young women whose raped and murdered remains were found on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. Protesting his innocence, Sharif always maintained he was a scapegoat and the real killer or killers were still on the loose. Chihuahua state policemen stole his belongings and confiscated his passport, Sharif charged. After serving almost 11 years in prison, Sharif could have been on the verge of finally winning his freedom. Questions were immediately raised about the timing of the 59-year-old inmate's death because of a legal appeal pursued by Sharif and his lawyers, and because of the history of other femicide suspects and/or their lawyers suffering mysterious deaths and murders.

Irene Blanco, a federal congresswoman who represents the National Action Party (PAN), reportedly spoke to Sharif less than one month before his death. Quoted in the Ciudad Juarez newspaper Norte, Blanco said Sharif complained about suffering from knee problems but did not mention an ulcer or heart condition as subsquent published reports said after the prisoner's death. "Sharif always suffered insomnia, a knee problem and hypertension that they were able to control," Blanco said. "This is not a health problem that leads to death." Blanco once served as Sharif's legal defender, but left Ciudad Juarez after her son suffered a shooting attack in 1999. Later, while visiting Sharif with personnel from the National Human Rights Commission, she heard the inmate complain that prison personnel were force-feeding him unknown medicine.

Just hours after Sharif's death, a US forensic pathologist, Dr. Ross Reichard, was flying to Chihuahua City at the request of the New Mexico Office of the State Attorney General to perform an autopsy. Dr. Reichard who works as a assistant medical investigator for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, attributed Sharif's demise to natural causes stemming from cirrhosis of the liver and Hepatitis C, which can cause cirrhosis. An upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage led to Sharif's death, according to Dr. Reicard, who added that Sharif also had heart disease. Examining Sharif's body, Dr. Reichard said he found no signs of abuse or acute, traumatic injuries. Sharif's cause of death was also verified by the official Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission. "There was no evidence to me of foul play at the time of his death" said Dr. Reichard in an interview with Frontera Norte Sur.

In the immediate aftermath of Sharif's death, Maria Sanchez- Gagne, the director of the border violence division of the New Mexico Office of the State Attorney General, said she was contacted by Chihuahua State Attorney General Gonzalez's office and asked for assistance in determining the inmate´s death. Chihuahua state paid for Dr. Reichard's expenses, Sanchez-Gangne added. Sanchez-Gangne said Dr. Reichard's Chihuahua trip grew out of a May 26 Memorandum of Understanding signed between her agency and the PJECH, currently headed by Patricia Gonzalez. According to Sanchez-Gagne, the agreement lays out different facets of cooperation between New Mexico and Chihuahua law enforcement, including the training of PJECJH personnel by New Mexicans, and is part of a broader effort to reform Chihuahua state legal system, Chihuahua state is the recipient of a $5 million-dollar grant from the United States Agency for International Development to help pay for the legal reforms.

Once in Chihuahua City, Dr. Reichard conducted the autopsy at the PJECH's C-4 complex and met with officials including Attorney General Gonzalez. "Their objective was to make this as transparent as possible and demonstrate this, and really find out what happened to this guy" Dr. Reichard said.The New Mexico pathologist was provided an oral history of Sharif's medical history by Chihuahua doctors. No toxicology test was done, but Dr. Reichard didn't consider one "terribly relevant" since he said cirrhosis was the underlying cause of Sharif's death.

THE FLIMSY CASE AGAINST SHARIF

Women's activists, mothers of femicide victims all expressed varying degrees of shock, sadness, ambivalence, anger, and resignation at news of Sharif's passing. Elizabeth Castro's mother, Irma Garcia, was quoted as stating that she still had faith the authorities had detained right man who killer her daughter. But Ramona Morales, the mother of 16-year-old Silvia Elena Rivera, who was also found raped and murdered in the same general area where Castro's body was reported found, said she had come to believe that Sharif was not responsible for her daughter's murder. Sharif was once charged in Rivera's killing, but in a 2004 interview, Morales said she had visited with the judge in the case only to discover there was no evidence in the case file against the Egyptian.

Sharif was no saint, and he admitted to a drinking problem. He served time in a US prison for assaulting a woman companion before a judge ordered the engineer deported from the US. Instead of returning to Egypt, however, Sharif moved to Ciudad Juarez in 1994 (one year after the femicides began to get publicly noticed) and continued his career as a chemist for an international company. At the time of his arrest, Sharif was well-known in certain downtown Ciudad Juarez bars for his boozing and dancing sprees.

When women's bodies kept appearing even while Sharif was behind bars, PJECH officials in the administrations of Gov. Francisco Barrio and later Gov. Patricio Martinez tacked on accusations that Sharif was paying two gangs of killers, Los Rebeldes and Los Toltecas, to kill women in order to make the murder suspect appear innocent. However, authorities never presented proof of the money trail Sharif supposedly utilitized to keep the bloody crime wave alive from his prison cell: nor was solid evidence ever presented that linked Sharif to numerous serial murders. Members of both Los Rebeldes and Los Toltecas publicly accused Chihuahua state policemen of torturing them to extract false confessions.

After a long odyssey in the Chihuahua courts, Sharif was convicted of the Castro murder and eventually given a 30-year sentence. Still, doubts persisted about the identify of the body authorities claimed was Castro's, a skepticism fueled by the lack of a DNA test on the remains. At one point, armed with information provided by two former police officers, Sharif accused Alejandro Maynez, aka Armando Martinez, as the killer of women in Ciudad Juarez. Maynez, who was allegedly linked to organized crime and bars in downtown Juarez, mysteriously vanished from sight. The gaping holes and grave irregularities in the case against Sharif are well-documented in numerous newspaper and magazine accounts, as well as in the books Bones in the Desert by Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez and Harvest of Women by Diana Washington Valdez.

CLOSING THE BOOKS ON THE FEMICIDES?

Unlike several other femicide suspects whose cases became international human rights causes, Sharif received virtually scant support from non-governmental organizations and spent years in prison without ever receving a visit from family members. Recently, that began to change a bit. Minnesota human rights activist Carol Kiecker, a founder of the Kiecker Justice Fund, told Frontera NorteSur that her group decided to financially support Sharif's legal appeal. Kiecker said she knew Sharif had abused women in the past but had paid his debt to society. "I felt really bad. I think clearly he was a scapegoat," Kiecker said. "All that crazy stuff about him manipulating from the jail cell didn't make sense to me."

A late-blooming activist, Kiecker is a good scapegoat detector. Her daughter, Cynthia Kiecker-Perzabal and her son-in-law, Ulises Perzabal, were picked up by the same Chihuahua state police force that arrested Sharif and, according to the couple, savagely tortured into falsely confessing to the murder of a 16-year-old Chihuahua City girl, Viviana Rayas, in 2003. The artist-musician couple was found innocent by a Chihuahua judge after spending 18 months in prison. According to Cynthia Kiecker-Perzabal., she and her husband recently won an appeal of their acquittal by the PJECH, but only learned about the development because of a Google alert they have set for news stories about their case.

Ulises Perzabal, who spent 18 months in the same Chihuahua state lock-up as Sharif , said the Egyptian was long held in a high security cell away from the other prisoners. Perzabal said he spoke to Sharif a few times in the prison infirmary and noticed how prison staff were forcibly administering medication to his fellow inmate. Perzabal described Sharif as rebellious, isolated and incredulous. "He couldn't believe what was happening to him," Perzabal said. "I think that was killing him little by little." In Perzabal's view, Sharif was "the perfect scapegoat" because of his foreign status and lack of Spanish-language fluency at the time of his arrest. Perzabal termed Sharif's death "the triumph of "impunity."

In the wake of Sharif´s death, cross-border women's advocates and mothers of femicide victims are concerned that the killings Sharif was accused but never convicted of will be swept under the rug. The concern is especially pressing because statutues of limitations in many of the older murders are kicking in. And in Elizabeth Castro's murder, the case can be legally closed, since Sharif was legally convicted of the teenager's murder at the time of his death.

Sally Meisnehelder of the Las Cruces-based Friends of Juarez Women said news of Sharif's death saddened her, and added to the climate of impunity surrounding many of the women's murders. "The Fox Administration, in terms of the femicides, has been very disappointing," Meisenhelder said. "Six years ago, there was a lot of hope that the Fox Administration, as an outsider, would do something but it hasn't." The women's advocate said community expectations that the Federal Office of the Attorney General would carry out genuine murder investigations were dashed when former federal Special Prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina ended up confiing her probe into a review of case files and naming Chihuahua state justice officials allegedly negligent in their duties. "Our position all along is that there never has been an investigation, and there needs to be an investigation," Meisenhelder insisted.

Sharif, meanwhile, was laid to rest in Chihuahua City's Muncipal Cemetary Number One, reportedly in an unmarked grave.

Additional sources: El Diario de Juarez, June 2 and 7, 2006. Articles by Alejandro Quintero and Ramon Chaparro. El Mexicano, June 3, 2006. Norte June 2 and 3, 2006. Articles by Sonia Aguilar and Angel Zubia Garcia. La Jornada, June 2, 2006. Article by Ruben Villalpando and Miroslava Breach. Proceso.Apro, June 2, 2006. Article by Alejandro Gutierrez. Bones in the Desert, by Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez (Anagrama, 2002) Harvest of Women, by Diana Washington Valdez (Oceana, 2005)

Mexican Police Under New Fire for Human Rights Violations

One year after a sudden twist of fate took the lives of three young men, family members in the Tamaulipas border city of Reynosa are still waiting for answers. In a set of circumstances that is still not completely clear, members of the Federal Preventive Police ( PFP ) shot to death Jose Reyes Avendano, Jorge Castillo Fuantos and Alberto Jorge Arevalo Gonzalez in Reynosa last May. A PFP agent, Pedro Moreno Feria, also died of gunshot wounds in the incident. Ricardo Lopez Alvarez, the lawyer for relatives of the slain young men, said recently that investigations of the shootings were proceeding "very slowly," without any one held responsible.

Initially, the PFP claimed that the three youths, all in their 20s, were killed after they attacked a PFP convoy. Testimony from a friend of Reyes and Castillo, Herman Aleman Serratos, who was also shot during the encounter with the PFP but survived, contradicted the official story and focused scrutiny on the PFP as the possible instigators of the violence. Gunpowder tests revealed that the three slain men had not fired any weapons, and suspicion grew that PFP agent Moreno was likely killed by gunfire from his own comrades. Allegedly, PFP agents planted guns on the victims and altered the crime scene.

Reportedly, a video was recorded that showed Arevalo under interrogation by the PFP before later turning up dead. Contending that Avendano, Castillo and Arevalo were passing by the wrong place at the wrong time, Avendano and Castillo in one car and Arevalo in another, relatives and friends of the youths mounted street demonstrations in Reynosa last year.

On the one-year anniversary of the shootings, Reynosa's Border Studies and Human Rights Promotion Center, (Cefprodhac), one of Mexico's leading non-governmental human rights organizations, has issued a statement in which the group characterized the incident as "an extrajudicial execution." In addition to calling for justice in Reynosa , the Cefrprodhac demanded that the PFP accept recommendation 48/2005 from the official National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), issued on December 20, 2005 , that documented organizational deficiencies in the federal police agency and urged that officers be trained in civil affairs.

Formed in 1998 largely by active-duty military personnel loaned for civilian policing, the PFP remains dominated by members of the armed forces who receive military but not civilian police training, according to the Cefprodhac. The border human rights advocates also criticized the conduct of PFP units in civil disturbances this year in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, and San Salvador Atenco , Mexico state, incidents which left three persons dead, all allegedly killed by police.

The Cefprodhac charged that the PFP displayed "abuse of authority, arrogance, lack of control over its elements, and grave violations of human rights" in the two confrontations. In both Lazaro Cardenas and Atenco, the PFP coordinated operations with state and local police agencies. The Atenco raid, which was carried out against supporters of The People's Land Defense Front (the group that led the successful 2002 battle against a new Mexico City airport on rural land) after a dispute with street-side flower sellers escalated and led to the detention of policemen by residents, was followed by accusations that police gang-raped female detainees.

According to relatives and supporters, at least 47 female detainees charge they were gang-raped or sexually abused by police who rounded them up in Atenco on May 3 and 4. "While (police) continued threatening us, we were bit on the breasts, nipples, ears, lips and tongue," charged a group of detainees. "(We were) penetrated with fingers and objects, some of us obliged to perform oral sex while taunted about being women."

In a pre-emptive response to a CNDH investigation, the Federal Security Ministry released a PFP report that justified the action in Atenco as a necessary measure against an allegedly violent group that had kidnapped policemen but denied participating in the actual home raids or pre-ordered detentions. Dozens of PFP agents were also injured or aggrieved in Atenco, the PFP report noted.

On May 23, the CNDH delivered a preliminary report on the Atenco raid that documented more than 200 serious rights abuses against Atenco residents and supporters, including 7 rapes and 16 sexual aggressions. Four of the victims were foreign nationals who were first allegedly sexually abused by officers and then quickly deported from Mexico . Several of the Mexican women arrested in Atenco have filed a legal complaint with the Office of the Federal Attorney General.

It's worth noting that Mexico state and neighboring Morelos have been the scene of mounting femicides in recent months. At least 18 young women have been murdered under circumstances similar to the better-known Ciudad Juarez homicides since last August. In Morelos, 8 victims have been found slain during the last two months alone.

The Atenco episode recast the attention of international human rights organizations on Mexico . In recent days, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have delivered sharp criticisms against the Fox Administration for not doing enough to curb torture, gender violence, extrajudicial killings and official impunity.

In Reynosa , meanwhile, Victoriano Castillo Martinez, the father of Jorge Castillo Fuantos, complained in a press conference that he had not even received an apology from the authorities for his son's death one year ago.

Sources: La Jornada/La Jornada Morelos, May 14, 17 , 22, 23, 24, 2006. Articles by Emir Olivares, Gustavo Castillo, Rene Ramon, Victor Ballinas and editorial staff. El Universal/AP, May 22, 2006 . Article by Maria de la Luz Gonzalez. Proceso/Apro, May 19, 2006 . Article by Gabriela Hernandez. Cimacnoticias, May 19 and 23, 2006. Articles by Lourdes Godinez Leal. Univision, May 17, 2006 .

US Congress Condemns the Killing of Mexican Women

Finally acting on long-pending resolutions, the US House of Representatives and US Senate unanimously passed resolutions this week condemning the murders of women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua , Mexico . Sponsored by Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Ca.) in the House and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) in the Senate, the statements contain the same language.

Both the House and Senate resolutions condemn the femicides, express sympathy to victims' families, deplore the use of torture in the murder investigations, offer US assistance in DNA testing, and urge the US President Secretary of State to place the femicide issue on the official binational agenda of the US and Mexican federal governments. The resolutions also request a review of cases where scapegoats are widely believed to have been fabricated, and urge the Mexican government to punish of errant law enforcement officials.

“Binational cooperation between the US and Mexico will help bring an end to the murder of women in Ciudad Juarez and closure to the families,” said Rep. Solis after the House vote.

Mexican state and federal authorities did not offer immediate, public comment on the resolutions. Most Ciudad Juarez news media did not immediately mention the US Congressional action on their Internet sites. One exception was the Norte newspaper, which quoted several Ciudad Juarez activists who praised the resolutions, including former Chihuahua Women's Institute head Victoria Caraveo and Sonia Torres of the Center for the Integral Development of Women.

Alfredo Limas, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Juarez and a member of the Citizen Network for Non-Violence and Human Dignity, said the resolutions could help prod Mexican authorities into paying more attention to the femicides. Limas contended the Mexican government starts to really worry when it “gets scolded in English.”

Long organizing for the passage of the resolutions, some US human rights advocacy groups also considered the US Congress' action a step forward. "We hope the passage of this resolution will encourage the Mexican authorities to redouble their efforts to investigate the cases that have yet to be solved," said Laurie Freeman, the Mexico program associate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

The vote came amid a spiraling wave of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua state. Figures compiled by the WOLA report 20 murders of women and girls in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua from January 1 to April 25, 2006 . Additionally, a woman only identified as "Maria de los Angeles " was run over by a car and killed in Ciudad Juarez in an April 29 incident that could have been a homicide.

Also, 13-year-old Reyna Ortiz Rivera was reportedly killed by her boyfriend in another April 29 incident in Palomas, a small border town located across from Columbus , New Mexico . Ortiz's alleged victimizer, 14-year-old Eduardo Mayor, then supposedly shot himself in the head and was then transported to a hospital in Las Cruces , New Mexico .

If present trends continue, the cases reported by both the WOLA and the Mexican press reflect a murder trend higher than the rates for either 2004 or 2005. Domestic violence, sexual attacks, suspected narco-related mayhem, and robberies stand out as multiple motives in the 2006 murders. The ages, identities and backgrounds of victims suggest that a broad curve of violence against women is expanding.

Apart from the murders, dozens of young women like 22-year-old Edith Aranda remain missing. Wednesday, May 3, marked the first anniversary of the school-teacher's disappearance after she reportedly was last seen applying for a job at a Discorama music store in downtown Ciudad Juarez , the site of numerous disappearances. Aranda's disappearance was remembered by her former pupils and fellow teachers who briefly interrupted the school day on May 3 to call for renewed attention on the missing young woman.

"Time has passed since the disappearance of this teacher, and the results promised in the investigations by (teachers') union leaders have been forgotten," noted Ciudad Juarez women's activist Paula Flores, the mother of femicide victim Sagrario Gonzalez.

Human rights activists said they hope the US Congress' message will help convince Mexican officials to begin curbing the impunity prevailing in many murders and disappearances.

"Congress was responding to the fears of many families that they will not see justice for their daughters," said Kristel Mucino, WOLA's Mexico program assistant. "The Mexican authorities should punish not only the killers, but the public officials whose negligence and malfeasance have allowed them to go free."

Previous to this week's US Congressional action, various resolutions concerning the femicides were approved by the city councils of El Paso and New York City , the mayor of Las Vegas , New Mexico , and the New Mexico State Senate.

Sources: Norte, May 3 and 5, 2006. Articles by Javier Kuramura and Sonia Aguilar. lapolaka.com., May 3, 2006 . WOLA, May 2, 2006 . Press release. Rep. Hilda Solis, May 3, 2006 . Press statement. El Diario de Juarez, May 1 and 3, 2006. Articles by Guadalupe Felix, Javier Saucedo and Mauricio Rodriguez.

One Year Later: Still No Justice for Mexican Journalists

One year has passed since Nuevo Laredo journalist Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla was gunned down in front of the radio station where she worked. After struggling with multiple wounds, Garcia died 11 days later on April 16, 2005 . A popular crime beat reporter and radio host who probed delicate topics, Garcia left behind an 18-year-old son and a city increasingly mortified by the mounting violence that's transformed Nuevo Laredo into a battleground between rival organized crime cartels. Despite official promises to get to the bottom of the Garcia crime, no suspects have been arrested.

The impunity found in the Garcia murder is far from confined to her case. Early in April, more than 100 people staged a march in the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo to demand answers about the disappearance of journalist Alfredo Jimenez Mota, a reporter for Hermosillo 's El Imparcial newspaper who vanished on April 2, 2005 . Demonstrators chided Mexican President Vicente Fox, who met with Jimenez's parents last year and promised the couple “the full capacity” of the state in locating their son. Placards compared President Fox's pledge to a statement he once made promising to resolve the Chiapas conflict in “15 minutes.”

An investigative reporter specializing in border drug trafficking and organized crime beats, Jimenez could have run afoul of Sonora-based drug traffickers possibly connected to the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels. An investigation by Project Phoenix, a media collaborative organized by Mexican reporters to investigate crimes against journalists, recently reported that the SIEDO, the elite organized crime unit of the Federal Attorney General's Office ( PGR ), had identified suspects in the Jimenez disappearance, including one Raul Enriquez Parra.

If Enriquez had anything to do with Jimenez's disappearance, he won't be of any help to the authorities. According to Project Phoenix, Enriquez's mangled body was discovered in Sonora last November. Enriquez and three other men supposedly had been tortured and tossed from an airplane in the style of executions carried out by Mexican and Latin American security forces during the dirty wars of the 1970s.

April also marked the first anniversary of the murder of Raul Gibb Guerrero, the owner of the La Opinion newspaper in the southern Mexican city of Poza Rica , Veracruz . Gibb's successors used the occasion to organize a silent march and denounce the lack of progress in clearing up the murder. In an editorial, the Veracruz paper warned against threats to freedom of expression, and compared Gibb's murder to other attacks against journalists, including the December 2005 arrest of author Lydia Cacho on defamation charges stemming from her exposure of a Cancun-based pedophile ring with high-ranking political and business connections.

The attacks against Garcia, Mota, Gibb, and many others led to a wave of protests by Mexican and international journalists last year. In response, the PGR created a special prosecutor's office to investigate crimes against communicators. Special Prosecutor David Vega Vera's office has attracted 22 cases so far, but none have been cleared up to date.

Taking his post just last month, Vega began work in a borrowed office with one telephone and carton boxes containing files. In a recent interview with the El Universal newspaper, Vega acknowledged that with less than 8 months remaining for the Fox Administration the clock was ticking in the investigations. Nonetheless, the federal official said he was confident the probes would go forward and continue after the Fox Administration since attacks against journalists are considered matters of national security.

Meanwhile, no one has been brought to justice for last February's grenade and automatic rifle attack on Nuevo Laredo 's El Manana newspaper, an assault that left reporter Jaime Orozco Tey gravely injured. Like other attacks against the press, the El Manana case is under investigation by the SIEDO. Still hospitalized two months after the attack, Orozco could end up as a paraplegic for the rest of his life if medical treatments do not improve his condition.

Sources: El Universal, April 3, 8 and 9, 2006. Articles by Project Phoenix, Edgar Avila Perez, Silvia Otero, and the Notimex news agency. La Jornada, April 4, 2006 . Article by Cristobal Garcia Bernal. Proceso/Apro, April 7, 2006 . Article by Gabriela Hernandez.