Frontera NorteSur December 2001/January 2002

Two Agua Prieta residents commented to Frontera NorteSur that the case seemed similar to those of women that had been raped and murdered in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Both women wondered if perhaps Juárez-style slayings are spreading along the border. In Juárez, where the bodies of nearly 300 women have been found raped and murdered since 1993, bite marks and other signs of torture are frequently found on the bodies of victims.

El Imparcial did not mention any links to other rapes and murders along the border.

Source: El Imparcial, November 9, 2001.

Four Cd. Juárez Men Abducted, Murdered--Possible Police in Involvement

The bodies of four men who were abducted in the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 20, 2001 were found on Saturday, November 24, 2001. The victims, all discovered naked and bearing signs of torture, were identified as Eduardo Ramírez, age 32, Oscar Barraza, age 33, Raúl Varela Vega, age 24 and Juan Antonio Chávez Santacruz, age 28.

The men ran into trouble after one of the group asked a woman to dance at a Cd. Juárez bar called "Hooligan's". The woman said that she was with a date and refused. Later, a bar employee warned the men to leave quickly because "they did not know who they were messing with." The woman's alleged date then returned and stared down the men who decided to leave the establishment so as to avoid any problems.

According to witness David Chávez Santacruz, the brother of murder victim Juan Antonio, the four men got in their car and drove to one of their homes. The men were followed be Cd. Juárez police car number 743 which waited outside the house, said David Chávez. The police car then left and five vehicles and ten men armed men pulled up to the house. The men said they were federal police officers and then took away the four victims. David Chávez said that he survived because he was struck in the face with the butt of an AK-47 and collapsed to the ground.

Authorities were originally investigating the ten men as if they were federal agents but David Chávez said that he doubted the men were police officers.

The two city police agents from car 743 have been placed on a ten-day, unpaid leave while they are under investigation.

Source: El Diario, November 25 & 27, 2001. Articles by Roberto Ramos, Pedro Torres and Alejandro Quintero.

Woman Accuses Cd. Juárez Murder Suspect of 1996 Rape

A 37-year old woman, identified only as "Luz," testified in front of Chihuahua state police and media that she was raped in Ciudad Juárez in 1996 by Víctor Javier García Uribe, one of two suspects arrested two weeks ago for the recent rape and murder of eleven women in Cd. Juárez. The woman said that she recognized García when she saw him on television.

In tears as she spoke, the woman gave a long, graphic description of how on July 5, 1996 she was forced into a car by García as she waited for a taxi when her car broke down. The woman testified that once in the car she was beaten by García and threatened with a pistol. She was raped and then fought off García and escaped from the vehicle. Unable to see because of blood in her eyes, the woman hid under a car while García looked for her. An approaching car lit up García with its lights and García fled in his car, according to the woman's testimony.

A criminal case was started but the woman never testified because she feared reprisals. The woman said that she had left her purse and her house and car keys in the vehicle that García drove and she feared that he could find her. Fearing for the life of her children, the woman remained quite about the crime until she saw García on television claiming his innocence in the eleven recent rape and murder cases.

Source: El Diario, November 26, 2001. Article by Armando Rodríguez.

Two Cd. Juárez Bus Drivers Charged with the Murders of 11 Women--Suspects Claim They Were Tortured

Arturo González Rascón, the Chihuahua attorney general, said that the testimony of an unidentified person led to the arrest of bus driver Víctor Javier García Uribe for the rape and murder of eleven women in Ciudad Juárez. García, age 29, had been arrested in 1998 along with other bus drivers suspected in the rape and murder of other women in the city. Also arrested and charged with the rape and murder of the eleven women was García's alleged accomplice, bus driver Gustavo González Meza, age 28.

Both Meza and García say that they were tortured and intimidated into confessing to the crimes. Photographs published in the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario show three cigarette burns on García's stomach and wounds to Meza's leg. Meza's lawyer said that his client also has three burn marks on his penis and chest wounds from electrical shocks as well. The Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado) said that the wounds were self inflicted.

Meza said that upon being arrested he was first taken to a private home and beaten. Later, with a gun pointed at him, he confessed into a tape recorder, he said. After the confession, Meza stated that he was told that his wife and some of his family members would be killed if he spoke of his torture.

El Diario reported that the men were charged with the eleven murders solely on the basis of their self-incriminating confessions. According to the Attorney General's Office, García and Meza knew the names of their eleven victims. Police have so far released the names of ten of them:

1. Guadalupe Luna de la Rosa, 19 years old, university student, disappeared September 30, 2000;

2. Véronica Martínez Hernández, 18, worker, disappeared October 19, 2000;

3. Bárbara Araceli Martínez Ramos, disappeared December, 2000;

4. Mayra Juliana Reyes Solís, 17, disappeared June 25, 2001;

5. Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, high school student, disappeared September, 2001;

6. Claudia Ivette González Banda, 20, Lear worker, disappeared October 10, 2001;

7. Brenda Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, 15, worker, disappeared October 29, 2001;

8. María de los Angeles Acosta Ramírez, worker and student, disappeared April 25, 2001;

9. Amparo Guzmán Caixba, 17, worker, May 31, 2001;

10. Liliana Holguín de Santiago, 15, student, March 13, 2000; and

11. One more victim whose name has not yet been revealed by police.

The first eight women listed above were found November 6 and 7, 2001. The other three women's bodies were located earlier, according to El Diario.

Across Cd. Juárez the victims' families and NGOs have stated that they have serious doubts about the guilt of the García and Meza. "I don't trust them [the police], I don't believe it, they will do the same thing they always do. It can't be that they [the police] have suddenly become so efficient," said Gabriela Acosta Ramírez, sister of María de los Angeles Acosta Ramírez who disappeared April 25, 2001. The mother of Guadalupe Luna de la Rosa denies that her daughter was among those found on November 6 and 7, she told El Diario. El Diario also reported that the family members of other victims have expressed doubts about the arrests.

On Monday, November 19, El Diario reported that more than ten Cd. Juárez NGOs issued a statement against violence against women and against the irregularities that they saw in the police investigation of the recently murdered women and the arrests of García and Meza. The following groups signed the letter of protest: Pastoral Penitenciaria Católica, Hermanas de Angel de la Guarda, Casa Migrante, Pastoral de las Trabajadores, Centro de Estudios y Taller Laboral A.C., Centro de Derechos Humanos Paso del Norte, Campo Obrero, Hermanitas de Jesús, Centro de Mujeres Tonatzin A.C., Pastoral Juvenil Obrera, Hermanas Misioneras de María Dolorosa, Comunidades Eclesiales de Base and the Centro de Apoyo al Migrante.

Meanwhile, as García and Meza remain in custody, other rapists and killers are at work. The body of Alma Osorio Bejarano was found on Monday, November 19. Police state that she was strangled to death. Finally, since the past weekend, other men in Cd. Juárez have been arrested for abducting and raping women that have managed to escape their captors.

Source: El Diario, November 12-21, 2001.

A Horrible Monday: Bodies Found in Both El Paso and Cd. Juárez

The nude body of five-year old Alexandra Flores, who was abducted from an El Paso Wal-Mart store on Sunday, November 18, 2001, was found early Monday morning in an El Paso alley. Shopping in the Wal-Mart with her parents, the girl was taken from the store by a man wearing a green shirt, according to El Paso police who looked at tapes from Wal-Mart security cameras.

At 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Wal-Mart employees began an in-store search for Alexandra. Police were called to the store at 6:10 p.m. and at 6:30 the store was evacuated to help in the search for the girl. At 9:45 p.m. police activated the Maria Alert system which uses the mass media to alert the public to look for a missing child. Police called off the alert shortly after Alexandra's body was discovered the following morning.

The El Paso Times reported that police are awaiting the results of an autopsy to know the time and cause of death and learn if the girl had been sexually assaulted. Captain Larry Wilkins, commander of criminal investigations for the county sheriff's department, told the El Paso Times that he could not think of a case of a child abduction-murder in El Paso in recent memory.

Another body found in Ciudad Juárez

The body of an unidentified woman was found at 9:40 p.m. on Monday, November 19, 2001 in the Juárez neighborhood of Cd. Juárez. Estimated to be between 25 and 30 years old, the woman was wearing only pants and a shirt. Investigators believe that the woman died approximately 12 to 18 hours before she was discovered. El Diario reports that there were no obvious signs of violence on the body.

Sources: El Paso Times, November 20, 2001. Article by Louie Gilot.
El Diario, November 20, 2001. Article by Luz del Carmen Sosa.

Authorities Look for More Women's Bodies in Cd. Juárez

The Attorney General for the state of Chihuahua, Arturo González Rascón, stated that police have begun looking in other parts of Ciudad Juárez for the bodies of missing women. González also stated that he may request FBI help if the situation warrants it, according to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario.

The newspaper also reported that investigators from the Attorney General's office have begun using heavy machinery to look for graves in the area where eight bodies have been found since Tuesday, November 6, 2001.

On Thursday, November 8, members of Cd. Juárez NGOs protested at the offices of the Fiscalía Especial para la Investigación de Homocidios de Mujeres (Special Prosecutor for the Investigation of Murdered Women). In front of the offices, the demonstrators lit candles and posted a pink cross in memory of the murdered women.

Dressed in black, the protesters entered the building and posted a sign on the Fiscalía's door that read, "Clausurada por incompetencia," (Closed for incompetence), according to El Diario. At some point, Zulema Bolívar, the new director of the Fiscalía, invited one or two women inside to talk with her but the protesters refused because they all demanded to be invited to speak with her.

Bolívar later agreed to the demand and once inside Esther Chávez Cano, the director of Casa Amiga (the only rape and abuse crisis center in Cd. Juárez), said that people have been demanding a good investigation of the Cd. Juárez murders for nine years but authorities have yet to provide one.

Chávez told Frontera NorteSur that she is worried that the investigation of the eight bodies will lead to a "witch hunt." She is worried about the human rights of suspects and is worried that people will be tortured into confessing to the crimes.

In previous years, some suspects have said that they were tortured into signing confessions and last year police were investigated after allegedly beating a suspect at the Police Academy. The agents said they took the suspect in a disappearance to the Police Academy because they wanted a quiet place to interrogate him.

Anonymous sources in the Attorney General's Office told El Diario that González Rascón gave instructions to investigate Abdel Latif Sharif. Sharif was arrested in 1995 in connection to the rape and murder of six women.

Police later linked Sharif to more killings saying that he financed from prison other rapes and murders. Police allege that Sharif paid a gang known as "Los Rebeldes" to kill women in his style so as to throw police off of his case. Los Rebeldes were arrested in 1996. When the killings continued in 1999, police arrested a group of bus drivers and linked them to Sharif.

Many people have criticized the poor quality of these investigations. Of the 14 Rebeldes arrested in 1996, only 5 remain in prison. Some of these men say they were tortured into confessions.

Among women's activists in Cd. Juárez, Frontera NorteSur has yet to find anyone that believes in the police's conspiracy theory. These activists think that the police use this theory so as to neatly wrap up and close many cases.

Sources: FNS & El Diario, November 9, 2001. Articles by Armando Rodríguez and Pedro Torres.

Bodies of Five More Young Women Found in Ciudad Juárez

The bodies of five more young women were found on Wednesday, November 7, 2001 in Ciudad Juárez. The women's remains were located in an area described as a dry canal or drainage ditch. This area is approximately 500 yards from where three women's bodies were found on Tuesday, November 6, 2001.

While none of the bodies have been officially identified, the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario reports that authorities believe that the remains of Claudia Ivette González, age 20, and Brenda Esmeralda Herrera, age 15, were among those found over the two-day period. The newspaper also stated that family members of the two women recognized their daughters' clothing at the crime scene. Police took blood samples from these women's family members to perform DNA tests and perhaps match them to the remains.

Since 1993, the bodies of nearly 300 young women that were raped and murdered have been found primarily in desert areas outside of Cd. Juárez. However, women's bodies have recently been found in the city's urban, commercial and industrial areas.

On February 22, 2001, the body of Lilia Alejandra García Andrade, a 17-year old mother of two, was found in a vacant lot across from the Plaza Juárez Mall. García, mother of a two-year old girl and a five-month old son, had been missing since she left the maquiladora where she worked on February 14, 2001. Police estimated that García had been held alive for 42 hours before she was strangled to death.

The eight bodies found on November 6 and 7 were located just 200 yards from the offices of the Asociación de Maquiladoras (AMAC).

Officials have now revised the time of death for two of the three women found on Tuesday, November 6. Yesterday it was reported that one woman had been killed within the last 10 to 15 days and that the other two women had died six months ago or earlier. Now, officials have reaffirmed that one woman died 10 to 15 days ago but said that the second woman was killed three or four weeks ago and the third, four or five weeks ago.

Irma Josefina González, the mother of Claudia Ivette González, told El Diario, "When I saw these mothers [of other missing women] suffer, I felt for them and felt their pain but I never believed that I would live something like this, that this would happen to one of my three daughters . . . And now I don't know what to think or say."

Source: El Diario, November 8, 2001. Article by Armando Rodríguez.

Bodies of Three Young Women Found in Ciudad Juárez

On the morning of November 6, 2001, the naked bodies of three young women were discovered near a canal in Ciudad Juárez. One victim was estimated to be 15 years old. The other two women were estimated to be between 25 and 27 years old. None of the women have been identified.

State police said that one woman was killed within the last 10 to 15 days. The other two women were murdered at least six months ago. The women's bodies were found about three meters from each other. Police believe that the women were murdered where they were found.

Manuel Ortega Aceves, an assistant prosecutor with the State Attorney General's Office, said that it is presumed that the women were sexually assaulted due to the manner in which the bodies were found. One woman was found with her hands tied behind her back, police officials said.

Ortega said that the murders are the work of a serial killer since the killer began returning to the same spot when the first body was not discovered. However, police also said that they are not ruling out the possibility that there was more than one killer.

Source: El Diario, November 7, 2001. Article by Armando Rodríguez.

Paisano Protection Program Starts its Christmas Season Operations

On December 3, Mexico's Paisano Program will initiate its Christmas season operations. In effect throughout all of the year, but intensified between early-December and mid-January, the Paisano Program's goal is to stop the exploitation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans by corrupt Mexican officials when these people return from the US to Mexico to visit family over the holidays.

Responding to recent criticism from Mexican community leaders in the US that say that the Paisano Program is well intentioned but ineffective, the regional director of the Instituto Nacional de Migración in Baja California, Rodolfo Valdez Gutiérrez, said that the success of the program depends on what people expect of it.

Valdez told the Tijuana newspaper Frontera that the Programa Paisano is a "clear attempt by the government to make sure that laws are carried out correctly, recognizing that in Mexico there exists the habit of exploiting fellow countrymen that live in the US but return to Mexico during the holidays." In effect for eleven years, the program is a way to keep paisanos from being treated like a resource ready for the looting by customs, federal police and traffic police, according to Valdez.

Valdez says that the program consists of 1.2 million pamphlets, 262,000 radio and TV advertisements, representatives in Chicago and Los Angeles, seven people in the Mexico City central office and a coordinating effort with Mexican NGOs. The NGOs are used as a source of volunteers to watch over government checkpoints for illegal behavior on the part of government employees.

In a related story, the PRI recently requested that President Fox restructure customs and immigration procedures so that people coming into Mexico only have to make one stop at a government checkpoint. The PRI believes that this will help reduce the level of exploitation and corruption at the border, according to the Mexican newspaper Excélsior.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), November 28, 2001. Article by Jaime Velázquez.

Teenage Pregnancy in Tijuana

One of Baja California's health care providers, Isesalud (Instituto de Servicios de Salud Pública del Estado, State Institute of Public Health Services), reports that 30% of the pregnancies that it saw in its hospitals between January and August, 2001 were those of young women between the ages of 14 and 17.

Norma Eloísa González, head of Isesalud's adolescent program, said that she has seen in an increase in teenage pregnancies in the last few years. González attributes this to a lack of sex education which prevents young women from having responsible sex.

Although González did not have statistics available, she said that there has also been a rise in cases of AIDS, gonorrhea and syphilis.

Tijuana is the city in Baja California with the largest number of teenage pregnancies, followed by Méxicali and Ensenada, according to González.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), November 9, 2001. Article by Luis Adolfo San.